It doesn’t mean accepting those attitudes. It just means we have to choose our words and actions carefully – when trying to correct those attitudes.

@Dreamlife: while we must respect out elders, we should never accept or in any way tolerate their racist and un-Islamic views. They need to learn, the hard or easy way, that they need to respect everyone else…

A couple of days ago I was accused of being ‘too into the whole worldly affair’. In as much as I continue to feel the writer of that comment needs very much to look into a mirror before pointing out zits on other people’s faces, I realise her comment was in some part inspired by this post and requires a clarification of my position.

Like Mash, Zahera and Azra, I feel a distinction between secular and Islamic knowledge is foolhardy. The greatest accomplishments of Muslims in philosophy, science and the arts came at a time when such a distinction did not exist. Now that we beat ourselves up over keeping the Islamic sterile of the secular, we’re frustrated by our lack of progress, constantly reminding ourselves of the accomplishments of people passed yet failing to emulate them in any way.

Zahera, I agree as well that efforts to school ourselves in Islamic sciences must be increased. Too many of us leave madressahs and are never inspired to learn more about the faith we call our own. So yes there is certainly a prejudice in some sectors of our society against people who devote their lives to being students of the faith. What we all need to do is absolve ourselves of self-righteousness, realise that there is value in all knowledge, and there is an added value in approaching each other with mutual respect.

The Apa I’ve mentioned here, shocked me in many ways. It was a long time since I had interacted with someone like her. We tend to surround ourselves with people of similar values, tastes and interests so our world becomes sterilised, to a great degree, of people who are an affront to our world view. And I think some part of me has become complacent, believing that everybody lives to save the world of irrational ideologies. I respect her knowledge, her own education but I am deeply disappointed in the duality of her standards. She was determined that women should not see the inside of schools, yet she herself is a lecturer at the girls’ Dar ul Uloom in Laudium. And while she comes to work, she’s accompanied each day by her nine year old daughter, who deprived of a ‘secular’ education herself, follows her mum to classes all day. It saddens me that a mother could force her own life on a child to the extent that the child’s sense of individuality becomes stifled.

But Dreamlife’s comment, ‘My point here is that it’s unrealistic to expect the older generations to just drop deeply held beliefs like these – beliefs which us younger ones KNOW are flawed. They were born into societies in which these ideologies were the norm. They grew up with that – and most of the people around them grew up with the same. So, if everyone’s thinking and doing it – it must be right…right?’ is especially poignant.

I think it was Imam Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) who said, ‘Humility is the outcome of knowledge.’ I first learned this saying of his when I was twelve, it stuck with me not so much because of its meaning but that it taught me the word humility. As I grew up its meaning gradually dawned on me. That as much as we know, there’s much more that we don’t. As Saaleha says, To know is to know that you really don’t.

EISH!

I don’t get why it has to be either/or with people in our society.
I was having a discussion of this nature with a few friends. I know a girl (quite well actually since she’s the other neighbour) who left school in STD 6 or Grade 8 to pursue Islamic Studies. Four years later, while we were about to graduate from High School, she became an Aalima.

She’s an extremely intelligent woman and her ideas and views are all relevant in today’s society and she’s spot on in every discussion we have. But for some or other reason, she cannot articulate these ideas and views to the public and cannot hold her own in an argument. She often grappels to find the words to impart her knowledge in a comprehensive way. She also lacks the ability to articulate her solutions (derived from Islamic knowledge) to contemporary problems. So for all her knowledge, she has absolutely no communication skills to pass it on to others because of her “lack of education”.

My sister even told me: “Can you imagine the intellectual power she would have wielded had she gone to University? No one would even come close. She’d be unstoppable. She would have been a great asset to the deen in these times. It’s a pity, because we need women like that.”

As Muslims living in the Modern World, it is ESSENTIAL to seek out both to be able to maintain our identities while we move and adapt with the times. And in my opinion one form of education cannot exist without the other, not in these contemporary times. At the end of the day knowledge is knowledge (as Mash & Zahera mentioned).

But for this lady – as well as many others of her generation – her ideas are deeply ingrained beliefs that she grew up with; and that’s something that’s difficult for a person to change – especially in old age.

I mean, look at racism. Apartheid is long gone, but our parents and grandparents grew up under it – with very strong racial divisions in their lives up till the fall of Apartheid (and perhaps even in the years after it). So that legacy remains with them in their thinking – regardless of what’s happened since 1994; and sometimes even regardless of the anti-discriminatory nature of Islam.

For example, older people I know – who’s are good, admirable, upright Muslims – still sometimes speak with derogatory undertones about the ‘karias’ (Africans). And I’ve seen others of their generation – whether ‘religious’ or not – do the very same thing.

My point here is that it’s unrealistic to expect the older generations to just drop deeply held beliefs like these – beliefs which us younger ones KNOW are flawed. They were born into societies in which these ideologies were the norm. They grew up with that – and most of the people around them grew up with the same. So, if everyone’s thinking and doing it – it must be right…right?

And us youngsters now come along with our ‘modern, modern’ ideas….what do we know?

We must – of course – respect our elders; but we must also be very aware of the backgrounds they come from. So, in dealing with sensitive issues like this, we’d do well to be respectful while still trying to get our point across.

Anyway, good post.

As far as the notion of conformity, acceptance and the need for a boyfriend/girlfriend goes.. i think alot of it is down to parenting. Like you said- the media is only responsible to an extent, we must also take some responsibility. I usually find that the more you “cage” a child or the more rigid you become in your rules and regulations, the more the child wants to rebel. Its a natural reaction isnt it? You try stop me doing X and i want to do X to prove a point to you.

By the way, although i am in no way against secular knowledge (my take is that all knowledge is good and its more about how you use it- like Mash says) but i do believe that as Muslims we are undermining the importance of Islamic knowledge. Its almost like those who wish to seek it are somehow less intelligent or seen with contempt. Its ridiculous.. do a survey of muslim women and ask them the correct procedure of ghusl, or the rulings regarding menstruation and nifas. Why do we not know these things? Are these things not as important as the things we are taught in University? To be honest, i think muslims need to get a little more perspective.