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The Message

The Westernization Of Education

Translated from Hausa by Abdul Mumin Giwa

Peace be upon you all. There should have been separate times for lecture and closing speech and not as placed to be carried out at the same time. In place of the given lecture to be discussed on 'the global challenges' facing Muslims today, I am going to deliver a closing speech. The given topic shall be discussed another time God willing.

More so, we cannot afford to delay any further because , the end of your holiday is approaching and there have been and are going to be series of other programs to take place in this same venue. There is also the Ghadeer celebration due to take place in a few days time. All the mentioned commitments necessitated that your program either takes place briefly or does not take place at all. It was then decided that it takes place briefly instead of not taking place at all. More so the end of your holiday is fast approaching, it is better you are given the opportunity to make the best use of the time.

It is expected that the curriculum of learning provides for what is going to be learnt in the workshop you are just concluding. But unfortunately, the way manner the educational sector is being adopted makes it virtually impossible for this to be achieved. This is because it is a system that does not recognize religion. It is called secular. As far as we are concerned there is nothing in life that has nothing to do with religion. Everything has to do 'with \religion and is all about religion.

I was mentioning it to some people yesterday that it was the people that rejected everything that the colonialists came with and referred to everything as Whiteman's, they never distinguished between them. They referred to everything he came with as Whiteman's and they rejected all. For instance there are those that refused to eat food in plate and continued to use the calabash to eat saying that plates are Whiteman's. They refused to accept to use cutlery like spoons and others saying that they are the Whiteman's utensils.

Having refused the Whiteman, the people came to realized that they have been left far behind in a lot of things and so, they embraced everything the Whiteman came with unconditionally. This kind of thing is what is called extremism. It is too extreme to refuse everything the Whiteman came with, in as much as it is also too extreme to accept everything unconditionally. Had they studied what he came with and differentiated what was theirs form what the Whiteman came with form what was not theirs things would have been different. For instance they even said that iron (metal) is the Whiteman's. They referred to vehicles bicycles and cars as the Whiteman's. This is the extent of myopia they fell into that up till now they refer to those things as the Whiteman's. One is tempted to ask whether iron (metal) belongs to the Whiteman. Whereas God Almighty is saying in the holy Qur'an that “We have sent down the iron in which there is much strength and is of great use to man.” It is God Almighty that owns iron form which a lot of things are made and not the Whiteman. If there were no iron, man would have not been able to do a lot of things and because God Almighty is fully aware of that, He sent down the iron with which man makes a lot of things like shields, swords and a lot of others. These are a naturally endowed mineral under-ground and for long people have been putting it in use in various ways through converting the ore into hoes, machetes and other useful utensils.

They were supposed to have said that iron is God made when they saw the Whiteman processing it into other items. Instead of that they said they had nothing to do with the Whiteman's metals and they discarded it, whereas, it is God Almighty that made metal and not the Whiteman. If you make a plate using wood, it is not different from that made using metal because both the metal and the wood are made by God Almighty. When the Whiteman came with paper they called it the Whitman's paper. When he came with his writing they called it the Whiteman's writing. When he came with tablets they called it the Whiteman's pills. They even said that they would not take the drugs because the drugs are Whiteman's. The drugs were made with simple chemicals like potash salt and even rice. But, they called it the Whiteman's pills as if the rice also belonged to the Whiteman. They even called the Irish Potato the Whiteman's potato. The Whiteman does not own it. They only travel around the world and pick on what interests them for further usage in their country. The said Irish potato is from Venezuela. Such things move about and do not belong to the Whiteman. Even Okro was introduced to us by the Whiteman but it does not belong to him. Iron, wood, table, car and others are not what is called Westernization.

It is good we take a view of what the Whiteman came with and identify what it is that is his and not to credit everything to him. It is that act of atheism he came with that we should identify and reject. We should reject that act of opposing the God Almighty and at the same time declare that we are Muslims. We leave him with his unbelief and hold on tight to our faith. But things like cloth materials, grown food and others are not owned by the Whiteman, they are made by God Almighty.

Also, the Whiteman does not have any knowledge. Knowledge belongs to, God Almighty, “It is He who taught by the pen. He taught man that which he knew not.” It is God that taught man that which he knew not. Therefore there is no such knowledge belonging to the Whiteman. If the Whiteman were to come and claim that there is no God then we will say that is an act of unbelief and not knowledge because God Almighty does exists. What we know of knowledge is that God Almighty exists and he is the Creator of life. If the Whiteman claims that man evolved from an ape we will say no it is not true man is a creature of God Almighty and not even your father is an ape Mr. Whiteman. Man was created by God Almighty form Prophet Adam.

Instead of picking on what is right and throwing away what is wrong, everything was thrown away and much later it was realized that those who embraced the Whiteman made some developmental break through and could drive cars and fly planes, it was then said that it was because the Whiteman was rejected. He came with the development but was rejected. Then all of a sudden they trooped back to the Whiteman unconditionally. They went and packed everything he came with, the backwardness, the atheism, the immorality and everything bad about the White man in their effort to meet up. They left an extreme act for another extreme act. Instead of looking for the right thing to pick on they picked everything bad about the Whiteman. It is not everything about the Whiteman that is good. You have a religion with which to measure what is good about the Whiteman and what is bad.

It has now gotten to the level that they are saying that we should keep aside religion and embrace secularism. This is the type of unbelief that we will never accept. When ever you hear someone saying that we throw away what we have, it is because he does not have it. If in this hall some one that does not have a cap on his head suggests that everyone that has a cap on throws it away it is simply because he does not have a cap. That is why he is making the suggestion. He has nothing to loose if everyone throws away his own cap. In like manner when they say we should keep aside our religion and embrace secularism, they are saying it because they have nothing to loose, they have no religion so they could embrace anything. There is no way one can keep aside religion because it is religion that determines who a person is or what a person is. It is religion that tells you who the Creator, the creature, the all-knowing, the Infinite and the Almighty is. It tells you that you are a creature of God, a servant of God and you are going to die. You shall one day grow old and worn out and die and you shall be judged in the hereafter where you will either be punished for your bad deeds or rewarded for your good deeds. All this knowledge is acquired through religion. And here they are telling us to throw away religion and embrace secularism. What will this turn us into? If you say animals then I will say even animals have a theme they live on. If man turns into an animal, it implies that the animal is better than him because the animal living according to the theme of its life. An animal becomes better than a human being when he reduces himself to its level. When a goat picks n anything in another persons farm and eats, it is not erring because that is its lawful way of living but, the same cannot be of man, who is bonded by laws. Has any one of you seen a school belonging to goats with a goat as a headmaster? That is not their style because they are animals.

It is because they don't have a religion that they are calling on people to throw away religion and embrace secularism. When you ask them who they are they claim they are the children of God or even God or friends of God. When he is called upon to follow the rule of God Almighty he refuses and claims that he doesn't have to because he is a friend of God. And if it is insisted that he follows what God Almighty has instituted he will say that he doesn't believe in God Almighty, that he is secular. Man even carves out shapes from wood and calls it god or even worships reptiles like snakes. Definitely these types of people don't have religion. They don't know God and what they are doing is not religion even though they claim it is.

It is a big mistake for us to embrace what they are doing unconditionally simply because we are left behind. This is the reason why we will not accept that we are secularists. We are Muslims and we have religion. Those who don't have religion and accept to embrace secularism might be ok with it but not us because we have religion.

How many religions are there? How many religions have God? God has only one religion since the creation of the heavens and earth. He doesn't have more than one religion. They can claim being Christians and practice Christianity, or Jews and practice Judaism and that both the religions are from the same origin as Islam and that they all share one God. This is not true. There is only one religion practiced by all the Prophets; be him Moses, Jesus or any other Prophet. We do not refer to them as belonging to certain tribes or races or founders of certain religions but as Prophets of God Almighty that preached the same religion, Islam from God Almighty. There are no such things as religions. There is only one religion that is preached by all the Prophets of God Almighty and that religion is Islam. There might be certain differences in their messages which are not distinct from the ages in which such Prophets lived. But all in all is the same message from God Almighty. The message brought by Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) is the final message and the only available message for man from God today. This is so because what ever a new Prophet comes with wipes out what an old one has come with and becomes binding on the people.

Therefore, if one picks on the religion preached by Moses (AS) and claims that it is his religion then we say he doesn't have a religion because even if Moses were to be alive he would not have choice but to follow the religion of Muhammad (SAWA) the last Prophet. So also he that will embrace the religion he clams is practiced by Jesus (AS) is not practicing the religion of Jesus because Jesus (AS) too will practice Islam the one and only religion of God Almighty. If both of these Prophets will come today they will both be in the mosque. Jesus will not go to the Church to sing and dance but will be in the Mosque performing the acts of prayers.

They are the ones claiming that they have religion and we accept them for their claim and not that there is another religion other than the true religion of God Almighty. When we ask what their religion is and they say Christianity then we address them as Christians and when we ask what their religion is and they say Judaism then .we address them as Jews. If they say they are atheists then we call them atheist. So also when we see some people calling themselves Muslims we address them as Muslims after making sure that what they are practicing is actually what is called Islam. This is because there proof to everything practiced in Islam unlike the other things people call religion. In Christianity for instance they don't have any particular article of faith which if practiced one will automatically become a Christian. Such things don't exist in Christianity.

I started by saying that had it is expected that your curriculum of learning provide for this workshop and what is learnt in it but unfortunately it is not like that. What is being taught in the educational sector is assumed not to be religious by peoples' myopia. But it is not like that with us. We believe that knowledge no matter how is religious. We are not blind. As I have mentioned. We will not go to the extreme as did those in the beginning and those in the end by rejecting all or embracing all. We should differentiate the Knowledge that God Almighty taught man from the knowledge concocted by man. We should be able to understand that knowledge about light, sound and other aspects of physics are all knowledge about God's creativity. So also plants and animals in biology are all about the creatures of God Almighty so also other chemicals. All these have to do with the knowledge given to man by God Almighty and not belonging to the Whiteman. So also the knowledge of reasoning like mathematics all do not belong to the Whiteman.

I used to hear people mention Western education. There is no such thing as Western education. They don't even know what is meant by education. It does not mean knowledge acquisition. It means training. It refers to the way and manner one is trained. They even refer to it as the Western education or the Whiteman's knowledge. The Whiteman has no knowledge. Knowledge belongs to God Almighty… to be continued.

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