The Power of Teaching – An Opportunity to Shape Lives

Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Shake a smile, if you could just confirm and if others also can confirm if I'm audible to all of you.

Okay, hamdulillah Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim, we begin In the name of Allah subhanho wa Taala. We praise Him. And we thank him for giving us an opportunity to come together for a new brand new semester, the fall of 2018. And the topic that I shall be speaking on and making my presentation on, is the power of teaching an opportunity to shape lives. Now, the topic, the power of teaching, and opportunity to shape lives conveys a strong sense of responsibility, just looking at the slide in front of you should make you feel extremely responsible as teachers. And you will often find that we tend to talk about the need to have good institutions, we talk about having more educational

institutions, we talk about creating more literates amongst our people in our society, the Muslim society. But not often do we find ourselves discussing about the need to have teachers who are well prepared, not only in the subject matter, but also prepared to understand the social and emotional needs of the students. And that's a very important point that I wish to make at this point of time, that many of us tend to think that teaching is Murli, coming and addressing the academic concerns of the students. Teaching is all about understanding what the student wants, and giving him or her a solution. However, from an Islamic perspective, and really, even from a conventional perspective,

teaching is much more about Murli addressing attack academic concerns. It is about pushing the students into lateral thinking. Now I'm using the new term lateral thinking, one may wonder what is lateral thinking, because we all have heard of terms like critical thinking, but what is lateral thinking, and when to give you a short definition of lateral thinking, you can always do your study and your research and understand what exactly the term means and how we can apply it in our teaching responsibilities in our teaching duties. Now, lateral thinking is about solving problems. But using a creative approach. It is typically viewing a problem from a new light

from an unusual perspective, not the regular perspective from which everyone views it. So when we talk of lateral thinking, we're saying that we need to push our students to stop thinking about problems from new perspective, to look out for solutions from a different perspective. But whatever the perspectives are, at the Islamic online university, we are ensuring that all these different perspectives should be within the Islamic Sharia, the Islamic principles. And that is the beauty about working at Islamic online university, that we are not only able to provide a lateral thinking approach, but we are also able to tell them that which one of them is falling within the Islamic

Sharia perspective, which of them are following within Islamic ethical principles? Subhana Allah?

How does this differ from critical thinking? Because this term critical thinking is something which many of you must be familiar with, and many of you would be using it. Critical thinking is all about judging the true value of a certain statement. For example, the statement in front of you the power of teaching an opportunity to shape lives. When I say critically analyze the statement, you try to view the statement, try to see the truthfulness in the statement and try to seek out errors in the statement. That's critical thinking. But we are deferring it from lateral thinking and at Islamic online university. We promote the culture of lateral thinking. We don't want our students to Murli

think like any other university students would. Now hope this point is made clear to all of you. So the idea of lateral thinking is to move from one known idea which everyone does, which everyone has to something which is creation of new ideas, we need to become idea generators. And that should be the perspective

With each of you, teachers, each of you, faculty members must adopt in your teaching methodology.

Now, let's move further there is another important point that I have to make over here. And that is about the role of the teachers

in Islamic Society.

And we are saying that the teachers are the most influential people in the society, if you see the profession of all the prophets of Allah, it was about teaching. The prophets of Allah played the role of a teacher. They came to teach the nations, they came to guide the nations towards the religion of Allah subhanho wa Taala. And no less than our own Beloved Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, even he was

a teacher,

Omar el hombre de la and who has famously said, that the death of 1000 worshipers is easier to bear for this oma, then to bear the depth of a single scholar who has the knowledge of what Allah has permitted, and what Allah has forbidden.

While this statement of primitive Nell kaptara, the law and who is can be closely associated to the knowledge of the Islamic principles, I wish to make all of you teachers over here who are present. Some of you are from the Islamic Studies Department. Some of you are from the Islamic psychology department, the BB a department, the IB department, and so on and so forth. I'm telling that each of you who are present in this room today, this statement of Mr. Malhotra, the law and who applies to each one of you, because at Islamic online university, you are not Murli teaching the subjects from the conventional perspective, we are focusing on teaching every single course from an Islamic

perspective, giving them an Islamic perspective to everything whether it is counseling, whether it is Business Administration, whether it is financial transactions, and of course Islamic Studies. And Allah subhanho wa Taala says in the Quran in surah mucho de la Ayah number 11. Allah elevates to high position those from amongst you who are believers, and those of you who have been given knowledge. So the importance of the teacher, the importance of the one who has been given the knowledge is not only mentioned in the Hadith, and the sayings of the companions of the Prophet, but it is also testified by the Creator, Allah subhanho wa Taala, who has mentioned it pretty clearly

that the status of one who has been bestowed knowledge and he is a believer is elevated in the sight of Allah subhanho wa Taala.

Another very famous Hadith of the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam was that he said, teach others make things easy for the people around you. Do not make it difficult for them. And when you are in a state of anger, keep silent. This statement of the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam should be put up in front of your soft boats. It should be there memorized and present in your mind every time you sit down to address your students. What is the statement it says teach others make things easy? Not difficult. And when you are in a state of anger, keep silent. Now wish to break down this Hadees and see how does this apply to each one of us? The Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam is saying teach

others naturally when the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam is saying to teach others we mean that you have to teach others about the Islamic principles as well as the conventional knowledge from the Islamic perspective. The evidence of that is the Hadith of the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam several of them were the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam has spoken on medical issues. He's spoken on counselling, he's spoken on financial transaction, things which are not directly related to a bother. It has more to do with our day to day lives, things where we transact and earn money, but the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam has given us guidelines which is he's given us Islamic

perspective to it. So the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam is commanding the believers to teach. So this aspect of teaching is

fulfillment of the command of the Prophet alayhi salatu was Salam. So each of you teachers over here, you are fulfilling the Sunnah of the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam. And then he said make things easy. The methodology of teaching is explained in just these three words make things easy, using different mediums to teach using the audio video system using the slides using case studies, using proper mic system, many of you will be teaching new courses, which would require weekly live sessions you will have to ensure that you have proper mic systems, because they are all part of ensuring that the knowledge transfer is made easy.

The language barriers which are there, you need to break those the cultural barriers which are there, I see people over here who are from different parts of the world. There's somebody who's from Africa, someone from Pakistan, someone from India, someone from Kashmir, from different parts of the world, that people who are sitting in Europe right now, all of you are here in this room, and all of you will be interacting with students who are spread across the different continents. cultural barriers will be something which will be a big challenge facing each one of you. Remember the command of the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam make things easy. So when there are cultural value

barriers, you need to learn how to overcome those. Then the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam said don't make it difficult, using simpler explanations, avoiding complications, and this is something which the witch bill already not below the anonibet beg your pardon. But Dr. Bilal Philips has told me on several occasions that whenever we are talking about Arabic terminologies, we must try and substitute them with English terms, because many of the people don't understand they find it confusing. So this is a message to each one of you as well, that when you are teaching and humbling, Allah has granted you knowledge, but try and use less complicated terms, terminologies and try to

give easiest substitutes, don't be rigid. And this is the beauty of the dean, the dean is all about flexibility, don't always say this is heroin and close the doors. I mean, the great scholar of the Muslim Ummah, has said, that whenever you say this is haram and you close the door, you need to give an alternative to your community to your people. So as teachers, when you will tell them, this is not permitted, this is not permissible. Don't leave them in a state of closed knowledge, you know, they have no other options, give them other alternatives, give them other choices. And if there are no alternatives, push them to seek halaal alternatives. And that is all about lateral thinking. We

said creation of new ideas within Islamic perspective.

And the last command was in that Hadith, the exercising of self control in case of anger.

Whenever we teach, whenever we have to make decisions, dealing with students, you will face problems because of the cultural barriers because of the language barriers. Some people when they draft email, you might find that they are extremely

Jani rude in terms of the statements and the words that they have used the track suffered. But how do you react to that? You must a remember the Hadith of the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam that strongest is not he who fights but he who restrains his anger. So the first step is always restrain your anger. And then the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa Salaam has also implored us to remain silent when possessed with anger, remain silent, rather seek alternative ways of dealing with the problem. And hamdulillah I think we're very fortunate that we have amongst us the faculty manager shake his smile founder who if you go to him with these kinds of challenges where the students have reacted in a

certain manner Mashallah he comes up with excellent solutions. I personally have benefited from his knowledge, and I would urge each one of you to also seek his assistance whenever you face these kinds of challenges.

Towards the conclusion of my presentation, I want to go back to the second statement in front of you in the slide, an opportunity to shape lives. today. Each of you who are present in this room have an opportunity to guide the flock that has been given to you the students. You have an opportunity to give them the knowledge not only of the dean

But the knowledge of the dunya from the Islamic perspective, this knowledge of the dunya will become part of the subconscious knowledge which they shall continue applying till the end of their life. If you are able to

transfer that knowledge, with humility, with sincerity,

you will be teaching them business matters from an Islamic perspective, can you imagine that you teach them ethical means of dealing in businesses, and they apply till the end of their life. And for that not only do you get the reward, but you also are awarded, you teach them financial transactions from Islamic perspective for which not only they are rewarded for dealing in the right manner, but because you are the source of the knowledge, even you shall be rewarded till the end of you know, it becomes like a sacajawea for you.

You teaching them counseling from an Islamic perspective. And when you teach them counseling, imagine the number of lives that these people will be impacting in their course of life, and how many people they who are benefiting from them, for each of those people who have benefited, you shall be rewarded. And this is like a cycle, it will this is like a chain reaction, it will continue multiplying, each of you will be rewarded for it. So we have an A, we have an amazing opportunity to benefit to shape the lives of the people, we need to understand the benefit of changing their perspective Today, many of the people who are going to join us today at the Islamic online

university have studied conventional knowledge. They don't have an Islamic perspective. Today you have an opportunity to change their approach, change the thought process. And with that change, you also become part of the change you also become part of the reward. Earlier the Alon who famously said that we are in need of people of actions, and not people who merely speaks and this takes me again back to where I started from lateral thinking. If you are able to encourage lateral thinking along with critical analysis, you will be able to create people of actions. Today we are in need of leaders, we are in need of people who are able to transform lives. We are in need of people who are

able to bring about changes, not Murli in need of people who talk at the time of the Prophet alayhi salatu was Salam. The poet community was very small. There were likes of Hassan bin sabot. But they were very small in numbers. The numbers of people who brought about changes in the lives of people in terms of actual were many. So there is the need of the likes of Hassan when Sabbath, but we need more of American alpha, Bob and Charlie and Osman and Abubakar mela, be pleased with all of them. We have to create people of action, create leaders create people who transform nation through education, to knowledge to wisdom, and my respected teachers, my respected faculty members, you are

the one who can drive this change. And you have been given this opportunity. And we are fortunate to have each of you at Islamic online university to make changes in the lives of so many students who are part of our university. Well, with that I would like to conclude my presentation barakallahu li Kaushik is my co founder for giving me an opportunity to make my presentation was Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh