The Defining Moments of My Days at Islamic College
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By Assad Bhuglah
When I passed the Standard VI examination in 1964, my father was very anxious and inquisitive as to which college would be appropriate for me. My village did not yet have a college of recognized standard. My surroundings at home had mentally prepared me to opt for a college in Port Louis where my cousin had just completed HSC and had subsequently joined its teaching staff. However, my cousin convinced my father to try another institution, the Islamic Cultural College, which was reputed for its good performance in SC exams, exemplary discipline and fully equipped laboratories. In those days, the dearth of experimental laboratories had prevented many colleges to offer science subjects.
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Upbringing
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Individualists believe in man's conversion, in inner renewal; positivists believe in the change of his behaviour. The philosophy behind these views is clear: if a crime is a result of free choice or of an evil will, then re-education by some outside measure has little chance of success. On the contrary, if the offence is the consequence of bad conditions and habits, the offender can be reeducated by changing these conditions or forming new habits. This is the difference between an inner conversion and a drill. Every re-education technique enforced by clerks and government officials, and especially by the army or the police, always consists of drill and never of upbringing.
Record of Accounts
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Al-Haqqah (The Inevitable Truth) Sura 69: Verses 19-24
"He who is given his record in his right hand will say, 'Come you all! Read this my record, I certainly knew that one day I would have to face my account.' He will be in a happy state of life, in a lofty garden, with its fruits within easy reach. 'Eat and drink to your heart's content as a reward for what you have done in days gone by.'"
Traditional Knowledge
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By Assad Bhuglah
Human beings do so many things in their day-to-day life, with confidence and certainty, that they little realize how and where they learned the art and skills of executing their routine actions. The Bhandari who prepares a delicious Biryani or a spicy Haleem; the parents who teach family manners etiquette to their kids; the labourers who toil the land and cultivate sugarcanes and so on – they did not acquire the knowledge from formal training or schools. They inherited it from their elders and ancestral links. In modern parlance, this is known as traditional knowledge --- which can be defined as know-how, skills and practices that are developed, sustained and passed on from generation to generation within a community, often forming part of its cultural or spiritual identity. Traditional knowledge embodies a wealth of wisdom and experience of nature gained over millennia from direct observations, and transmitted—most often orally—over generations. There is a common idiom that says when an elder dies, a library is buried with him and when a community disappears, an archive of memories vanishes.
Unjust Power Relations
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A number of decades ago, the "Abrahamic" identity was created to expand Christian-Jewish dialogue to include Muslims. This was a positive development that has since established a shared platform for dialogue and engagement. At the same time, it is a constructed identity that does not fully encompass the theological ethics and identity of each of us or all of us. Anything we build will necessarily be limited in space and perspective, and we must be mindful that enclosures, as much as they unite people in a space, also restrict that space. I am particularly concerned that the "Abrahamic" appellation reinforces a patriarchal lineage that I believe Islam came to reform. The elder men of the community have no preferential claim on religious leadership and authority in Islam, as much as that might be the cultural preference and social reality of many Muslims. As we work together to build a more peaceful world, we must embrace language and appellations that do not replicate or reinstate unjust power relations.
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