Last month, October 2021, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced the coming on board of a new education policy concerning the teaching of Islam as a subject in its schools. In effect, the existing curricula on six aspects of the subject that is, Qur’an, Hadith, Tawheed, Tafseer, Tajweed and Fiqh are now merged together into one curriculum, that shall be taught by just one single teacher, rather than six specialists in the various disciplines. The implications of this new development are many, including sacking many teachers who had been handling the six subjects. Less experts in the affected disciplines shall be produced.
A few hours shall now be spent teaching the single subject now known as Islamic studies instead of many hours devoted to teaching all the branches of the subject. Consequently students will be less informed about Islam, they may be less interested in Islam, both in theory and practice. The various areas of the subject which had hitherto been studied and developed will experience decline in patronage and consequently, distortion about Islam will creep in. The students will eventually turn their backs against Islam, or at best they will develop lukewarm attitude to it.
UThat is exactly what is happening in Turkey as a result of the Westernisation agenda of the country with less interest in the study and practice of Islam. Some people in Turkey are now atheists after questioning God while they claim they could not find any reasonable answer. Some others are turning to Deism, which believes in the existence of God but rejects all religions and their teachings and their prophets. It believes that God does not intervene in the affairs of His creatures, neither does He have any rules or principles guiding their lives.
This type of concept will interest the West and especially the USA, which will be happy seeing Muslim youths becoming irreligious, losing the grip of Islam on them while they become deradicalised. Saudi Arabia is dancing to the tune of America, which maintains that Saudi will not attain its Vision 2030 if it continues to attach much importance to the Sharī’ah, and as long as it fails to purify its school curriculum by removing all what America considers offensive, repugnant, hateful ideology against Jews, Christians, gays and inequal treatment of women. America instructed Saudi Arabia to rewrite, publish and distribute textbooks in the Kingdom and everywhere it has influence. The books must not promote extremism but moderation, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
It does not appear that Saudi Arabia is any longer interested in pleasing Allah and in championing the cause of Islam. It has forgotten that America and the West ( the Jews and the Christians) only want to lure it out of Islam and lead it to destruction. Q2:145; 3:69; 3:100 & 2:120.
It therefore behoves all of us Muslims everywhere in the world and especially those who are close to the Kingdom to advise it and encourage it to champion the cause of Islam while exploring the religion to achieve whatever it wants. It does not need to seek solutions to whatever challenges it may be facing. Saudi Arabia is not just a sovereign nation, it is the Cradle of Islam. Its opinion is highly respected as representing the official position of Islam on any issue. It should therefore carry other Muslim nations along. I advise proprietors of Arabic and Islamic studies schools not to embrace the newly introduced textbooks coming from Saudi Arabia for the teaching of Islamic studies as a single subject instead of six separate subjects. We should continue to teach the six subjects separately a d ensure 5hat our youths
To be concluded _In_ _shā’a_ _Allah_
Prof. Yasir Anjola Quadri
14th Rabī’uth-Thānī, 1443 / 19th November 2021.
