Revitalizing Higher Education in the Muslim World

Abstract

AdbulHamid A. AbuSulayman’s book is an important and much-needed publication in the field of Islamic social and educational sciences. In a very direct, easy-to-read, and simple language, the book introduces the current problematic situation of Islamic higher education and offers a practical solution. The presented solution is not based on theoretical insights and analysis only, as it offers the example of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) as a live, practical model. Through the extended metaphor of a sick person, the author, a prestigious Islamic educator and thinker, pictures the Muslim ummah as an ailing body that needs immediate treatment. Through his professionalism and expertise, he prescribes the remedy. The book’s first half provides the reader with a general overview of the current situation of theMuslim ummah’s retarded position and explains how education and developing cognitive modules are particularly needed for the rescue mission. A “nation” that contains about one-fifth of the world’s population, covers an area extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and has an illustrious past of scientific discoveries now has a combined GNP (Gross National Product) less than that of France or Germany. This humiliating fact, according to AbuSulayman, speaks of the ummah’s current ailment. The author points to underdevelopment, division, tyranny, oppression, and education as some of the maladies. Yet instead of treating the symptoms of such maladies, as many scholars tend to do, he calls attention to the need to search for the causes in order to devise a permanent treatment. One of the main causes that AbuSulayman discusses is the imitation and replication of western education, which is alien to the ummah’s consciousness and cultural goals ...