THE NOTION OF MURABBI IN ISLAM: AN ISLAMIC CRITIQUE OF TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION

THE NOTION OF MURABBI IN ISLAM: AN ISLAMIC CRITIQUE OF TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION

By: Prof. Yedullah Kazmi

The purpose of the article is an attempt at an ontological understanding of the notion of murabbi from an Islamic perspective.  Ontological means the possibilities that have not been realized but which have been forgotten and buried i.e. not just listing the attributes of Murabbi but what it means with respect to education and learning.  Then a critique of modern education is made in reference to the murabbi. Argues the need for the murabbi in education especially for the personalized knowledge in addition to the theoretical knowledge, which is the function of the murabbi. Murabbi teach personal knowledge through his style of life, because his life is text. Thus, a murabbi puts theories into practices. However, in today’s world we have reduced murabbi’s life with theoretical knowledge, so we forgot how important one life is.

Murabbi is a knowledgeable person, wise and also pious, kind and considerate. Murabbi’s life is life of learning and life of virtue. That’s why murabbi is a perfect and an ideal person to learn from. Ontological definition of murabbi: NOT listing the attributes of murabbi because then only one dimensional whereas murabbi is multidimensional.

When we understand the notion of murabbi, it will make sense for us to understand the role of our prophet (Muhammad SAW). The notion of murabbi can be understood when we know the nature of teaching that is very personal teaching. What we learn based on judgment (what is important for us) according to our configuration meaning (structured). To acquire a configuration meaning by telling what is important for you. Murabbi is the person who telling about this. To understand the notion of murabbi, we should be able to distinguish between education and learning, and also gathering information.

The distinction between Education and learning

Education is a type of learning that makes all subsequent learning possible. However, it does not mean that education is prior to learning because it deals with teaching skills such as reading and writing. If one holds on to the empiricist epistemology, then one will fail to distinguish between education and learning because:  learning is process of recording or copying the text onto human mind (Freire’s banking theory of teaching).  Therefore, there is no difference. The only difference is education is a more formal process of learning.

Education is the result of a personal encounter between a teacher and a student between beings and beings or the Supreme Being and the human being i.e. only human beings can educate other human beings like teachers can educate their students, or only the Supreme Being can educate human beings, for example how Allah educated Adam a.s about name of things.  Because human beings needs teachers to guide them, that’s why Allah sent His prophet from time to time to help and guide them by telling what is important for them in each time. The last, Allah sent Prophet Muhammad s.a.w and the holy book Quran as guidance for human being until hereafter.  Quran as torch or source of life can shed light our path all the time by walking through it. The prophet as murabbi at the time tried to help the society by responding to the needs of them. Allah sent prophet with His book (kitab) because we need someone (prophet) to tell us which is significant and important for us.  That’s why the Prophet is the real murabbi all the time, because he tried to responds to the society based on their configuration meaning.

Then, learning is an automatic and mechanical process of recording information in the mind of the students.  This process gives sensation to the mind of the students by interpreting them after they have been received. In other words, the human mind is initially passive with respect to knowledge and only partially active when it gives the received sensations meaning through interpretation.

Two kinds of knowledge

            There are two kinds of knowledge: theoretical knowledge and personal knowledge. Theoretical knowledge is knowledge that can be fully explained in any language, universal, and can be tested. What he teaches (the text) is more important (primary) and the author is secondary. Between the author and the text do not depend each other. Meanwhile, personal knowledge is very personal and cannot be fully explained in a language. The text is mainly about action. In personal knowledge the text and the writer is similar (go hand in hand), nothing primary, because the text consists of the action of the author. The action of the author displays in his style of life (how does he face crisis, cope with issues and problems, and so on). So, to know about personal knowledge, we should go through by living it. Only murabbi teaches about personal knowledge.  Murabbi’s living is the truth.

            Analogy of personalized knowledge is a personal encounter with the game of football or chess.  Although the rules of the game remain fixed and unchanged, but each game played are different i.e. different climaxes.  Similarly, personalized knowledge means every class of say history brings different events which is giving a different experience to students. Each experience results in a different configuration of meaning based on their structured meaning. Likewise, the grammar of Quran never changes, but when we try to understand the meaning of the Quran, in every attempt to understand will come up with new understanding according to our situation and it will be different individually, because of our needs also different in every circumstance. It depends on our ability to process information which leads us to make judgment. The ability to make judgment is made possible by the acquisition of a definite configuration of meaning.

Therefore, education which we get is equipping someone with the configuration of meaning which can be open-ended or close; flexible or rigid depending on the type of education one gets. Usually, when we are young our structured meaning more flexible and we grow older our structured meaning become rigid. The configuration that imparts a rigid configuration of meaning is conservative.  The configuration tells us what is important and what is not.  And to know this (important or otherwise) is the role and the function of the murabbi. To help the murabbi in this is his personal knowledge.

The function of a murabbi

The primary function is to create theoretical and personalized knowledge but more so the latter.  The only way to understand the concept of murabbi is to live it and to test its validity is to see what difference it makes to his/her life as a Muslim. For example when we want to know about the life of our Prophet, we study his life and live it to make sure what he preach and taught is work in our life. The test of murabbi is by living the life of murabbi and we find complete verification like the living of murabbi to see how living the life help us or not. What he or she teaches is not an impersonal body of theoretical knowledge that he/she has mastered and accepted its truth but rather knowledge that he/she has lived and found to be true or false.  That is, there is consistency in knowledge and practice.  This is the reason why a prophet has always accompanied by a divine book. Therefore, a murabbi is not simply a teacher, but rather an exemplary human being, an ideal Muslim who spread the message of god.

However, our educational system in today’s world cannot create teachers be murabbi because way of university set up cannot make them as murabbi because teachers and lectures suppose to teach only theoretical knowledge. Teachers cannot bring their personal knowledge to the classroom because everything should be measureable, assessable, and scientific (mechanical in nature). So, our education only set up to give theoretical knowledge to students due to ethical education and values is not something important anymore. It is also happen with our religion where we only learn the theoretical knowledge not the values. We know something but we do not translate it into act, ‘ilm not lead us to ‘amal. In this condition we need murabbi to teach us about personal knowledge because personal knowledge has to be said, acted, and proved. 

Commodification of knowledge

            Hundred years ago, to have education is only for the rich. Acquiring knowledge through education help them intellectually to cultivate their mind. Only gentleman who has wealth in his life can pursue his study to higher level because he truly seeking for knowledge after he has everything in his life. Contrary, today, seeking knowledge is only part of consume, because most of students will not create anything with that knowledge. Truly, knowledge has particular function to society. It has to have practical purpose also. To have knowledge is to change the world, to help the world become better world. No matter what knowledge is, it should be useful.  

            Knowledge should be used for regard social justice and for practical used and production of something. Knowledge as part of education can help us to increase the supply in very short time without increasing the number. Education today become one of investment, we put it away for our future. Education as part of investment means that we have tendency to produce more through education to multiple our production and profit ability. So, when someone investing in education, he will choose the higher marking values that will benefit him. Today, market that will tell us what is benefit to take in education and there is no murabbi anymore to say what is the most important and significant to our life. Because of this situation, education becomes commodity. Most parents choose qualified schools and department for their children because of this consideration. The reasons for parents send their children to schools with spending much money is because they expect higher exchange in the future.

Critique of modern education is that knowledge has become a commodity and education has been transformed into an economic and an impersonal enterprise.  Teachers have been relegated to the margin as facilitators.  Education is no more concerned with what matters for human beings i.e. moral and spiritual values, to seek closer to the truth and to serve God. More people, nowadays, seduce by the market. Not only about something that we will learn but also our style of life and the goody what we have. We really concern about our appearance, we built very tall building, we buy something luxury, and soon that shows that we really admired this world. Our action is always count by money, so we do not have enough time to read anything to balance our mind diet. We only focus on what will benefit us, because we used to say time is money.

Schultz stated that education as an investment in human beings and investment in education should not be any different from investing in other commodity. Meaning to say that what we hope through our education is same thing goes with when we do investment in business. That’s why we show today that economic, business, engineering, medical become the most favorite kulliyah around the world in every university. Meanwhile, the kulliyyah of thought, philosophy close down because no one thing that these departments will benefit for human life. As a consequence of this, the reason for teaching and choosing a subject is because there is demand for it and the demand is determined by its marketability.  In other words, knowledge does not have intrinsic value but only an exchange value.

Once knowledge is identified as a commodity, then there will be competition with other commodities for the determination of its value and this will change the landscape of education.  Example: Places where learning and teaching take place is similar with factory. When we produce knowledge is just like a factory producing cars. So, people will determine which university to attend based on the values of the university in the market. The market usually determine by the powerful country like Europe and America. So, commodification knowledge, one of them, is because we tend to follow the America Europe countries needs. We do not rely on what we needs, so that our education in Muslim counties not issue oriented.  Our education imitates the western model system and we inherit it to our generation. We lost our own identity because of this. We establish the branch of western universities campuses in developing countries.

Once knowledge is subjected to the logic of commodity exchange, it becomes impersonal.  Production of knowledge responds to the demand of the market rather that to what matters to a human being.  The mode of teaching also becomes impersonal.  Personal consideration will only disrupt the efficiency of the process of production. As we do not rely on what we need but what market tell us. Education becomes merely collecting and gathering of information and the function of education is reduced to teaching information retrieval skills. We forget the message of Islam that our Prophet has spread to teach us ethics and Islamic values.

Do we still need murabbi?

Murabbi seeks knowledge but not for its own sake or for the sake of improving life here.  The pursuit of knowledge is moral and spiritual in nature.  The end of knowledge is to serve God, not the market. The absence of murabbi from modern educational landscape has also brought about a change in thinking about curriculum. We rely on the market rather than what significant for us. In fact, the market has taken the place of murabbi.  The emphasis has shifted in educational thought from the teacher to what the teacher teaches or ought to teach.  Teachers have been relegated to the role of facilitators.

Murabbi teaches how to think and this is not easy like to teach and gather information.  To do philosophical or sociological thinking one needs the teacher to show how or to coach even in reading the text.  A student cannot just read the book alone but must be understand about the author of the text to make it effective in learning process. It does not mean we should bring back the murabbi to our world today, but we should recover the function of murabbi. One thing that we should do is we should change the way our education constructed to allow us not only to produce teachers but also teachers with quality of murabbi who can teach both personal knowledge and theoretical knowledge.