Khasiat Fadhilat (Isnad) Doa Haikal - Majmu' Syarif

Al-Ghazali's philosophy of education represents the high point of Islamic thinking on education, in which al-Ghazali's inclination towards reconciliation and the integration of various intellectual schools is apparent. Here he achieves a synthesis of legal, philosophical and mystical educational thinking. Al-Ghazali was not a ‘philosopher of education' (even though he did work as a teacher at the beginning of his career); he was a philosopher of religion and ethics. When he had completed the outlines of this great philosophical edifice, and begun to put it into practice, al-Ghazali found himself turning to education and teaching, in the same way as the great philosophers before him had done. Al-Ghazali's philosophy was more an expression of the spirit of the age in which he lived than a response to its challenges; his thinking on education, as indeed his philosophy, favoured continuity and stability over change and innovation. For Al-Ghazali, the purpose of society is to apply shari‘a, and the goal of man is to achieve happiness close to God. Therefore, the aim of education is to cultivate man so that he abides by the teachings of religion, and is hence assured of salvation and happiness in the eternal life hereafter. Other worldly goals, such as the pursuit of wealth, social standing or power, and even the love of knowledge, are illusory, since they relate to the transient world [14]. Man is born as a tabula rasa, and children acquire personality, characteristics and behaviour through living in society and interacting with the environment. The family teaches the children its language, customs and religious traditions, whose influence they cannot escape. Therefore, the main responsibility for children's education falls on the parents, who take credit for their probity and bear the burden of their errors; they are partners in everything the children do, and this responsibility is subsequently shared by the teachers [15]. Al-Ghazali stresses the importance of childhood in character formation. A good upbringing will give children a good character and help them to live a righteous life; whereas, a bad upbringing will spoil their character and it will be difficult to bring them back to the straight and narrow path. It is therefore necessary to understand the special characteristics of this period in order to deal with the child in an effective and sound manner [16]. It is important that boys should begin to attend maktab (elementary school) at an early age, for what is learnt then is as engraved in stone. Those entrusted with the education of the boy at school should be aware of how his motivations develop and interests change from one period to another: a fascination with movement, games and amusement, followed by a love of finery and appearances (in infancy and childhood), then an interest in women and sex (adolescence), a yearning for leadership and domination (after the age of 20), and finally delight in the knowledge of God (around the age of 40). These changing interests can be used by educators to attract the boy to school, by offering first the lure of ball games, then ornaments and fine clothes, then responsibilities, and finally by awakening a longing for the hereafter [17]. In the elementary stage, children learn the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet's companions; they should be preserved from love poetry and the company of men of letters, both of which sow the seeds of corruption in boys' souls. They must be trained to obey their parents, teachers and elders, and to behave well towards their classmates. They should be prevented from boasting to their peers about their parents' wealth or the food they eat, their clothes and accessories. Rather, they should be taught modesty, generosity and civility. Attention is drawn to the potentially pernicious influence of the children's comrades on their character. They must therefore be advised that their friends should possess the following five qualities: intelligence, good morals, good character, abstemiousness and truthfulness [18]. Figure 6: From cover of the recent English translation of Al-Ghazali's al-Munqidh min al-Dhalal (Deliverance from Error) and other works, translated by R.J. McCarthy (Fons Vitae, 2004, 334 pp.). Education is not limited to training the mind and filling it with information, but involves all aspects—intellectual, religious, moral and physical—of the personality of the learner. It is not enough to impart theoretical learning; that learning must be put into practice. True learning is that which affects behaviour and whereby the learner makes practical use of his knowledge [19]. The children's tutors must devote attention to religious education. First, the principles and foundations of religion are instilled into them such that by the age of about 7 they can be expected to perform the ritual ablutions and prayers, and to undertake several days of fasting during Ramadan until they become accustomed to it and are able to fast for the whole month. They should not be allowed to wear silk or gold, which are proscribed by the Faith. They must also be taught everything they need to know about the precepts of religious law, and must learn not to steal, eat forbidden food, act disloyally, lie, utter obscenities or do anything which children are prone to do. Naturally, at this early age they will not be able to understand the intricacies of what they are taught or expected to practice, and there is no harm in that. As they grow older, they will come to understand what they have been taught and what they are practising. At times, al-Ghazali the Sufi overshadows al-Ghazali the educator: for instance, he advocates cutting the boy off from the world and its temptations in order for him to renounce it, and accustoming him to a simple, rough life in poverty and modesty [20]. And yet the educator quickly reappears, for he feels that once the boy has left the school premises, he should be allowed to play suitable games in order to recover from the fatigue of study, and be freed from the constraints imposed upon him. However, he must not tire or overtax himself at play. Preventing the boy from playing and burdening him constantly with learning can only weary his heart and blunt his mind, spoiling his life and making him so despise study that he resorts to all manner of tricks to escape it [21]. If the boy obeys his tutors, has good morals, shows excellence and makes progress in his studies, he should be honoured and praised in public so as to be encouraged and to incite others to imitate him. If he makes a mistake, but appears to be aware of it, the tutor should not mind, for the boy may have understood his mistake and be determined not to repeat it. If, however, he commits the same error again, his tutor should give him a small reprimand in private. The teacher may sometimes need to punish his pupils with a light beating, the purpose of which should be chastisement rather than physical injury [22]. The teachers should take into account the differences in character and ability between pupils, and deal with each one of them appropriately. The teachers should not push the pupils beyond their capacity, nor attempt to bring them to a level of knowledge that they cannot absorb, since that is counter-productive. By the same token, they should not keep a bright pupil back at the level of his/her schoolmates, for then the teacher would be in the position of someone who would feed an infant on flesh which they cannot eat, digest or benefit from, or someone who would give a strong man human milk, which he has long outgrown. To feed someone with the right food is to give life; to burden someone with what is not right can only cause ruin [23]. Obscured by his borrowings from philosophers (Ibn Miskawayh in particular) or by their influence, al-Ghazali the faqih and Sufi returns to the fore when, in addressing the arts and artistic education, he deals with the general principles of education. He begins well by defining beauty and goodness as the perception of a thing in its entirety, but his Sufism quickly gets the better of him and he condemns listening to music and singing because they are associated with gatherings where wine is drunk. The only kind of singing to be allowed, in his view, is that of religious and heroic songs, or those sung at official festivities (religious festivals, celebrations, banquets, etc.). Such songs revive one's spirits, rejoice the heart and help one to carry on the work of this world and the next. However, an excess of music and singing should be avoided: as with medicine, they should be taken only in prescribed doses. The same is true of dancing, which may be practised or watched in the appropriate places, as long as it does not arouse desire or encourage sinful acts. Al-Ghazali attacks drawing and painting vehemently, in conformity with the aversion of the fuqaha', particularly in the early days of Islam, to the depiction of man or animals, which was associated with the veneration of idols or icons. He therefore rules that pictures should be removed or defaced, and he recommends not working as an engraver, goldsmith or decorator. With regard to poetry, al-Ghazali advises men not to waste their time with it, even if the composition or recitation of verses is not forbidden. Thus, al-Ghazali adopts a strict position that is in agreement with that of the most rigorous legal experts. He divides the arts into the categories of licit, reprehensible and forbidden. The licit arts are those dealing with religion or which inspire fervor. Arts intended for pleasure or entertainment al-Ghazali tends to declare either reprehensible or forbidden. In any case, he pays scant attention to the arts or artistic education. However, we should no doubt do al-Ghazali an injustice if we were to disregard the criteria and ideas of his day and age and judge him solely by the standards and concepts of our time [24]. Al-Ghazali advises marriage as soon as the sexual urge appears and maturity is reached. But he also stresses that marriage and the founding of a family is a great responsibility, which one should be properly prepared to assume. Al-Ghazali advises that those unable to marry should endeavour to cultivate and discipline themselves and curb their impulses through fasting and spiritual exercises [25]. 5. The concept of methods and knowledge of teaching Figure 7: Women are hidden behind a wall, like in a harem of a house, while an imam lectures in a mosque: Shaykh Baha'al-Din Veled preaching in Balkh Jami' al-Siyar in 1600; part of the Topkapi collection, from Bilkent University, Turkey. (Source). With the emergence of the new religion (Islam) and the civilization that arose with it, a set of religious and linguistic disciplines came into being, among which were those dealing with the Koran, hadith, fiqh, linguistics, the biographies of the Prophet and his companions, and the military campaigns of the Prophet, which were designated the ‘Arab sciences'. With the growth of Arab and Islamic culture, and through contact and interaction with and borrowing from foreign cultures, another set of disciplines arose, such as medicine, astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, philosophy and logic, which were called the ‘non-Arab' sciences. From these native and borrowed sciences a flourishing scientific movement grew rapidly, although a conflict soon arose between the religious sciences and the disciplines of philosophy and the natural sciences, or between the fuqaha' and the philosophers. Al-Ghazali and his Tahafut al-Falasifa was one of the elements in this struggle, which ended with the victory of the fuqaha' (and Sufis) over the philosophers and scientists. And yet the religious sciences emerged from this battle weakened and lacking in vigour, especially after the gate of independent inquiry was closed and the method of relying on earlier authorities gained supremacy: Arab civilization and science thus went from an age of original production, creativity and innovation to one of derivation, imitation and compilation. As a scholar and teacher, al-Ghazali was interested in the problem of knowledge: its concepts, methods, categories and aims [26]. True knowledge, in al-Ghazali's view, is knowledge of God, His books, His prophets, the kingdoms of earth and heaven, as well as knowledge of shari‘a as revealed by His Prophet. Such knowledge is thus a religious science, even if it includes the study of certain worldly phenomena. Disciplines relating to this world, such as medicine, arithmetic, etc., are classed as techniques [27]. The purpose of knowledge is to help man to achieve plenitude and to attain true happiness—the happiness of the hereafter—by drawing close to God and gazing upon His countenance [28]. The value of learning lies in its usefulness and veracity. Hence, the religious sciences are superior to the secular sciences because they concern salvation in the eternal hereafter rather than this transient world, and because they contain greater truth than the secular sciences. This is not to say that the secular sciences should be completely ignored; they have their uses, and are needed by society. Examples of such disciplines are medicine and linguistics [29]. The Muslim philosophers and scholars (al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn an-Nadim, Ibn Sina and others) had a passion for classifying the sciences, and were influenced in this respect by the Greek philosophers, in particular Aristotle. Al-Ghazali has several classifications of the sciences: he first classifies them according to their ‘nature' into theoretical (theological and religious sciences) and practical (ethics, home economics and politics) [30], and then according to their ‘origin' into revealed sciences, taken from the prophets (unity of God, exegesis, rites, customs, morality) and rational sciences, produced by human reason and thinking (mathematics, natural sciences, theology, etc.) [31] There is no contradiction, in al-Ghazali's opinion, between the revealed sciences and the rational sciences. Any apparent conflict between the prescriptions of revelation and the requirements of reason stems from the incapacity of the seeker to attain the truth and from his faulty understanding of the reality of revealed law or the judgement of reason. In fact, the revealed and the rational sciences complement—and indeed are indispensable to—one another. The problem is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to study and understand them together. They constitute two separate paths, and whoever takes an interest in the one will be deficient in the other [32]. Finally, al-Ghazali classifies the sciences according to their purpose or aim, dividing them into the science of transaction (governing the behaviour and actions of human beings—the sciences of rites and customs) and the science of unveiling (pertaining to the apprehension of the reality and essence of things), an abstract science which can only be attained through unveiling a light which illuminates the heart when the heart is purified, a light which is ineffable and cannot be contained in books. It is the supreme science and the truest form of knowledge [33]. The 11th century (5th century H) witnessed the triumph of the religious sciences over philosophy and the natural sciences. al-Ghazali's violent attack on philosophy was one of the factors that contributed to its weakening in the Islamic East. Al-Ghazali divides the philosophical sciences into six categories: mathematics, logic, natural sciences, metaphysics, politics and ethics. Mathematics, logic and the natural sciences do not contradict religion, and may be studied. The problem is that whoever studies them may go on to metaphysics and other disciplines which should be avoided. Metaphysics is the science which is most dangerous and at variance with religion. Politics and ethics are not incompatible with the sciences and principles of religion, but here again, whoever studies them may slide into the study of other, reprehensible sciences [34]. Curiously, although al-Ghazali attacked philosophy and the natural sciences, and was influential in persecuting and weakening them, he also helped to restore them to the curriculum at al-Azhar at the end of the 19th century, where the head of that university, Muhammad al-Anbabi 1878 CE (1305 H) adduced al-Ghazali's writings on the natural sciences in order to demonstrate that they were not contradictory to religion and to authorize their teaching [35]. The Islamic educational system was divided into two distinct levels: elementary schooling was dispensed in the kuttab for the common people, and by men of letters in private houses for the children of the élite; higher education took place in various Islamic educational institutions such as mosques, madrasas, ‘houses of science and wisdom', Sufi hermitages, brotherhoods, hospices, etc. The elementary curriculum had a pronounced religious character, and consisted mainly of learning the Koran and the fundamentals of religion, reading and writing, and occasionally the rudiments of poetry, grammar, narration and arithmetic, with some attention being devoted to moral instruction. At the beginning of Islam, the higher curriculum was purely religious and included the sciences of tafsir, hadith, fiqh and kalam, and disciplines designed to aid in their study, such as linguistics, literature and poetry, as well as branches of knowledge which had developed in the margins of the religious sciences, such as narratives, the military campaigns of the Prophet and history. As Islamic civilization developed and assimilated Greek science, there arose alongside the Islamic curriculum a new curriculum, in which philosophy and science (mathematics, logic, medicine, astronomy, natural sciences, etc.) were studied. It was not easy to combine these two types of knowledge; only a small number of students and scholars succeeded in doing so. Owing to the weak position of philosophy and science, and the strength of the attack against them, they gradually began to disappear from the curriculum in the 11th century (5th century H), to be taken up again only in the early 19th century, albeit primarily in independent scientific institutes. It should be noted that in Arab and Islamic civilization, curricula were not rigidly defined, but were flexible and allowed students the freedom of choosing the subjects they wished to study and the masters they wished to study under. Al-Ghazali distinguishes clearly between two types of curriculum: (a) obligatory sciences, which must be studied by everyone, including the religious sciences and related or ancillary disciplines such as linguistics and literature; (b) optional sciences, which are studied according to the wishes and capacities of the student. These are in turn divided into: (i) revealed sciences, of which there are four: the fundamentals (the Book, sunna, ijma‘ and the teachings of the companions of the Prophet); the branches (fiqh and ethics); means (linguistics and grammar); and the accessories (reading, tafsir, the sources of fiqh, annals and geneology); and (ii) non-revealed sciences (medicine, mathematics, poetry and history) [36]. The criterion governing the choice of subjects is their usefulness for the student and for society. Hence religious subjects are preferred, since they are conducive to the godliness of the eternal hereafter rather than the mediocrity of this transient world. Al-Ghazali clarifies his conception of the contents and methods of teaching by classifying the subjects students may choose into three categories: - Knowledge which is praiseworthy whether in small or large amounts (knowledge of God, His attributes, His actions, the Law which He established in His creation, and His wisdom in giving pre-eminence to the hereafter over this world). - Knowledge, which is reprehensible whether in small or large amounts (witchcraft, magic, astrology). - Knowledge which is praiseworthy to a certain extent (tafsir, hadith, fiqh, kalam, linguistics, grammar, etc.) [37]. He recommends beginning with the fundamental sciences: the Koran, followed by sunna, then tafsir and the Koranic sciences. These are to be followed by applied ethics—fiqh, then the sources of fiqh, etc. [38] Al-Ghazali then divides each branch of knowledge into three levels: elementary, intermediate and advanced (primary, secondary and higher), and he lists the books which may be studied at each level of the various sciences and subjects of study. In Al-Ghazali's eyes, education is not merely a process whereby the teacher imparts knowledge that the pupil may or may not absorb, after which teacher and pupil each go their separate ways. Rather, it is an ‘interaction' affecting and benefiting teacher and pupil equally, the former gaining merit for giving instruction and the latter cultivating himself through the acquisition of knowledge. Al-Ghazali attaches great importance to the climate in which teaching takes place, and to the kind of relations that are desirable; in doing so, he continues and reaffirms the Islamic traditions of education. For him, the teacher should be a model and an example, not merely a purveyor or medium of knowledge. His work is not limited to the teaching of a particular subject; rather, it should encompass all aspects of the personality and life of the pupil. The pupil, in turn, has a duty to consider the teacher as a father, to whom he owes obedience and respect [39]. Among the principles governing the art of teaching, al-Ghazali stresses that teaching should be linked to concrete situations and emphasizes the need for various types of knowledge and skills. Whenever a particular knowledge or skill is needed, it should be taught in such a way as to meet that need and be functional [40]. He also stresses that learning is only effective when it is put into practice, and is aimed at inculcating the right habits rather than simply memorizing information [41]. Al-Ghazali comes close to the idea of ‘proficiency learning' when he recommends that the teacher should not move on from one subject matter to another without first ensuring that the pupil has mastered the first subject matter, and to the concept of the 'complementarity of sciences' when he advises that the teacher should pay attention to the interconnectedness of knowledge and the relations between its various branches. Finally, he counsels a gradual and patient approach in teaching[42]. With respect to religious education, al-Ghazali recommends an early introduction to the fundamentals of religion through inculcation, memorization and repetition, there being no need for understanding at first. A subsequent stage involves explanation, understanding and conscious pratice [43]. Here too, al-Ghazali continues the Islamic traditions of education, in which the Koran was first to be memorized without being explained, the fundamentals of religion inculcated without clarification and practice was enjoined before the emergence of commitment rooted in conviction.