Rethinking Education

Assalamu alaikum Kyary to find a Tamil for lover in Bula Vinaka Welcome to the moms that homeschool platform where we learn about our deen history and life skills. Inspiring moms to be the child's best teacher. Today we have Sheikh Ismail come there.

I'm really grateful who's made time for us today on our show.

It's like I'm Jake, how you doing today? While he can Salam Alaikum I'm doing well. How are you?

I'm doing

great. Hello, Al Hamdulillah for another day to try and get things right. I came across your page, because I was researching

the golden age of Islam and

I came across your Islamic Self Help

website. And I was reading an article and I actually I hadn't heard of you before. And when I read the courses that you offer, I thought oh Masha Allah, this is a such a well organized and

detailed way of learning about not only Islam, but also parenting and you also homeschool as well. So I wanted to talk to you about quite a few things, because there's a lot of people on on social media nowadays that also have their opinions with which I mean, it's it's good to utilize the platform, but I wanted to get your opinion as well on

being educated, in your field in Islam, about homeschooling, and a number of other things. Do you mind, just kind of introducing yourself and your background and

your educational history as well, before we get into it, just to give people a bit of a background of what you do.

Trump no power. So I have been involved in Islamic work for multiple decades now.

In 2006, I graduated from the Aldemir program, which basically Islamic scholarship program, seven years of intensive Islamic Studies. And then after that, I did a bachelor's degree in Islamic studies as well.

I was homeschooled basically to high school, rather self school to high school. So I went to school to grade eight. And then I dropped out and I completed the rest of them home by myself before going to university online. And

I have four kids left homeschooling, my wife and I split the teaching between us. And besides that, I'm an author of written over 20 books. Entrepreneur had my websites Islamic self help.com is academy.com. We have my online courses, my eBooks. I also work with Yaqeen Institute as part of the management team and as a writer as well. I'm actually have my fifth book with Yaqeen Institute launching soon inshallah. And then how to that's about it. Yeah.

Masha, Allah.

That's amazing. I didn't realize you were also homeschooled as well, yourself.

So that kind of leads me to my first question, what's your

view on se?

And you say, the current madrasa system versus the public school system being homeschooled yourself? And you've also decided to homeschool your own children? What What made you decide to do that with it? Because there's obviously pros and cons and both of them. But why did you choose that path instead?

Yeah, good question. And

multi layered answer, I think what's the best approach to go into it? So basically,

when my first my eldest child was born, who was currently turning 16,

about when he was born, I was a school teacher. And I was teaching in Islamic schools. I did not like what I saw. The environment was not Islamic.

People weren't really learning there was this culture of memorization to pass tests. That's about it. I didn't really see a culture of learning of, of intellectual pursuit or creativity. None of that existed. It was just a system of creating what I would call robots, right? People who just blindly follow in, spit back whatever the teachers how they Amanda's.

I became very disillusioned with the school system, very quickly, actually was only a school teacher for maybe two years maximum. And I realized that there's not the right job for me, I wouldn't be able to work within the system because I have very radical ideas about education. Right. Today, one of my main goals in life is to produce a new education system for the 21st century, which will be radically different

For what exists already, I found the school system to be inefficient. I found it to be producing blind followers, I found it to be too heavily controlled by the government. Even when it's Islamic schools, you still have to follow the government curriculum. So it's still heavily controlled by the government's I did not like it, I found it took too much time, right? You start school around the age of five, and you graduate around the age of 18. And really, there's like just five or six years worth of work that's covered in this huge period of time. And I'll mention this, but like when, when I dropped out of high school in grade eight, I skipped grade nine and grade 11. I just did grade 10,

and grade 12 from home.

And I realize that most of these grades are not important. Like there's literally nothing the schools covered in grade nine or grade 11 that I needed for life. Um, did I live a very successful life without probably skipping two years of school is like, what was the point of that of those two years of school? Like, what would I have gained if I wasted two years studying all that. So I don't want my kids to go into the system. And we want them to end up like everybody else. I wanted them. To have a love of learning, I wanted them to have to really develop a strong intellect, creativity, their own minds, but also to be religious connected to God and have good character. And was around

that time, I met a couple of mentors, one man and one lady, both of whom were at that time homeschooling their kids, and they were very successful. Both of them. Now the children are grown up. But after talking to these two different families, I became convinced that I want to homeschool as well. And they both basically served as my mentors during the early years, as we adapted to homeschooling. So that was quite a long time ago, because like I said, my eldest is turning 16 now and the at the end of the homeschooling journey. But yeah, the reason really was that I used to be a school teacher, and the system made absolutely no sense to me. And I didn't want to put my kids in

that system.

And I definitely because that that's quite interesting that you mentioned that we because you're currently based in South African our way, was, was your whole experience in South Africa? Or did you

move around to any other countries?

I did spend a little bit of time in India as a school teacher.

But as far as the system itself was concerned, it was the same, right? I mean, basically, the whole world is following this American system that the Rockefellers and then basically forced upon the world 100 years ago,

you know, and

wherever you go in the world, it's the same system. It was designed to create factory workers and employees who don't ask any questions that the system was designed for. That's right.

I like how you mentioned the this culture of memorization, because I

because I'm a revert myself, and so when I'm trying to learn things, I, I want to actually understand it properly. I don't want to just memorize something. So when I'm trying to teach something to my son, you know, it's time goes on shallot.

I wanted him to understand. So here in New Zealand, for example, there's

these meat, meat, these mini masjids lots of methods, but I noticed that there's no Well, there's only four Islamic schools in the whole country. And even then, again, like you said, they're very controlled that

there's some funding from the government, but not so much.

And it's, it's still that that same thing, that cultural memorization, so that love for learning is kind of lost as the children get older. And it's I noticed, you know, going into the other schools and looking because initially, I wasn't going to homeschool. I actually thought I would send my son to school. And then I noticed exactly the same thing you did, although I'm not a teacher. But I just I noticed that the kids as they got older, they started losing their

relationship with Allah because they actually didn't have a love for learning or they just memorized things. They didn't actually understand it. And I thought that it's actually quite sad. And I thought what's a better way to to, you know, not failed our children because we are obviously we are answerable for these things.

And I noticed in the Madras is as well, it's just, there's a separation of learning about Islam and learning about other subjects. And I noticed in your

one of the articles you wrote on your website, that during the Golden Age of Islam, that

these weren't actually separated like the secular subjects and Islamic Studies. Could you elaborate a little bit more on that of your your studies and find

Isn't that area?

Yeah, sure. So firstly, the, the Muslim world today is heavily influenced by colonialism, we haven't really shared the effects of colonialism and one of the effects of colonialism was the separation of education into religious and secular. This is something that basically, the British imposed upon Muslims when they conquered India, and Muslims basically inherited the system, and still seem to have this mindset today. But in reality, this is not from the teachings of Islam, like historically, before British colonialism, knowledge wasn't divided into secular and Islamic it was divided into beneficial and not beneficial. And it was the it was considered a virtue to seek any beneficial

knowledge. So the Madras has of Islam. If you go back to the Abasi, or the Ottoman eras, the madrasa would be a place where you could where you would learn fish and either have to, but it's also a place where you would learn algebra, and philosophy, and poetry, and science, all of this will be taught in the madrasa because it was seen as beneficial knowledge, right, each individual would seek the knowledge that benefits them. And this may differ from person to person, right, someone who wants to be a doctor, the knowledge that's going to benefit them is very different from someone who's going to be a tailor, or a blacksmith. So really, the emphasis in a slum has always been seek

beneficial knowledge and avoid that which does not benefit you. And this is a problem I have with the system, we have to deal with both the madrasa system and the school system is a lot of emphasis on memorizing things that don't benefit you. Things that you never going to use in life, just to pass an exam to pass the test. As with actually beneficial knowledge, and most of us will be into school, realize that after school, we had to teach ourselves the actual knowledge that matters. We had to do online courses, read books, because the schools didn't really teach us what we actually needed to thrive in life. So it's very important as Muslims that we go back to this framework that

as Muslims, we seek any knowledge that benefits the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that knowledge or wisdom is the lost property of the believer, wherever he finds it, he should take it. So whatever knowledge you find beneficial, whatever is going to bring some benefit to you or the Ummah or your family, go for it. This is Islamic Islamic to arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible of this world and the next

Subhanallah it says

that's true isn't attendance?

That kind of reminds me it's

over. Over here, there's also a attitude towards Islamic school. Well, if they're going to an Islamic school,

that doesn't necessarily matter, because they're going to be learning about us anyway. And they do seem to learn about other subjects. So,

you know, there is a little bit of an argument there, what what would you say to, you know, appearance that

would say, I would look at it that way and think, Well, they are going to Islamic school, they are learning about other secular subjects, like what would be the the other benefit of homeschooling and

yeah, sorry, I'll start with it one question before as the second half because it's, yeah, how do I have the system of people asked me like, what's the best way to teach their children I have like a order of, of priorities and my other priorities is like this. Number one would be homeschooling, the best way to educate, educate your child is homeschooling. If you can't homeschool, put them in an Islamic school. If you can't put them in a Islamic school, put them in a private school plus madrasa and last resort should be public school, like Muslims, as far as possible, especially living in non Muslim countries. Muslim country is a different story. But as far as Muslims living in non Muslim

countries, as far as possible, do not put your child in a public school. Right? So I would say that if a pair if you have a family, for example, and mom and dad are both working, and neither of them have the skills or the time to homeschool, I would say Yeah, going to Islamic school is better than going into public school. It's definitely

the lesser of the two, right? They will get some benefit out of it. They will be around other Muslims, they learn the basics of Islam.

You will be protected from some of the immorality that comes out of public school. But it's not going to be as effective as homeschooling for a number of reasons. Right? Number one

is that

for the most part, I don't want to attack all Islamic schools here because there are some amazing Islamic schools out there in the world. But for the most part, what I have found in many parts of the world is when people

Open Islamic schools, the Islam of that school is simply an Arabic name. Hijab is a uniform and Islamic studies as a subject that's thought once or twice a week. And if you fail Islamic Studies, fine, you still move on. So it's not a big deal. Right? That's it. That's as far as the slop. What's beyond that? Islam is almost not important to the school system, right. Like I've been, I've both studied in and taught at many different Islamic schools. And I found that Islam is not a priority. Many of the teachers themselves don't take Islam seriously. They ended up being bad role models for the students, right, that they will talk to the children about the Haram things they did, and the

students would want to, you know, follow in their footsteps.

And then the other problems with the school system are not fixed. So Muslims didn't develop their own school system and see the problem. Instead of developing our own school system, we call the Islamic school, we simply just took the secular system, and made a handful of minor adjustments and call it an Islamic school. So the problems are still there, the problem of just memorizing the problems of dividing between secular and religious, the problem of thinking secular knowledge is more important than religious knowledge, the problem of knowledge just being information rather than transformational. Yes, it's a big problem, right? In psychology, learning is defined as a permanent

change in behavior. Or in psychology, learning is defined as a permanent change in behavior, meaning, when you learn to walk, that's it, it changes you for life, right? When you learn to talk about something that's changed, or life, it should be the same learning anything about the religion or life should have a permanent impact on you. So if you just memorize the some dates of history, to pass a history exam, and that information has no impact on your personality, or your character or your relationship with God, then you haven't learned anything. It just memorize to pass an exam. So all these problems when with a secular school system, most of them are still there in the majority

of Islamic schools. So yes, it is the lesser of the two, if you don't have a choice that I would say, yes, put them in Islamic school. But homeschooling is going to give you a lot of advantages that the Islamic school doesn't, or the Islamic school still has a lot of drawbacks of the dominant school system.

That's true. I like what you said about the learning is a permanent change of behavior.

Because it really that actually is

a huge marker between homeschooling and even Islamic school. I never thought of it like that. To know your thank you for that. That's

that's a nice way to put it, because that would be a good way to assess learning, wouldn't it be? So how would you assess your children when, for example, how the public schools some exclusive and they have great grade 123, blah, blah, and so forth?

How would you assess your children and a particular subject? Would you base it on that seeing if they've actually implemented different behaviors from these particular lessons such as, for example, you teach about learning about the golden age of Islam? How would you kind of roughly assess that, for example?

Yeah, so I'm actually not a fan of the assessment system. I don't believe when you introduce exams and things to the picture, then the whole motivation of learning changes, and it becomes just about passing the exam. So I'm not a fan of that system. However, just for the sake of meeting legal requirements, my kids do take the exams with a local school and get a report through a local school, just to meet the minimum legal requirements for homeschooling in this country, right. But for me, that's always not important. Like even if they don't do well in school, and they just pass I don't really care because

I don't find these exams or these marks to mean anything in the long run. For me, I always tell my my kids that listen, as long as you grow up to be good Muslims with good character, you'll make a difference in this world. You work hard, you get your own families, great. You treat your families, well, you raised them properly. That's what matters, right? That's what matters, not what you got on a school report, not what grade you got for history in in grade five. None of that really matters in the long run. So for me, I don't really care that much about the grades and the reports. We just do it to meet the legal requirements. What I do do is I watch my kids. I watch them and I assist a

character. I assess whether they're preying on time, or whether they treat each other

out, you know? Are they developing good qualities? Are they hardworking, that they have a habit of reading? Are they thinking long term or division? Do they have a vision about the future, I watch them and I assess these things. Because this also helps me to identify gaps in their learning. So I know what to teach them with, I feel like the kids are getting lazy with their salah, I will teach them a book on the virtues of Salah. Right? If I feel like they're getting disconnected from nature, we will go out and spend a few days in the mountains, hiking and horse riding and being connected with nature. So for me, it's not so much about exams. It's more about observing them and observing

what kind of people are they growing into, to me, this is far more important than any mark that they would have in their reports a subject.

Marcia over that's, that's a really holistic way to look at it. And this is what you're saying, going back to what you were saying before, this is the truth and sort of Islam. This is what education is beneficial knowledge and skills for a lifetime, as opposed to just short term accomplishments and achievements per this, this particular standard.

I wanted to get into

kind of a mother's role in Islam, because

here, for example, I'm not sure what it's like in South Africa. But here in New Zealand, it's very

separated so that this school is somewhat has kind of become a parent, even in the Muslim community as well. So we've just kind of relied on, you know, the kids are gonna learn this at school. So we don't really need to do this at home, or

they're going to Madras or so. There's there's not really a bond created with, with the children. So I mean, there's a couple of things in that. Number one, would it be? Is it considered haram to send your

child to a public school knowing what you know, they're teaching?

And secondly,

what is mother's role in Assam?

From a general purpose perspective, and also, from a specific perspective?

This is an excellent question that gets to the heart of the issue. modernity has completely ruined the family structure and the family system. And this is becoming a crisis in the West families are imploding, people have no relationship with their parents. And now people don't even want to get married or have children. And this is going to cause the collapse of society. And all of it is related, right? Whether it's the rise of certain movements in the West, or whether it's the school system, what capitalism, all of its linked, all of it works has worked together to completely destroy the concept of family and what comes natural. So in Islam, we know that the mother is the

heart of the household, that a child has a bond and a duty towards the mother for life, that paradise lies under the mother's feet. But why? Well, because historically, your mom is your first school, right? Historically, until 200 years ago, the default was that all kids were homeschooled. And mom would always be the first teacher. And when they were old enough, you may send them to a mentor and apprentice or madrasa or school or whatever it was. But Mum was always the primary teacher of a child. And Allah has blessed woman with this nurturing, loving nature that most men lack, that allows them to thrive in this role of of teaching children. That's why even today, most

school teachers a woman, right, because it comes more naturally to a woman to teach and to nurture children than it does to men. Because it's part of being a mother. So historically, the norm was that from the time a child is born, likely up 789 10 years old. They are what mum, they are learning from Mum. And she is shaping the personality. She's connecting them with God. She is teaching them how to read how to write how to have good character, this is a important part of the education system. And it's not a primary part of the education system is in Islam is started being that people are raised with good character with Islamic manners and what they understand the duties towards

others, they understand their place in society, they understand how to treat people, well. This is taught from the very beginning. And it's usually mum who leads with this she's the one who teaches the kids the manners and characters they need to have. So when they are old enough to now leave the home, they do so already having this character built into them. So they go out into the world with good manners and good character with a connection to God and with a sense of duty towards the community. And now what modernity has done, it has it has separated mother from child in a variety of different ways.

Capitalism has made the cost of living so high that mothers and fathers by

would need to work. In some cases, they need to work two jobs each, leaving them completely exhausted with no time or energy to be loving or nurturing with their children. Right, they just exhausted all the time from overworking. And then we have other movements that have demeaned motherhood, right? Many movements in the West demean motherhood and consider the type of slavery and a type of middle holding woman back. And so it made that painted this picture of a woman who is focused on raising her children, then she's backwards, or she's trapped, or she's a slave. But in reality, she's doing the most important work shaping the minds of the next generation. And then the

school system comes in and it becomes this babysitter. And she I like the way you put it becomes this new parent. So during the formative years of a person's life, from the age of five, until the age of 18, they barely spent any time with mom or dad, and the majority of the hours are in school. And the school is shaping the personality, it's shaping their morals, it's shaping their outlook on life. It's shaping who they are, the school becomes the parent and the parents become strangers. And this is very dangerous. And this is unnatural. And this is creating the situation that the world is in today, where we now have children who have no love or respect for their parents, we now have a

parents who don't even know the children, right? Like nowadays, we deal with so many cases where a teenager may be fornicating, and taking drugs, and doing all these things. And the parents are clueless because they have no relationship with a child. So they don't even know what's going on in the child's life at all. And they are getting completely ruined by the system. And going back to the other question you asked like, Would it be permissible to send your child to public school, I'm not one for just declaring things to be haram.

I will just say that it should be the last resort if there's no other options. But many of my teachers declare public school in a non Muslim country to be haram. One of them were just for us to see spiritual suicide, you are killing your child's Imam if you send them to such an environment. So yes, many of my teachers actually held the view and still hold the view that sending a child to a public school in a non Muslim country is haram, because you're essentially handing over their souls to the non Muslims to be shaped in whichever way they want, which is complete opposite of what a Muslim parent is supposed to be doing.

Definitely, I I definitely, I love how you summed it up there. It's I definitely agree with that, because there's there's a lot of sisters here

that struggling to get their husbands on board with the idea of home homeschooling. So

they're not actually and that was another reason why I wanted to get your point of view as

you're educated in the field of Islam as well on this issue, because

a lot of the sisters are trying to find how do I also be, you know, obedient to my husband and be respectful, but try and get them to understand the, the importance and the essence of this issue about, you know, not sending our children to public school, you know, especially if we can, you know, choosing not to how what advice would you give in that situation?

Where the sisters are struggling to convince their husband home school, what kind of resources or tools would you use to,

to get them to kind of transition to understand the importance of this long term for the children of the next generation.

Okay, so, I would in this case, propose that the mother offers the father a

she, she she basically makes a deal with him

to let me try this for one year. Right, Mr. Come up with this kind of idea that listen, I really want to homeschool the kids. I know you don't like the idea. But I have the resources. I have the mentors, I have the skills of passionate about it. I feel this is best for the children's character and personality in the long run. Let us try it for one year. And if after one year, if you feel like we wasted our time, or it didn't work out, then we will have this conversation again. Right, because a lot of the fathers may not realize that.

What are the benefits of homeschooling. And you'd be amazed in just one year of homeschooling, how you can completely change a child's personality. You know, like I I met kids who like when they were in school. Now just one kid I was dealing with when he was in school, he was depressed. Some of his teachers actually worried that he was suicidal. And he was getting bad grades and he was unsociable and

Then his mom pulled him out and started homeschooling him. And hum de la, he's he's got a vision, he's got a, he works hard. He's he's deeply intellectual, he has his his he has, like one of his hobbies is history. Right. And she had a completely different personality from from what he was like in school. And if his mom didn't take him out of school and try homeschooling for a year, we don't know what could have happened to him, because school is a very depressing environment, it kills your intellect, it kills your love of learning, without fathers won't realize the benefits of homeschooling until they see it for themselves. So firstly, I would invite mothers to get some men

to speak to their husbands, you know, maybe get him to watch some podcasts or, or or listen to a podcast on this topic, or maybe share some success stories with them of other homeschool families. And

if the husband is still hesitant, then make a deal. Let me try it for one year. And if it doesn't work out, we'll talk about it again. I think trying something for one year, it puts less pressure instead of saying we're taking our kid out of school for life. This is just one year.

Most kids are the age where even if they drop out of school for one year, and they go back, they still be at a decent age to be in or whatever, grade eight and why it wouldn't make that big of a difference. So that makes it easier for some for them to give it a shot. If you tell them it's just for one year.

That's good. That's great advice. That's excellent advice. And you mentioned that you have

you know, a radical idea of the education system and and what you want it to look like.

Could you get? Could you give us an idea of what?

Obviously, that will take a bit of time to explain. I'm just conscious of time. But what in an ideal world? What would you want the education system to look like? And

how would that be implemented across the board with other Muslim families? What would you want everybody to kind of be homeschooling in a perfect world or

a different set of schooling? Is you kind of touched on a little bit before? Yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. And so this is my long term passion project that I work on on the side. And I don't think I have any actual results for this until 10 or 15 years down the line. But basically, what happened was once I started homeschooling and mentoring other people in homeschooling, it became very clear to me very quickly that homeschooling is not for everyone, that this isn't the solution that we can mass, outsource, so you can't get every family in the world to start homeschooling. Some parents are just overwhelmed. Some don't have the skills, some don't have the time.

Some have no clue what to do. Some get overwhelmed and overburdened too easily. And for many, many families, you know, both mom and dad have no choice but to work full time because the cost of living is so high. So homeschooling isn't for everyone. It's not easy. I always tell people, as someone who worked multiple jobs and runs multiple businesses, homeschooling is the hardest thing I ever did. It takes them a lot more emotional and intellectual effort than almost anything else I do. Because you, you're dealing with your own kids, and you're shaping their minds, and you have to teach them and you have to prepare and you make mistakes, and you learn. So it's not for everyone. So I think

sometimes I think, what could be for everyone, how do we fix this because school is a terrible system. It's a terrible, terrible system. On so many levels, we have to fix it. Furthermore, not only is school a terrible system, but now it's outdated. We really don't need it anymore. We have the internet, like you can learn anything on my one of my kids taught himself how to read by the age of five, through the internet, and the resources that are given like he taught himself how to read, you'll need school to learn how to read or to do math or anything these days. So I decided to do some thinking ask myself if school didn't exist. And I had to design an education system, you know,

from scratch, like nothing existed? What would the education system look like? I'm still working on it. But I'll share with you some of the ideas I came up with. Number one, it wouldn't be anything more than five or seven years. I don't think school needs to be 13 years. This is it's ridiculous. Really. It's ridiculous. The idea that school needs to be 13 years, on some countries even longer than especially if someone's going to school from the age of five, and then they go into university and going all the way up to PhD. By the time they finish their studies. They are they've already lost out on the best years of their lives. Right.

So if you look at the Muslim world how it was in the past, yeah, your mom would teach you until

You like 10, or 11, or 12. And then you would go to university. And so we find like the great doctors and scholars and stuff, they were already teaching and working by the age of 17, or 18. Or so that was a very different system for what we have today. So the first thing I would change is, school would only have to be five or seven years, right? Not 13 years, that's the first major change. Because even Islamically, you aren't adult, a puberty, right, this is the big thing that people don't understand these days, in Islam, you're an adult at puberty, and what school has done, it has created this phase from the age of 15, to 18, where you are getting mixed messages, where

when you do anything wrong, he will tell you, you're an adult, now you need to grow up. Or when you try to do anything for yourself, they tell you, you're still a child, until you do that when you turn 18 or 21. That's right, it's great. It's really strange phase where you don't know if you're an adult or a child, and people treat you differently based on what suits them Islamically you an adult. So to me school should be from the age of seven to the age of 13. That's it. After that, it should be they should go to university, or they should get a mentor or they should start working, or they can start their life at the age of 14 or 15. I don't see why school has to be all the way to

age 18, it doesn't make any sense of what we find is that this that phase of school where everything goes off the rails, right, where you got all of these post puberty, people shedding a school where you've got your 15 year old and 16 year old boys and girls sitting in the same classroom. And they all got these hormones running through them. And they've been told you're still a child, but you're an adult. But all of this and then you have all these stories of Siena and teenage pregnancies hold on this, this is because you put them in an unnatural situation. So one thing I will definitely change is the age, I would say that school would be from age seven to age 13, or 14. And also,

it would only be five to seven years. The other thing that I would change is I would change what I'm trying to work on is called new systems of learning, not teaching learning. Because I realize to homeschooling and through being a part, an educator, that people don't really, you can't really teach people and you can't really teach people, but everyone can learn when they are passionate about something. So for example, if I had to force adults to try and learn a new language, they won't learn it. But if an adult moves to a new country where people speak a certain language, he or she will make the effort to learn that language on their own because it's important to them now. So

it's not teaching that's important. It's learning that's important. Right? Let me give you an example of this

history.

In school history is considered the most boring and useless subject. Nobody wants to learn history, right? It's considered boring. It's called considered useless just memorizing facts. Well, guess what? I recorded a 30 video history of Islam series, I put it up on my website, I thought maybe 2030 People will download it and and, and listen to it. To date, almost 2000 people have paid for and download it and watch the entire series. So there's 2000 People who own their own, wanted to learn history. So they paid for the resource, they listened to it, they learnt it. And if you talk to them about it, they now have a much more deeper understanding of history compared to someone who was

forced at knowledge in school. So ask yourself what what's the difference here? Why, why? Why is it in school? It's so hard to learn history. But outside of school people are so passionate to learn history. It's because nothing's been done yet. Right? Firstly, I use the new system of learning, a recorded online course that you study at your own pace, whatever you want to use is a whole new system of learning. But also the learning comes from the individual side is what they are passionate about. It's not something forced on them. So what I would want to do in the long run is create a system of education where only the basic fundamental knowledge is like, bought in an obligatory way.

And by basic fundamental knowledge, I mean language, maths, and religion primarily. right for me, those are the three basics manglik, language, maths, religion, and bad as a character.

And besides that, it will be like an education center, where you have access to resources. So if you want to learn how to

how to build something, there's a carpet in the carpenter that you can meet up with. And you can go and learn with Him and He will teach it to you. If you want to learn certain things in the library. There is just computers that you can access. If you want to do sports the coaches do, they can help you in this word sports. But basically, it should come from your site, that you go to this place and you study what you want to study and to just a handful of things that

Everybody has to study, right, which is basically what I consider the the, the necessities to get through life.

So but the language of Max but of religion about

matters and and character and some life states. And beyond that it should be you choose what you want to learn, we give you the access to resources. So I'm not even calling it school, I'm calling it new systems of learning. That's what I'm focusing on. And, again, the idea is still very,

it's very much in the early developmental phase, it will probably take me a long, long time to actually turn this into something that's, that can launch a pilot project, or what my long term vision is, to find a country where the homeschooling rules are flexible enough that I can actually launch a pilot model. And once you have a pilot model running for 1015 years, you can show people it's successful. And then you can branch out have a second, a third or fourth, and maybe the idea can catch on and become a new system that people adapt globally. But again, this is a lifetime project. This is not a short term project, right? This is something you dedicate your entire life

to. And you don't expect to see results maybe even in your own lifetime. But I'm passionate about this, I really feel we need to fix this for the sake of future generations for the sake of the Ummah we really need to break away from the colonial education system and create something new something that's our own something that's rooted in our religion and focuses on helping people reach their full potential and ask Allah to hug me to do so.

Inshallah inshallah Masha Allah, this is a, this is a beautiful project, because I was I was just thinking while you were talking that Subhanallah it's like,

the current school system, whether it's in the Islamic or the public system, no matter what country you go on, you're right, it seems like it's just prolonging adolescence, and encouraging the exact opposite of what we're supposed to be doing in Assam.

And I wanted to ask, how will the system that you've just described the system of learning?

How will this system contribute to the, to the AMO long term? What would you

envision the result to be as opposed? Because you've just explained the process now what what you're envisioning and what you'd like to see. And that's still kind of a work in progress. But in the end, in the end goal, what would you like to

see as a,

as a system? How will this system contribute to the to the long term results of the Alma?

So for me, the goal of a CI system would be that we produce thinkers, we produce Muslims who can think for themselves, who are creative, who have a love of learning. And if you now have a nation of thinkers, we can now each of them would start working on fixing different problems of the ummah. Right. But as long as we all just blind followers, as long as they all just people going with the flow and trying to be like everybody else, nothing gets fixed, right? What what what we have across the world today, in both the Muslim world and the West, are many colonial projects that are still in place, the school system being one of them. And these projects are holding us back from our full

potential. There are many young Muslims who if they were given the right resources, and the right knowledge, and the right environment, it could be global leaders, there could be people who change the world, we go back to the golden age of Islam, where it's where education wasn't forced, but it was encouraged where instead of having forced curriculum, everybody had to memorize, there was this culture of learning and thriving and fulfilling your potential. In that environment. Muslims created the likes of of doctors who changed the field of medicine, people who invented algebra, people who change almost every field, you can think of the they made important contributions to it, people were

polymax, we look at the people of that generation, they were polymaths, like somebody would be an expert in Islam, but they also be a mathematician and a scientist and a philosopher. Why? Because instead of a force system of memorizing, they had a culture of learning. They had a culture where knowledge was encouraged, and where people could really try and reach their full potential. And it really makes me sad, when I see that already, the OMA has so much problems. And on top of all of these problems, we have young people who are just being taught to blindly follow and never to think and never to grow unable to reach their full potential. So for me, this would be a opening of the

doors of change in how people think. So now we all just think no

The average person, they just thinks like, yeah, you go to school, you go to university, you work a job, you retire, right. So they have this fracture way of thinking, I want people to stop thinking like that. I want people to think outside of that I want people to start thinking in terms of, I can do what I want, as long as it's not around, I can invent something new, I can change this, I can fix that, just like this guy, change the school system, and it came up with a new education system, maybe I can do the same for the economy, maybe I can do the same for helping parents, maybe I could do something for helping the elders, maybe I can do, again, to create something that helps offense,

maybe again, create something that helps the poor, you know, help, we need to become people who invent systems, not people who just blindly bottle and follow other people's systems. And our systems need to be rooted in our religion and our culture. They need to be organically Islamic. So our system should be one we have a young age, a child grows up with a relationship with Allah, that they have a bond with Allah, Allah. And this is going to come from just rote memorization is going to come from being in a proper culture and environment where you can do these things. So really, the goal for me is to produce thinkers, whether it's with homeschooling, whether it's with all my online

projects, like Islamic self help online courses, or my books, and even with this long term project, I want us to once again, become a nation of thinkers just like we were during the Golden Age of Islam.

Mashallah, that's a

that's, that's a great way to look at things. Because

if we how you're mentioning here, it's like we are collective in the system is what we're meant to be collective anyway, to have this idea of contribution ism, as opposed to consumerism. So

definitely, I think that, that the education part that you're trying to fix here, insha, Allah is going to contribute to long term changes.

You mentioned live schools, I wanted to just touch on that quickly.

I'm conscious of time as well. So be sure questions.

Life Skills, what would you

assign as life skills that would be required for not just your own children, but generally speaking, because I remember, I mean, I'm not an expert in the golden age of Assam, I'm still learning and I want to take your course as well.

On that, that was quite descriptive and detailed. There was also a lot about navigation. And,

you know, I learned about the how a lot of the stars were actually named Arabic names as well. And they use that to navigate where they were going, would you say, you know, as one example, navigation should be a life skill that

is relearned going forward? Or what other life skills would you would you suggest to learn?

Or have less

than domain life skills? To me? The way I put it for my kids is, can you take care of yourself? i

The

the scenario the fictional scenario given my kids? Is it the zombie apocalypse had to happen and you left in your Can you fend for yourself? Can you take care of yourself? That's what I know you have life skills.

And one of the things that's different between Islam and modern school system is like you see, the modern school system extends adolescence, right? While in Islam, you're supposed to be raising men and woman not raising children. So my kids by the age of 12 1314, all of them can survive on their own, like, I can leave their home alone for two or three nights and they'll be fine. They all know how to cook. They all know how to play. They all know how to take care of themselves. They have studied martial arts, they have weapons, they can defend themselves if necessary. They know how to look after themselves. Like if something had to happen, they are able to fend for themselves. I've

taught them how to earn money. I've taught you how to save money, how to invest in money, how to look for a job, how to learn new skills, if you ever want to pivot to a different career. For me, it's simply a matter of, can you take care of yourself. That to me is life skills, that if you have a 13 year old who can take care of himself or herself, and you have a 25 year old who still relies on mommy and daddy for everything, then the 13 year old is more educated than a 25 year old. And that is what what I refer to by life skills. So teaching kids from a very young age how to cook, teaching them how to care for home, teaching them practical self defense, right teaching them how to

stay safe. I live in a country that has a very high crime rate. So especially in the country like this, they needed to learn self defense, they needed to learn how to take care of themselves, how to stay safe,

you know, and teaching them any of these type of skills, the other skills like navigation and

It's all depends where you live and whether it's necessary or not. But primarily, you look at the country that you're living in, and the life that that you need to do. And for me lifestyle simply boiled down to being able to take care of yourself. So like, if me and my wife had to get sick, and neither of us can do anything with folding bed for a few days, I know my house will still run well, because all of my kids know how to do everything. Right, and they will step up in DC remote sick, which didn't happen during COVID. Actually, we both got sick, and the kids just ran everything themselves until we got better. So that This to me is what is life skills? Can you take care of

yourself? Can you take care of a hole? Can you take care of your parents? That's life skills? Mashallah, you summed that something up really well there. So I feel like I've learned a lot just in this in the short chat. Please, really appreciate it. And I got lots of more direction and learning to go through as well. I wanted to just close up with one more thing. What would you recommend, say? anyone was looking at your website, and they wanted to start with a course and they didn't know which one to begin with? What would you recommend as a starting point, to just get them started?

I would recommend to do my history of Islam course, because that is my most popular course. And it's for everybody. So literally everybody like men, women, children, elderly.

People across all walks of life, I study that course and everyone finds it beneficial. So it's the most open to everyone, right. But particularly if you're feeling overwhelmed with parenting, or homeschooling, I do have online courses on parenting and on marriage and homeschooling. So if you're looking for one of these specific areas, I have detailed online courses that help guide you through the fundamentals of parenting, or marriage, or homeschooling. But really, if there's something for everybody that you can study, and your child can study and elders can study, a history course is my most popular resource. And I'm hoping to have it published as a book next year as well, in Sharla,

working with either at the moment, but that's the best starting point because I believe, as a OMA, we are disconnected from our history. And when you understand your history, you're able to make more sense of where we are at now and what's needed for us to move forward as well. So that's why I put a lot of emphasis into teaching history and writing about history and reconnecting the OMA with its history.

That's, that's awesome. So I'll make a note of that as well for the sisters here and our Muslim carp that have started as well. So we'll definitely get onto that. Thank you shake for your time today. Really appreciate it. Insha Allah looking forward to more content and things that are going to come out from your personal project as well insha Allah may Allah bless you on your journey, and as I click it

is appropriate for her to me Salah Haleakala welcome Islam