CAIRO, January 14 (IslamOnline) – If Muslims want to change their current status, they have to direct their attention to education and children, Dr. Abdul Hamid Abu Sulayman said in a lecture here Monday, January 13.
President of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), Dr. Abu Sulayman, addressed an audience of around 60 academics, Islamic scholars, students and reporters on the issue of "Violence: An Islamic Perspective", as part of Cairo University’s Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences’ program of dialogue between civilizations.
In order to overcome the crisis that is currently facing the Islamic ummah (nation), Muslims need to address both the curricular and the emotional aspects, he said.
Stressing the importance of children’s education, and school curriculums, Dr. Abu Sulayman, who was one of the founders of the International Islamic University in Malaysia, and served as its rector for ten years (1988-1998), said that the sidelining of religion in schools was a dangerous phenomenon.
The problem with schools in Muslim countries is that they do not sufficiently deal with Islam in a successful way, he said.
Giving an example from his life, Dr. Abu Sulayman.
This is a grave mistake, Dr. Abu Sulayman, who is the author of several books including Crisis in the Muslim Mind, said, because this is exactly the age that these values should be stressed, because children will be able to feel the importance of charity and therefore be able to properly apply the rules of zakah with the spirit that Islam calls for.
On the other hand, if all the child was learning was the technical rules of zakah, then this value will be missing in the ummah, because knowledge without values is pointless, and can be very dangerous, he underlined.
Regarding violence as Islam sees it, Dr. Abu Sulayman dwelt in detail on the Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) life and his way of dealing with both internal and international politics.
The Prophet (pbuh) would never use violence to solve a problem within the ummah, Dr. Abu Sulayman said, adding that using violence to solve internal political problems was prohibited in Islam as it is a breaking of relations.
Islam tells Muslims to use all possible peaceful methods to reach a solution to internal problem, and only if there are absolutely no other methods, then the solution is immigration, and not violence.
Regarding international politics, Dr. Abu Sulayman said that any relationship with a foreign country should either be one of peace through agreement or war.
There are two rules regarding the use of force in Islam, he said. The first rule is that it must be in self-defense, a reaction and answer to aggression.
The second rule, Dr. Abu Sulayman asserted, was that there should be no excess in the use of force.
Questions that Muslims must ask themselves include: Are we in a just and necessary war? War should never be waged if it is not absolutely necessary, Dr. Abu Sulayman stressed.
Audience members included Islamic scholar Dr. Ali Gomaa, diplomats and political science professors.
A heated discussion about the West’s perception of Islam’s history and the accusations that Islam faces of being a violent religion followed the lecture.
The International Institute of Islamic Thought is a private, non-profit, academic and cultural institution, dealing with general issues of Islamic thought.
It was established in 1981 in the state of Virginia in the United States.
According to the Institute’s website, it is an “intellectual forum working from an Islamic perspective to promote and support research projects, organize intellectual and cultural meetings and publish scholarly works.”
“The Institute has played an essential role in recognizing and responding to a need felt by the ummah to increase awareness of Muslims in the intellectual dimensions of their faith.
“It also developed the concept of the ‘Islamization of knowledge’, hoping that this would help to integrate various aspects of reform in the life of Muslims,” the website said.
Source: islam-online.net
No comments:
Post a Comment