Graduates of the sharia colleges and the challenges of the present

The programme Al-Wasatiyya, presented by Tareq al-Suwaidan on Al-Resalah television, gave an episode to "Graduates of the sharia colleges and the challenges of the present". ^{4 5} Opening it, the presenter said the world is changing fast, the sharia colleges graduate thousands, and the question is whether they meet what the present needs. ⁶ He set out two opposing views: one that attacks the graduates and sees a break between them and reality, technology and the internet, and one that sees their performance and their link with life and technology improving. ⁷ He stressed the subject's weight because the mosque imams and Friday preachers are graduates of these colleges. ⁸

The presenter limited the discussion to bachelor-level graduates of a sharia college or institute, not doctorate holders who become professors, because a bachelor graduate usually becomes a teacher or an imam and preacher, and they are the largest numbers. ^{9 10}

• Dr Jamil Ahmad Allam, dean of the Institute of Islamic Studies in Alexandria, Zagazig and Menoufia, who introduced himself as a former member of the Muslim World League and a lecturer at Islamic centres in Europe. ¹¹
• Majd Makki, a researcher in the religious sciences who supervises the website of the League of Syrian Scholars, one of the Syrian scholars living in Saudi Arabia, who has taken part in preparing curricula. ^{11 12}
• Dr Ahmad ibn Rashid ibn Sa'id, professor of political communication at King Saud University in Riyadh, journalist, writer and poet; his master's thesis was on how the American elite press covered the Palestinian intifada, and his doctorate, in Britain, was on the Friday sermon as political communication. ^{12 13}
• Dr Abd al-Hamid, formerly professor at the College of Islamic Sciences of the University of Baghdad and a former dean of a sharia college in Yemen, who presents two programmes on the channel. ^{14 15}
• The professor of comparative fiqh at the Faculty of Sharia and Law of al-Azhar and its former dean, a member of the Islamic Research Academy, the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America and the International Union of Muslim Scholars; his name is unclear in the transcript and is not written here. ¹⁵

The presenter put a question to the channel's viewers, answered by text message, with three choices: well grounded in knowledge and in reality; grounded in knowledge but weak in knowing reality; or weak in both. ^{16 17} Its results were not read out in the episode. He asked the young studio audience about the graduates' level in meeting what is asked of them; ¹⁸ only 14% said excellent, 37% average and 49% weak, which the presenter called a tragedy and a big problem. ^{1 19}

• One young man held that their study is purely theoretical and academic, does not reach into society or renew preaching, and that many well-known "new preachers" are not sharia specialists. ²⁰
• Another held that sharia study has turned from a mission into a job, entered for the certificate and employment. ^{21 22}
• A third held that moral and educational formation is missing from religious study, which separates the student from the spiritual path and stays theoretical and weak in practice. ^{22 23 11}

The presenter asked the guests about specific signs, for a quick answer about the majority:

• Command of the religious sciences: answers ranged from moderate to prevailing weakness, and one guest declined to judge. ²⁴ Several guests said female students are more attentive, take in more and care more about learning than male students, while noting that a judgement needs a proper survey. ^{25 26}
• Weighing benefits and harms by priority: between average and clear weakness. ^{27 28}
• Choosing topics that suit people and the issues of the hour: most saw the level as below what is needed, and Dr Ahmad ibn Rashid called the Friday sermon's link with reality a disaster. ^{29 30} The presenter recalled that during his year of compulsory military service an Azhari professor was sent to teach them Islamic culture at the military college and began with the rules of divorce, when none of them was married; a guest noted that rhetoricians call the missing quality "suiting speech to the situation". ^{31 32}
• Arabic: one guest said he struggles to find a preacher and counts a sermon with only three or four mistakes an achievement; another held that their Arabic is good in Egypt because most al-Azhar graduates memorise the Qur'an as a condition of admission. ^{33 34}
• Technology and computers: the guests nearly agreed it is not the problem; Majd Makki said judges and notaries in the Saudi sharia courts all work on computers, and the presenter concluded that picturing the graduates' problem as ignorance of the internet and computers is mistaken. ^{35 36 37}
• Political awareness and the changes of the age: one guest saw a flight from engaging with politics; Dr Ahmad ibn Rashid saw the shaykhs' avoidance of politics as falling into "the secular trap", since the literature of the Islamic movements raised people on the idea that Islam is religion and state. ^{38 39} He mentioned a shaykh who ruled that resisters in Palestine and Iraq must not resist the occupation until they had the ruler's permission; another guest replied that this does not represent the scholars. ⁴⁰ The Azhar professor saw them as close to good because sources of knowledge have multiplied, and the presenter distinguished between being informed and being aware. ^{41 42}
• The Friday sermon: the guests split between those who find it weak, boring and repetitive and those who see it improving. ⁴³ Dr Ahmad ibn Rashid said a good preacher has become rare in language, preparation, application to reality and courage; Majd Makki answered that such a generalisation needs a survey. ^{44 45} The Azhar professor traced the weakness to the preacher's culture and his choice of traditional topics far from people's concerns, and to his fear of responsibility and lack of sources. ^{46 47}
• Facing extremism: most guests held that most graduates have the awareness to tell sound ideas from unsound and can face extremist currents if they mix with people; ^{48 49} one warned that the preacher himself may be an extremist, ⁵⁰ and another said it varies by country and that most preachers in Egypt address people without extremism because of al-Azhar's influence. ^{51 52}
• Role models: the guests held that most are fit to be role models and are respected in society, with reservations about some conduct. ^{53 54}

The presenter concluded that the problem lies in some aspects, not all. ^{54 55}

The presenter asked the young audience for the biggest cause, with four choices: the students' level, the professors' level, the curricula, or the lack of incentives. ^{56 57} 14% chose the students, 9% the professors, 56% the curricula and 21% the lack of incentives. ²

• A young woman said the problem is the random selection of students: sharia is mostly entered by those not admitted elsewhere, and the gifted student's future after it is uncertain. ^{58 59}
• Abir, a graduate of a four-year religious institute, said her professors were excellent and the curricula weak, and that in her third year she was surprised to find creed and da'wa topics dropped and replaced, which left her frustrated. ^{60 61 62}
• A young man saw the root cause as the politicisation of religion, with curricula set by government policies and decisions. ⁶³

Incentives

Dr Abd al-Hamid held that students choose a college by its financial return, and that if incentives rose the able would crowd into the sharia colleges and professors and curricula would improve. ^{64 65} He said that in some states, giving Israel as an example, the religious scholar draws one of the highest salaries. ⁶⁶ The Azhar professor agreed that incentives are the biggest cause, called for every sharia college to teach the subjects of contemporary life, and for the student's weakness at the preparatory and secondary stages to be addressed. ^{67 68 69}

The student and admission

Dr Ahmad ibn Rashid said the idea that the Gulf student outdoes the Egyptian is a myth overtaken by time, and that curricula have an enormous effect when the Arab-Israeli conflict or its religious character is removed from them, yet a student's own readiness can overcome shallow curricula. ^{69 70 71} He said admission to the sharia college of Imam University requires, as he put it, around 80 or 85 percent in secondary school, a high Arabic grade and interviews. ⁷² Dr Jamil Allam said graduates of private colleges are without doubt better than those of state colleges; that the problem is the student entering a state college through the admissions office rather than by aptitude; and that the old Azhar produced outstanding scholars without incentives or state funding. ^{73 74 75}

Curricula and length of study

The Azhar professor said that as dean he introduced a course on "contemporary fiqh issues" covering surrogacy, choosing the sex of a child, assisted fertilisation and cosmetic surgery, and proposed it for every sharia college. ^{76 77} Dr Abd al-Hamid held that four years cannot make a scholar, while the early scholars studied in the mosques from dawn to night for twelve years, so the bachelor's degree is for him a first step on the road. ^{78 79} Dr Ahmad ibn Rashid held that shallowness is common to students of every field, recalling that he once asked a media student, during the Bosnian war, who was the aggressor and who the victim between the Serbs and the Muslims, and got no answer. ^{80 81 82}

The presenter asked the young audience whether it would be better to turn the sharia colleges into private colleges free of official tutelage, so that only willing students come and administration and curricula are strong, warning that the question has large implications. ^{83 84} 80% supported it and 20% rejected it. ³

• Dr Abd al-Hamid, who ran a sharia college for six years, held that a private college's students would be better because only those who want learning come, but called for both kinds to remain, in competition. ^{3 85 86}
• The Azhar professor disagreed: a private college carries its owners' policy, which may be extreme or commercial, while a state college follows the state's laws and its curricula are open to all; he mentioned a private institute in Cairo that grants degrees and was never recognised. ^{87 88 89 90}
• Majd Makki held that the problem is the selection of students and professors, called for combining both, for raising the standing of the student of knowledge in society's eyes, and for endowments that free him for study. ^{91 92} He gave the example of an Indian scholar who, he said, died in 1304 aged thirty-nine leaving three hundred books, because a wealthy Muslim freed him with four hundred rupees a month when four rupees sufficed others. ^{93 94} (needs_source: the scholar's name is unclear in the transcript; the details match Abd al-Hayy al-Lakhnawi, not confirmed by listening.)
• Dr Ahmad ibn Rashid said he had written two articles years earlier as an exchange of letters: one from private education to state education saying it needed a "perestroika", and a reply from state education titled "lovers of money do not raise generations"; he concluded that competition between the two is healthy. ^{94 95}

A private institute as a model

Asked for the marks of a successful sharia college, Dr Jamil Allam said his institute's regulations combine what is taught at al-Azhar, the sharia departments of Egyptian universities and Dar al-Ulum, and add psychology, education, research methods, practical research training and foreign languages, with a languages branch teaching fifteen languages and an institute for the Qur'an. ^{96 97 98} He said he admits only the gifted, whom he defined as a Muslim who wants to know his religion in order to express it in a contemporary way, and turns away anyone without real desire even if he would pay, because this is not a business. ⁹⁸ He called for freeing sharia colleges from the state's general policy, so that foreign aid does not push the state to interfere in curricula, and for the professor's freedom, and said that he refused support and so kept freedom over curricula. ^{99 100} The Azhar professor replied that college departments set the curricula and pass them up until they become regulations, without state interference. ¹⁰¹

The International Islamic University Malaysia

The presenter described the International Islamic University in Malaysia, which he said he had visited and where he saw a robotics laboratory; it has a rule that no sharia student graduates without a second supporting specialisation to work in, so as not to earn a living from religious knowledge, and no medicine or engineering student graduates without a supporting specialisation in sharia. ^{102 103} Dr Abd al-Hamid held that this does not produce a well-grounded scholar, because knowledge needs specialisation, follow-up and continued study. ^{104 105}

• Majd Makki: students of knowledge need society's esteem and a climate of freedom; he called for "the ethics of knowledge" to be a core subject and for graduating scholars who act, not scholars who only talk. ^{106 107 108}
• Dr Jamil Allam: the contemporary Muslim must study psychology and education and study his society. ¹⁰⁸
• Dr Ahmad ibn Rashid: sharia students matter to the community and must be supported, and self-preparation, outside reading and reading of the political, economic and social situation take the student beyond academic rote learning. ^{109 110}
• Dr Abd al-Hamid: this is the age of specialisation; computing, which appeared in the 1970s, now has by his account about 150 branches, and loading the sharia student with every science would come at the cost of his core learning; he closed with the saying "no dawn without burning". ^{110 111 112}

Tareq al-Suwaidan said the subject of sharia graduates had pained him for a long time, and that choosing it was not an attack on their effort but concern that they be the role models and teachers the young look to. ^{112 113} He recalled that he used to run several schools, and that when one of them decreed that any teacher who hit a pupil would be dismissed, the only one dismissed was the Islamic education teacher. ^{113 114} He held that lack of incentives produces weak curricula and keeps the talented away, and that private colleges may be part of the solution, balanced against the right of specialisation, as the guests warned. ^{114 115} He related that a Westerner once told him Muslims have a formidable weapon, the Friday preacher, who speaks weekly to an obliged congregation and whom no one answers, and gave the example of a preacher who spoke about wearing gold to merchants dealing in interest. ^{115 116 117} He hoped admission levels and tests would be rethought so that only the ablest, willing and committed minds enter the sharia colleges. ¹¹⁷ In his account, Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir in al-Andalus gave every scholar one of the highest salaries so he could devote himself to learning, and Cordoba became, as he put it, the dome of the world in learning. ¹¹⁸ He said al-Azhar produced the greatest scholars while it was an endowment, and politics entered it when it came under government administration. ^{118 119} He closed by saying the middle way here is hard: the sharia graduate is asked to be encyclopaedic, a role model and grounded in religious knowledge at once, which no other college asks of its graduates, and he hoped the episode would open a dialogue on grounding a practical, encyclopaedic religious learning that produces exemplary scholars. ^{119 120}

The vote results in this episode are the opinions of its studio audience, not representative surveys; the figures the speakers give are their statements.