Shibly Aziz PCThe Muslim community in Sri Lanka is at a critical juncture. The future is beset with uncertainty. Strident radical calls emanate from quarters inimical to the interests of the Muslims. At the same time we are losing our position on the ground with the rapid internal displacement of vital segments of our community in the North and the East and there is substantial loss of lands and property consequent to the internal strife going on. The situation outside the war areas, though not as pronounced, is equally of concern to us with the community losing its grip on the traditional means of survival such as trade and agriculture and with discriminatory conduct directed at it by forces that see us as a source of threat. Whilst efforts should and are being directed to mend fences with the other communities in our land, we as a community should also take steps to identify measures which will secure the long term interests of our community and of its members.An area which we have to concentrate upon and seek remedial measures is in the area of education which is perceived by many educationists and other intellectuals in our community as our weakest link. According to them there will, in the future, be a rapid dis- empowerment of our community in the social and economic fabric of our nation, with further deterioration of its already impoverished members. The vast majority of our children face acute discrimination in admission to good schools (disregarding of course the relatively miniscule intake of the children from the more fortunate segments of our community to the so called ‘international schools’ which vary from the good to the spurious and the bad.) The lack of access to education results in the poor admissions to the Universities and places of higher learning which shuts out consequently our youth from getting into public service employment or even in the private sector. While one readilysubscribes to the view that the intake to the public service should be only on merit, in a multi ethnic society there is a need for the public service to reflect this multi ethnicity as well, so that the delivery of public services is not discriminatory and is fair to everyone. Thus a serious drop in the intake of Muslims into the public service gravely affects the rightful demands which Muslims can make from the Government. We have seen the deplorable situation which prevails now where the Muslims in the East cannot even have the benefit of Muslim public officials to serve them in the East. This trend will increase unless we take steps to arrest it, or at least contain it. Apart from the public sector we see the erosion in the private sector as well. Very few law students are entering the portals of the law College and the Law faculties, which have been hitherto the traditional source which fed the political base of our community. Lesser doctors andother professional are coming to serve the community. Whilst we may have renowned professionals serving the community right now, though in relation to our population such persons are grossly few in numbers and well below are national ratio, even these numbers will dry up soon. It is predicted that if this trend is not arrested, in twenty years time we would not have any public servants or private sector entrepreneurs or other personnel of eminence to speak of. The resultant tragedy will not only have an impact on the higher echelons of our society, but will impact on the less fortunate members of our community more.We have to start with our children. We face innumerable difficulties in getting our young children admitted to schools- both in the urban and rural areas. Even if we have them admitted it is to schools which do not have basic facilities such as adequate or competent teachers, weak in science subjects and most such schools being at the lower end of the education system. Given the existing nature of the weak education foundation of our children, it is not surprising that our youth shun or are forced to shun the higher education opportunities which are available to others. The admissions to our higher education institutions have dropped to an all time low- with the forecast that the figures will drop some more. Strong and effective measures should be taken to remedy this prime cause leading to the woeful plight of the Muslims in education, which has to be handled by our leaders of our community including our politicians and the educated and more fortunate brothers. In the meantime, it is important that we have to instill in the mind of every member of our community, the men folk as well as the womenfolk, those living in urban areas as well as in rural areas, the need to realize the importance of directing our younger generation to education. We should remind them that the underpinning for all these is the need for knowledge. This factor of knowledge (ilm) is not new. From time immemorial, there has been one valuable constant in human civilization: the ‘better equipped and the more knowledgeable will prosper over others’. Thus the Holy Quran and the Hadees of the Holy Prophet (OWBP) not only exhorts but orders the Muslims to seek knowledge. Inherent is the advice to upgrade their skills so that they are relevant to the requirements of their age. It is no exaggeration to say that we need more scientists, engineers, business entrepreneurs (particularly with a global outlook), networking among Muslim scholars and Consultants in all areas of their expertise. The pursuit of knowledge and the upgrading of competence has no boundaries and must not be confined to Muslim lands, for the Prophet advised Muslims to go even to China, then a major center of learning and civilization. They are also well aware that there are many Qur'anic statements such as (Qur'an 39:9) “Are thosewho know equal to those who know not ? “ and (Qur'an 58:11). “ Allah will exalt in degree those of you who believe, and those who have been granted knowledge “ The Prophet also said that knowledge is like a lost treasure that Muslims must find and regain, and that the Ulama (men of knowledge) are like a bright constellation of stars on a dark night. This principle aside, there is another critical aspect of knowledge worthy of Muslim thought: Knowledge is related to belief (Iman). There is a Qur'anic supplication commonly recited by Muslim after prayers: “O Allah ! bestow Hukman,(religious knowledge and right judgement of the affairs ) on me, and join me with the righteous.” (Quran 26:83). Prior to the coming of Islam, it was the earlier Chinese, Hindu, Greek, Persian and Egyptian civilizations which held sway. Pre-Islamic Arab civilization was so backward and pitiful that the superpowers of the time, Byzantium and Persia, simply ignored it as unworthy and undeserving of their attention. Contrast that with the superiority of Arabs attained over others after Islam .We have to seek inspiration from our history to drive ourselves forward. Western writers who show an understanding of Islam point out that there is much ignorance about the debt their own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. . The mediaeval Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because those in the West have tended to see Islam as an alien culture, society and system of belief, they have tended to ignore or erase ^its great relevance to their own history. For example, the importance of 800 years of Islamic society and culture in Spain between the 8th and 15th centuries tend to get underestimated. As has been said the ''The Islamic contribution of Muslim Spain to the preservation of classical learning during the Dark Ages, and to the first flowerings of the Renaissance, has long been recognised. But Islamic Spain was much more than a mere larder where Hellenistic knowledge was kept for later consumption by the emerging modern Western world. Not only did Muslim Spain gather and preserve the intellectual content of ancient Greek and Roman civilisation, it also interpreted and expanded upon that civilisation, and made a vital contribution of its own in so many fields of human endeavour - in science, astronomy, mathematics, algebra (itself an Arabic word), law, history, medicine, pharmacology, optics, agriculture, architecture, theology, music. Averroes and Avenzoor,like their counterparts , Avicenna and Rhazes in the East contributed to the study and practice of medicine in ways from which Europe benefited for centuries afterwards, Islam nurtured and preserved the quest for learning, in the words of the tradition, 'the ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr'. Cordoba in the 10th century was by far the most civilised city of Europe. We know of lending libraries in Spain at the time King Alfred was ruling in this country. It is said that the 400.000 volumes in its ruler's library amounted to more books than all the libraries of the rest of Europe put together. That was made possible because the Muslim world acquired from China the skill of making paper more than four hundred years before the rest of non-Muslim Europe. Many of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain". (From a talk given by Prince Charles).We have to remind our brothers and sisters of this great legacy of Islam in an effort to instill in their mindset the unfulfilled potential which they possess. A continuous jihad must be made to reverse our attitudes in the field of education and to make it a bounden duty of every parent, elder and leader in our community to instill in the minds of our younger generation this need to equip themselves well in knowledge so that they and the community can avert the bleak future.
