The Notion of Murabbi in Islam: an Islamic Critique of Trends in Contemporary Education 1/2

Article Review

Author: Yadullah Kazmi

Title:“The Notion of Murabbi in Islam: an Islamic Critique of Trends in Contemporary Education”

Source: Paper published in Islamic Studies, 38:2 (summer, 1999). PP. 209-233. Islamic Research Institute , Islamabad.

Date of Publication:1999

reviewed by:  HADJ MAHAMMED BAKIR

 Introduction

         Contrary to many studies conducted about Murabbi which focus on the historical narration of some figures lives and list their traits, the present discussion, as the author prefers to name it, looks thoroughly at the components of the word Murabbi and the real meaning of each term, it is an attempt to understand the role of Murabbi from an ontological perspective by asking questions on the fundamental concepts that turn around the essence of  Murabbi. Dealing with a topic from a wrong angle is just like using a ruler to cut meet or employing butcher equipment in a medical laboratory.

Concept of Murabbi

          The human beings inspired in his life by some exemplars who may be his parents, teachers, or any other person in condition that he approaches the perfection. 

          Without doubt, the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) is considered to be the best ever model for Muslims, he was sent by Allah to be the mirror that every single Muslim from his angle can inspire lessons and put them on the ground of reality: 

               “We sent thee not save as a mercy for the peoples.” 107. Al-Anbyah. 

 It’s from his sayings and deeds that they learn and live, he is the selected by Allah to transmit the Holy Quran to Humanity by interpreting the verses into real tangible facts.

          However, generally, when reflecting about the prophet’s life as a Murabbi and trying to extract morals from his biography, the majority of thinkers try to enumerate by tiny details his attributes in its infinite aspects such as: worship, family, conquests and so forth. Sometimes, Muslim historians and Hadith narrators reach to gather thousands and thousands of the Prophet’s (PBUH) characters without getting deep into the deepest concepts of his personality as Murabbi.

          In the present article, the author deals with the notion of Murabbi in Islam and draws an ontological description of Murabbi using the life of the prophet Mohammed (pbuh) as a model. In addition, the article tries to understand the notion of Murabbi using nowadays language since the life of the Prophet (pbuh) is considered to be perfect interpretation of Quran and this, by turn, is the divine book which functions over time and space: 

         “he is The One who has sent forth among illiterate a Messenger from among them, to recite his ayat to them, and to cleanse them, and to teach them the Book and the wisdom, though they were indeed in evidence error”. 62. Al-Imrane.

        One of the criticisms that are frequently addressed against the historical studies, including the prophets’ stories, is that they deal with the past as a stagnant and passive temporal frame because they believe that the agents of that times made their lives and received the results of their deeds in that époque and everything was buried with them in their graves. These historians ignore the dynamicity of history and the fact that the past can be explained by the present and vice versa, in other words, the history is governed by eternal rules that go backwards into the past and forward into the future in a multi-directional activity, our achievements and failures are just like those of our ancestors, so, we can study their stories in the spot of our quotidian lives, and predict the events of our movements from our grandfathers’ experiences.

       And this is the difference between the ontological analysis and other types of investigation. The ontology goes back to history not by following a chronological sequence but by a “diagonal cut” of events and a gazing look inside them in order to understand the concept of Murabbi in its various dimensions because everybody deserves to learn from it according to his personal needs.

       However, since the notion of Murabbi keeps by definition a great part of education many people fail to get benefit from that notion because they fail to bear the responsibility and confuse between learning, education, and gathering of information which is perceived to be a fatal error. We frequently use the terms learning and education interchangeably imagining that both of them are the operation of depositing information in the brain and then using them whenever necessary. For instance, to us the expression: “learning is the right of every citizen” and “education is the right of every citizen” are perfectly synonymous, however, a critical difference exists between the two expressions:

     

   First of all, learning can be identified as a mechanical process through which information are recorded into the brain. As it’s well known, when inputs through senses reach the human brain for the first time they are meaningless and passive, it’s the person who gives them a meaning according to his background and personal life.

        For a Murabbi, the process doesn’t stop in receiving information and sticking them to the memory so that they can be rehearsed in a future occasion. The core concept; education, is the condition of learning; it is a report which makes learning really meaningful. This sort of report has to be either between Allah and a human being as it was the case with the messengers of Allah, or between two humans; the Murabbi and his pupil. To well understand this concept we need to ask questions and try to answer them thoroughly: why Allah sent Quran and prophets to teach it? Quran clarity and eloquence suffice to guide people, isn’t it?

The secret in revealing books and prophets in combination should be discovered through a deep contemplation from Murabbi. But prior to that, it should be emphasized that talking about education leads, inevitably, to an understanding of the word knowledge in its two kinds: theoretical and personalized,

•   Theoretical Knowledge:

Simply, it is the ordinary knowledge that we usually talk about, which is formal, systematic, generalizable, transmitted through formal language, and so forth.

•       Personalized Knowledge:

By contrast, personalized knowledge is recognized by a minority of people, it is not communicated through formal language only, but, it can be transformed through the style of life since it emphasizes the importance of being close to the transmitter of knowledge and try to inspire from all the aspects of his life what it can be benefitted from as education. Contrary to the theoretical knowledge, the personalized knowledge doesn’t focus on the exposition of skills but it is an orientation to knowledge and the World;

           “Verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good example for him who looketh unto Allah and the last Day, and remembereth Allah much.” (21. Al-Ahzab).

        For instance, if we think deeply in what our parents taught us since our early childhood we will perceive that they were showing how to live in this world according to their own experience, in fact, they taught us a personalized knowledge. Indeed, if we count the time spent with our teachers (Murabbi) we find that it’s much longer than the time with our parents. So, the task of Murabbi should be similar to the one of parents, but it’s worthy to discover further about their functions....

(to be continued)