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Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.
I hope you are in the best of health and spirits, and that you are enjoying good health and well-being, by the will of Allah.
Today, we will discuss an important topic that concerns every Muslim, and that is the topic of "The Pillars of Islam."
The first pillar of Islam is the testimony of faith, which is to say: "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."
This testimony is the key to entering Islam. It is the first step that a person takes to become a Muslim.
The second pillar of Islam is prayer. Prayer is the second pillar of Islam, and it is one of the most important acts of worship in Islam.
Prayer is performed five times a day: Fajr (dawn), Dhuhr (midday), Asr (afternoon), Maghrib (sunset), and Isha (night).
The third pillar of Islam is Zakat. Zakat is the third pillar of Islam, and it is an obligation upon every Muslim who meets the necessary conditions.
Zakat is a form of charity that is paid annually on certain types of wealth, such as gold, silver, and trade goods.
The fourth pillar of Islam is fasting the month of Ramadan. Fasting Ramadan is the fourth pillar of Islam, and it is an obligation upon every Muslim who is able to fast.
Fasting Ramadan is a time of spiritual reflection and self-improvement. It is a time to draw closer to Allah and to seek His forgiveness.
The fifth pillar of Islam is Hajj. Hajj is the fifth pillar of Islam, and it is an obligation upon every Muslim who is able to perform it.
Hajj is a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. It is a time of worship and devotion, and it is one of the most important acts of worship in Islam.
These are the five pillars of Islam. They are the foundation of the Islamic faith, and they are the basis of a Muslim's relationship with Allah.
May Allah guide us all to follow these pillars and to live our lives in accordance with the teachings of Islam.
Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.
Peace be upon you. Welcome to our new episode. Today, we will discuss the results of a survey we conducted on schools, their problems, and the solutions to these problems. This survey is part of our ongoing efforts to understand and improve the educational landscape.
We have identified 30 educational pillars that are crucial for the development of students. The survey results show that these pillars are not being adequately addressed in schools. The importance of these pillars was rated highly by respondents, but the achievement of these pillars in schools was found to be lacking, with some pillars having a negative impact.
The survey also revealed that schools have a minimal and sometimes negative impact on family life and the emotional well-being of students. Overall, the findings indicate that schools are not contributing positively to the education of students.
Schools originated as a means of control and were based on a materialistic system. This philosophy was copied in Muslim lands, leading to the current state of education.
The Western educational philosophy, which is materialistic and product-oriented, was replicated in Muslim lands. This has led to a focus on material success rather than spiritual and moral development.
The five features of Islamic education - worshipful learning, shared responsibility, divine reference, distributed financial centers, and spiritual outcomes - have been undermined. This has led to a loss of the unique aspects of Islamic education.
Corruption, cronyism, control over generations, lack of teacher qualification, and deliberate curriculum manipulation to isolate generations from their heritage have all contributed to the current state of education.
It is important to note that corruption in the educational system predated direct military occupation.
In the golden ages of Islam, divine revelation was the ultimate reference in education, integrating all knowledge.
The Western separation of church and science was replicated, marginalizing divine revelation to specific subjects. This has led to a fragmented personality unable to reconcile faith and science.
The absence of divine revelation as a reference in education leads to contradictions and a fragmented personality. This is evident in areas such as riba (usury), loyalty, and professional ethics.
Missionary schools have had a historical impact on education in Muslim lands.
Islamic schools were initially established to protect the identity of Muslim students. However, their scope has been limited to adding religious classes rather than rebuilding the educational system.
Islamic schools have been commercialized, with a focus on grades over holistic development. This has led to low teacher pay and a lack of emphasis on character building.
International education programs have their strengths, such as promoting critical thinking and analysis. However, they also promote a globalist, materialistic philosophy that avoids direct religious conflict but creates a vacuum filled by "scientific" materialist explanations and "humanitarian" values.
These programs define science narrowly, exclude the unseen, and promote theories like evolution as scientific fact. They also promote "universal" values without divine guidance, leading to contradictions and harm.
This creates a new "religion" where human reason, not revelation, dictates morality and truth. This has a negative impact on Muslim students, leading to questioning of faith based on materialist criteria, lack of Muslim role models, cultural assimilation, and detachment from Islamic identity.
Parents choose these programs for their strong content, English language instruction, global university opportunities, elite status, and escape from government schools. However, there is an alarming trend of students becoming atheists or having behavioral issues.
The influence of teachers and school policies is acknowledged, but there is a missed opportunity to integrate the strengths of these programs within an Islamic framework. The Theory of Knowledge is taught to exclude the unseen and needs to be countered with a sound Islamic epistemology.
Educational problems are linked to broader societal issues and cannot be solved in isolation.
Abandoning the school system without a viable alternative is dangerous.
Recognize the danger and wake up from the illusion of learning. Focus on the 30 pillars and demand them from schools. Revive these concepts in our consciousness.
Prioritize these pillars in children's upbringing. Shift focus from grades to readings, courses, and activities that build character. Be role models.
Design and implement online programs based on Islamic principles. This can also help Muslim families in the West.
Revive the role of a dedicated educator for children, focusing on holistic character building, not just memorization. This is a contract-based role, requiring financial investment.
Encourage university students to excel in their specialties while also acquiring deep Islamic knowledge. The Ummah needs individuals with this integrated knowledge.
Prioritize investing in teacher qualification and fair salaries over superficial building projects. Long-term planning to nurture gifted youth with this vision.
Acknowledge and encourage dedicated teachers in all schools.
God controls our destinies. The importance of piety in educating children. Link to the next episode on women's university education.
Peace be upon you. We conducted a survey about schools in Muslim countries, do they achieve the required educational and educational pillars or not? We will review the results with you and see their implications, then we will see together what brought education to this situation. We will also look at international programs and schools that present themselves as Islamic, to see the contours of the solution to the educational problem afterwards.
In the survey, we nominated thirty pillars of education and upbringing, aimed at building the human being: building his faith, mind, self, emotions, personality, and his ability to criticize, analyze, and balance, achieving happiness, acquiring beneficial knowledge, enjoying immunity against harmful influences, and freeing him from enslavement to anything other than Allah. We will put the thirty pillars in the comments for those who have not seen them. These pillars stem from the five characteristics of education in the Islamic system, which we presented in the previous episode, as they stem from the revelation's reference.
The participants in the survey, whose number reached 2121, received their education in schools and not through free or home education. The percentages we will mention are for those who constitute the vast majority.
In the survey, we asked: Are the thirty educational and upbringing clauses mentioned important in your opinion in general? Or are they beneficial but not essential? Or are they unimportant? 95% of them answered that these educational and upbringing pillars are indeed important. Therefore, we do not evaluate schools based on our personal opinion, but on clauses that the majority of respondents agree are important.
We asked for each of these thirty pillars: We ask you to choose whether the schools where you received your education achieve this clause greatly, partially but insufficiently, or not at all, or conversely, have a negative effect on this educational or upbringing pillar.
According to the arithmetic mean of the thirty pillars, the results were as follows:
If we combine the percentage of "do not achieve" with "negatively affect," the percentage reaches 57%, compared to 43% for "yes greatly" or "partially but insufficiently." In 16 out of the 30 pillars, the negative impact of schools was greater than their great achievement.
The highest achieved educational pillar was teaching the student monotheism and protecting him from anything that tarnishes it. However, those who saw that schools achieve it greatly were 22%, meaning about one in five.
As for pillars such as: How do I choose or accept a life partner? How do I raise and why do I raise? How can I be a mother and how can I be a father? Those who saw that schools achieve this greatly were about one in twenty, and about twice as many saw that schools have a negative effect on this educational pillar. We will not be surprised if we read the reality of families, marriages, and family stability in light of these percentages.
Some brothers and sisters commented that they were shocked by merely filling out the survey and felt sorrow for themselves and fear for their children. Therefore, according to those who filled out the survey, school education contributes only very weakly to building a person's faith, mind, self, emotions, and personality, which the participants see as important, and sometimes it affects these pillars negatively. This makes us wonder: What has brought education in the lands of the Muslims to this situation?
In the episode "Schools: Education or Canning," we discussed the history of the origin of schools globally, that they were originally established to control societies, consolidate the ideas and values that controlling groups want, and to produce people qualified to work in the material system, not to build a free human being from human slavery, harmonious in heart and mind, spirit and emotion, working for the purpose for which he was created and achieving the happiness of this world and the hereafter as in the concept of education in Islam.
The thirty educational and upbringing pillars are based on the concept of education in Islam, so we do not expect them to be achieved in the school education system, neither globally nor in the lands of the Muslims. The philosophy of education in the lands of the Muslims is copied from the global philosophy, and it is to produce people to work in a material system. The human being is most like a product on a production line: school, general secondary, university, certificate, job market, job, salary, taking care of the body and the world without giving priority to the soul and the hereafter. {They know the outward appearance of the life of this world, but they are heedless of the hereafter.} Therefore, it is not surprising that this system fails to build the human being globally and in the lands of the Muslims. One of the forms of this failure globally is what we presented about the misery of the Western woman in the episode "Liberation of the Western Woman," which is what is being copied to the lands of the Muslims.
In the lands of the Muslims, the summary of what happened to the educational system is the demolition of points of distinction, the demolition of the five pillars. Learning is no longer worship, nor is the responsibility shared, but the occupation, and then the states subordinate to it, took control of the curricula and controlled them, and its reference is not the revelation, and the centers of financial gravity are no longer distributed in society, and the outputs of education are not measured by achieving the goals of the revelation, but are measured by the grade and qualification to work according to material standards.
However, in addition to that, the problem of education in the lands of the Muslims is more complex and more complicated than in the West, as there are other factors of corruption, such as entrusting the matter to those who are not qualified: administrations, development and monitoring committees that are chosen based on standards of loyalty and benefit, not on the basis of qualification and competence. In addition to the great concern to subjugate generations to controlling groups, more than the concern to educate them. In addition to the lack of qualification of teachers and their material need. In addition to systematic intervention in curricula to isolate generations from their history, culture, and role models, and empty them of their intellectual and civilizational heritage and peaks they have reached, as in the curricula of strategic planning studies centers in the West such as the RAND Center, and in the videos that come out from time to time discussing in Western political circles the changes that should be made to the curricula in the Islamic world.
The school education system in Western countries, despite its flaws, enhances in its students a sense of belonging to their history and pride in their symbols, which has not been copied for the countries of the Islamic world, but much of their history has been deleted, and students study limited stations on the principle of "normal slain" which we talked about in the episode "Just Education," so that the illusion of learning is achieved, and the children and their families think that they are learning the history of Islam and Muslims.
And the most important thing here, my brothers, is that we realize that this corruption had already infiltrated the educational system in the Islamic world before it was subjected to direct military occupation. And if this corruption had not affected us, there would not have been in us an original ability for occupation. {And if you are patient and fear Allah, their cunning will not harm you in any way.} The solution starts with us, and its beginning is understanding our reality, not for the sake of complaining and blaming others, but to correct this reality.
The most dangerous aspect of today's educational reality is that it no longer relies on the reference of revelation. You might ask: What do we mean by revelation being the reference for education? In the heyday of Islamic civilization, the trustworthy Muslim scholars would deduce with their sound intellects that revelation contains absolute truths, and their epistemological system was clear and consistent. The Quran and the Sunnah, along with the natural and social sciences, are harmonious bodies of knowledge that do not contradict each other. The sources of knowledge, including reason, only gain credibility under the acknowledgment of an absolute, perfect Creator, as we have detailed in the Journey of Certainty.
The scholar draws closer to Allah by studying and contributing to the natural sciences, and worships Allah by reading His signs in the universe and life, just as he worships Him by reading His revealed signs in the Quran. He employs sciences for the benefit of people, and seeks refuge in Allah from knowledge that does not benefit. Even more importantly, he refrains from using science to harm people. If he encounters a difficulty, he performs two units of prayer and supplicates to his Lord, the Creator of the universe and the Originator of its laws, seeking more of the knowledge that Allah has said about: {And they encompass not a thing of His knowledge except what He wills}. Thus, the scholar's spirit, intellect, faith, and sciences are all in harmony. He does not pursue science to achieve personal ambitions, nor does he manipulate it for anyone's agenda. Rather, he knows that he is entrusted with it. Revelation is the driving force behind the exploration of sciences, harmonizing with them and lending credibility to their tools of exploration, such as reason. It prohibits the falsification of sciences and cheating within them, ensuring their application for the benefit of people and prohibiting their use to harm them.
When we became weak and the Western educational system was replicated in Muslim countries, the conflict between the Church and the natural sciences was also replicated. The Church had been an obstacle to civilizational progress due to its unwelcome interventions in sciences without a preserved revelation as a reference. The West confined religion to specific classes, preventing it from intervening in sciences. The same was replicated in the educational systems of Muslim countries. The reference of revelation was abolished, and revelation became represented by a school subject called "Islamic Education," and a university specialization called "Sharia." It is no longer the reference for natural and social sciences and the spirit infused in them all.
The student learns in the religion class that riba (usury) is forbidden and eradicates blessings, but then learns in other classes that it is a pillar of the economy. He learns in the religion class about the bond of faith and the reference of Sharia, which is contradicted in other classes by making allegiance based on borders set by the colonizer and the reference of imported law not governed by Sharia. He is prepared to specialize in university in medicine, pharmacy, engineering, accounting, and law, but he does not study in school or university the jurisprudence of these professions or their Sharia boundaries. There is no system of life or absolute truths. It produces a personality that cannot reconcile revelation and empirical observational science, but rather sees them as contradictory. It cannot reconcile the unseen world with the witnessed world. It is a personality that accepts standards contrary to revelation in judging things as right or wrong, true or false, and does not see any contradiction with its affiliation to Islam. You tell him that this action is forbidden, and he responds: It is the right of those who do it to do so as long as it does not harm you.
Peace be upon you
In addition to that, the phenomenon of missionary schools spread in the Islamic world in the late nineteenth century and during the occupation. Among the first schools to appear in Muslim lands were the missionary schools, in which a number of Muslim children studied, and some of them held high positions in the countries. These individuals did not convert to Christianity, but they had a clear detachment from the Islamic identity.
As a reaction to the spread of these missionary schools and their influence, as well as the shortcomings of the regular schools, the idea of what is called Islamic schools emerged. Were these schools established to rebuild education on the principles we mentioned, making it an education in the name of Allah, based on the revelation as an absolute truth governing the sciences, aiming to create a human being with integrated components who works for the greatest cause and achieves the educational pillars we mentioned? One should not assume that these schools had the necessary competencies and clear vision to achieve this, given the general weakness of the nation. Rather, their goal was to protect the Islamic identity of the children. These schools added recitation classes, gave awards to those who memorized the Quran, organized activities to instill love for the religion in the children, and attracted teachers who loved the religion and tried to instill its values in the children within the available means. All of these are good things with an important impact, but they do not make education Islamic in reality, nor do they achieve the pillars of building a human being that we mentioned. Understanding this is important so that those who are sincere in these schools have clear goals to strive for, and it is important so that parents do not think they have fulfilled their duty by placing their children in schools that present themselves as Islamic.
Over time, the idea of Islamic schools also turned into a capitalist commodity in some cases. The investor sees that Islamic schools are popular and in demand. They hire the least expensive teachers and teaching assistants, regardless of whether they embody the values of Islam or their ability to raise generations on it. The teacher is not given a salary that allows him to devote his mind to the task of education and teaching. The teaching assistant may remove the jilbab or abaya that the school administration requires as soon as she arrives at the parking lot. These schools enter the competition with other schools using the same standards of success, so they rarely boast that their graduates have achieved any of the pillars of building a human being that we mentioned, but they boast that their graduates have achieved marks in the nineties in the general secondary education, and thus they qualify for the university, the certificate, the job market, the job, and the salary. The usual additions to the name of these schools as Islamic remain, such as the recitation class and the Umrah trip. And there is no doubt that the responsibility is shared. The absence of a system of thought related to revelation is not only a problem of the school, but a general problem. These schools, however, are less weak than others in achieving the educational pillars related to the Islamic identity of the student, as was also shown in the survey results, and this often depends on the presence of a teacher or teaching assistant with a message that the children are influenced by. Nevertheless, the situation of these schools is far from what is hoped for.
Globally, the idea of international education programs such as the British "IGCSE" and the American "IB" and "AP" emerged. In general, despite their differences, these programs are better than the government curricula in Muslim countries in terms of developing the ability to connect, analyze, apply, and build aspects of personality and keeping up with scientific developments, as indicated by the survey results as well. And despite their differences, these programs were designed within the globalization system, a system that seeks to create a common language of interaction among people of different cultures and religions for the purposes of economic openness and joint work in the machine of the material capitalist system. Some of them also aim to prepare the student for social life and raise the banner of promoting world peace through education.
These educational programs set frameworks to achieve certain educational outcomes and design tests to measure the outcomes. Publishing houses study the required outcomes or goals and publish books to achieve them. These educational programs and the existing curricula to meet them avoid direct confrontation with religions so as not to limit their spread, as they are keen on profit and spread. This lack of direct confrontation may seem good, but what happened? What happened is that these curricula have transcended religions, their right and wrong. There is no religious reference in them, and if they speak about religions, they do so as part of the cultures of nations, and Muslims have not developed their own curricula based on the revelation as a reference.
Transcending religions was bound to create a scientific and moral void. These curricula filled this void with interpretations of life as if they were scientific, and with values as if they were human values that everyone should agree on. How did creatures come into being? A question that needs an answer. Do not talk to me about a creator, for creation is a matter of the unseen, do not impose your beliefs on me and I will not impose mine on you, we respect each other's beliefs, but this is not science, let us agree on a scientific interpretation. So, they put all the unseen in one basket, even though some of it is indeed without evidence, and some of it is indicated by reason, instinct, and science, and at the top of that is the existence of the creator as we explained in detail in the journey of certainty. But these curricula limited science to science, and thus excluded the unseen from the circle of science in its comprehensive sense, and imposed material interpretations on what is not within their jurisdiction, such as the origin of the universe and life, and studied the theory of evolution as a science that explains the existence of creatures, even though in its common assumed version of the appearance of creatures by chance is also unseen, but it is foolish unseen, contrary to reason, instinct, and science, as we explained in the journey of certainty.
The moral void, resulting from the marginalization of religions, was compensated for by global moral values, whose reference is human, not from revelation. The student is taught to have principles, including accepting the other, respecting human rights, raising the values of freedom, equality, social justice, and being a global citizen. Glittering slogans, but this other that is required to be accepted may be sexually deviant or from the worship of demons. Who knows human rights? If it is not the preserved revelation from the creator of man, then human rights and social justice are subject to change and dispute, and include what Allah has forbidden, and ultimately lead to encroaching on the rights of others. Freedom and equality, if they are not regulated by the right and justice from the preserved revelation, will end up opposing the right and justice and freedom and equality, as we explained in the episode of liberating women, and as we saw, for example, from the incidents of criminalizing court writers if they refused to write a marriage contract for two men to each other because that contradicts their religion, they are criminalized because they do not respect the freedom and equality of the deviants, and the matter ends with the freedom of one group at the expense of another, and there is no clear boundary in that to distinguish right from wrong due to the absence of a reference from the revelation.
The student does not learn this in these international programs, but rather the values of freedom and equality are emphasized as the standard by which they are measured and the reference to which they refer. It does not even occur to him to judge these values and standards by any other reference, especially since these values are mixed with good values that he actually learns in these programs, such as caring for the environment, refugees, and the problem of poverty. However, he does not learn to achieve servitude in its comprehensive meaning, which includes all the good mentioned earlier, nor does he learn to establish the truth that Allah has commanded, nor to nullify falsehood, nor to denounce evil, nor to work for the Hereafter. These terms are based on the reference of revelation, and thus form a complete alternative system to religions, including Islam. This system is, in reality, akin to a new religion: the religion of scientism. The religion of scientism: be a good person according to the fluid definition. Islam says about Allah the Almighty: just as He is the Creator, He is the One who commands and forbids, permits and prohibits, and sets the correct standards for humans to evaluate things. Whereas in this scientistic and humanistic religion, creation is interpreted without a Creator, and thus the commandments, standards, and ethics are formulated by man in isolation from revelation. What is the role of religion then? It has no role in the student's view, and if it is studied, it appears to be forcibly inserted and crammed in an unjustified manner. Therefore, religion has not been attacked nor has the unseen been denied outright, but it has been isolated, marginalized, and left to wither and die in the hearts of the students.
But if the student learns something from his religion and has been founded on a distorted epistemological theory and ethical standards disconnected from revelation, then the student will judge his religion, its law, history, and values based on the wrong standards. The student, for example, is taught to be questioning, and questioning is a good thing that Islam encourages, which prevents blind imitation. However, when the Muslim student comes to question the truths of his religion, such as the existence of the Creator, prophecies, Paradise, and Hell, he will judge all of that according to the materialistic standard he has learned, seeing that these things are not "scientific." He may come to believe that science is confined to "science" and thus doubt his religion. The student learns that his religion says that polytheists are in Hell, while some of these polytheists, in the view of this student, are "good persons," and the heroes and role models are the heroes and role models of other nations. These curricula do not mention the role models of Muslims or the contributions of Muslims to science, so the Muslim student is imprinted with the characteristics of other nations after absorbing their culture and speaking their language, and he sheds his own language. Consequently, he disconnects from understanding the Quran and Sunnah and knowing his heritage and history. He sheds his identity and belonging to his religion, nation, and history, and his concern is no longer the rise and glory of his nation, but his chest tightens at living in it, seeing himself as coming to a world with material achievements in which he and his ancestors have no share, according to his belief, and his heart's direction turns to the countries whose curriculum he studied.
What increases the student's attachment to materialistic interpretations, humanistic standards, the English language, and the culture of other nations is the mixing of all this with the relatively strong educational content that aids in thinking, analysis, application, and innovation in many aspects of life, and the teaching method that encourages the student to dialogue and instills in him self-appreciation, elements generally absent from other schools. Parents put their children in these programs either to ensure they receive strong education in these aspects, or to speak English, or to have more opportunities in global universities, or to join the elite, or to escape the government curricula and their many problems. Then, many of these parents, who still have some attachment to Islam, come with their children after they have become atheistic or behaviorally deviant, seeking help, as my friends working in psychological treatment and guidance files inform me. And it is no secret that the final outcome of education in these programs is greatly influenced by the teacher and the school's policy, and many of its teachers in Muslim countries are originally non-Muslims or atheists.
Does everyone who studies in these international programs suffer from what has been mentioned? Of course not, there are those whom Allah has saved from falling into these intellectual and psychological problems through the upbringing of their parents or other influential knowledge sources. You might say: Well, shouldn't we benefit from these programs from the real scientific content, methods, and presentation styles, and develop our own programs based on the reference of revelation? Yes, but this has not happened on a wide scale, unfortunately.
The schools that present themselves as Islamic have adopted some of the international education programs, but here comes the question again: Do these schools place the international programs within an Islamic cognitive framework? Is the teacher able to notice the points of discrepancy and address them in a correct manner? Is he aware of the difference in the philosophy of these curricula, their starting points, and their goals from what is in our religion? Is he sufficiently materially supported and received the necessary training for all of this? If, for example, the teacher encounters the theory of evolution and tells his students: This contradicts what is in our religion because we are Muslims and believe that Allah the Almighty created Adam, is this sufficient for the students? Or does it make them feel a conflict between science and religion? These issues related to the theory of knowledge and the distinction between false and true science are addressed in the journey of certainty. Some teachers in international programs have expressed that they have benefited from them in teaching their students, thanks to Allah, but what about the vast majority of them? And is the matter left to the individual effort of each teacher?
Theory of Knowledge (Theory of Knowledge), which is studied in a way that science is obtained through science and excludes the unseen that is indicated by reason, instinct, and science, and replaces it with assumed ghostly things in opposition to all of this. If the Muslim teacher understands the Islamic theory of knowledge well and presents it to his students in a proven and solid manner, he builds in them the foundation that prepares them to benefit from the sciences they study afterward.
Therefore, we are facing a complex educational crisis composed of the absence of curricula that suit us as a Muslim nation, based on the reference of revelation and a comprehensive and solid theory of knowledge, the absence of training teachers to present these curricula, and the absence of adopting this project at the level of countries and schools in their various forms.
What are the proposed solutions to the problem of education? We must understand, my brothers, that the problem of education cannot be solved in isolation from the political, economic, and social problems of the nation, nor can it be in a state of subservience. We must also understand that leaving the school system without a crystallized alternative may be more harmful than beneficial. We must beware of the enthusiasm in sparing our children from these harms, then leaving them in a void that we do not fill, which may lead to a setback and fitna. However, there is much that can be done, and what we can do, it is not permissible for us to fall short in it.
We must all realize the gravity of the matter and awaken from the illusion of the education that is presented to our children in most schools. We should make the thirty educational pillars that we mentioned the focus of our attention, or others that convey their idea. We do not claim their perfection, but we put a seed that is subject to criticism and development. We must spread awareness of this educational crisis, of these statistics, of these educational pillars, and of the five features mentioned for education in Islam, and we must demand them at every level. And when we take our children to schools, we should ask their administrations: Are you convinced of the necessity of these pillars and principles? If the answer is yes, what have you done to achieve them? Show us your programs, your means, and your previous outputs in this regard. Many of the terms of these pillars are absent from our dictionaries, absent from our memory and consciousness, so we must revive them anew.
We must give priority to these pillars to be instilled in our children and take all means to do so. "Turn to the soul and complete its virtues, for you are a human being by the soul, not by the body." "O you who have believed, protect yourselves and your families from a Fire." What we have mentioned of educational pillars will raise the worldly and religious status of our children, not just their religion, and it is more worthy that they be a comfort to our eyes, merciful to us, a path for us to Paradise, and companions for us therein by the permission of Allah. Magnify these pillars in the heart of your child, and give the school its appropriate size. We must stop making our children feel that what matters to them in life is the exam, the grade, and the certificate, and we must give priority to readings, studies, courses, and activities that achieve the mentioned pillars, and we must embody them in ourselves to be role models for them.
We are in an era where remote communication is available, and education is no longer confined to the walls of the school. It is befitting for us to start working on designing programs that stem from Islamic principles and achieve the mentioned pillars, and to work on reconciling those who present them from those who share our concern and vision, and those who receive them from our children. This will also be a vent for Muslim families in Western countries.
In the eras of Islamic prosperity, people would bring for their children someone who would teach them and refine their personalities. It is not just about memorizing the Quran, but a comprehensive educator who embodies what we have mentioned of pillars in himself to be able to raise your child upon it. He accompanies him to the market, to activities, and guides him practically, and likewise an educator for your daughters. This does not exempt the father and mother from the task, but it assists them. And children often respond more to strangers than to their familiar parents. The pillars we mentioned are suitable to be a contract between you and this educator. Ask him: How will you instill these values and meanings in my child? Which books and series will you rely on? Which courses, lectures, and activities? And do not expect the educator to undertake this task voluntarily without compensation. We must stop, my brothers, compromising the humanity of our children. Just as you are generous to improve your child's English language or for private lessons so that he excels in the general secondary education, it is more befitting for you to be generous for the betterment of his worldly life, soul, and hereafter. And what you withhold in spending on that, you will spend on his psychological illnesses, his recklessness, and harmful means of entertainment that he becomes addicted to to fill his empty soul, and above that, the loss and waste of his religion.
Are there young men and women qualified for the role of the educator available? Yes, especially in the final stages of school and the beginning of university, but with the scarcity of such individuals, they quickly enter the vortex of employment and the search for a livelihood.
Our brothers and beloved university students who carry the concern of their nation, master your specializations, and at the same time, seek Islamic knowledge in beneficial courses such as the course of manufacturing debates, which founds the Muslim intellectually and psychologically and establishes for him the rules upon which he builds with beneficial knowledge. The nation is in dire need of those who achieve this harmonious mixture of mastery in natural, human, and religious sciences together, and who are role models that instill pride in our children, and upon their shoulders, beneficial education will be established by the permission of Allah.
You deal with the most dangerous investment, investing in humans. You may employ teachers with the lowest possible salary, then spend the profits on building mosques, raising minarets and domes, and adorning them. For whom do you build, while the generations are being turned away from their religion? It is more befitting for you to allocate funds to train teachers to imbibe the reference of revelation and to imbibe from it the Islamic theory of knowledge, and then make it the flowing spirit in what our children and daughters learn, and to support them financially with good salaries so that their minds can devote themselves to this task. This also requires long-term thinking in adopting the intelligent and pure youth in the early stages of study and before specialization so that they acquire knowledge with this vision. And do not expect to confront the formidable global efforts with some Islamic manifestations and activities, even if they are beneficial.
With all that has been mentioned, we do not deny that there are teachers in regular and international programs who have their Islamic identity and their concern for their religion. We mention these with their great task and the critical front on which they stand, and we ask Allah to guide them and support them.
And let us remember in conclusion, my brothers, that Allah has not placed our destinies in the hands of others, but in His hands alone, He is the Most High, and He is the One who says: "So fear Allah as much as you are able." And the greatest of fear is fearing Allah in the education of our children. "And whoever fears Allah, He will make for him an outcome." This was a necessary digression in preparation for the topic of university education for women, which we will discuss in the next episode, God willing. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.