A Muslim’s Perspective on Education - 3

Shad Moarif
Aug 24, 2017 · 4 min read

1.Growing up, not old

A baby crawls across the floor to reach a toy. S/he may not have any plan, just an impulse driven by curiosity: “What’s that ? “ Once in its grasp, the baby sits and “toys” with it until its relationship with the object unlocks a flow of “understanding”. Not long after, its inquisitive hold on the toy turns into memories and the physical grip becomes a “mental grasp”. The child can imagine grasping it. Later, when s/he learns its name, all of Its features are associated with the sound “bol” i.e. its functions (does it roll, does it fall, bounce and slide ?) and its nature (is it hard, soft, slippery, light, heavy?).

Now when he starts to play with it, a new sense of “ownership” slips in gently like a secret. Like the drop of the tiniest pebble, the feeling settles and spreads through the child’s consciousness like ripples on a lake. S/he now “knows” what a “ball” is whenever she hears the word (cognition). She is is able to “re-know” it (re-cognition or re-cognize) through an earlier familiarity that dissolved into intimacy.

It is a gripping, vitalizing process. Over a period, the feeling of the toy “belonging” to the child grows. The child’s self-identity gets emotionally enmeshed with the mental presence of that specific ball “inside his head”. Understandably, that object has a virtual existence in his heart and head. So, his claim ….however transient or in passing….gets invisibly stamped on that ball.

If I suddenly lunge forward, grab the ball and pull it out if its grasp, how would he react? He may cry, become enraged or puzzled. He may turn away and crawl towards another toy. He might extend its arm (“Give me my toy!”) or simply wait, glancing this way and that until distracted by another movement. No matter how varied the responses, each is a reaction to my inexplicable act. I trespassed into a flowing process of knowing and owning by taking away what the child believes belongs to her. What belongs to her is more than a toy. It is a connection. A relationship. And the object represents something greater than itself. It represents something of real Value to the child, a value that spills beyond the mere function, nature and utility of the object. It has become part of her self-identity.

So in “stealing” the child’s toy I stole much more than the toy. And if I give that toy to another child, I would be adding insult to injury: another layer of distress upon the original “owner”.
This “transaction” may take all of a few minutes. It may be a drop in the ocean of its consciousness. But its impact upon the heart and mind sculpts the growing brain’s development like drops of rain that fall continuously upon an immense, undulating landscape.

2. Reason: the Pillar that Supports Rules

The reason why rules (“do not steal”) are made can be traced back to human behavior at its earliest. Behavioral consequences are visible and audible. Not visible are the spiritual and emotional ones. But we know they stay far longer than the physical loss. By ignoring what we know to be true, we express our true “Ignorance”. Why do we ignore? Perhaps something comes between what we know to be true and what we are taught (or not taught) to be “true”. What could it be? Are we drawn to low-hanging fruits (“rules” and “instructions”) that are easier to grasp than the rationale lurking inside like a pearl in a shell at the bottom of the sea? And so we get used to swimming on the surface never delving deeper for greater meaning. Our civilizing role as parents is God’s gift to Mankind. It unravels inside us naturally, intuitively. We are programmed to tease out the curiosity of childhood from the puzzlement of infancy, the meaning of adulthood from the curiosities of childhood and the wisdom of age from the meaning of adulthood. We do this by creating a wide-spectrum culture of life and living that is outwardly “ours” yet intrinsically universal.

It is not a Gift that we can afford to ignore.

The instinct to educate, the impulse to guide and mentor a child resides in us like a tiny cogwheel, an invisible rotating gear. It links up to turn larger cogwheels of physical and mental growth. Our instinct to educate as parents, elder siblings, family-members and care-givers are expressed like songs with specific lyrics that belong to the times we live in. The lyrics may change over generations, but the song stays the same.

For Muslims in general, many of our songs and lyrics have changed because we have adopted practices we do not understand even when we recognize them to be good or right. They have changed because we reject practices even when we understand them since we fear the unknown consequences their acceptance may reveal. In some sense we are lost. As a people we have lost our moorings, our anchor and consequently our courage because we do not know what we value most. How do we defend them….and more importantly, why?

At our heritage sites ancient pillars lie broken in fragments, and buildings still stand upon sand ravaged by time, lost to memory, forlorn. Others lie massacred like innocents, shell-shocked, bombed and bloodied , now exposed and vulnerable, reminding us of our present state. Sometimes, as we stand and gaze at them we catch a glimpse of what once rested upon solid foundations of laws our people understood. Those grand buildings of epic proportions were erected upon foundations of reasoning that kept them standing for centuries. They gave us laws: laws that helped our ancestors raise entire civilzations from dust to the sky.

Copyright © Shad Moarif, 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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