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Keynote
address at the Training the trainer workshop on Islamic Epistemology held at
The Sumait University Zanzibar 17-19 April 2015 by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule
Sr. MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard).
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that deals with aspects of
knowledge: nature, origin, sources, scope, methods, and limits. Each society
and civilization has its own epistemology that underlies and defines its
education system.
Islamic epistemology reflects the Islamic world-view and is
characterized by being based on tauhidi universalism, 2 complementary and
inter-dependent sources that are ilm al wahy (knowledge from revelation)
and ‘ilm al kaun (empirical knowledge), comprehensiveness, and acceptance
that human knowledge has limits.
Epistemological changes lead to changes in knowledge and education
and will eventually lead to social change. The start of the Islamic
civilization in Makka 15 centuries ago was an epistemological and educational
revolution that within a couple of centuries one century became a civilization
that expanded to cover three continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe) and became a
center of learning in all branches of knowledge.
The European renaissance starting in the 12th century of
the Gregorian calendar was triggered by contact with the advanced knowledge of
Muslims in the Near East during the Crusade Wars. The Muslim empirical
methodology that eventually emanated from the Qur’an triggered an
epistemological revolution in Europe that started as renaissance in the
sciences and arts and was followed successively by religious reformation,
enlightenment, the scientific revolution, the agricultural revolution, and the
industrial revolution. Europe became powerful and went on to colonize most of
the inhabited world.
European colonial rule in East Africa starting with the ineffective
Portuguese invasions of the 15th
century of the Gregorian calendar and completed with the German and British
colonial rule of the 19th century of the Gregorian calendar sought
to replace the traditional Islamic education based on the madrasat with the new
European education system based on a European secular epistemology. The
replacement was not complete with the result that East African Muslims ended up
studying in 2 educational systems: the traditional Muslim and the imported
European systems. This created a crisis of duality or dichotomy in knowledge
and thought. The two systems reflect different and often conflicting world
views and intellectual confusion arises. This duality is associated with many
social ramifications that we will not discuss in this short presentation.
The crisis of duality in Muslim education was identified as a major
problem at the First World Conference on Muslim Education held at the Makka
Intercontinental Hotel in 1979. The recommendation to integrate knowledge and
education was implemented by the establishment of Islamic Universities in
Malaysia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in the 1980s. These were followed by others
in Uganda, Niger, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria etc.
The phenomenon of Islamic Universities in Indonesia pre-dated the Makka
conference by several decades with more than 400 such universities operating in
various parts of the Republic of Indonesia. In the 1990s and the 21st
century many private Islamic universities were set up in Muslim countries and
also in Europe and America.
I think that the Islamic university has to answer to five
challenges in order to justify its existence as distinct from a conventional
university: student motivation, student personal development, integration of
knowledge based on Islamic epistemology, and delivering a quality curriculum.
Students need motivation based on Islamic tenets to work hard and
achieve excellence. This is even more important in situations in which the
Muslim community feels marginalized and its members give up hope. Only an
Islamic institution is able to deliver the necessary motivation to transform
despair into hope.
The holistic all-round approach of Islam to education requires that
students be brought up to have the highest morals and standards of conduct.
This can be achieved by creating an Islamic ambience on campus in addition to
systematic extra-curricular personal development and tarbiyah programs.
Integration of knowledge (IOK) involves integrating Islamic moral
and epistemological values in the various disciplines of knowledge that are
taught. It is an evolutionary and not
revolutionary process that does not deny existing human knowledge but builds in
it and gives added value. The challenge is to produce curricula that deliver
integrated knowledge while at the same time fulfilling national accreditation
requirements. Our workshop today is the right step in the right direction but
the path ahead is still very long and will require a lot of hard work and
sacrifice.
Quality is an indispensable component of IOK. All of us must
remember that ihsan (quality or excellence) is the third and highest of
the three fundamentals of Islam the other two being Islam and Iman. Islam is by
pronouncing the two testaments of faith (shahadatain). Iman is at a
higher level than Islam; every Mu’min is a Muslim but not every Muslim is a
mu’min. Ihsan is doing our best in all endeavors towards perfection and Allah
loves excellence in everything (inna al llaah yuhibbu al ihsaan fi kulli
shay). A Muslim’s attitude to quality is very different from that of a
non-Muslim. To a Muslim quality is a religious duty being the highest
fundamental in his or her religion and is not just a job requirement.
Quality starts with doing the simple routine things well. We need
to respect and manage time well. We must assure personal and environmental
hygiene. We must define objectives and be focussed in our work. We must plan
our activities, follow up, and follow through. We need to evaluate our selves (muhasabat
al nafs) for continuous improvement.
Quality in an Islamic perspective is a dynamic concept. We reject
quality assurance which requires us to perform to a pre-set standard. We
embrace continuous quality improvement raising the standard everytime to higher
levels. According to a hadith reported in Sunan al Daylami, he who has the same
level of performance on 2 consecutive days is a loser (man istawa yawmaahu
fahuwa maghboon). Today must be better than yesterday. Tomorrow must be
better than today.
Classroom teaching is one area where we can start to show quality
results. The teachers must prepare well putting 5-6 hours into preparing for
each hour of classroom teaching. This preparation should end up being written
as a chapter of a potential textbook. The chapter can be revised several times
based on experiences of actual classroom delivery. Several such chapters by one
author or several authors can be put together in a text book that is
publishable after revisions and peer review.
Writing our own textbooks has many advantages. It is an import
substitution by saving money used to import expensive textbooks from developed
countries. The textbook will be relevant to our local conditions and our
students. A textbook enables us to emphasize student-centered learning because
the teacher need not teach everything; students can teach themselves directly
from the textbook. Perhaps the most important advantage of writing our own
books will be enabling us to achieve IOK.
Integration of our values into education can be achieved in two
ways: (a) an Islamic epistemological introduction to the academic material that
will enable the student examine the rest of the academic material in the book
from a new perspective (b) Writing an Islamic input on each aspect of the
material presented. We need to emphasise that we are not starting from zero and
re-inventing the wheel. The book will contain conventional material as taught
in any secular university and the Islamic input will be added value.
The process of textbook preparation should start with general
epistemology and curriculum reform seminars to raise awareness of the problem
of duality and to propose epistemological and curricular reform as the needed
solution. These should be followed by specific seminars with discipline experts
to explore IOK issues in each discipline. Specific working groups should then
be set up for each discipline of knowledge. These groups should produce
integrated course outlines. Available reference and resource material for each
course should be collected. Then a book should be designed and structured for
each course (title, units, sections, and chapters). Each chapter should be
structured as: learning objectives, detailed outlines (headings and
sub-headings), key words, the main text, Islamic input, glossary, index, case
studies, texts from Islamic sources (Qur’an, sunnat, other books),
illustrations (pictures and drawings), chapter summary, review (questions,
tests, exercises), and assignments.
An
editorial board should be set up for each book consisting of a chief editor and
1-2 co-editors in addition to chapter authors, advisors, and consultants. The
board will allocate 1-2 chapters to each writer. Regular workshops have to be
held for chapter writers and editors to review the written material preferably
once every 1-2 months. The chapters written must be tested by being used as
classroom notes for university students and getting feedback and will meet
regularly to monitor progress. It is difficult to find specialized references
on Islamic aspects of the various disciplines. We have therefore designated two
libraries one in Virginia (English references) and one in Amman (Arabic
references) to help writers get the references that they need.
External
discipline experts should review the manuscripts. The final versions should
undergo serious editing and proof reading. A special style sheet has been
prepared to guide authors, reviewers, and editors. It is envisaged that the
book will be 150-300 pages and will be published an e-book with a few printed
copies for libraries. A royalty will be paid to the authors.