Home 
Contact 
Profile 
Videos 
Opening address at the Ohrid Conference by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard)
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful!
Peace be upon the Messenger of Allah, the one who was fulfilled the mission, preached the message, advised humankind, and struggled in the way of Allah. May Allah reward him with the best of rewards!
Sisters and brothers, Es-Selamu Aleykum we Rahmetullahi we Berakatuhu!
It is a pleasure to meet you today, talking to you in this great conference, in this meeting of intellectuals, educationists, and experts, to talk about the traditional Islamic educational system, which we call Madrassah. I would like to say that this system is present, it is alive, and is growing. I would like to go over my personal experience in this system in various parts of the world.
Starting with the Far East, in Indonesia, the traditional Madrassah is called Pesantren in the Indonesian language. It is found at all levels of education, elementary and secondary, and is highly developed. Pasantrens have got good buildings, computers, good books, and curricula. In Malaysia, the traditional system is called the Pondok. Pondok is a Malaysian word, which means a hut, because they used to sit in huts to study. That system is still very much alive and students go through it. And it is now developed into Islamic colleges, and those colleges are able to send their graduates to modern universities, to pursue masters and doctoral degrees.
As we move farther to the west, we come to India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. This is what we call South Asia. The traditional system of education is highly developed. The schools are called Darul Ulum, and they teach at all levels up to awarding the masters degree. Their graduates are so intellectually developed and advanced that they can enter the modern universities and succeed. The major schools in India are at Deoband, Berelve, and Luckhnow.
In the Arab world, the schools are referred to as madrasah, ma’ahad, or ma’ahad deeniyah. In Africa the schools are called Katate’eb. These are small schools in the village for children in the earliest levels of education. With time they develop into institutions of higher education for example “Bilal” Islamic Institute in Kampala, Uganda, developed from a small; school to become a modern school teaching Qur’an and Sunnah, and all other Islamic sciences, besides of modern sciences of mathematics, science, biology and chemistry. The traditional system is also well developed in West Africa. In some parts of West Africa, especially in Northern Nigeria, 50% or more of the children through the traditional Islamic educational system. In Morocco, the government has recognized this system and has included it as an integral part of the national education system called “Et-Ta’limul A’tik”, the ancient education system. So, when we talk about the traditional Islamic education system, we are not talking about history, we are talking about the reality that exists today. The system is alive, is continuing, and is expanding.
It is very interesting to find that this system has gone to the Western countries. There are madrasahs and darul uloom in the UK, USA, Canada, and South Africa. So the system is not only confined to the Muslim world, it is also expanding to Western countries.
That is the picture today. Let us just look at the history, how did we arrive at what we have today. I think that the first school was Darul Erkam. The Prophet (pbuh) used to sit in Makkah to teach his companions. All our educational system grew from Darul Erkam. Later on, as the community expanded, the teaching moved to mosques, where study circles would be formed and various teachers would continue teaching. Until today, in all mosques of the Muslim world you find these mosque teaching circles still operating. Later on, in the Abbasid period schools were organized like the “Nidhamiye School” in Bagdad. And later on these schools developed to universities like Al-Az’har University in Cairo and Kayrawan University in Tunisia. These are very ancient universities that were built in the traditional system and they still continue with many elements of the traditional education system.
Now, what is the issue at the moment?
The issue at the moment is that there is dichotomy or duality in the educational system. In all Muslim communities you have got two education systems side by side. There is the modern education system and there is the traditional education system. Some children go exclusively throw the traditional system, some other children go exclusively throw the modern system and some go throw both systems. This results in the duality of the educational system, which has got many consequences, many of them are negative in the society. Because the elite of the society has got two worlds views. Those who went throw the traditional system look at the world in a certain way. They have got the Qur’anic world view and the Islamic world view, the traditional world view. Those who go throw the modern system have got a modern world view, which is mostly a Western or European world view.
So, the society suffers from this problem of duality. And I think this is a challenge that the system is facing. In my travels, I have seen many attempts to solve this duality. In religious schools in Malaysia, Indonesia, East Africa; the modern subject have been introduced into the traditional Madrassah. I have also seen that the Qur’anic and hadeeth studies being introduced in the modern schools. So, there is an attempt to combine the two systems. It is difficult, but it seems that it is necessary. This attempt to combine the systems or integrate the systems has reached a very high level in what we call today the Islamic Universities.
The Islamic Islamic University in Malaysia, the International Islamic University in Islamabad and others in many parts of the world are institutions that are trying to combine the best in the traditional education system with the best in the modern educational system.
The traditional system has other challenges, besides the challenge of duality and dichotomy. It has got a challenge to modernize its curricula and to modernize its methods. This modernization has caused differences among people. There are those who say: we should leave the traditional system as it is and do not touch it. Is has survived for centuries and it has been responsible for preserving our religion, our culture and our destiny. There are other who say: no. the system requires modification, upgrading and improvement.
The traditional system need to change, but what do we want to change? I think we need to change the system, so that it can respond to the problems of society today. Today society has got social problems, economic problems, and political problems. So these problems need to be addressed in the traditional Islamic educational systems, so that the graduates will be useful scholars, and useful jurists, who can guide the Muslim community in dealing with the problems that are being faced in the modern society.
Also, we can introduce some of the educational technologies that make the learning process easier. But I think we should not touch the basic philosophy of the system. It is a system that has been successful and it has survived. There is a core that is good that should be preserved. We can only add to it new things that are necessary for the improvement.
I would like to thank you for listening to me. And I wish you a very happy conference. I wish to thank all the organizers for the organization, all the individuals who have been an instrument of organizing this conference. And I pray the conference will achieve its objectives.
Es-Selamu Aleykum we Rahmetullahi we Berakatuhu!