Only Half The Roadmap

We don’t have a complete roadmap. But we certainly have half of it. How? Our very deep realization that we need one is like accomplishing the job up to 50%. We have come far ahead, al-hamdu lillah. Now the big question is how to retrieve the other half. There is a simple answer. By critical thinking.

There is something seriously wrong with our education system. Yesterday, I was speaking to one of my students in Master’s, Sairah Kamal. She had an incomplete Bachelor’s from America. She told me that the critical thinking and leadership are an essential part of the curriculum in the US from the Kindergarten. Contrast it with our situation. How much are we promoting critical thinking and leadership in our education system? How much is the emphasis on memorization and how much on developing rational thinking? The situation of modern institutions is known to all of us. The case of madrasaahs is beyond description. Because of a faulty education system we are perennially waiting for a leader to arrive.

There are many on these Forums who are already leaders, fortunately – wash-shukru lillah. I want to name them. But I will not name them. I wish they were so many that I couldn’t have named them even if I tried. I wish that everyone on these Forums was a leader as actually s/he is. Let us celebrate our own leadership instead of waiting for someone else’s. There is a leader in each one of us. We look for him outside. This is one of the most surprising things to me:

jinheiN meiN dhooNdhtaa thaa aasmanouN meiN zameenouN meiN

woh nikley mere zulmat khaana’-e dil ke makeenouN meiN

If we still want to follow someone, then let us follow Sharjeels. But if we ask Sharjeels to lead us they will say follow the laws of nature – to which the entire Universe has submitted. (Aal ‘Imraan, 3: 83) If we go to Roohullah Neris they will say the same thing. Those who submit and surrender have a specific name. These laws of nature are the same everywhere. How to discover the laws of nature and to use them? Not without critical thinking. Not without scientific approach. This is the (in)complete roadmap. This is the a,b,c and z.

Translate it at the micro levels as you wish and as per the situations. Each one of us has to find the a-b-c in her / his own sphere of influence. Let us cook the food ourselves. The solution and progress lies in being challenged. I should say let us work for introducing a course on critical thinking in the AMU – if it is not there – before anywhere else on earth. This is a very small step. And this is the roadmap. Discovering our own roadmap is the roadmap – after deciding the final destination.

The roadmap is to look at education only as a means to an end and not the end itself. The day we realize it deeply the other half of the map will become visible.

It seems that we do not need some changes here and there. It appears as if we need total transformation – mainly of our thought patterns.