A- THE ROLE OF THE
QURANIC CONCEPTS
IN FORMING PERCEPTION
- QUR’AN:
THE CURRICULUM OF
THE RABBANI (GODLY) TRAINING
er-Rahmân… Alleme’l-Kur’ân, Halaka’l-insân, Allemehu’l-beyân… (Surah Ar-Rahman 1-4).
“O Human beings! If you wonder the identity of the most gracious Ar-Rahman, then listen: He is the one who creates the human beings and He is the one being so kind as to teach the Qur’an revelation to human beings that He created. Above all, He is the one who teaches human beings to express themselves…”
In these verses the verb “to create” is placed between two verbs of “to teach”. This means thatthe creation of mankind in the shape of human beings doesn’t necessarily make them “human beings.” One can only be a human being with education and training. The introduction of the Surah Ar-Rahman above expresses that the axis of education is compassion and mercy. The creator of human beings, Allah, is the very self who teaches human beings. The teaching of Allah is an expression of his being ar-Rahman (the compassionate). For human beings, possessing a learning ability is so as well. After all if there weren’t a “learning” reality, we would not be able to talk about a “teaching” reality.
Teaching, as the Qur’anic expression, ta’lim is described as: “To stimulate the self for the realization of the meaning” (Ibn Ashur). By this means, the self will pursue the meaning and the learning process will be realized. Behind this process, there is an inborn “curiosity” motive given to human beings. Man becomes a human being thanks to their learning ability as Qur’an says. There was just a single justification provided to the angels who were asked to submit to Adam, the symbol father of human beings: that all the names were taught to Adam by Allah (ta’lim’ul esmâ, 2:31). Ta’lim’ul esmâ has presented as a distinctive characteristic of Adam and humankind; and it is stated that what was not provided for the angels was provided for Adam (2:32). So, that is why the angels were required to submit to Adam.
What is concluded from this section in Surah Al-Bagarah is that Allah is the source of the knowledge of both the angels and the human beings. However, angels cannot improve the knowledge provided to them, they can only use that knowledge. But human beings can improve the provided knowledge. Moreover, authorities as Ibnu’l-Cinni assess the teaching of the names to Adam as “the ability to name things” (el Hesâis).
In the Qur’an revelation, which we can regard as the curriculum of the Rabbani (Godly) training, the knowledge which is the reason for the submission of the angels to Adam is interpreted as “the forbidden fruit” that causes Adam to be expelled from the heaven in the Trinitarian Christianity. The apple symbol bitten on one side stands for this understanding of Christianity. In very deed this understanding is no more than the adaptation of Prometheus Myth in Greek Paganism to Adam parable in the Bible. Prometheus had stolen the fire of the Gods and with that fire he enlightened himself and the human beings. So, if a human being wants to get enlightened and wants to enlighten the world, he has to struggle with the Gods keeping the light in their hands and steal their light. The mind having adapted this myth to the church replaced Adam with Prometheus and replaced “the forbidden fruit” with the fire. Such a background lies at the root of the secular and non-divine character of the Western science.
While, according to the Islamic mind, the knowledge is an element making angels submit to Adam; in the Greek-Western mind, it is an element making Adam to be expelled from the heaven. As the first one treats the knowledge as a divine trust, the second one treats it as a stolen thing from Gods. That is the reason for the religion and science conflict in the Western middle age as well as for the emergence of secularism in the West.
According to Islam, the knowledge is not only a divine trust but also a worship and service. That is why the subject of the first verses revealed from Qur’an is indisputably “the knowledge.” The key words of the first revealed 5 verses of Surah Al-’Alaq are as follow: three times verbs of “learning and knowing” derived from the Arabic verb of ‘alime’, two times the imperative verb “read”, two times the name “Rabb (The Lord)”, two times the verb “created”, two times common name “human being”, “attachment-love”, “name and pen” as means. That is the last and perfect revelation which would continue for 23 years began with a chapter whose subject is “knowledge and learning”. This is a divine message given to the humanity who is all addressed by the revelation. And it is clear that this message is about the importance and value of knowledge and learning before Allah.
Taking this message, the Prophet, among the illiterate people of a time called “jahiliyya: pre-islamic age of ignorance” would elicit a community, which is acquiring the knowledge in its utmost refined form, improving and transmitting it. Besides, this knowledge would be a “knowledge of life” originating from morality and arising from within life. This improved knowledge would increase from generation to generation gradually and in the end it would leave its indelible mark upon the future of humanity. In summary, it would be used as a golden composition ferment in the building of next civilizations.
The first person built by the Islamic revelation, the Prophet Muhammad attached so importance to the education and training task assigned by the first chapter and referred by all the revelation explicitly or implicitly like an undercurrent that the first thing he did, instead of establishing a place of worship in Mecca, was to establish an education and training institute: Daru’l Erkam. Then Al Masjid Al Nabavi and Darus’s Suffa which were constructed as social education institutes in Medina followed it. And masjids (small mosques) in the cities of Kufa, Basra, Damascus, Fustat, Baghdad and circles of knowledge in these masjids in which the largest scholarly discussions took place… From among the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, Ali b. Abu Talib, Abdullah b. Masud, Abdullah b. Abbas, Anas b. Malik, Zayd b. Arkam and some others were kind of schools by themselves.
We know that Kuttabs, the primary schools in the history of the Muslims, emerged already in the period of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad. At the school of Abu’l-Qasim Al-Balhiwho lived in the second half the first Hijri century and who is belonging to the second generation of Islam (d.104/723) there were 3000 students studying (Yakut). Moreover, all masjids were equivalent to natural schools whose curriculum is Qur’an. Imam Malik used to say he didn’t approve that the masjids had become schools for children and used to promote students study at separate education institutions.
While the foundations of the first university in Qurtuba were being laid, it took the West 300 more years to establish the first university. The number of the universities founded just in the period of Al-Hakem II. who is also called as Omar b. Abdu’l-Aziz of Andalusia was 28. This number indicates the level of education that Islamic Civilization came to when the West was living its dark Middle Ages. The tradition of madrasah(Islamic theological school) would quickly spread then in Kairouan, Cairo, Nishapur, Samarkand and Baghdad. Nizamiye Madrasahs which Nizam Al-Mulk established in the Hijri year of 459 (1066-1067 AD) were not first Islamic universities as it is assumed. But they represented the culmination of formal Islamic education. Ibn Bajjah, Al Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Miskawayh, Al Ghazali and many Islamic scholars wrote about education and training techniques and theories.
After this period, as Islamic civilization went into a decline, formal education institutions started to lose their quality day by day. Many factors played a role in this decline. At the head of these comes the intervention of the administrators to education system with political considerations. In addition to this, these factors played a considerable role in the decline of education quality: fanaticism and sectarianism, strict centralization of education, reign fights, administrative disruptions, the decline of the quality in parallel with the increase of the number of students, decline of the scholarly liberty, disregarding science, failure in overcoming the deadlock in the method etc…
As Madrasahs causing the East to be the source of enlightenment for hundreds of years completed their periods because of above mentioned and similar causes, “schools”that emerged in the West took their place in the Islamic world. However, the emergence of the school and the emergence of the nation state in the West were contemporaneous. Nation states regarded the schools as the farm of their political views. The modern school was used as a means to shape morals and beliefs of the community according to will of the power for the sake of elite class.
The same thing also happened in our country. In the transformation period of Ottoman Empire to the modern nation state of Turkish Republic, education was always considered as a social engineering project. The system the ones who regarded madrasah system as old replaced instead of madrasah system was a total intellectual genocide. From that day to this, the ruling elite used the schools as kind of factories to produce “the ideal human being type” of its mind: The ideal model of Tanzimat Reform Era was positivist and pro- science human being. In the term of single-party rule after the Turkish Republic was founded, Progressive-Nationalist-Westernizer-Secularist individual was aimed as an ideal type. In the period of multi-party system the aim of the education was to raise a pragmatic and opportunist individual. In the period of coups in the 1970s and 1980s, the ideal type was “nationalist-compatriot individual”, this model was determined over again in the process of admission to the EU that is Postmodern global individual.
The individuals who are regarded as the fathers of education(J. Dewey, M. Montessori) already discovered the shortcomings of the modern education in the last centuries. Educationists worked on “alternative school project” in the postmodern period. These alternative schools were going to replace the modern schools which are the projects of nation states to produce nationalist citizens (Montessori, Waldorf, HIGHSCOPE, REGGIO-EMILLA styles and methods).
But all these efforts were far from producing the desired result, either. Because postmodern educationists who discovered the shortcomings of the modern education properly, went wrong on the opposite side by demoting learning to a neurophysiological event. They ignored the existential form of the learning. “Multi system”, “Democratic system”, “Liberal system” and “Liberal education” models were finally brought to the defense of “philistinism” point by the anarchists (William Godwin, Francisco Ferrer, Max Stirner and Leo Tolstoy). Ivan Illich set “Deschooling Society” as a target. In fact now, the current situation in education is a complete deadlock.
It is possible to overcome the deadlock in education in the light of Qur’an which is the curriculum of the Rabbani training. We can summarize the original approaches of Qur’an about education as such:
Qur’an teaches how to get knowledge and shows the ways to access knowledge rather than giving ready knowledge. Qur’an doesn’t want the knowledge it gives to be applied without thinking over, considering, questioning, not understanding, drinking in, internalizing it. On the contrary it asks that “Aren’t they thinking long and hard about Qur’an?” It commands to read Qur’an not with a simple reading but with thorough reading and drinking in (tertil). Moreover, Qur’an dedicates itself to “a thinking society”. This attitude is the exact opposite of the attitude saying “I’ve taught you, you learn and don’t think ahead”. With its this kind of style, rather than bringing knowledge to its addressee, Qur’an brings a reasoning and thinking ability to get, to improve and to transmit knowledge.
Qur’an denies the “teacher” of a totalitarian and strict manner. Being the discourse of an affectionate and merciful Rabb and taking into consideration that each human being is original and unique, it approves that learning has variable “ways” changing according to each person. Therefore, it uses each of the induction, deduction and analogy methods of classical logic. It mobilizes all means of rhetoric and language. Sometimes through asking questions, sometimes through answering questions it teaches to learn. It encourages observation, experiment and research for learning. It recommends learning sometimes by watching, sometimes by listening and sometimes by speaking. It invites on tezekkür (remembering) implying the past of tefekkür (contemplation), it invites on tedebbür (thinking out well prudently) implying the future of tefekkür, it invites on tefakkuh (comprehending) implying the present time of tefekkür and it invites on taakkul (reasoning) implying the relationship among all these activities. The common characteristic of all these concepts is that they are all from “tekellüf (form of an onerous activity)” form of the Arabic language. That is thinking requires “onerousness”, effort, labor, curiosity, knowledge, interest, attention and astonishment. With this, the fact that learning is unique to each person like an fingerprint is expressed.
According to Qur’an all creatures are means of learning. Moreover, every piece forming the universe are parts of teaching. For the one who wants to learn even a crow is a teaching factor. Qur’an teaches this fact through fratricide Kabel (5:31). In order to teach something, Allah doesn’t hesitate to give an example of a mosquito or anything much smaller (2:26). In so doing, Qur’an excludes perceptions that reduce learning just to an act of accumulating knowledge”. It builds individuals who improve and enhance the knowledge they get, who make use of it and who put it into practice in life.
Basic concepts like disposition, morality, takqwa (piety), Islam (submission to Allah), iman (faith), tawhid (oneness of Allah), justice, loyalty, trust, attesting, sincerity, goodness, knowledge, doing good works constitute the values of the Rabbani training. However, among these “taqwa” has a special place. If we take taqwa as “consciousness of responsibility”, it constitutes the ground of morality. Because morality is built just on the principle that a person is responsible for his/her own actions. If there is not this principle, it is unnecessary to talk about morality. Telling a person that he/she is responsible for his/her own actions is equal to telling that he/she has the ability to choose. This has a meaning in that a person has the ability to be able to realize his/her choice. At last, it is also a person’s own choice to realize the goodness and the badness when he/she is realizing his/her choice. And this means for that person to choose his/her own future. Thereby, the basics of the Qur’an education is to teach a person to be able to choose right and to bring up a selfhood that can keep away from the deflecting effects of the internal an external evil centers as the self and the demon when he/she is doing his/her preference.
The Rabbani training represented by the revelation builds its addressee as a personage not as an individual. One of the features discriminating a personage from an individual is its “social” dimension. The Rabbani training bounds the relations among people. The central concept of these bounds is justice. That zakat (obligatory alms), sadaqah (voluntary alms) and infaq (aid, help) which are all expressing the sharing principle, giving testimony rightly which is an expression of the domination of the justice, jihad (struggle for Islam) and ordering goodness are all religious duties; that giving false testimony is illicit; that theft, adultery, alcoholic beverages are forbidden; that miserliness, cowardice, breaking a promise and lying are criticized are all directed towards strengthening the justice principle.
The Rabbani training represented by the revelation places mosques to the hearth of “Islam community” that it demands from its mu’min addressees. A mosque is not just a “prayers house” (masjid) but also a “gathering” place. Friday prayer represents the peak of this Rabbani gathering. In the widest sense a mosque is the most original “education and training center” gathering mu’mins (believers) for education and training. The surahs that imam recite aloud in the prayers are not just for listening for the jama’ah (congregation). As the first verses of the Surah Al-Muzzammil indicate they are for reminding the jama’ah the basic principles of the Rabbani training. At the head of these principles come the facts expressed in the Surah Al-Fatihah. After the prayers the Prophet would turn towards the jama’ah. Nowadays the imams performing this as a sunnah should ask themselves that “Well, why would the Prophet turn his face towards the jama’ah at the cost of turning his back to kıblah?” Can there be a reasonable explanation of turning towards the jama’ah just for tasbihat (mentioning Allah) and praying? Of course not. The prophet would turn towards jama’ah after the prayers to talk to them, to listen to them and to answer them.
The Friday prayer is an unprecedented practice of “mass education” in the history of humanity. Consisting hundreds of millions of people, ummah of the Prophet Muhammad have been receiving a training at the same hour on the same day for more than 1400 years all over the world. Besides this training appeals to people of all ages and both sexes, and it covers all subjects. The Friday prayer is not a prayer additional to five daily prayer times, but is also an obligatory prayer in substitution for obligatory zuhr (midday) prayer. Zuhr prayer consists of four rakats. Friday prayerwas ordered as two rakats instead of four rakats of Zuhr prayer. Here the fact comes to the fore that Islam orders education as fard al ayn (obligatory upon ever Muslim). Because Friday prayer had given its original first two rakats to the khutbah which is the most comprehensive “mass education” practice in the history of humanity.
The Rabbani training represented by the revelation is predicated on human education. It doesn’t split human life into parts. According to the revelation a human being is like a river streaming from its source to the ocean. Intercepting some points of this river is alienating it from being a river, that is making an end of its life. The revelation starts from the fact that education and training is special not just to some ages but it is special to all ages.
Qur’an doesn’t see human education as something “loaded from outside” but “discovery and development of what is already there innately”. The aim of the Rabbani training is the development of what was given to human being innately, that is turning what is in the potential position into the kinetic position.
There is a “competition in benevolence” in the Rabbani training. Modern education has placed “competition in education” instead of it and turned schools into arenas. According to the mind built by the revelation education and training is not a “competition” process but a “sharing one”. Therefore it sticks the learner the responsibility of teaching his/her knowledge to others.
Qur’an as the curriculum of the Rabbani training is there same as the time it was revealed. And calling out to all the humanity far beyond the centuries:
“Color that Allah gives!.. Who can give a better color (to life) than Allah?” (2:138)
Islamoglu Mustafa. (2009-01). Kur’an Rabbani Terbiyenin Müfredati. Kur’ani Hayat, 4/3-8.
Translator: Hatice Topcu