Ali, Saeed Ismail. “The Centrality of Education in Understanding the Situational Reality of the Ummah and Causes of its Regression,” Year 8, Issue 29 (Summer 1423 AH/ 2002 CE), Pp. 11-46.

Abstract

Saeed Ismail Ali’s presents in the first part of his article examples of problems facing education in Muslim societies, including educational shortcomings, authoritarianism that led to the failure of educational curricula, and Western Colonialism and its influence on education in the Muslim world, which led to the reformulation of the Muslim mind in accordance with the wishes of the colonizer.  It also discusses the educational division between the religious and civil sectors of society, and the shortcomings of religious education. The second part of the article presents signs of civilizational revival in the educational field, including: Islamic ta’ṣīl (framework established upon referral to principal Islamic sources) of educational sciences, educational justice, intellectual development that frees the Muslim mind from imitation (taqlīd) and inertia, ʿumrān (civilizational—including social and economic—development), and education based on concepts of vicegerency (istikhlāf) in light of guidance from the Qur’an and Sunnah.