Universal Mercy and Education

Universal Mercy and Education

The adage nowadays is that we all need love. So many people are talking about this. Islam teaches us that God's act of creating humanity was an act of mercy and compassion. Compassion represents the love between parents and children as well as that between children and parents. However, universal love can best be seen through all elements of the universe working together with each other for the benefit of all life.

Humanists proclaim that their philosophy is founded upon love. However, humanism does not encompass specific ethical values, is based upon personal interest or bias, and is far down the continuum toward insincerity. Humanism is abstract, out of balance, and sometimes appears to be working on the behalf of particular nations, languages, and belief systems. In reality, Prophets were ideal examples of love and mercy, for their approach to love and mercy was based on being balanced in this life and the Hereafter. Muhammad, the final Prophet, was sent by God's Mercy and, metaphorically, is like a spring of pure water in a hot desert. This spring, infused with the limitless resource of love, can quench any degree of thirst and purify and enlighten any drinker who pauses to drink from it.

The Prophet's compassion

Mercy and compassion is like a magic key that opens the hearts that were so hard that no one thought they would ever be opened. But the Prophet did even more than this: He lit the torch of belief in God within them. Believers, hypocrites, unbelievers, and all beings and creatures benefited from His mercy. Believers were rewarded because the Qur'an states: For the believers full of pity, compassionate (9/128) and: The Prophet has a greater claim on the believers than they have on their own selves (33:6).

This is true, because the Prophet, the representative of Divine compassion, is definitely nearer to us than we are to ourselves. Although the desires of the flesh may lead us astray, the Prophet always responds with mercy, kindness, and sympathy. For example, he said: "Whoever leaves an inheritance, it belongs to his relations. Whoever dies with debt, it belongs to me" (Muslim, "Fara'id," 14). Can one imagine greater sympathy?

His compassion embraced hypocrites so that they would be shielded from worldly torment. He knew who the hypocrites were but never exposed them, for this would have deprived them of the full citizenship rights that their outward profession of faith and practice allowed them to enjoy. Living among Muslims, their rights to belong and believe differently were held in compassionate regard. This greatly reduced their anxieties about their assertions of unbelief in the Afterlife.

Even the unbelievers benefited from his compassion. God did not destroy the unbelievers, although He had done so in the past, for: God would never chastise them while you were among them (8:33). This verse refers to unbelievers of all times. God will not destroy people as long as believers are alive. In a related statement, he proclaimed: "I was sent to people as a mercy, not to curse them." (Muslim, "Birr," 87). In other words, he came with mercy, not with condemnation and a desire to invoke calamity upon them.

The Prophet was particularly compassionate toward children. He played with them, would sit beside them when they were crying, and listened to them. He empathized with a mother's pain, saying: "One without pity for others is not pitied" (Bukhari, "Adab," 18). Once he told a man who boasted that he had never played with his children or showed them his love: "What can I do for you if God has removed compassion from your heart?" (Muslim, "Fara'id," 64). His compassion even extended to animals. While in Mina, some Companions tried to kill a snake. Watching the activity from afar, the Prophet stated: "It was saved from your evil, and you were saved from its evil." (Nasa'i, "Hajj," 114). Even though the snake is a lowly reptile, it plays a vital role in the environmental balance. The Prophet further stated: " A prostitute was guided by God's truth and ultimately went to paradise because she gave water to a dog dying of thirst in the desert" (Bukhari, "Anbiya'," 54; Muslim, "Salam," 153).

Educating others is active compassion

The Prophet, fully aware that moving his people away from their idolatry and barbarism and toward Islam and success in both this life and the eternal afterlife, emphasized education and literacy. He understood what his contemporaries did not: The main duty and purpose of human life is to seek understanding. The effort of doing so, known as education, is a perfecting process through which we earn, in the spiritual, intellectual, and physical dimensions of our beings, the rank appointed for us as the perfect pattern of creation. Education through learning and a commendable way of life is a sublime duty that manifests the Divine Name Rabb (Upbringer and Sustainer). By fulfilling it, we attain the rank of true humanity and become a beneficial element of society.

Right decisions depend on having a sound mind and being capable of sound thought. Science and knowledge illuminate and develop the mind. For this reason, a mind deprived of science and knowledge cannot reach right decisions, is always exposed to deception, and is subject to being mislead.

We are only truly human if we learn, teach, and inspire others. It is difficult to regard those who are ignorant and without the desire to learn as truly human. It is also questionable whether learned people who do not renew and reform themselves in order to set an example for others are truly human. Status and merit acquired through knowledge and science are higher and more lasting than those obtained through other means.

Given the great importance of learning and teaching, we must determine what is to be learned and taught, and when and how to do so. Although knowledge is a value in itself, the purpose of learning is to make knowledge a guide in life and illuminate the road to human betterment. Thus, any knowledge not appropriated for the self is a burden to the learner, and a science that does not direct one toward sublime goals is a deception.

Essentials of a good education

A real educator must have several virtues, among them the following:

First: He or she must give due importance to all aspects of a person's mind, spirit, and self, and then raise each to its proper perfection. The Qur'an mentions the evil-commanding self that drags people, like beasts with ropes around their necks, wherever it wants to go and encourages them to obey their bodily desires. In effect, it wants people to ignore their God-given ability to elevate their feelings, thoughts, and spirits.

The Qur'an quotes Prophet Joseph: Surely the self commands evil, unless my Master has mercy (12:53). Commanding evil is inherent in the self's nature. However, through worship and discipline, the self can be raised to higher ranks, to a position where it accuses itself for its evils and shortcomings (75:2), and then still higher where God says to it: O self at peace! Return unto your Master, well-pleased, well-pleasing (89:27-28).Higher than the self at peace (at rest and contented) is the self perfectly purified. Those who rise to this degree are the nearest to God. You remember God when you see them, for they are like polished mirrors in which all of His attributes are reflected. The Companions' desire to follow the education system provided by Prophet Muhammad enabled almost all of them to reach this degree of moral and spiritual perfection. Millions of people have followed and continue to follow their example.

Second: An education system is judged by its universality, comprehensiveness, and the quality of its students. The Prophet's students carried Islam throughout the world. As Islam is universal in nature and valid for all times and places, it found a ready acceptance among people of different races, religious backgrounds, intellectual levels, and age differences - from modern-day Morocco and Spain to the Philippines, from the Russian steppes to the heart of Africa. Its principles remain valid today. Despite numerous upheavals and changes, as well as social, economic, intellectual, scientific, and technological revolutions, his system remains the most unique and original. In short, it represents humanity's best hope for the future.

Third: An education system is judged by its ability to change its students. What the Prophet accomplished during his Prophethood speaks for itself. To those who deny or question his Prophethood, we challenge them to go anywhere in the world and accomplish, within 100 years, even one-hundredth of what he accomplished in the deserts of Arabia 1,400 years ago. Let them take all of the experts they can gather, and then we will wait to see their results.

Education and young people

A nation's future depends on its youth. Any people who want to secure their future should apply as much energy to raising their children as they devote to other issues. A nation that fails its youth and abandons them to foreign cultural influences jeopardizes their identity and is subject to cultural and political weakness.

The reasons for the vices observed in today's generation, as well as the incompetence of some administrators and other nation-wide troubles, lie in the prevailing conditions and ruling elite of recent generations. Likewise, those who are charged with educating today's young people will be responsible for the vices and virtues that will appear in the next generation. Those who wish to predict a nation's future can do so correctly by taking a full account of the education and upbringing given to its young people. "Real" life is possible only through knowledge. Thus, those who neglect learning and teaching should be counted as "dead" even though they are living, for we were created to learn and communicate to others what we have learned.

Conclusion

The Prophet's compassion encircled all creatures. Education was one of the most important components of his compassion, for only by educating them could he lead his people out of ignorance and into the status of being true human beings who understood the reasons for their creation, their responsibilities to God, and their duties toward humanity and all of creation.

In this time of rapidly increasing information, as distinct from knowledge, we need to instill in ourselves and our children the desire to acquire useful knowledge and then use it to benefit ourselves and humanity at large. Knowledge acquired for a right purpose is an inexhaustible source of blessings for the learner. Those who posses such a source are always sought by people, like a source of fresh water, and lead people to the good. Knowledge limited to empty theories and unabsorbed pieces of learning, which arouses suspicions in minds and darkens hearts, is a "heap of garbage" around which desperate and confused souls flounder. Therefore, science and knowledge should seek to uncover humanity's nature and creation's mysteries. Any knowledge, even "scientific," is true only if it sheds light on the mysteries of human nature and the dark areas of existence.

UNIVERSAL ACADEMY

Universal Academy

These are Educomp's budget schools targeted at semi-urban towns. Schools in Bajpur, Kashipur, and Gadarpur have been functional since 2009. New schools are being launched at Dehradun, Bhubaneswar, Nuh, Nai Nengla and Ferozepur Jhirka for session 2010-2011.

Universal Academy brings with it the result of 5000 man days of research about the needs of students, their aspirations, expectations and limitations, their environment and backgrounds. This Universal Academy learning system focuses specifically to students’ individual needs and aspirations while at the same time propelling them into the mainstream. It brings about a systematic change in the classroom scenario from earlier patterns of rote learning to one where learning is directed through fun-filled activities and exercises.

Universal Academy vision is "To provide a stimulating environment that maximises individual potential and ensures that students are well equipped to meet the challenges of education, work and life."

Universal Academy Learning System

Universal Academy is the brainchild of a dedicated team that has spent a lot of time understanding the 'Developmental Milestones for a Child' and mapping 'Minimum Learning Levels (MLLs)' according to age levels. This team is also credited with developing the much appreciated learning systems such as Roots to Wings^TM and the Millennium Learning System.

Theme-based Approach

Universal Academy uses a theme based approach in curriculum that takes students beyond books and classrooms, making the learning process a joyful and meaningful one. Each stage in learning is systematically planned, keeping the student in mind. Woven around the NCERT syllabus, the UA curriculum is enhanced with skill-based collaborative Games and activities that enable the student to understand and engage with the world around him/her and not merely rote learn. Creativity dwells on each page of the beautifully illustrated workbooks. They create a wonderful world with interactive friendly characters that take the students through their journey in a fun-filled and entertaining yet informative manner. Each subject follows a clearly defined sequence of learning, beginning from the pre primary level and moving to the primary level. Based on defined age- and grade-appropriate learning levels, this method enables every student to learn concepts in an organised step-by step manner.

Teaching Strategies

Universal Academy integrates innovative teaching strategies into classroom teaching to make concepts come alive. These interesting interactive strategies not only engage the student's attention and build concept learning and accompanying skills in a fun way; they also boost every student's confidence and interpersonal skills.

Values through Comics

All workbooks boast of a comic strip that introduces students to long lasting moral values without being overtly moralistic, in a subtle and interesting manner that evokes laughter while the students connect with the characters. Enriched with values and life skills, the curriculum prepares the student for future success.

Universal Academy is full of many such wonders.

Teacher/Leadership Training Programmes

Universal Academy organises regular workshops and training programmes for its teachers and school leaders. The training sessions are conducted by in-house trainers from Educomp as well as renowned Child Development experts to ensure overall development of teachers as educators.

Classroom Management

Regular guidelines and valuable tips on classroom management ensure holistic learning takes place in the Universal Academy classrooms.

Tools

Use of technological tools such as computers, multimedia content and e-books adds a new dimension to the Universal Academy classroom.

Reading Programme

A reading programme is being initiated to develop the language as well as communication skills of the students.

Global Connect

This is an Internet learning platform that connects students to various resources such as encyclopaedias, current events, news and libraries across the globe.

Continuous and Comprehensive Assessment

Continuous assessment and evaluation of learners throughout the year liberates the student from the burden of examination. Teachers evaluate each student's performance on a regular basis and recommend measures for improvement or enhancement accordingly.

Career Guidance

At the Universal Academy, at an early age children are guided towards future orientation by ensuring

·         Vocational mapping

·         Counselling students and parents on career options in different fields

Potential Actualisation

Universal Academy thus identifies the inherent talent in each student and helps actualise it by providing an atmosphere conducive to (that helps in) the development of academic, intellectual, imaginative, creative, physical and social faculties.

Toward Tomorrow

Toward Tomorrow

The Islamic world continues to squirm in the vicious grasp of error, unable to turn to its own spirit and essence for succor. Two steps forward lead to several steps backwards being taken and then one gets lost. As a result, our world has deteriorated beyond recovery, and the wheels of states and nations turn against their own selves. Therefore, we must work within the Islamic world with its understanding of faith; its own acceptance and interpretation of Islam; its consciousness of the good; its zeal and yearning for spiritual ecstasy; its reason, logic, mode and system of thinking; its style of expressing and communicating itself; and its own institutions, which will lead to a comprehensive renewal. The fundamentals of our spiritual life, religious thought and imagination are responsible for our past success. Religion gives meaning to humanity and the universe, explains us to ourselves, and embraces and influences every aspect of our individual and collective life.

The axis of all believers' acts is worship, which is directed toward the Hereafter and seeking God's good pleasure. There is no "this world/that world" or "mind/heart" dichotomy, for the believers' emotions and reason are united and their understanding does not ignore their inspiration. So in their mental world, experience stretches up to the mind and knowledge is a high bastion, reinforced with understanding, wisdom, and intuition. Their understanding contains no gap.

Religion does not contradict science and reason and cannot be blamed for clashes among social sections. Such conflicts arise from ignorance, ambition, or vested interests. Clashes between religious people occur because they do not have the same degree of belief and so cannot preserve sincerity or overcome their feelings. Indeed, such conflicts can be avoided only by establishing religion and its institutions in our daily life so that it becomes our society's life-blood.

The Islamic community needs to be revived by combining serious efforts to preserve Islam's original principles with the Qur'an's extensiveness and universality, so that it meets the needs of all people in all times and places, and so that it embraces all facets of life. Islamic history has recorded many renewals, reforms, and revivals. Legal schools represented new developments in jurisprudence and law, Sufi orders turned paths to the heart and the soul into broad highways, and our schools and colleges sought to make sense of the universe and its inhabitants. This latest renewal and revival must combine all of these, for without turning to certainty in faith, sincerity in deeds, and excellence in thought and feeling, it will not occur.

All acts of worship should be performed completely and as outlined in the Qur'an and Sunna. Words should be the means of prayer, and soul and sincerity are essential; the Sunna should be the guide and consciousness a necessity. Only God should be the goal, for if these acts are not performed as required, how are they different from comparable mundane activities?

Somehow, we must mobilize ourselves to raise the physicians of the soul and essential reality who can fill this vacuum in us, eradicate our weaknesses, rescue us from being slaves to our body and carnal desires, and direct us to a level of life in the heart and the soul. We need physicians of spirit and essence, spirit, and reality, physicians whose hearts are open to all fields of knowledge and all spiritual inspirations and Divine blessings. In short, we need whole comprehensive minds.

Such people must be in constant contact and interaction with the atoms, molecules, and particles of the people, just as the mind is in constant contact with the body. They will embrace everyone. By conveying the messages of their soul to all and elevating them to the level of people who have knowledge, skills, and genius for the future, they will present them for the common good and society's benefit. They will purify everyone of the foulness of the age and guide them toward human perfection.

Moreover, they will transform the media into the voice and breath of social and religious life, and use it to teach the owners of the darkest feelings, thoughts, and voices how to become human. And they will save our educational and training institutions by once again making them open and responsive to the requirements of the present, reorder and organize them according to historical perspectives, and raise them, through the use of styles, methodologies, and planning of a high standard, to a higher level.

Thus we will rise as a society from the misery of rigid and empty formalism to true scientific understanding; from dignifying diverse vile and disgraceful works with the title of "art" to true art and aesthetics; from customs, addictions, and obsessions of unknown origin to the consciousness of a morality based on history and religion; from the snares of various gnawing thoughts in our hearts to the oneness of service, submission, consciousness, and resignation.

Capitalism, communism, socialism, the hybrids of social democracy, and liberalism have nothing new to offer. Our world is open to the new world order. It might even be our renaissance. This revival will make our world of thinking and feeling, and also our understanding of art and aesthetics, gain a heretofore unknown depth and variety. We will find our own aesthetic pleasures, reach our own music, and discover our own romanticism. In short, we will secure our people's future.

Our flag will be effort and dynamism; our source of strength will be our consciousness of faith and truth. We will no longer have to look for handouts, for we will regain our honor and remain honorable only by holding fast to our own values and surrendering wholeheartedly to God.

Toward Our Own World

Many eras and lands have seen movements that claimed to be reformations and reconstructions. Such claims have always been controversial. One domain is now ripe for a genuine reformation that will embrace all creation: the Muslim world.

Once, almost all of the natural and religious sciences, from Sufism to logic, as well as from urban planning to aesthetics, were embodied in geniuses who studied phenomena in minute detail. Such names are too many to mention here. By mobilizing all of our brilliant minds and souls, Muslims may soon realize a second or third renaissance. Yes, we will start by recognizing Islam's soul and essence, spirit and reality, and reach toward the re-interpretation of existence, from the boundless Divine climates of Sufism to universal metaphysics; from Islamic self-accounting and self-control to the vigilance, circumspection, and self-possession that make humanity gain value; from the cities and urbanization, in which our inner world takes repose and breathes, to the aesthetics that will be the property of all; from the art that embroiders the soul and essence, spirit, and reality everywhere and seeks infinity in all that it embroiders, to the true pleasures of an aesthetic, which becomes more and more other-worldly and refined, and integrates with the beyond. By all of these means, we can open a new chapter.

Our spiritual life has been to a large part extinguished for many years; our religious world has become dysfunctional; our hearts' tongues have been tied as people have forgotten intense, ecstatic love and spiritual ecstasy; we have transformed all minds that read and think into minds devoted to a hard positivism; bigotry has been built instead of firmness of character, strength of religion, and perseverance in truth. Even in asking for the Hereafter and Paradise, petitioners have in mind some continuation of this world's ordinary happiness. It is therefore impossible to open a new chapter without ripping such misdirected, deep-rooted thoughts and considerations out of ourselves.

This does not mean that the foulness that has sullied our souls for centuries cannot be eradicated. However, as this foulness caused us to fall, we must get rid of it before we can make any progress. For example, we must abandon our greed, laziness, ambition for fame, selfishness and worldly-mindedness, and replace these with the spirit of contentedness, willpower and courage, modesty and humility, altruism and spirituality, piety and godliness, all of which are the essence and truth of Islam.

Fortunately, we have such heroes among us, and the renewal and change that they will bring about will be shaped by the Qur'an and tempered by human nature. Both its enemies and the masses will be unable to prevent it, for history proves that only a few individual geniuses bring about a renaissance. Such people, who have emerged with a complete spiritual awareness in almost every age, established schools of law and schools of thought, both of which breathed the spirit of reconstruction and reform into the masses. Their successors followed them and their thoughts, as did the masses that sheltered in their enlightened climate. Such great guides became the people's life-blood and soul, and lived with them like a spirit. In their absence, society and the people declined.

Now, as the days turn to spring and dawn chases dawn, we are becoming hopeful and expectant, praying to our Lord: "Grant us willpower supported by your Will, which will be the foundation of our souls. Make our hearts blossom as the flowers in Paradise, and make our souls reach the secrets of the innermost part of Your Divinity. Show our people the ways to revival in the Muhammadi line." To ask for and expect this is both our right and duty, the natural consequence of our faith. However, we must refer frequently to our glorious past and take shelter in the values that made it magnificent. This is the way that other civilizations renewed themselves.

As long as we can recover our thoughts, feelings, methodology, and philosophy, it will be enough to bring them together to find our heavenly and immortal style. Thus, we should first re-examine all of the roads that we will take, and then repair and reinforce them. We must cultivate the inspiration and fruitfulness of religious longing and desire, firmness, gravity, sobriety, and wisdom in our reasoning and logic; stability and humanity, with the freedom to be ourselves; philosophical depth, refinement, and contemplative abstraction in our arts and philosophy. All of these should be logical at their core and inspired by revelation.

God's good pleasure is the ultimate goal. The soul is before and ahead of the body. The self is an essential dynamism that will ignite the consciousness of duty under the heart's rule. The love of humanity and country is an indispensable passion, and the duty to be moral is a vital provision for the journey. We must adhere to the Qur'an, and recognize humanity's character and real human values as significant sources of power. Goals and objectives must be just, fair, and sacred, and the ways leading to them must be indicated by the Qur'an and the Sunna.