‘Education should open our minds to higher truth’
Saturday, 6th September 2014
Islamic Centre, Mira Road
The role of teachers in the development of the nation can never be over-emphasized. It is they who are the mentors of our future doctors, engineers, lawyers, bureaucrats…. In tune with the Teachers’ Day celebrations, tonight JIH Mira Road organized a lecture dedicated to our teachers titled- ‘Ustad: Memar-e-Qaum’.
The program started with the recitation and translation of the initial five ayaat of Surah Alaq which are regarded as the finest example of the importance Islam accords to Education and Learning.
Thereafter, the speaker for the evening, Janab Tahir Jamal sahab was invited to the lectern to present his study. Jamal sahab began by quoting an ayat from Surah Taubah wherein Allah has advised a group of Believers to stay back and serve in the field of education instead of participating in a deed as virtuous as jihad. This ayaat, averred he, speaks volumes of the high regard Allah has for learning. All professional and ‘degree’ courses should essentially serve as a means to open our minds to the higher and ultimate truth. If our worldly education does not prove instrumental in guiding us to salvation, then it is absolutely worthless. Teachers ought to inculcate in their students the thirst for higher knowledge through their discourses… a practice, he was sad to say, very few teachers followed. The quest for attaining required Islamic knowledge is compulsory on each and every one of us, though specialization in a particular branch of deen is left to an individual’s personal choice.
Answering a question on the kind of education being imparted in Madrassas, he lamented over the fact that madrassas have ceased to play the role of universal centres of learning they once played. The students are no longer encouraged to concentrate on research, innovation or discovery. This has led to a gradual decline in the educational standards of the ummah and the once beacons of light and knowledge have relegated themselves to the abyss of darkness. The only way the ummat can be revived today is through proper, research based education, he noted.
