Professor Dr. Mohamad Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi
UCSI University
8th December 2015
In my previous article, I had suggested that most Muslims have a disturbing attitude that the only civilization that they are concerned with is only the 1500 years of Islam in the Muslim world. Muslims seem to look down and even reject the sum total of human civilization as ‘jahili’ or ignorant.
I think this is the wrong attitude to take and my reading of the Qur’an and hadiths does not conclude such a stand. The problem with most Muslims is simply that they let their thoughts and ideas be formed by the religious scholars trained in the limited mindset of the Madrasa.
Muslims are either too lazy to read and understand the Qur’an and hadith on their own or they are being frightened by the clerics that studying these sources without the ‘proper’ guide of ustazs will make them go astray and incur the wrath of Allah The Most High.
I have therefore called many times in my writings to reeducate the ustazs or religious teachers by exposing them to the greater awareness of the rich thoughts and ideas of humanity. Muslims, in brief, must be brought back into the fold of humanity.
It does not mean that Islam is being ‘compromised’ but I have enough experience as an academic that the interpretation of an event or an idea is more meaningful and richer when a larger context is used rather than a small one.
If ustazs were trained in the USA or Britain or Europe, they might have different views and interpretation of the sources of Islam then those trained in the so called Muslim countries of Egypt, Saudi Arabia or India or Iran.
Continue reading “Retraining Ustazs into Global Communicators”