Auron ka hai Payaam aur, mera Payaam aur hai, / Ishq key dardmand ka tarz-e-kalaam aur hai! (Iqbal)
It is “The Pen” – al-Qalam – and education that will teach and change the world, the Qur’ān proclaimed, through gentle persuasion and reasoned discourse, and not through coercion or force symbolized by the sword. And yet the enemies of Islam and Muslims, and the enemies or truth and honesty, never noticed this teaching of the Qur’ān. They were busy inventing the lies they did to malign Islam and its teachings as well as to deny and diminish its many glorious accomplishments throughout history.
Said the Qur’ān about God Almighty that he was the one who used “The Pen” to teach the world: Alladhee ‘allama bil-Qalam! There simply is no parallel to this in the annals of human discourse.
So that is the message of the Qur’ān, and that was also the tested and tried method of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam: universal education on the one hand and the most thoroughgoing character training and transformation on the other hand.
Universal education and character training! That is the message and that is the method. The Qur’ān refers to the education part as Ta’aleem. And it calls the character part Tazkiyah.
Using these two divine tools that God gave him, Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, single-handedly, gave the world a most comprehensive and thorough-going education on every physical and spiritual front. And thus did he pluck the world from the Dark Ages of Jahiliyyah – compound and calamitous ignorance and backwardness that surrounded the world on every topic from God to his creation – and propel it to a new era of lasting enlightenment and progress on every count and in every way.
And, believe it or not, he did all this in about 20 years or so.
Hear the Qur’ān provides a sketch of the glorious mission, the goals and purposes, for the accomplishment of which Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, was sent in this world: Wa Yu’allimuhumul kitaaba wal hikmata wa yuzakkeehim.
Here is a paraphrase:
1. He educates “The People”; he teaches them; he imparts to them knowledge: Yu’allimuhum.
2. He teaches them all things theoretical, abstract and from the book: Al-kitaab.
3. He trains them in all things practical, useful and pragmatic: Al-hikmah.
4. He moulds and shapes their character in the most pure, perfect and productive manner: Yuzakkeehim.
To sum up: Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, thus, teaches people the knowledge of the Book and all the wisdom required to translate the principles and teachings of that Book into practical, operational models of everyday living.
That means, mark you, all things, pertaining to this world as well as to the next world. It is not just this world or just the next world, but both worlds: Dunya as well as Aakhirah.
So, knowledge of Kitaab and Hikmah plus Tazkiyah is what changed the world then. And it is precisely this combination that can and will change the world again.
And it is, believe it or not, precisely this combination and this formula that can and will reshape, recreate and regenerate the world in every age and in every place. For every people, nation and society on earth for as long as the world lives.
Ever since the passing of the Great Dark Ages of Jahiliyyah, the Arabs reached an age of unparalleled enlightenment using this formula. The Egyptians did it. The Spanish Muslims did it. Iraq and Syria did it. Indian, Chinese and Russian Muslims did it. The Turks did it.
The great societies of Mali, Timbuktu and other places in Africa did it. And everyone, everywhere did it.
Even those who were not Muslims such as those in Europe, America, Japan and other places, made progress and transformed their lives, cultures and societies using the teachings and methodologies of the Qur’ān and the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. Even though they did so only piecemeal and partially and without giving any credit or acknowledging any debt to the Qur’ān or the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. Or the Muslims.
As a result, even as these non-Muslim societies made phenomenal strides on the path of knowledge using the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam – and eventually on the path of progress and development – they also could not help letting lose a reign of oppression, exploitation, conquest, terror and plunder on God’s world, including the Muslim world, that is probably quite unprecedented in human history.
That is because, generally speaking, their knowledge was not accompanied by appropriate character education and reform. That is, their Ta’aleem was not wedded to Tazkiyah. It was not built on the foundation of the moral values that the Qur’ān teaches to go along with education. Values that Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, embodied in his own life and on which he raised a generation of 10,000 saint-like followers as the Bible calls them.
The character of Europeans simply could not keep pace with the knowledge and education they rapidly acquired following the Islamic model. As a result, they gave rise to a New Dark Age of Neo-Jahiliyyat as it were, that in many ways rivals and puts to shame the earlier Pre-Islamic Paleo-Jahiliyyah.
LESSON THAT MUSLIMS FORGOT
In the meantime, the Muslims slowly but surely forgot the lessons of Kitab and Hikmah that Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, taught them. They confused and jumbled up the theory and they diluted and mixed up the practice. And in most cases they were left with only the empty shell of the pure and perfect teachings of Islam, chief among them character (Tazkiyah) and education (Ta’aleem) that he had left them with when he said goodbye to them 1400 ago. In most cases, the meat and substance of those teachings were gone.
As a result, Muslims ended up being among the least educated people of the world. They no longer knew either theory or practice of this world or how to practice Islam in this world. They ended up as a shadow of their past self and as a caricature of most things Muslim and Islamic.
Muslims thus became mostly a people who had neither knowledge nor character. For all practical purposes, they became social, political, cultural and educational zombies.
Muslim debates and discussions became increasingly abstruse and removed from reality. Instead of being practical and pragmatic, they became pointless theological disputations and hair-splitting. And Muslim lives and societies became pale and powerless shadows of their earlier selves, unable to control their own destiny or impact and shape the destiny of the world.
Their time and energies were spent arguing endlessly about what kind of knowledge was Islamic and what kind was not and who were really good Muslims and who were not. Many Muslims became heavily preoccupied with subjects such as ‘Aqeeda. And ‘Amal (read it character in its broadest sense) to many of them became more of the same: more namaz; more roza; and more dhikr.
And of course purer and more ‘Aqeedah.
In the hands of these super-purists, Islamic ‘Aqeedah or core creed that Allah and his Rasul, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, had summed up in no more than seven words – Laa Ilaaha Illaa Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah – now became the mother of all tomes and treatises, consuming everyone’s time and sucking up all Muslim energy and creativity.
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