Tag Archives: Education

Upgrading Educational Models made Obsolete by AI

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Conventional university education is obsolete. The typical student earning a bachelor’s degree studies the equivalent of roughly forty textbooks over eight semesters. Today, however, any intelligent teenager with access to ChatGPT — trained on millions of books and articles — can surpass that graduate in a contest of factual knowledge. The model of education we follow was shaped by the needs of an earlier age; those needs have now changed. We need to rethink education from the ground up.

The two world wars reshaped modern society in profound ways. Science and technology proved decisive in their outcomes, and technical expertise therefore moved to the center of education in the postwar era. As Harvard educator Julie Reuben shows in The Making of the Modern University, universities rapidly shifted away from the older goal of forming character and judgment, and toward the newer goal of producing specialized knowledge. This transformation made sense in a world where knowledge was scarce, expertise was difficult to access, and modern states and economies urgently needed trained professionals. The system was built for the needs of its time.

The hidden logic of this system was to treat students as containers for the contents of books. Its ideal product was the idiot-savant: rich in specialized information, but poor in judgment, perspective, and practical wisdom. The teacher transmitted knowledge, the student stored it, and the examination verified the transfer. This model served the needs of its age so successfully that it helped create the scientific and technological world which has now culminated in AI. It has, in effect, made itself obsolete.

The wartime and postwar university sought to produce highly specialized experts — the human equivalent of the “mentats” in Dune — because modern states and economies needed people who could command technical knowledge at high levels. That model served its purpose brilliantly. But once machines can outperform human beings in storing, retrieving, and reorganizing information, we are free to recover an older and deeper understanding of education: not the production of human resources, but the formation of human beings capable of judgment, purpose, and meaningful lives.

For much of the modern period, universities increasingly came to see students as future inputs into the labor market — units of skill, productivity, and specialized function. The language of education shifted accordingly: from the formation of persons to the production of “human resources.” But now that machines can shoulder many of the technical and informational burdens that wartime and postwar societies once placed on human beings, education is free to recover its older and deeper vocation: to help us confront the most important questions we face as human beings — how to live well, and how to build a good society.

These questions sound abstract, but their practical consequences are everywhere. The capacities most needed in professional and social life — building trust, working in teams, handling disagreement, resolving conflicts, exercising leadership, and communicating with clarity and sensitivity — are largely absent from formal education. We send students through years of schooling without teaching them how to collaborate, how to listen, how to manage tensions, or how to contribute to healthy institutions. Later, when these absences begin to damage workplaces and organizations, we try to repair them through executive seminars, leadership workshops, and corporate training programs. What education neglects in youth, employers are forced to patch up in adulthood.

Modern education resembles a driving school that teaches students everything about the mechanics of a car — the engine, the transmission, the chemistry of fuel — but never actually teaches them how to drive. Students learn theories about the world while their own lives are pushed to the margins. Yet the most important questions we face are not merely technical ones about how the world works, but practical ones about how to navigate it: how to make choices, how to bear responsibility, how to act well under pressure, and how to live with others. Just as driving requires judgment, attention, and practice rather than abstract knowledge alone, education must once again take seriously the cultivation of the capacities required to live a human life.

This transformation of purpose also changes the meaning of learning. When a student can ask ChatGPT to produce a polished essay on climate change, economic policy, or Shakespeare in seconds, the old educational model breaks down at yet another level. A student can now submit work that looks sophisticated while learning almost nothing. This does not mean that AI should be banned from education. It means that we can no longer mistake polished output for genuine understanding. The central question is no longer whether a student can produce an answer, but whether they have developed any real ownership of the ideas, arguments, and judgments that the answer contains.

Artificial intelligence is a golden opportunity to rethink education from the ground up. By relieving human beings of the burden of storing and processing vast quantities of technical information, it frees education to return to the largest questions now confronting our species: how to build a just society, how to create peace in a fractured world, and how to avert environmental catastrophe. These are not problems that can be solved by technical specialists working in isolation. They require judgment, cooperation, moral imagination, political wisdom, and the capacity to think across disciplines and across divisions. The task of education in the age of AI is to cultivate the human beings capable of using this new power to reshape our world. How this can be done will be the topic of our next article.

Postscript: For a guide to my posts and articles on education, see: From the Mirage of Western Education to the Wellspring of Eternal Revelation, and also Education, Pedagogy, and Decolonizing the Mind

This is an expanded version of article in DAWN: Education in Age of AI (https://www.dawn.com/news/amp/1983268)

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Bridging the Divide: Teaching Islamically in a Secular World | The Muslim Teacher’s Amanah

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I. The Reality: The Hidden Crisis in Muslim Classrooms

Every sincere Muslim teacher who steps into a modern university classroom feels a quiet tension in the heart. You open the textbook, deliver the syllabus, mark the exams — and yet, a voice within asks: What am I really teaching?

For many, the answer is uncomfortable. Beneath the neutral tone of our lectures lies an unspoken message: that the secular worldview embedded in modern education is the only legitimate way to understand the world. We do not intend to teach this — but we do.

This is the hidden curriculum — the silent transmission of values and assumptions that shape how our students see reality. Even when we teach “objective” subjects like economics or sociology, we are also, often unknowingly, teaching a philosophy: that religion belongs to the private sphere, that success means material gain, and that moral or spiritual purpose is irrelevant to knowledge.

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From the Mirage of Western Education to the Eternal Wellspring of Revelation

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{bit.ly/AZ4MGE} There is near-consensus that education is essential to improving the future of Islamic societies. Yet, despite decades of reform, our systems continue to fail — not for lack of effort, but for lack of direction. Education in much of the Muslim world remains disconnected from its roots, its purpose, and its people. Students spend years memorizing content, chasing grades, and preparing for markets that often fail to recognize their humanity or honor their potential.

The problem is deeper than policy or pedagogy. Both what we teach and how we teach it are shaped by frameworks alien to our tradition. Rather than healing our wounds, spreading more Western education often deepens them — a mirage that promises progress but leads to greater disorientation.

This post is a curated journey through my reflections on education — drawn from a series of essays that explore a single, urgent question: What would it mean to rebuild education not on borrowed ideas, but on the eternal wellspring of revelation — the source that once nourished an entire civilization?

The Problem: Western Education as a Tool of Colonization

Modern education is often assumed to be neutral — a universally valid system of knowledge transmission. But as explored in Decolonization of Education: An Islamic Perspective, this model was developed not to nourish minds or cultivate virtue, but to serve the administrative and ideological needs of empire. Its foundations in secularism, capitalism, and materialism shape not only what we teach, but how we think — and who we become.

In How Education Shapes Our Thoughts, we see how Western education instills a worldview rooted in power, profit, and consumption — often absorbed unconsciously. And in Marginalization of Morality in Modern Education, the historical roots of this transformation are laid bare: morality was not lost by accident; it was deliberately stripped away.

The result is a deep epistemic displacement. In Learn Who You Are, we discuss how modern education encourages students to abandon higher visions and life goals, training them instead to become human resources for sale on the labor market. To break free, we must first understand how three mega-events have shaped our thoughts, and then strive to recover the infinite potential we were created with.

All this is impossible if The Dazzle of Western Knowledge blinds our eyes to the wisdom of our own tradition. Too often, the Ummah continues to chase the mirage of the West — dazzled by its glitter, but left thirsty in the desert, never reaching the true wellsprings of knowledge that lie within our own heritage.

The Misdiagnosis: Why Reform Has Failed

Recognizing the problems, many educators have tried to reform education by adding Islamic content or adopting dual curricula. But as argued in The Deep and Difficult Dilemma of Islamic Education, these efforts often reproduce the same epistemological crisis — elevating Western knowledge as “practical” and relegating Islamic knowledge to ritual or personal ethics.

Improving Our Educational Systems (Part 1 & Part 2) critiques the secular foundations of the social sciences, showing how even seemingly objective fields like economics are steeped in Eurocentric, anti-spiritual assumptions.

However, with some courage and creativity, we can create change. In Educational Planning at Akhuwat University, I have discussed how we can redesign the economics curriculum towards an indigenous Islamic model. By shifting from rote imitation of Western models toward locally relevant, purpose-driven programs, Akhuwat demonstrates how institutions can begin to align education with Islamic principles, despite the challenges.

The Alternative: Prophetic, Purpose-Driven Pedagogy

If Western models have left us chasing mirages, what would it mean to drink again from the true wellspring? The answer begins with a radically different understanding of the teacher and the student. Education, in the Islamic tradition, is not a transaction but a transformation. The Prophet ﷺ embodied the role of teacher not just by conveying information but by reaching hearts, shaping character, and guiding souls.

In Transformative Teaching: Changing the Lives of Our Students, we explore this prophetic model, where the teacher acts as a mentor, a moral compass, and a partner in the student’s journey of becoming. Education here is not measured in grades, but in growth — in the ability of students to live meaningful, purposeful lives.

This vision is developed further in Principles of Islamic Pedagogy, which emphasizes that all education must begin with a discussion of purpose: Why were we created? What is our role in this universe? What distinguishes useful knowledge from knowledge that distracts or harms? True teaching is not about forcing answers, but about awakening hearts to their fitrah, nurturing the seeds of excellence buried within every soul. In The Search for Knowledge, I explain how different conceptions of knowledge lead to vastly different methodologies for research.

Taken together, these principles point to an alternative pedagogy that is both timeless and adaptable — one that aligns knowledge with purpose, and instruction with the heart. It is this prophetic model that offers us a way out of the desert of imported systems and toward the living waters of our own tradition.

The Vision: The Ghazali Project

All these threads come together in Central Ideas of the Ghazali Project, which lays out a bold intellectual framework for renewal. Inspired by Imam Al-Ghazali and grounded in centuries of Islamic thought, the project calls not for minor adjustments, but for a complete reimagining of education — one that begins not with borrowed models, but with the Quranic vision of knowledge as a path to human flourishing and divine proximity.

It is not enough to sprinkle Islamic studies onto a secular curriculum, as if revelation were an afterthought. The Ghazali Project insists that we must re-anchor knowledge itself in revelation, ethics, and purpose. This means rebuilding the very foundations of our disciplines — from economics to psychology — so that they reflect a worldview in which the heart, the spirit, and the hereafter are as real as the body and the material world.

In this vision, education is no longer a mirage of progress offered by others, but a living fountain of guidance flowing from within our own tradition. The task before us is to cultivate a new generation of scholars, educators, and leaders who can think with both heart and intellect — and who will guide the Ummah toward justice, meaning, and truth. A detailed argument is offered in an English and Urdu (published) version of an essay on: The Central Importance of Education to Islamic Revival.

Conclusion: An Invitation to Reimagine

The crisis in education is not simply about outcomes — test scores, credentials, or job placements. It is about orientation. As these essays show, meaningful change begins by asking deeper questions:

  • What is knowledge?
  • What is the purpose of learning?
  • Who do we become through what we study?

For too long, we have pursued the mirage of Western education, dazzled by its glitter but left thirsty in the desert. The challenge before us is to turn back toward the eternal wellspring of revelation — the source that once nourished our civilization and can do so again. For another post which explores the challenges facing Muslim teachers in adopting these principles, see: The Hidden Curriculum: Are We Unknowingly Teaching A Secular Worldview?

I invite you to explore these linked reflections not only as critiques of what has gone wrong, but as steps toward a more humane, spiritually grounded, and intellectually courageous future for education in the Muslim world.

To go deeper into the vision behind this work, read The Ghazali Project: Revival of Deen, which traces the spiritual and intellectual lineage inspiring this movement — from Imam Al-Ghazali to the urgent needs of our own time.

👇 Which of these ideas resonated most with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts, reflections, or even your disagreements in the comments.

Research Ethics and Integrity: An Islamic Perspective

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{bit.ly/AZWrei} Summary of talk on above topic at NUML on 6/27/2024. Slides for the talk: bit.ly/SSethics

Good afternoon everyone. Today, I want to discuss the crucial topic of research ethics and integrity. As in all pursuits, it is essential to clarify the purpose behind our actions, particularly in the realm of Ph.D. supervision. Often, our intentions are driven by job requirements or departmental assignments. However, from an Islamic perspective, the pursuit of knowledge is highly prized. We must aim to transform our supervision into a passion for lifelong learning and discovery, both for ourselves and our students.

Unfortunately, our current academic culture does not foster ethics and integrity. The environment is hostile, driven by a “publish or perish” mindset and the survival of the fittest. These pressures leave little room for genuine ethical behavior. This predicament has historical roots, tracing back to Europe’s centuries-long religious conflicts, which led to the exclusion of religion from public life. European intellectuals, like Thomas Hobbes, argued for external norms enforced by a powerful state to maintain order, a concept encapsulated in his work “Leviathan.” This focus on external regulation over internal moral guidance has had lasting impacts, including in academia, where quantity often trumps quality in research publications.

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Nurturing Prosperity: What Development Economists Can Learn from Mothers

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{bit.ly/AZmother} Introduction: Expanding on the “infant industry” metaphor, this article explores the lessons that development economists could learn from the way mothers nurture and encourage the growth of their children. While traditional views focus on penalties and corrections, this motherhood approach emphasizes encouragement and building on inherent strengths. This simple yet powerful metaphor sets the stage for a discussion on how shifting our focus from weaknesses to strengths could profoundly influence Pakistan’s policy-making and societal morale.

The Motherhood Theory vs. Traditional Approaches:  As an illustration of the radical differences between motherhood versus current approaches, consider the current efforts to improve governance by eliminating corruption. Traditionally, efforts to mitigate corruption in Pakistan have focused on punitive measures—establishing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), enhancing transparency through audits, and setting up hotlines to report bribes. These mechanisms primarily catch and punish the corrupt, embodying a reactive stance towards corruption.

The motherhood theory introduces a radical shift by applying principles akin to a mother’s encouragement of her child’s first steps. It suggests that we should identify and reward honest behaviors, even if they are rare. Recognizing a single act of honesty amidst widespread dishonesty could set a powerful example, inspiring others to follow suit. Research across various fields supports this proactive approach, showing that positive reinforcement is often more effective than punitive measures. While naming and shaming may temporarily suppress undesirable behaviors, it also fosters resistance and more cunning forms of corruption.

By shifting our focus from punishing the bad to rewarding the good, we not only promote a positive environment but also encourage a culture of integrity that could be far more sustainable in fostering change.

The Power of Positive Focus: Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool in shaping behavior, a fact supported by extensive research in psychology, education, and even organizational behavior. By focusing on what is working well, we can enhance individuals’ willingness to continue those behaviors and even improve them. The motherhood theory suggests that this approach can be applied broadly, from governance to everyday interactions, transforming societal attitudes.

In the context of economic development, emphasizing the strengths of Pakistan—such as resilience, hospitality, and generosity—can inspire more sustainable and inclusive growth strategies. For instance, after the devastating floods in 2010 and the earthquake in 2005, Pakistan witnessed an overwhelming surge of community support. Citizens across the country mobilized quickly, gathering essential supplies and organizing truck convoys to deliver aid to affected areas. This demonstrated a remarkable capacity for collective action and mutual aid in times of crisis.

Highlighting these successful community responses can encourage a more unified and proactive societal response in future challenges. Such positive focus could reshape how Pakistanis view their country and their role within it, moving from a narrative of criticism to one of potential and progress.

The Impact of Negative Media Focus: The focus of the Pakistani media on terrorism, violence, hatred, and atrocities can be profoundly counterproductive. It’s often said that bad news sells, but the consequences of this adage are severe, particularly in a context where public perception can significantly influence national morale and international reputation. The constant highlighting of negative incidents not only feeds a cycle of fear but also provides unintended aid to the objectives of terrorists, who thrive on the attention and the consequent terror they instill.

Proposing an alternative, such as implementing strategic news blackouts during critical events, could disrupt this cycle. While challenging to enforce, this approach has the potential to deprive extremist activities of the oxygen of publicity they seek to survive. By reducing the amplification of negative events, we can minimize the psychological impact on the populace and encourage a focus on recovery and resilience instead.

This strategic shift in media focus could lead to a greater emphasis on constructive and uplifting stories, showcasing the resilience and unity of Pakistani society. Such coverage would not only improve national morale but could also change how the world sees Pakistan, highlighting the country’s strengths rather than its struggles.

Unexplored Strengths and Opportunities: Pakistan is a country rich with untapped potential and numerous inherent strengths that can be leveraged for significant economic and social development. Recognizing and capitalizing on these strengths can dramatically shift the nation’s developmental trajectory.

One notable strength is the hospitality and warmth that Pakistanis extend to visitors, often surprising them with the depth of generosity and kindness. This cultural trait could be harnessed to boost the tourism industry, which has the potential to generate substantial revenue and create numerous jobs.

Additionally, Pakistan’s high level of charity as a percentage of income reflects a deeply ingrained spirit of generosity. This could be channeled into structured community development projects that not only provide immediate relief but also empower communities to sustain their growth.

Moreover, the resilience shown by Pakistanis during numerous economic crises, supported by strong social networks, highlights a robust informal support system. Formalizing these networks through policies that support social entrepreneurship could foster a more resilient economy.

Exploring agricultural strengths, such as Pakistan’s capability in milk production, presents another avenue. By introducing technology and expertise in dairy processing, Pakistan could expand into producing high-value products like cheese and yogurts for both local consumption and export.

Finally, leveraging international relationships, such as the unique friendship with Turkey, could be beneficial. Turkey’s advanced olive oil industry provides a model that Pakistan could emulate to revamp its own nascent olive oil sector, enhancing quality and expanding market reach.

These examples illustrate just a few ways that recognizing and building on local strengths could open new paths for development that align with Pakistan’s unique capabilities and needs.

New Directions and Initiatives: Pakistan stands at a pivotal moment where leveraging established industries and introducing forward-thinking educational reforms could dramatically alter its developmental trajectory. Here are some key initiatives to consider:

1. Support for Established Industries: Cities like Faisalabad, known for their export-quality industries such as surgical goods, footballs, and electronics, can benefit from a supportive framework that fosters technological innovation and market diversification. This approach, inspired by the Korean model, would involve providing these industries with incentives to diversify and enhance their international competitiveness.

2. Enhancing Agricultural Value Chains: There is significant potential in agricultural sectors like dates, mangoes, and dairy products. Improving processing techniques, packaging, and marketing strategies can help position these products more competitively in international markets. Such initiatives would build on existing agricultural strengths and extend their economic impact.

3. Revolutionizing Education: Transforming the educational system by shifting from English to students’ mother tongues could yield significant improvements in educational outcomes. This approach builds on the linguistic strengths of the population, making education more accessible and engaging, thereby preparing a more capable and empowered future workforce.

4. Inter-faith Harmony Campaigns: Promoting national harmony through well-designed inter-faith campaigns is crucial for enhancing social cohesion. These efforts can also improve Pakistan’s international image, showcasing a commitment to unity and diversity.

5. Modern Fishing Industry: Currently our primitive fishermen are suffering obsolence of techniques and equipment and having difficulty facing challenges created by Gwadar and other developments. Instead of allowing them to collapse, we should encourage them to modernize, to capture the enormous amount of untapped potential of fishing in our large coastal areas

Each initiative outlined here represents a strategic shift towards capitalizing on Pakistan’s inherent strengths and capabilities. This approach not only aims to address current needs but also establishes a foundation for sustainable, long-term prosperity.

Community-Driven Development: Community-driven development (CDD) has emerged as a pivotal strategy in fostering sustainable growth around the globe. This approach empowers local communities to take charge of their own developmental projects, making decisions that best suit their unique needs and circumstances. By investing in and trusting the local population, we can unleash a myriad of grassroots initiatives that function as engines of growth.

In Pakistan, numerous organizations have successfully adopted this model, demonstrating its effectiveness. For instance, the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), and the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) have played significant roles in empowering communities, improving education, and enhancing local governance. These organizations facilitate projects that range from building infrastructure to improving water supply and educational facilities, directly involving community members in the planning and execution phases.

The success of CDD hinges on the utilization of local knowledge and resources, ensuring that projects are not only sustainable but also culturally and economically relevant. For example, community-led educational programs that incorporate local languages and cultural practices have shown higher engagement and success rates than those imposed from the top-down.

Moving forward, expanding the scope of CDD initiatives can further accelerate community empowerment and development. By providing communities with more autonomy and resources, and integrating their feedback into national policies, Pakistan can build a more inclusive and resilient future. This shift towards community-driven governance will not only enhance developmental outcomes but also strengthen the democratic fabric of the nation.

Conclusion: The motherhood theory of economic development, inspired by the nurturing approach a mother takes with her child, offers a transformative lens through which we can view and shape Pakistan’s future. By focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses, and by fostering an environment of encouragement and support, we can unlock the vast potential that lies within our nation.

This approach not only calls for a shift in policy but also a cultural shift towards positivity and empowerment. The initiatives outlined—from revitalizing established industries to revolutionizing education systems, and from enhancing agricultural value chains to strengthening community-driven development—demonstrate the broad applicability and potential impact of this nurturing paradigm.

As we move forward, it is essential that we embrace these principles, not just in our economic strategies but in every facet of our national discourse. By doing so, we can foster a society that thrives on collaboration, innovation, and mutual respect—a society that builds on its strengths to create a prosperous and resilient Pakistan.

More Articles on Pakistan Economy: Economic Crisis in Pakistan: Analysis and Solutions

Transformative Teaching: Changing the Lives of Our Students

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{bit.ly/AZtran} Our Prophet Mohammed ﷺ was a model for excellence in every dimension. His teachings transformed ignorant and backward Bedouin into world leaders.(see: The Greatest Teacher of All Time). As teachers, can we follow in his footsteps? Can we teach in way that transforms the lives of our students, and gives them the vision to change the world?

The models of education which we have borrowed from the West are not capable of doing so. In fact, these educational methods cause damage to the personality of our students. Today, because of shock and awe of the West, we follow Western models blindly. To understand why these models lead to harm, we need to study the historical roots of Western theories of knowledge. Modern education provides technical skills but teaches us nothing about ideals, visions, or the purpose of life. At the root of this crisis is a transformation in our theories of knowledge, which occurred as a result of the Enlightenment of Europe. As the conception of knowledge changed, so did the methodology and substance of education, which is designed to provide valuable knowledge to the young. In this post we will discuss this transformation in epistemology, and its harmful effects, as well as what can be done to counteract them. This is a continuation of a previous post on Islamic Pedagogy. The video below is in English; for Urdu Version of the talk, see: Transformational Teaching (URDU).

Centuries of battles between Catholics and Protestants on an unprecedented scale of brutality and destruction led to the Great Transformation in European Thought. Enlightenment thinkers rejected the heart and soul as sources of knowledge, as their historical experiences showed that this led to perpetual bloody warfare. They were optimistic that rational thought, combined with objective observations, could arrive at all knowledge worth having. Over the centuries that followed, this epistemological shift had consequences that went far beyond what they could have foreseen. The rejection of God, Life after death, and Judgement Day led to increased focus on this world, making the pursuit of pleasure, power, and profits the goal of life. This provided the intellectual foundations for a shift to a capitalist society, where market relationships came to dominate social relationships. In the realm of education, this was reflected in the transformation of the role of the teacher as a mentor, guide, confidante, and life coach, to an anonymous specialist hired for the provision of subject-specific skills. In modern education, students and teachers have no social relationships outside the classroom. In a previous post on Islamic Pedagogy, I suggested that we need to revive and renew our teaching methods, to achieve better outcomes. In this post, I provide some specific suggestions on initial steps we can take in this direction.

The mindset of most teachers is that we are paid to “deliver” a specified subject matter to students. We are also responsible for evaluating the students on their grasp of the subject matter. After having delivered the subject matter in the best possible way, the teacher is not responsible for ensuring that the student puts in the work required to master the subject. This is starkly different from the parental guidance mindset of Islamic pedagogy, where we take pride in the achievements of our students, and take their failure as being due to our own failure to inspire and motivate the learning process. A subtle distinction is involved here. Students cannot learn unless they make their own efforts, and struggle to master the subject. In this sense, students’ failure results from their own failure to make the required efforts, and teachers are right to put the blame on the students. However, in a deeper sense, the failure of the teacher lies in failing to motivate the students to put in the required effort.

I would like to discuss some specific steps we can take to change our teaching styles, in the context of two questions raised by teachers at Akhuwat University, where I was explaining these new pedagogical methodologies. One of the teachers asked about what to do if, despite our best efforts, the majority of students fail the midterm. Another teacher was concerned that there was some security breach allowing students to get access to his midterm, and suggested tighter security procedures to prevent this from happening.  Both questions reflect the influence of the market methodology for teaching, instead of the parental guidance methodology. Parents take pride in achievements of their children, and feel responsible for their failures, even though they do not teach them at school. A teacher who takes a parental interest in his students would never be taken by surprise by failures in the midterm. This is because he would monitor the progress of his students on a daily basis, and know exactly what they can and cannot do. Similarly, learning that students are getting access to the midterms would not lead to questions about how to improve security. Instead, we would be concerned about how to improve honesty and integrity of the students, and also, how we can provide them with the skills required so that they feel confident in their abilities, instead of feeling the need to cheat.

But can we really monitor the students on a daily basis? And how can we motivate them to study outside of class, to get the skills they need to pass exams?  Doing this requires efficient time management techniques, as well as changes in teaching methodology.  The conventional teaching methodology creates a hostile and adversarial relationship between students and teachers. The teachers are trying to keep quizzes secret, and make them difficult, to deny students points. The students are trying to overcome obstacles created by teachers’ stinginess, and get points. Instead, we must start by telling the students that we are partners and have the same goal: to create the maximum learning for the students. If they take partnership seriously, the students will immediately demand that we give them 100% marks on all quizzes and assignments. Thus, we must clarify that our goal is to create good learning outcomes. It is the knowledge that will lead to marks. It defeats our purpose to give marks without knowledge, because students will never learn, if they can get scores without learning. From experience, I know that this is a difficult message to convey, and has to be repeated many many times. Throughout their career, students have been concerned with marks, not with knowledge. They make an effort to learn only “if it will be on the exam”. It is hard for them, and for us as teachers, to focus on knowledge instead of marks. Doing so requires more than just talking about it. We must show students that knowledge is valuable.

In fact, love of knowledge is built into the hearts of human beings. However, bad teaching and wrong kinds of subject matter have destroyed this faculty within our students. Our Prophet ﷺ made dua for useful knowledge and also asked for protection from useless knowledge.  Useful knowledge enters the heart. Most of what we teach is useless knowledge. The subject matter was developed to analyze and understand Western societies, and is not directly relevant to ours. It cannot enter the hearts of our students because it does not relate to our life experiences, nor to our own history. Thus, as teachers, we have to make special efforts to connect what we teach to relevant real-world issues that would engage our students. These connections do not exist within the textbooks we use, so making them requires creative efforts on part of the teacher.  The effect of years of struggling with and attempting to understand fundamentally incomprehensible theories, completely irrelevant to students’ experiences, has led to a defeated mindset. The students have abandoned efforts at learning, and seek only to memorize answers to questions which they expect to be asked. Repairing the damage requires a lot of effort on part of the teacher. If we start to relate the subject matter to the life-experiences of our students, they will start to take an interest in learning. Furthermore, if we ask them to make intentions to use their knowledge for the service of the Ummah, this will provide them with a higher vision for the purpose of education. Of course, we will also have to change our teaching methods to provide them with knowledge that can be used for the service of the Ummah.

It takes time to build connections between the subject matter and real world applications familiar to and relevant to our students. As a first step, we should focus on developing skills within our students, rather than teaching them a body of materials contained in textbooks. If we are charged with teaching students to drive, we can assess our progress by seeing if they have learned to drive or not. In preparing every lecture, we must ask what the students will learn to do as a result of this lecture. Initially, when we have not learned how to make deeper connections, the skills may just be the ability to answer the questions at the end of the textbook chapter. At the end of the lecture, we must learn whether or not the students have acquired the ability to answer the questions. Generally speaking, because we were also taught this way, we use a one-way teaching process. We lecture at the students, and never find out what they understood from our lecture. When we first attempt to get feedback, we will be very surprised at the huge gap between what we thought we clarified, and student understanding.

There is a big technical problem in getting such feedback. At the start of the lecture, the teacher should write down three questions, and say that in this lecture we will learn the answers to these questions. But if we ask students to write down the answers and submit them for corrections, we will drown in the grading task. The solution is to have the students grade themselves. Leave ten to fifteen minutes at the end of class for this feedback. Take only one or two questions and have students write down the answers to them. Tell them that this will not be graded, it is meant to help them understand the materials, so that they are not tempted to cheat. Randomly switch papers so that each student has the paper of someone else. Then ask the student to read the answer, and ask him to comment on whether or not it is a good answer. Get several students to read answers, and discuss them among the students to arrive at an understanding of the correct answer. Then have every student grade the paper in front of them, based on the common understanding of the correct answer which develops during the discussion,

This method would create a good understanding of students’ level of comprehension. If teachers have daily feedback on what kinds of questions the students can answer and what they cannot, they would never be surprised by a mass failure on the midterm. Aligned with the cooperative teaching style is the idea of formative exams. Instead of giving students exams to evaluate where they stand, exams should provide a learning experience. One method is to use open-book exams which ask students to answer questions requiring a level of understanding which goes beyond simple replication of textbook material. Another method is take-home exams. There are many ways to prevent cheating in such cases. One of them is to go over the exam together to test for understanding, and to give a second in-class short exam which is easy for those who understand the answers, but difficult for those who copied them. The essence of all such methods is to engage students in active learning within the class, and to help and encourage them in their struggle to understand the materials. If before the midterm, we have worked through all the expected questions with the students in class, the students will feel confident and capable of being able to answer all the questions. This is exactly the outcome we desire – if we undertake to teach driving skills, we would like all of our students to learn driving, as the outcome of the class.

All this in-class work creates a new problem. Where will we get the time for the lecture? The solution is to use the inverted classroom, where the lecture materials are covered outside of the classroom, and the homework questions are worked out cooperatively within the class. The students should be assigned to cover the lecture materials outside of the classroom. These days, there are an enormous amount of resources available which students can be assigned, which would enable them to cover the substance of the lecture outside of class. But, we all know that it is difficult to get students to read assigned materials outside of class. One method which I have found useful is to give a small quiz at the beginning of class which asks very basic and elementary questions about assigned reading materials. This ensures both on-time arrival of students, and motivates them to do the required study outside of class. Then, class time can be devoted to developing student skills cooperatively, at least in terms of learning how to solve problems and answer questions. Using this method, teachers can easily identify the strong and weak students. The stronger students can be assigned to teach the weaker students outside of class time.

To learn how to change the lives of our students, to motivate and inspire them to change the world for the better, we must transform ourselves, and change both the style and the substance of our teachings, This is a hard task, but has the most rewarding outcomes, because it is aligned with the mission of our Prophet ﷺ, May Allah T’aala fill our hearts with the Noor of His Knowledge, and allow us to transmit this spirit to our students,

Educational Planning at Akhuwat University

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{bit.ly/AKHEDU} It is a simple fact that the education we provide to our children shapes the future of the nation. From personal observation over twenty-five years, I can testify that our educational processes destroy the potential of our students, instead of building it. Furthermore, this problem can easily be remedied by adopting Islamic models of education, instead of mindless imitation of Western models which currently dominates the field. It is horrifying to contemplate the enormous amount of time we waste, teaching materials of zero value to the cream of our youth. But this disastrous educational methodology also means that there is enormous potential for improvement.

Meaningful discussion of educational policy must begin with recognition of the dramatic differences between the English-speaking elites and the vernacular classes. The foreign exchange spent by the elites on taking exams from England exceeds by far the government budget for primary schooling for the masses. This discussion is mainly about the non-English speaking masses, and not about the English-speaking elites. Our educational system fails the masses on all fronts. It does not prepare them for life, does not provide job skills, and does not create understanding of the forces which shape the world around us. One critical barrier is the medium of instruction, which is English. Whereas our elites speak English from early childhood, the masses never acquire proficiency in this language. This makes it impossible for them to master complex materials from an alien culture in a foreign language. Instead, rote learning of a narrowly circumscribed set of topics makes a mockery of the concept of education.

The single most important policy for the future of Pakistan would be the provision of equal educational opportunities for all the children of Pakistan. For the long-run, this would provide far greater returns than any of the standard set economic policies being touted as the solution to our current economic problems. If we could create the feeling of being united like one body, so that the whole feels the pain of any part. If we could treat all children of Pakistan as our own, this would be sufficient to change the future of the nation. I am not asking for the moon; all I would like is that, within the means available to us, we provide the best possible education to all our children, irrespective of their social class. Given the current setup, where what the elites spend on their children’s education exceeds by far the government budget for educating the masses, this seems like a pie-in-the-sky dream. But a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I hope to describe the first few steps in this post, in the context of a very practical example of Akhuwat University.

It is the dreamers and the visionaries who change the destiny of nations. Pakistan is fortunate to have been blessed by many visionaries, including Dr. Amjad Saqib. He is famous globally for introducing interest-free Islamic microfinance, which was considered impossible by many. Over the past two decades, Akhuwat has made interest free loans of billions of Rupees to millions of people, and lifted countless out of poverty. As an extension of this vision, Akhuwat University was launched about four years ago, to provide completely free education to the poor. Currently, it has only BS IT, BS Econ and a Diploma in Tourism and Hospitality. It chooses students from all provinces of Pakistan, and strives to integrate them in the hostels.   

When Dr. Amjad Saqib asked me to head the Economics Department at Akhuwat, I accepted the challenge. I was confident that I could teach economics in a way that would be far superior to what is currently available in Pakistan. Having studied economics throughout my career, I have become deeply aware of the failings of the subject. For starters, modern economics was developed by Western authors for Western economies, and is blind to the economic problems facing Pakistan. So, it is easily possible to provide a far superior approach, which would give students insights into the Pakistani Economy, instead of the US Economy. I wrote up an initial plan for pedagogical changes in the BS Econ program here: Akhuwat University: A Paradigm Shift in Education.

After spending some time on campus, and meetings with students and faculty, I realized that my initial plans for revising the Economics curriculum had many defects. What I wanted to teach our students was not compatible with HEC requirements for the BS Econ degree. Furthermore, it required a lot of reading materials in English. The teachers were not available to teach this program. And the students did not have sufficient English skills as well as maturity to read the materials available. Furthermore, if by some miracle, all of these problems could be overcome, students with a highly unorthodox training in Economics would face great difficulty in a market where conventional teaching is prized. On the other hand, if we taught a conventional economics degree, it did not seem likely that our students could rise above second-rate copies of the best programs in Pakistan. Based on these considerations, I decided to drop the BS Economics program, and replace it with a BBA program, designed to make students self-sufficient after four years of Education.

To support and justify this change, I made a presentation to the Senior Management at Akhuwat University. The audio recording of the introduction by Dr. Amjad Saqib, followed by my discussion of the planned change, is given below. A brief summary of the highlights of the talk is given below. You can also access the complete audio file for the meeting.

started by noting that the faculty and staff must buy in to the vision of Dr. Amjad Saqib, to make it sustainable in the long-run. And what is the vision we need? We want to create a model for Islamic Education, which is very different from the Capitalist Educational paradigm which dominates the market and mindsets. The educational model we are all familiar with is a market transaction, where services of a teacher are purchased for teaching a specific subject to a group of students. In the Islamic paradigm, a teacher is in loco parentis, and acts as a guide, counsellor, confidante, and life-coach to the students. For more details, see Islamic Pedagogy.

We want to design education so that the students become self-sufficient after four years. They should acquire life-skills, character, awareness of their social, civic and religious responsibilities. They should be able to understand the forces which shape the world around us. They should also be able to provide for themselves, without being dependent on vagaries of the job market. This requires substantial changes in the substance and style of pedagogy.

We would like to put Character Building at the center of our curriculum. But this is now a lost art, and we need to rediscover effective methods of achieving this goal. We want to students to be service oriented, not to seek fame, status, and luxuries, for themselves. In a fascinating book, Julie Reuben (The Making of the Modern University) has documented how the mission of character building was central to education in the early 20th century, but was dropped completely by mid-century. A university education provided technical skills only, with no discussion of the higher purposes, ideals and dreams which shape our lives. As a consequence, David Halberstam has documented in his book The Brightest and Best, that the best educational institutes of USA turned out people who could engage in mass murders in Vietnam without any moral compunctions.

All over Pakistan, we see high losses in inefficiencies due to corruption. But this is because character development is simply not a part of education. If we could just one objective: create honesty and integrity in our students, that would be enough to create a revolution. But this is a big ask which required coordinated efforts on multiple fronts. At the same time, if we do not even try for it, we will never make any progress.

Since it seems impossible to achieve the desired goals from a BA Econ, it seems advisable to shift to a BBA. But our planned BBA is different from LUMS/IBA style, which aims to equip students with skills to land jobs in the corporate sector. We want to produce job-creators and not job seekers. One of the books of Dr. Amjad Saqib entitled “Successful People” describes the life histories of our indigenous business communities and their methods for doing business. These models are radically different from the ones taught at Harvard Business School, and imitated at our local universities, without any understanding of the differences in our environment. Fortunately, Dr Shahid Qureshi and associates at IBA have created an entrepreneurship program which teaches the principles of doing business in an Islamic style. This program has enjoyed huge success, and turned out thousands of successful entrepreneurs. We hope to launch our BBA program with a tentative title “Chinioti – Memon School of Business” and differentiate ourselves strongly from the general trend of BBA programs currently available. Hopefully, our new BBA program will instill our students with the confidence and capabilities to launch their own business, and become job creators instead of job seekers.

Islamic Pedagogy

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{bit.ly/4c13knZ} I’ve spent my whole life in academic institutions, first as a student then as a teacher. I taught for 15 years in the USA, 6 in turkey and 25 years in Pakistan. In this talk, I would like to draw some lessons from these life experiences. An Urdu version of the talk is: Islamic Styles of Pedagogy (urdu). The English video below is followed by a writeup. Related: see later talk: Transformative Teaching: Changing the Lives of Our Students

Our religion teaches us that each life is infinitely precious. Each individual life is potentially as valuable as the entire humanity. Our students have enormous potential, and it is our job as teachers to bring out this potential. I found that this effort to bring out the hidden potential in the students to be of immense value, and extremely fruitful. Countless books have been written on the principles of etiquette (Adab) for Islamic education, extracted from the Quran and the Hadith. I will just mention a few. Our knowledge should not give us Pride. Instead, it should make us humble. We should value our students as having more potential than ourselves and we should take care to value their time and to give them useful knowledge. The Prophet ﷺ made Dua for useful knowledge and sought protection from useless knowledge. We have a tremendous opportunity because our students, if inspired and motivated, shape the future of the world – just like the students of our Prophet ﷺ did. Whereas our religion teaches how to become the best human being that we can be, modern education is designed to suppress and destroy this potential, and turn us into human resources, interchangeable parts in the capitalist machine for the production of wealth.

Since I myself was educated in the West, I experienced and absorbed the dominant Western pedagogical models. It was long personal journey to recover from the damage done to me by this educational process (see: Recovering from a Western Education) . It is worth providing a brief summary, so that the reader can understand where I am coming from. In the 1970s, I studied at MIT and Stanford and then for 15 years I taught at top universities in the USA. I left for two reasons:

  1. my children were growing up and I didn’t want them in public schools in the USA where they would acquire American culture
  2. I felt that I was being paid for the job of educating the children of foreigners when our own children in our own countries were not educated and this was my responsibility

When a chance offer materialized, I left and spent six years (from 93 to 99) at a leading Turkish University. After that I moved back to Pakistan, and have been teaching here since. I found my experience as a teacher much more satisfying because I felt that these students are my students and their successes were my success, and their failures were also my own failure. So, I tried very hard to make sure that they would succeed. My students responded to my efforts by giving me their best performances, and many graduates are now placed in good institutions in Pakistan, and around the world.

After my return, I noted many differences that forced me to change my approach to teaching from the one I had learnt in the West. While in USA, I saw that at the top universities, the best students were highly competitive and also very confident of their skills. In Pakistan, especially in the Public Sector, I found that the students had a defeated and colonized mindset. They could not imagine that they could be the world’s best. However, in terms of raw talent, our students are just as good as anywhere around the world. Unfortunately, the imitative educational system we have is designed to destroy their capabilities – they learn to aim low like the crows, instead of claiming their birthright to fly high (See: The Way of the Eagles bit.ly/42CCjTp ). Students can only achieve according their ambitions, and it is the job of the teacher to believe in the students, and to teach them to reach for the stars (See: Reaching Beyond the Stars: bit.ly/azRBS ).  

There is another, much bigger, difference between the role of the teacher in Market societies which now dominate the world and in a traditional Society traditional Islamic society.  In a market Society a teacher is paid for his work and he does educate the students in return for his salary.  As opposed to this, in an Islamic Society the teacher is a mentor, a life-guide, a counselor, an advisor, and he acts in a parental role. He worries about the personality development of the students. But the most important job of the teacher is to create desire and enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge in the students. In my experience, I have found that the greatest obstacle to high achievement is lack of self-confidence in our students. The students do not even try to learn because the experience that they have had with learning is very bad. They have been trained to not try to think instead just to memorize. Trying to master alien subjects in a foreign language has proven so difficult, that they consider themselves incompetent, and incapable of learning. They cannot identify the real causes for their failure: the educational system, the subject matter, and the teacher.

Building the confidence of our students is essential if we want stellar achievements from them. This requires work on multiple fronts. One the psychological front, we need to work on decolonization of minds. Defeats and failure on every front for the past two centuries has led to a defeated mindset in the Ummah as a whole. But, in addition to building psychological confidence we also need to provide the skills to match. Creating confidence in car-driving skills, without teaching the skills, will lead to crashes. It is the teacher’s job to build this confidence, and this starts by believing in the potential of our students. If we believe that our students have the potential to change the world, they will perform to fulfill our expectations. In addition to self-confidence, we also need to rebuild the shattered confidence in our heritage religion, heritage, and culture. I also have several lectures on this topic which are linked here: How to Launch an Islamic Revival.

In order to act as a guide, a mentor, and a life-coach, we need to create a very different relationship from the one that we are accustomed to. In a market society, the teacher’s only concern is to teach a subject he has no other relationship with the student. Instead we have to become helpers and partners of the students in their quest for knowledge. We have to switch the students from striving for scores to become knowledge seekers. This is a very difficult transition because the students have been burnt in the past. The thirst for knowledge comes naturally; it is part of human nature. But, students have been frustrated by past educational experiences. Both the subject matter and the teaching style has been designed to discourage students to search for knowledge. Students have tried many times and have failed. They have acquired the false belief that we are unable to learn. To switch their mindsets, we must change our own mindset and style of teaching as well as the subject matter. We vastly underestimate our students. Instead of discussing the big problems facing our society, facing the ummah, facing the world, or facing us in our personal lives, we teach them nitty-gritty details of trivial questions which make no sense and deprive them of the excitement of learning. If we engage with them on problems which actually matter in the real world, and teach the technical stuff as part of what is needed to solve them, they would be very eager and excited and keen to learn. I have found personally that when I started this approach, it was immensely valuable for the students. The students became engaged and interested, and acquired skills. Instead of the textbook approach which builds micro skills and defers engaging with the real world, we start with a real-world problem and then develop whatever tools techniques theories we need to solve the problem. We can also address life experiences and discuss how we go about solving problems that we face in our lives. Whenever we relate something to the experience of the students either as individuals or social problems that we face as communities, they will be very eager to learn about those. For more details about how to implement this educational method in teaching economics, see “How to Motivate and Inspire Students (URDU)“

Lecturing is a very poor way to generate learning. To learn, the students must tackle the subject, must engage with it, and struggle with it. One way to do this is the inverted classroom. We assign students some reading or some materials or some video lecture and then in class we discuss it. One method that I found useful is to put up a list of questions that I plan to discuss. Put up one question on the blackboard, and ask every student to write the answer to that on their front of them in on a piece of paper. Now, exchange papers and then ask a student what is the answer that is written in front of you. Then have a discussion – “is this the correct answer?” “what is the flaw in it?” “how should we grade it?” etc. In the end all of the students acquire a much deeper knowledge not just by learning the right answer but by also learning the wrong answers and the way in which they are wrong. This is tremendously helpful for learning.

Changing the methodology for assignments and exams is also very valuable in generating learning. We can give them take-home exams. By habit, they will initially copy from each other and cheat. We have to inform them that the take-home will not be graded. Actually I need to know how well you’re doing and by looking at your answer I will know what you have learned. If you cheat and deceive me, I will be unable to help you.  Initially, students do not believe this, but eventually they come to realize it. This takes the stress out of exams. They can self- grade the exams in their own classrooms. We can randomly distribute the exams among the students, grade them together. We ask students to discuss the answers and come agreement on what is good and what is bad. This methodology for assignments and exams creates much more comfort and much more learning on the students than the stressful methodology currently in use. It also provides us with a lot more information about what the students are learning, and about the students who are good, as well as those who are having difficulties. We can create small groups of students and ask the good students to help those who are having trouble.

One questions that came up on this material was that we teachers try very hard but when it comes to midterm we find the students fail miserably. Actually this should never happen. It should never  come as a surprise to us what the students are doing on the midterm. If, at the end of every class we assess what the student has learned, we will know exactly what the students are capable of and what they are not capable of. We should be building skills in every class, and we should be evaluating our students progress in every class. If we do this, we will know exactly what the students are capable of doing, and will not have any surprises regarding their lack of learning on the midterm. This is our job as teachers and if the students fail that means that we have failed them. Instead of thinking of exams as means of evaluating our students we should think of them as means of helping the students to learn

So to summarize the job of the teachers is to inspire, to motivate, and to build skills. We have to teach the students that they can do whatever they want to do, and to teach them to reach for the stars. We have to motivate them that acquiring an education, even though it’s a struggle, and even though studying and trying to solve challenging problems can be frustrating, it is worthwhile. Knowledge is extremely valuable, and can change our lives, and change the world. But in addition to this inspiration and motivation, you also need to build skills. If we teach students confidence but don’t teach them how to perform, then performance failures will crush their confidence. So confidence and skills should be developed in parallel. That’s the job of the teacher and that’s both very difficult and very challenging and also extremely rewarding. In fact, it is the most rewarding task in the world: all the prophets were sent as teachers. As teachers, we follow the highest profession. For more details, see Principles of An Islamic Education May Allah T’aala give us the Taufeeq to fulfill our responsibities, to change the lives of our students, and through them the world, for the better.

Ethics and Morality in Education

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Image Source: https://www.isis.org.uk/tag/moral-values/

Where can we learn the ethics? How do we determine what is moral and what is immoral? Has it always been the same way as it is presented in the modern educational system? The following essay is going to be a food for thought and a better understanding towards the “Ethics and Morality in the Education”.

A driving spirit of the modern age is the desire to banish all speculation about things beyond the physical and observable realms of our existence. This spirit was well expressed by one of the leading Enlightenment philosophers, David Hume, who called for burning all books which did not deal with the observable and quantifiable phenomena: “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

This is a breathtakingly bold assertion. The literate reader may examine his or her bookshelf to see what little, if anything, would survive after applying Hume’s prescriptions. Nonetheless, the spirit of the secular age was very much in tune with Hume, and relegated vast areas of human knowledge captured in literature, history, and the arts, to second-class citizenship. The modern world has been shaped by this downgrading of the spiritual, intuitive, and mystical, and the elevation of the rational as supreme judge and arbiter over all other faculties.

The leaders of the Enlightenment advocated rationality as the sole criterion for establishing an authoritative system of ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge. This has led to a dualism which has become firmly embedded in the foundations of Western thought, and has created a social science incapable of perceiving, let alone solving the problems currently being faced by humanity as a whole. Western hegemony has led to the global and widespread acceptance of this dualism, clearly expressed by Hume, in embracing the quantitative and passionately and violently rejecting the qualitative. Exploring the full range of difficulties caused by this dualism would take several books. In this essay we consider just one of the salient problems. Harvard Professor Julie Reuben expressed it as follows: “Truth was (a united whole) embracing spiritual, moral, and cognitive knowledge. By the 1930’s, this unity was shattered; factual cognitive knowledge (was separated from) moral/spiritual knowledge.”

The Enlightenment project had aimed to provide rational foundations for all human knowledge. However, influential intellectuals like Max Weber, in the early twentieth century, argued that scientific knowledge had to be value-free, because values could not be established empirically. Widespread acceptance of this rejection of morality and spirituality has had dramatic consequences in all realms of human life. The most important questions that we face as human beings were declared to be meaningless, and unworthy of our attention and study. We all recognize that our own life is an infinitely precious gift; the most important question we face is: how should we use this gift? What is the purpose or meaning of life? What characterizes the ‘good life’ and what steps can we take to achieve a lifestyle which embodies the good?

Influential positivist philosophers argued that these questions had no meaning, because there was no empirical or observational evidence which could be used to answer them. All answers were equally valid. We should simply do with our lives whatever we desire to do. There were no ethical or moral standards to guide our behavior. As one of the leading positivist philosophers, A J Ayer, stated: “Moral judgments are as meaningless as a cry of pain”. Centuries of traditional wisdom about life was discarded as meaningless noise, and the new generations were encouraged to work out answers to these deep and difficult questions on their own, starting from scratch. To understand the catastrophic consequences of this, imagine what would happen if we threw out accumulated wisdom in medicine (or any other field of knowledge), and started again from scratch.

The key to the social sciences is an understanding of the nature of human beings. Can we understand human lives without understanding responsibility, conscience, courage, love, heroism and cowardice, trust, jealousy and the enormous range of human emotions? All of these elements of human lives are deeply and inherently qualitative and cannot be measured on any scales. Thus, by definition, these do not qualify for inclusion in the realm of scientific knowledge. The wisdom of the ancients, contained in books discussing these concepts in literary and philosophical terms, without measurement and data, would deserve to be burned according to Hume. But all this book-burning would leave us without any guidance on issues central to human affairs.

The dualism that deified science, and scoffed at that qualitative and unmeasurable, resulted in a tremendous loss of knowledge about the nature of human beings and society. We are living with the consequences of a college education which teaches students how to build bombs, but nothing about the ethics of killing innocents. As a chilling example, consider the changing attitudes towards torture and murder. Japanese soldiers were executed for torturing American POW using waterboarding, and American soldiers in Vietnam were tried for such treatment of Vietnamese prisoners. But recent Presidents have thrown their full support behind the use of extreme torture techniques, officially approving their use. Hollywood movies glorify and justify torture, even though empirical evidence shows that it does not work to obtain useful intelligence. Official reports show that senior officials in the UK and the US concocted evidence to fool the public into supporting the invasion of Iraq, resulting in deaths of millions of innocent civilians, and unnecessary expense of trillions of dollars. But no one has been convicted of any wrongdoing. MBAs are taught that the bottom line is all that matters, and social responsibility should not interfere with the pursuit of profits. Thus, there is no outrage at the deaths of the poor and hungry farmers, caused by millions of dollars spent on research to produce genetically modified terminating seeds, so that rich organisations can make more profits by selling seeds every year. Even justice has been separated from morality; in the adversarial system, lawyers are taught that their responsibility is to win the case for their clients, regardless of whether or not justice would be served by this win. Reform requires deep and fundamental changes in the system of education, which needs to be firmly grounded in all those ideas that have been kicked out of the curriculum as ‘unscientific’.

Originally posted by Dr. Asad Zaman in Express Tribune August 14, 2016. More work by Dr. Asad Zaman: Index

Dilavar Khan: LinkedIn