Mirza Yawar Baig – What is real education
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
My dear respected brothers, sisters, elders,
the topic of my hope for today is
what
is real education?
What is real education? We have a lot
of confusion
with this word education.
The purpose of education
is to civilize
the individual.
To connect the human being to his creator
so that he recognizes him,
has a relationship with him, strives to please
him, relies on his mercy,
and looks forward to his forgiveness.
The purpose of the education is give is
to give the child ethics,
values, and morals,
which are timeless and fundamental
and the confidence to live his or her
life by those values.
Without that,
it is not education.
To learn a skill,
to make a living,
no matter what that skill is,
is called training,
not education.
They are as different as chalk and cheese.
Flying a plane,
driving a 16 wheeler,
designing software,
operating on somebody's heart or brain, building a
table, fixing an air conditioner or kitchen sink,
and countless more
are essential
skills.
We need all of them,
but they are all of them without exception
training,
not education.
Education begins
with ethics,
morals, and values.
That is the why
which drives the how
in this world.
That is the why
which drives the
how. That is the reason
which drives the method.
We must teach those who know how
to ask why.
So that technology and resources
are used for the right causes.
That
is what Rasool
Allah did in Makkah.
He changed people's thinking and decision making criteria.
When they changed their focus from this life
to the Aqira,
their speech and actions
changed
and society was transformed.
Just ask
how our society
would be different
if, for example,
we define
economic well-being
not by the number of billionaires or millionaires,
but by the absence of poverty.
That is why GDP is such a misleading
number.
Instead, if you look at disposable household income
or buying power, we will get a far
more accurate picture
of our society's
economic well-being.
Rasool gave
us proof of concept that this works.
It is our job
to implement it.
We need education which is relevant,
current
and rooted in the foundation of Islam.
Education in which those being educated are fully
involved in all decision making.
The children decide,
not the
teachers or the administration or the parents. The
children decide
because
it is their future that we are talking
about.
Education, which prepares them for a world about
which
we really know nothing.
And so the only thing we can give
them are tools
and the framework of ethical and moral values
to use them efficiently in their decision making.
We must be coaches who teach them how
to play the game, but when they are
playing, we can only watch from the sidelines.
And if we did a good job, then
we can rejoice in seeing how well they
learned the lessons and applied them to be
victorious.
To succeed,
we need to educate
ourselves
and learn how to be good coaches.
This is the generation gap, thanks to which
many parents have been reduced to be ATM
machines,
which provide funds
for what their children want to do. They
cannot guide the children because they don't understand
their world.
They have no communication
with the children, and the children do not
look up to them as guides and mentors.
I'm not talking about showing respect.
I'm talking about actual respect,
which will make the child come to the
parent as the first port of call when
he or she needs guidance,
Not just money.
We know exactly where we stand with respect
to that.
If this does not apply to you, Alhamdulillah.
All part of you.
But if it applies to you,
then ask yourself, how much longer you want
to wait to change that?
Allah defined
the meaning of education
and
the way to do it.
Where he said in Suratul Al Imran,
In the set of ayats from Surat Al
Imran,
Allah
said, Indeed, in the creation of the heavens
and the earth
and the alternation of the day and the
night, there are signs for people of intelligence.
And then Allah described who they are. Allah
said, they are those
who remember Allah
standing,
sitting, and lying on their sides
and reflect on the creation of the heavens
and the earth. And they say, Arup,
you did not create this in vain. You
didn't create this for nothing.
Glory be to you. Protect us from the
torment of the fire.
Please note that in this ayah, Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala
described people of intelligence
and he said that they are those who
remember Allah
standing, sitting, and lying down. Meaning,
in every aspect of their lives.
And
and and
and Allah used the preposition and
reflect on the creation of the heavens and
the earth.
Allah
used the preposition and to join these two
things.
He did not use or. He did not
say,
he said.
Now those of you who know Arabic,
the same sentence
can be said with an
instead of
and grammatically it will be correct.
For example, if you say
As a sentence in the Arabic language, it
is grammatically correct, but that is not the
ayat of the Quran.
And the reason it is not the ayat
of the Quran is because Allah is not
talking about 2 separate things,
both equally valid. Allah is not saying intelligent
people are those who do this or that.
No, intelligent people are not those who do
this or that. Allah is saying those who
do this and that
and Allah
also showed us the sequence in which it
is to be done.
Please reflect on the Quran.
The sequence in which it is to be
done. You want to be rational about the
column of Allah? Reflect on the column of
Allah.
Because again,
in the Arabic language,
the same ayah, if you invert the sequence
which is the opposite
inverted
sequence.
Grammatically,
it's correct.
But the result is not the same.
So what Allah is showing us is
what needs to be done
in the order in which it should be
done
and the connection between the two things.
What is the automatic result of that?
Automatic
result
of reflecting and knowing Allah and recognizing Allah
and having a connection with Allah
and loving Allah
and being grateful to Allah
and obeying Allah
in every aspect of my life
and then looking at the creation of Allah
all around us,
automatic result is to see the hand and
the sign and the khudrat and the power
and the glory and the majesty of Allah
in every little ant and every little virus
and every
little heart wall and every little tooth and
every everything.
And the person says, yes, Subhanallah, this is
not an accident.
This is not an accident. This cannot be
an accident.
It is not accidental that somebody with a
with a with a super PhD
in law or in mathematics
or whatnot from the topmost university in the
world, somebody who who is given a Nobel
Prize for his intelligence and so on and
so forth,
one little imbalance in sodium and potassium in
his in his blood, he get dementia.
He's gone. All his knowledge becomes 0.
And
may Allah save us from this.
When he is now given an IV
with that sodium potassium
and if the speed of the IV is
slightly fast,
that person goes into total paralysis,
complete paralysis. He cannot even blink his eyelids.
But he's completely
conscious
which means that every mosquito that bites him,
he feels the pain. He can do nothing
about it. He cannot even tell you there
is a mosquito biting me. Please do something.
That is the level of the balance of
the creation of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
That is the reason why you need to
know Allah
before you can see this
in His creation.
My brothers and sisters, it's time to
stop living like
robots
and start using this brain which Allah has
given us.
And that's why when we invert the sequence,
we have scientists
who are atheists,
who see the glory of Allah
every single minute.
They are atheists. They don't see Allah. They
only see the creation
and may Allah forgive us. We have theologians
who see stars in daylight if you talk
about science.
They don't know how the world functions.
We do not have a behavioral problem.
We have a systemic problem.
We don't need tinkering.
We need to redesign.
A locomotive, a train
is a 1000000 times more powerful than a
micro light aircraft,
But it can never fly.
Not because it doesn't have enough power,
but because it is not designed to fly.
Money and power will not help us because
we have a connection problem
with Allah.
I submit to you, factor Allah
into the equation
because he is in it anyway.
Then see
how your life
will be transformed.
My brothers and sisters and elders,
today we are living
at what I call a forking time in
history
at a crossroads,
at a fork.
We are living at that fork. We have
to decide. You want to go left? You
want to go right?
Forking times are opportunities
to choose to change our destiny.
They are characterized by turmoil,
and that's why I say read history.
They characterized by turmoil, epidemics and wars and
economic collapse and political instability and civil war
and so on.
But it is precisely for that reason
that the foundations of the structures of society
are shaken.
And for a short time,
it is given into the hands of ordinary
people to change the path of destiny.
To give you some other examples of forking
times of history, the industrial revolution, 17/60 to
18/40,
the war of independence in India, 18 57,
the American civil war, 1861
to 65,
the 2 world wars, and so on were
all forking times in history.
The decisions
these are all historical markers of changes in
the parts of destiny.
There are others, but this list will suffice
to show us how
the decisions of people of that time, the
leaders and the followers,
changed the path of destiny
for us.
We don't have time today to do an
analysis of each one of these events, but
this is very important. We must do it
because we are today living in another revolution.
And what we choose to do or not
do will define the path of destiny for
coming generations.
Believe me, our destiny is literally in our
own hands,
in the hands of adults,
not children.
In the hands of adults,
it is we adults
who created this society
and we adults
who must act to change it.
And that is why Rasool Allah sallam
only taught adults.
He didn't run a primary school or a
makta or a Sunday school or a crush.
He taught the parents.
He taught the adults.
Today, when we talk about people like Musaib
Bin Omar and others,
Saad bin Maad and others we say, oh,
he was only 21 years old. He was
only 15 years old. Please understand.
1 of the
evil effects of our modern society is we
have delayed childhood.
When I was 21 years old, I was
running a I was a deputy mayor of
a town
in South America on the on the back
of the Burmese River called Kocwanee.
I was running the whole town at age
21.
And today we have children who are children
who are at age 21. They wait for
the mother to make them parathas.
Whose fault is this?
So Musa Benoit at 15 years old was
not a child.
Adults.
Children learn from adults, from their parents, from
their teachers and from others.
Today, social media, which is one of the
most powerful means of learning,
powerful, but usually very harmful.
What adults learn, they teach their children
because children listen with their eyes.
Children listen with their eyes. They don't care
what you say until they see what you
do.
So ask yourself,
what are my children seeing?
What are my children seeing every
day?
This is a world of cause and effect.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala stated this clearly and
he said, and
each person will only have what they worked
for.
So if you want to change something,
you must address the cause,
not the effect, not the symptom.
The cause. Why is that happening?
For example, if you want a good harvest,
you must prepare the soil before you plant
the seed.
If you want children to obey you and
serve you in your old age, you must
treat them with kindness and respect when they
are young and do their tarbia,
not just feed them.
If you want peace,
you must establish justice because peace is the
outcome of justice.
If you want to learn, you must
approach learning from the position of a supplicant
as someone in need.
Not sit there with your feet pointing towards
the qiblah,
leaning back,
complete lack of other.
You will learn nothing.
You can have the greatest
share, the greatest alum, the greatest professor, the
greatest whoever sitting there and teaching you and
I guarantee you, you will learn nothing.
Because remember,
water only flows downhill.
If you want to be arrogant, you want
to be uphill,
you're going to get
thirsty. Water will not flow to you. It
doesn't matter how much water there is. It
will not flow uphill. It flows only one
way, which is downhill.
That is why Allah
to learn from Khizr Allah
sent him to Khizr, go. He didn't tell
Khizr, go to Musa. No, You go.
My brothers and sisters, elegance has only one
result,
and that is the first lesson we learned
or should have learned from our inception as
human beings in the story of Adam Ali
Salam.
What got
Iblis
Jahanam is arrogance.
I am better than him. Jahanam.
The question therefore for us
is, do we truly believe that we need
Allah
to succeed?
I know it sounds like a dumb question,
but really seriously, stand in front of the
mirror.
Do this as an exercise. Stand in front
of the mirror. Look at yourself in your
eyes and say, do I really need Allah?
Please, for God's sake, answer this question for
yourself
Because this question is something that every one
of us
will be asked.
And if I say yes,
then that answer must reflect in my life.
I cannot say I really need Allah. And
then when I look at my own life,
there is no sign of Allah in this
life.
There is only one relationship.
One way of relating with Allah
as Iba'at,
as His slaves,
not as partners to his majesty.
You have a will. I also have a
will.
No. If we believe this, then we must
submit ourselves
without reservation or question to whatever Allah
ordered us to do in his book and
the Sunnah of his messenger, Muhammad ur Rasulullah
Everything happens only by the will of Allah.
Ask yourself, why have we become the world's
footballs?
To be kicked around any way we want.
Where is Allah?
What is happening to our dua?
Civilizations
rise or fall because of strong or weak
philosophies and ideologies,
not because of a profusion or lack of
money.
The Arabs of the 7th century were poor
people, but they had an ideology which was
simple enough to be understood by everyone and
which fitted the aspiration of diverse people. They
were passionate about it and totally committed to
taking their ideology to the ends of the
world. They were faced
with the 2 superpowers of the time, the
Byzantine Empire of Rome and the Sasanian Persian
Empire. They took on both and they defeated
both.
The rest is history.
This is the reason that Islamic education
has a very special importance in our society
today,
especially given the assault on ethics, morals, and
values that has been happening in the last
2 decades.
Islamic education is not theory.
It's not an attempt
to make Islam user friendly
or compatible
with our nafs and our toxic lifestyles of
disobedience.
It is to return to the foundation
of taught by high quality teachers who are
themselves
role models for their students,
supported by parenting,
which is fully in sync with the teaching.
It must begin from the given that the
Quran and Sunnah are not changeable
and our lifestyle
must be modified
to leverage the strength of both,
not to try to reinterpret the Quran and
the Sunnah to suit our whims and fancies.
We are standing at the threshold, the doorway
to success or failure.
It is our decision, the subsequent action,
which total commitment,
which will decide what the world will be
for our children.
If not,
we are looking at a collapse
of our culture and values
in the next generation.
That is our choice,
and the choice
is ours.