PKKH Exclusiev| By Muhammad Umer Toor
“People who have no hold over their process of thinking are likely to be ruined by liberty of thought. If
thought is immature, liberty of thought becomes a method of converting men into animals”
- Iqbal, Stray Reflections
This article is in response to an episode of Chal Parha by singer & a self-declared-education- reformer Shehzad Roy (SR), wherein he has called for – in a most fundamentalist way – eliminating or minimizing even mention of Islam from non-theological subjects without providing any reasons about non-applicability of Islam in all aspects of life. This is not the solitary attempt of the media; especially GeoTV’s has been constantly campaigning, to change the very basis of Pakistan and the mindset of its people, which can be powerfully altered through mass media: it aims to change the Islamic worldview in its education system. I will start not by directly addressing the objections raised by Roy on certain fundamental aspects of the curriculum but by discussing underlying assumptions of the champions of secularism. But let me say on the outset that we are not defending the pathetic state of education, books and instruction in public and private schools of Pakistan.
Section 1. Contents of Shehzad Roy’s Opinions
Let us summarize the main points of Shehzad Roy’s episode on education that was aired on 2 March 2013 on GeoTV in the segment, Chal Parh-a (giving a sense that education is being imparted in a mindless way in the country).
A. Of a Dumb Practice: Making non-Muslims go mindlessly through Islamic text
The program showed a classroom where a class of Christian students was reciting hamd-o-naat
in the Urdu book. Later officials were inquired, who said: We write these books for 98% of
Muslim population and cannot afford to replace them for 2% of non-Muslims. (This argument was not discussed; however, it was scrapped again and again in the rest of the video.) The fact is that in British schools students are made to chant Christian prayers against their will, whether Muslim or Hindu. But, since UK is doing this – wherein as of year 2000 the number of mosque- going population was greater than the Church-going! – This practice might be labeled as promoting religious harmony and pluralism by the likes of GeoTV.
B. Call for divorcing all other subjects from Islamic worldview
While interviewing Talat Hussain & Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, he got a stance of only rejecting compulsory Islamiyat education for non-Muslim, while he, Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy & some other educationists asserted with full force to remove, or keep to minimum, even the mentioning of Islam from textbooks of subjects than Islamiyat. There were no reasons provided as to why Islam should be taken out of sphere of life; to me, this is a philosophical and practical blunder. I believe that the underlying idea is that of separation of world of God (religion) from the world of Caesar (discussed in detail in section 2).
From talking about the right of belief for minorities – Roy generalized it into the full-blown
secular dogma: Islam is only worth a single theological subject and has nothing to do with other aspects of life and education.
C. Undermining Legacy of Islamic warriors & ‘Question of Violence’
SR continues, “In early classes, students are only taught about warring figures. Idea is ingrained in minds that only fighting men are heroes. Scientists (etc) are not portrayed as heroes.” SR also said to the effect: mention of such historical warriors’ leads to violence, animosity, universal hatred of non-Muslims, and intolerance.
This is a most astonishing kind of inductive logic, which is neither valid nor sound. In our textbooks, wherever the stories of Islamic warriors are given they are accompanied by mentions if their high morals, such as justice and love for their non-Muslim subjects, therefore it is baseless it think that such stories would incite the urge to kill and hate purposely. As opposed to this however, numerous studies worldwide have shown how much indiscriminate violence and deaths result from watching violent TV and films. I wonder how much aggression can result after reading a literary exposition of a warrior’s life compared to actual increase in aggression in adulthood due to ‘early exposure to TV violence’.
Since it is only human to seek justice and peace inside and outside, that sublime emotion has been exploited by SR to toe the American agenda of emasculating Muslims, consciously or unconsciously. All this shows a deeply-embedded intellectual mistake in addressing the question of violence (see this article, ‘Islam & Question of Violence’ for a clear exposition).
Iqbal was once told that a new school will be named after him; he refused and advised them to name it after Tipu Sultan to inspire students to act rather to just contemplate on knowledge. To be happy has two requisites: to be given hikma, and then to act upon it. A wholesome warrior in old times was not a specialized fighting robot, but most likely aimed to be insan-e-Kamil. In the times when professional guilds were at the center of medieval economies, all the working men worked for 11 months and participated in jihad for 1 month, which gelled them. Success of Israel as a military force can also be attributed to the unification of civilian and military roles.
Pseudo-liberals of Pakistan abhor the mention of word violence, and accuse religious scholars
to be spreading it, in doing so they forget the fact it is necessary to maintain peace stability and
order by waging war against the elements that promote it in the first place. War, policing and
law has to be used against the unjust, to secure civil life of the peaceful majority.
There is no better way than to do this than by inspiring people through warrior-figures be them fictional characters like Batman or historical figures of Tipu Sultan, Sheikh Abdul Qadir of Algeria, or Sultan Ayubi, who are not just symbols of war but primarily of independence, courage, kindness, morality and justice. Curiously, SR seemingly doesn’t have any problems with cartoon characters of Superman, Spiderman, Ben 10 etc., probably because they do not invoke the name of God. Nonetheless, these characters use as much violence required against the criminals as Muslim historic figures used against their enemies, if not more. (It is easier to kill the criminal without collateral damage in fiction than in reality.)
Importance of power
Iqbal says, “Vision without power does bring moral elevation but cannot give a lasting culture.”
If SR’s prescriptions are to be followed, we can justifiably forecast that the ‘pen which is not dipped in blood’ will lead to enslavement. Iqbal said: “Why hast thou made me born in this country, the inhabitant of which is satisfied with being a slave.” This was the policy of Britishers, their policy was to divide and numb-down. Mirza Ghulam Qadyani, the false- prophet, called for end of jihad and at that time Iqbal severely criticized him. Roy’s message belongs to that line of thinking. The agenda is to make Muslims Amerikan/West-lovers who are already under unprecedented foreign occupation; who are already enslaved by American debt (whoever does not give in to America’s proposals is assassinated, overthrown or militarily intervened, see Confessions of Economic Hitman); although one can hardly emphasize enough the need for equilibrium between knowledge and action.
Anti-Indianism? Another blatant generalization made through various “experts” was the rhetoric of hatred of India in Pakistan. Following questions were routed by SR & his panel of ‘intellectuals’: Do
Pakistanis have hatred of Indian people or of their govt’s atrocities in Kashmir? Hatred of Indian culture and history (which is apparently being absorbed daily through TV & films) or hatred of financing of terror through Afghanistan? None of such troubling realities were observed. Self- hatred of SR and his panel declared that Pakistanis live and thrive on anti-India rhetoric (I don’t see it, do you?); as if we have no purpose in our life than to hate and harm Indians. Please watch this video how children are really indoctrinated in India.
We all belong to warrior races in Pakistan. It is in our blood to attain “peace within and to war with forces of disruption and instability outside”. Pacifism is a philosophically impossible dogma. Let’s not forget that the duty of army is to avoid war. Moreover, this campaign enjoins with the campaign of maligning jihad to emasculate Muslims. It is perhaps a sense of inferiority complex that makes such westernized minds to advocate surrender of arms before West, which has spilled more blood than anyone else in history.
Section 2. ‘Knowledge and the Sacred: Secularization of Life & Education in West
Dr. Muhmmad Rafiuddin, in his book First Principles Of Education, states:
“Every ideology has its own system of education which is designed to foster the love of that ideology in the growing generations of the community of its lovers and to create in them that special type of knowledge, skills, habits and attitudes which is relevant to that ideology and which they need in order to be able to love and serve the ideology wholeheartedly. Every ideology has, moreover, its own philosophers of education who, by their reasoning, justify their own ideology as the only true and sound basis of education and every ideology has its own practical educators who exert themselves to put into practice the educational thought of its philosophers. It is clear, therefore, that the educational system of one ideological community can never serve properly the educational needs of another community.”
What SR is asking does not fit – as per democratic principles, hence constitution of Pakistan -
the needs and aspirations of Pakistani people.
Islamic Worldview & Education
Islamic point of view of knowledge is as follows: It is necessary to gain mastery in major fields of knowledge for a nation to excel in the world. However, this is not sufficient at all for ultimate success. It is sufficient to know Allah (primarily by knowing ourselves) to be successful in both worlds. And, creating Sacred sciences and arts, by integrating worldly knowledge with Sacred principles, is more than necessary to lead a meaningful, harmonious and a satisfactory life on earth and in the hereafter (see Heart of Islam by Dr SH Nasr). This is more or less the Islamic
point of view – a view which we believe is shared by all authentic religions. Education is at the center of actualizing this reality.
Results of Secularization of World
It is well known that Europe through a historical process got disenchanted with religion, and reduced intellect and life to this world alone (see Religion & the Order of Nature, by Dr S H Nasr to study the change at the intellectual level; & ‘The Origins of Western Social Sciences’ by Dr Asad to study the ‘disenchantment’ process). What are the results? To sum it up:
”We live among ruins in a World in which ‘god is dead’ as Nietzsche stated. The ideals of today are comfort, expediency, surface knowledge, disregard for one’s ancestral heritage and traditions, catering to
the lowest standards of taste and intelligence, apotheosis of the pathetic, hoarding of material objects and possessions, disrespect for all that is inherently higher and better — in other words a complete inversion of true values and ideals, the raising of the victory flag of ignorance and the banner of degeneracy. In such a time, social decadence is so widespread that it appears as a natural component of all political institutions. The crises that dominate the daily lives of our societies are part of a secret occult war to
remove the support of spiritual and traditional values in order to turn man into a passive instrument of dark powers.”
This is – put very mildly – the kind of world that secular modern education has produced. Because the secular worldview remains undecided about Principles (and hence ultimate values), and in fact declares values as non-scientific, it has legalized and accepted the most immoral of activities: hoarding, selfishness, usury, betting & derivatives, homosexuality, desecration of sacred histories & figures, environmental crises, etc. Therefore, as Dr Nasr once said, no knowledge is abstract or value-free. Every knowledge has a worldview attached to it. So if Roy asks for totally eliminating Islam from all subjects except Islamiyat he is practically arguing
for educating as per secular worldview which rejects Revelation as a code of life in most comprehensive way. Islam is against compartmentalization of life, and life and education must be regulated according to Sacred Principles and laws.Hence, we can conclude that self-glorifying, USAID- and foreign-funded culprits are using the unimaginable power of media to change minds promoting the worldview of pseudo-liberal, secular fundamentalism in Pakistan.
Section 3. Changing Pakistanis for Amerika’s Sake
GeoTV, with its ill-guided episode by fancy-boy Roy on Islamic components in the curriculum, has confirmed their slanted agenda to change Pakistan as per the whims of Amerikano establishment. It is carrying out Holbrooke’s agenda to ‘change Pakistan’ to integrate Pakistanis with American interests (what else?) - the way Europe was financed to stop Communism with the Marshall Plan. Holbrooke raised $5 bn to change Pakistan – to make us think and act in the way they like; and Quran warns us that these kuffar would never like us, unless we change and mimic them. To say the least, purpose of this is stop Pakistan from becoming independent, as Noam Chomsky says, “It’s not radical Islam that worries the US — it’s independence.”
Conclusion
We refuse – intellectually – the effort of GeoTV to make a ‘Man-made Man’ out of every Pakistani student. In fact, its real effort to change Pakistan as per Amerikan vision is even more degrading than a man free from Allah and all norms – and United States of America bids them good luck (and no doubt blesses them in strange ways).
All in all, “policy recommendations” for education by the singer, who gained a lot of fame through a song based on a religious poem of Iqbal dressed as a warrior on horseback (there wasa lot of justified violence therein too), are fundamentalist, non-argumentative, philosophically antithetical to Islamic world view to which Pakistani subscribe through constitution, based onsophistry and 100% in line with Amerikano agenda to change or Amerikanize Pakistan.
Muhammad Umer Toor is a wanna-be philosopher in distant future. Based in Lahore, with a BSc in Business, he blogs atwww.toorumer.blogspot.com. He can be reached at i.umer.toor@gmail.com