Sept 11 - Islamic education is not the source of terrorism

The demonizing of Islam after Sept 11 has gone far enough. Blatant lies by George W Bush and Tony Blair to invade and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq resulted in thousands of innocent people, the majority of which were children, women and the the aged, lost theirlives and millions made homeless.

There is nothing wishy-washy about Islam. The essence of the faith is peace.

The Islam as propogated by Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon him) is a fusion of two great principles - socialism and democracy. The spirit of this fusion was best expressed by Sayedina Omar r.a. when he said that even if a dog went hungry by the banks of the Euphrates, Omar would have to answer for this on the Day of Judgement. And by Sayedina Ali r.a. when he said that a tyranny, even if covered in the mantle of Islam, can never endure.

In recent times, there are blatant American calls and echoed by Britain, to stop Islamic education, under the pretext that such religious learning breeds terrorism. Thus, they raise the claim that such form of education has to be either changed or forsaken altogether to answer this torny issue.

Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qardawi, the eminent Muslim scholar respected by the Muslim world, states the following:-

" I can simply say what has been recently circulated is no more than a fallacy and a baseless superstition. On what justification do they claim that Islamic education breeds terrorism? It stands to reason that those whom they dub as terrorists are not product of Islamic education. All what we hear about the Western cry that Islamic education should be modified is really nonsense. There are no logistic, modern, religious, moral or even secular backing to support it."

What is the aim behind the call? Do they intend by Islamic education that kind of religious education taught to pupils in public schools with the aim of informing them about the tenets of their faith, creed and Islamic moral system? Or by their claim they are referring to religious curriculum, which is known as Islamic culture, being taught to some students at universities?

Sheikh Yusuf explained that such Islamic subjects are taught with the aim of instilling in those students the essence of the Islamic message and its philosophy in general. Those university students are supposed to earn a reasonable and relative knowledge that best suit their mentalities in every stage they past through.

Such form of religious education is obligatory upon everyone who lives in a Muslim country regardless of whether he is a Muslim or not.

" We can not describe a person to be cultured and highly educated while he is actually in the dark about the religion in which the overwhelming majority of his countrymen believe."

He said that we could not rule out that such hue and cry widely circulated by the States (US) is primarily directed towards religious institutions throughout the world.

There are many prestigious Islamic universities and institutions such as Al-Azhar University in Egypt, Az-Zaytonnah in Tunisia, Al-Qaraweh in Morocco, the Islamic University in Madinah, Nadwat Al-Ulama in India and various specialised institutions in Pakistan and Malaysia are the targets of the American plan that tend to bend the religious curricula to the direction that suits America!

Sheikh Yusuf went on to say that we must not ignore tha fact that religion is the fountain head of morals; it is the essence of life and the primary cause of existence. Without religion, life is for sure, meaningless. Religion is the real incentive towards that which is good and the actual deterrent that keeps a person away from that which is bad.

When the religion is subjected to restriction - evil, crime, corruption and pornography become spread everywhere.