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Reviving the Thirst to Know
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By Usaama al-Azami
The Role of Muslims in Islamic Scholarship in Britain over the Next Ten Years
Medieval Islamic societies were, in their heyday, the most bibliophilic societies in pre-modern times. Of course, with the advent of printing, and the rise of Europe out of the Dark Ages, the Western world embarked on the quest for knowledge in its own right, leading, in the modern era, to the Library of Congress in Washington comfortably ranking first in the league tables of ‘library size’.
All the while, the Muslim world, despite being afflicted by the evils of colonisation, corruption, and poverty, has maintained, into the new millennium, a respectable degree of bibliomania. From the booksellers in Cairo to the authors of Madina, this trade shows no sign of abating. And so it should be, for isn’t Islam the very religion whose first revealed words were the command: “Read!”? Indeed, no culture in the era before printing was quite so obsessed with books, and of this culture, that has undoubtedly seen some decline in recent centuries, one may find its delightful, if mildly eccentric, presence in the English language in the poetic reflections of Khaled Abou El Fadl in his, The Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books.
Sadly, however, Muslims in the UK, for reasons that cannot by any stretch of the imagination be attributed to their religion—though perhaps it may be imputed to a lack of religion—tend to perform among the poorest among their peers in the public education system. That is, however, a separate discussion to the one at hand. Here I am concerned with the study of Islam by Muslims in the West.
Muslims began coming in large numbers to this part of the world towards the middle of the last century, and certain communities among them were quick to establish institutions of learning that would help preserve their tradition and culture in a very foreign land– I’m speaking here primarily about the Gujarati community in the Midlands and the North of England. Other communities were less systematic, but were also very keen to preserve a sense of Muslim identity in posterity; and still others, who were a minority, made no effort to preserve their tradition, and consequently have been completely assimilated into British society, becoming almost indistinguishable from non-Muslims.
Of the first to communities, the study of Islam at a university level appears to have been negligible. The Gujarati communities have, since the 60s, been hard at work to establish seminaries that mirror the seminaries that they were accustomed to in India. Undoubtedly a lot of the study that takes place at such institutions is, by some measure, at university level, but unfortunately most of these institutions do not grant degrees that are recognised in mainstream British society. The other communities, although not excluding members of the Gujarati community, did often tend to enter higher education, but would rarely study Islamic studies in the Western university setting. This may have been due to a suspicion on the part of Muslims towards westerners studying their tradition in a way that distorted it—perhaps not altogether paranoid an observation, given Edwards Said’ book, Orientalism.
Still, even from this more paranoid perspective, I find it curious that those who subscribed to it did not make an effort to study Islam in Western universities, in order to counter what they deemed a ‘distorted’ perspective of their tradition. Surely if they were to stand by and do nothing, such a ‘distorted’ perspective of Islam would continue to be taught at these institutions.
More than this, however, I believe the lack of Muslim interest in Islamic studies at a university level is the result of a Muslim obsession with sending their best and brightest youths to stereotypically ‘respectable’ subjects like medicine, engineering, and law—a tendency that seems to show no sign of waning.
But I am writing this piece to call on Muslims, young and old, to rethink their roles in the West, and reconsider the question of what the younger generation should be doing and studying. I think there is a very clear need for having among our ranks people who may be described as scholars both within the Islamic tradition, and the Western tradition, for new circumstances need fresh perspectives, and only a blend of the traditional and the modern can suffice in producing these perspectives. If we are to produce such people, we must certainly consider encouraging some of our best and brightest to study our great tradition. Those of us who will devote our lives and careers to this area will of course be few in number, but not everyone who studies Classics at university goes on to become a teacher of Greek or Latin. Many such people will enter the conventional job market, and so they should. Rather, I believe that Muslims need to develop Islamic literacy so that they are in better position to confront the challenges of the modern world, and be better citizens of our country. Only then will we be able to do justice to our illustrious tradition, while joining hands with our fellow compatriots in dealing with the challenges of the 21st century.
Usaama al-Azami read Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. He has had extensive traditional Islamic training with scholars in the Middle East and Europe. Currently he is pursuing a doctorate at Princeton University, USA.
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3 Comments
A.A
The sentiments expressed in this article are almost identical to mine – sentiments which prompted me to take the unusual step of qualifying in medicine, finishing post-graduate medical training, and then going part-time to pursue an MA in Islamic Law at the University of London (soas); a path i hope to pursue to PhD.
The problems one will encounter, however, are:
1. Financial – how does one dual qualify having to earn a living and study, perhps with the responsibility of family. It was only possible for me with a wife who worked in a well paid profession (dentistry!!)
2. Career opportunities with Islamic studies degrees are limited and do not pay well
3. discouragement from family – why?/to what end?/how much income will you lose?
I think solutions lie in communities encouraging the motivated few who wish to dual qualify, arranging scholarships, and there being sound career advice for young Muslims with potential.
Moreover, dual qualification should be planned and not random. For example, it is easier to dual qualify in Law and Islamic law since one may earn a living (in English Law) and there will be knowledge/practical overlap.
I wish Usaama well with his doctorate.
Usaama al-Azami
Thank you both for your encouraging comments and useful reflections. With respect to the very serious considerations that AA has noted, perhaps I can respond with the following:
1. This isn’t for everyone, but is needed for a small cadre of serious students. For such people, it needn’t and perhaps shouldn’t be one of two qualifications, and for these people, they will hopefully be able to pursue a career in that line of study in academia. This, I concede can be very difficult, given the relative lack of funding for postgraduate continuation of studies in this area, but hopefully the sorts of people who will go on to teach at a university level will be able to find some way to fund their postgraduate studies.
For people who do not wish to pursue such a career, but want to develop some ‘Islamic literacy’ and the Arabic language skills that will hopefully equip them for Islamic studies undertaken on their own initiative for the rest of their lives, I think taking an undergraduate course in Arabic and Islamic studies can be a stepping stone onto that sort of line. On graduation, such people can pursue a mainstream career of some kind.
2. I don’t believe that career opportunities Islamic studies graduates are necessarily worse than those in other subjects. In the UK, or more specifically, in London, the highest paid jobs are probably those based in the City of London. None of these typical jobs, which I’m not necessarily promoting, usually require that one have a degree in any particular subject at all. All of them provide training for people straight out of university regardless of their subject. The worlds largest London-based law firm, Clifford Chance, has said in the last couple of years that 45% of their intake tends to be from non-Law graduates. The figure is probably similar in other sectors. It probably helps to go to one of the top twenty universities, but I think that our communities attitude that you won’t do well if you don’t pick something science-y or vocational like medicine is not justified in the UK, although it probably was justified in the subcontinental contexts in which our parents grew up.
3. Family discouragement is of course a serious concern, but in my own case, although my family was very very discouraging initially, within a very short time they became very supportive, but this will naturally vary from family to family, and it probably hinges on the misunderstanding of the graduate job market that I’ve discussed above. Of course one’s family may actually be fair to discourage one in some instances, and each individual has to judge his own circumstances accordingly.
I agree with you that the community needs to be more proactive on this issue–something that doesn’t seem to be happening at the moment. I also think that more young Muslims need to be aware of the opportunities to study ‘unconventional’ subjects. I had, in some ways, a similar experience to your own–I took deferred entry into medicine having studied three sciences and maths at A-level. It was only on my year out that I came to know the possibilities of what I could do besides medicine. Although things have turned out well for me, alhamduliLlah, I think that if I had better information from the community, i could have planned things a little earlier.
Perhaps something we can all try to do is raise awareness in our own communities of the importance of Islamic knowledge for which the avenues of learning are many, and if that leads some to pursue degrees in Islamic studies, we pray that they succeed in that, but for those who do not have that inclination, they should still try and develop an interest in the area in as much as it will necessariliy impinge on their lives.
والله ولي التوفيق
An excellent article. Usaama has highlighted one of the most key issues/solutions for Muslims of our time. We need more people with similar views, that is, to encourage Muslims to enter higher education to learn Islamic studies and also other religions and then teach it .
While we hear about Muslims who used to walk miles to recieve small bit of knowledge of Islam before, our era is witnessing a time consumed with lazyness and ‘modern’ issues/lifestyles or other more interesting stuff like celeb culture. Is this because WE are ‘living’ the life and they did not? Rather, it is the other way round.
What needs emphasis from this article perhaps is that Muslims going to higher education is not sufficient. Muslims knowing thier tradition and thier own teachings through Islamic studies at university before they are taught by the media and the local mullah. Learning about Islam should not be limited to knowing how to pray. Instead learning about the history and civilsation of Islam, the language and culture will enable one to become a model for the benefit of the soceity.
Furthermore, our heritage of Muslim etiquettes that we learn should manifest in our actions and behaviours not just with Muslims but with non-Muslims too. This will be the way then to teach Islam to the wider world for a better world. A lack of this has caused justification for the misconceptions of Islam and Muslims.
I feel this issue as a personal one since most of my batchelors degree was spent learning about Judaism when it was supposed to be about all three Abrahamic religions. This is, as the departmental-head reasons that, Muslim scholars simply dont enter academia to teach it, they just enter mosques. How much this is true is debatable especially when they were able to find a Rabbi to teach Judaism and a Dean to christianity – which shows the level at which other traditions are taught. However, the fact that there was only three Muslims studying religions/theology out of the whole university shows why the head of department may be right.
Like Usaama clarifies, I too think this is not expected of everyone. However, Islamic studies/Studies of religion is not really in our agenda. We value subjects according to prestige, money and power. The study of Islam should not come under the category of “interest”. But for a better future, study of religion should be our priority!