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WHAT IS THE GREATEST CHALLENGE? |
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Masooma Nasar - AlJazeeraTalk
 The greatest challenge at the moment and one which will possibly continue, is the problem of education. Allowing for time, the world will become smaller through the continuing advancement of technological pursuits and mass communication. The preservation of oneself, family, community and society will become more difficult. We need to educate the young so that the community is better prepared to deal with the universality of opposing ideals. We need to ensure that the youth of our coming generation are not educated by the uneducated, so they can consciously choose Islam over modernity. We need to strike the right balance between preserving identity and spiritual values, and becoming effective integral members of society.
This means engaging with the wider society while maintaining our Islamic identity and traditions. We need people who are properly equipped to prepare our communities to pursue the attainment of this balance. We need to raise intellectuals who will enter debate at different levels while promoting education in our community. These intellectuals might then be in a better position to help prevent the disintegration of values in the Muslim community, currently symptomised by the ignorance of some parents and the inability to regulate their children (due to the lack of education). There is very little to counter the generation gap between parents and their children unless parents/teachers are socially aware of the exposure children are subjected to in schools and in general. A parent can't possibly be involved in the regulation of their children's education when in a lot of cases, communication is very little. The reason sometimes can be very basic, for example a language barrier. A generation of people born and brought up in western societies will acquire the language and the information that comes with it. But, parents have no access to this information because, they aren't equipped with the language. Therefore, they will have little in the way of relating to their child. Language can ultimately be a tool for indoctrination and our youth will find it difficult to overcome this process without the education of parents. The parent and child relationship determines the building of society for the coming generations. However, if the Muslim community is withdrawn and somewhat isolated from wider society (because of the lack of education), it becomes very difficult for the maturing child to resolve the manifestation of opposing values. Without such micro-goals on a community scale, we cannot begin to even think about how we can adequately reason the breeding of confusion currently spread by the global 'war on terror'. We are dealing with the prevailing distortion of Islam through pre-conceived notions without the benefit of knowledge. If educated with the right concepts, the coming generation can dispel such preconceptions and can help to rectify the problems facing the Ummah.
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The acquisition of knowledge is indeed a duty not just a responsibility. I believe the current avenues for seeking true knowledge fail the inspired and put off the ordinary mind. As a Persian poet once said O'Teacher! Teach my child nothing but pass on the love you have for learning. We need to rekindle this spirit of learning in ourselves as parents and individuals first then and only then can be expect our next generation to follow some of our footsteps.
Unfortunately knowledge has been persistently hijacked to serve the purpose of specific ideologies whether its Sufism, Greek philosophy or renaissance they all blurred the vision of true knowledge to a lesser or greater extent and for a greater or shorter period of time. Yet nothing has hindered a person's ability to rationalise and reach a status of inner peace through reasoning with one's inner self. True we have many distractions and as you rightly point out the manifestations of conflicting ideas around us but I believe if we as individuals as well as collective societies make it our mission to seek the will of the Creator and not attempt to find justifications of our own actions we would have taken one small step towards the righteous path.
The trouble with any religion today is its remoteness for an individual which happened deliberately or inadvertently borne out of need or response but nevertheless with every passing generation leaving a deeper coat of innuendo and tradition masking the true facet of divine inspiration and true knowledge. Religion today has become a burden to carry and a hindrance to real knowledge yet there are no boundaries in the world of knowledge they only exist in our own perception.
May Allah guide us to the right path and with Him alone rests knowledge of all things visible and invisible - Amin
Omar