Islamization of Education

Abstract

The Sixth International Conference on Islamic Education held A.D. September 20-25, 1996/6-11 jamad al-Awwal, 141 7 A.H. at lslamia College, Gatesville, Cape Town, South Africa After World War 11, most colonized Muslim countries achieved independence. During their days of struggle for independence, all major political parties in Muslim lands had committed themselves to liquidate their inherited, ill-conceived, divisive, and un-Islamic systems of education and to replace them with truly Islamic ones. But after independence, while politicians in power (constrained for whatever reasons) remained reluctant to bring about the promised changes, academics were, by and large, not clear as to how to Islamize education. The most that they could propose was installation of lame-duck departments of Islamic studies within the inherited systems, established parallel to the predominantly secular departments, thereby perpetuating a discredited, dualistic form of education that was generating split personalities among the Muslim youth. This remained the shape of education in the Islamic world during decades after independence in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. It was in these circumstances that King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah/Makkah, under the dynamic leadership of Dr. Muhammad Abduh Yamani and Dr. Abdullah Omar Nasseef obtained approval from the then king, Khalid bin Abdulaziz, to hold the First World Conference on Islamic Education in Makkah. For two years, its organizing committee under the chairmanship of Shaykh Ahmad Salah Jamjoom and comprising Professor Syed Ali Ashraf, Dr. Abdullah Muhammad Zaid, and Dr. Ghulam Nabi Saqeb, worked day and night, along with renowned colleagues such as Professor Muhammed Qutb, Professor Muhammad Al-Mubarak (now deceased), Professor Hussain Hamed Hassan, and others to examine all issues related to the task. The Conference held in Makkah al-Mukarramah in 1977 was a tremendous event. Attended by some 350 Muslim scholars from ...