Islamic Education? « Inner Reflections Transcribed

Islamic Education?

April 17, 2007 at 9:49 pm | In Islam | 5 Comments

For those with knowledge of Islam, aside from the generic and the basics, how did you manage to go about learning about fiqh, studying hadith and rulings/opinions of scholars/schools of thought?

Did you have a teacher, or was it self-learning?

How much learning can one really do from books?

As women, is it harder to find a teacher that you can contact and learn from or are we restricted to learning from books and making do with whats available (which although is vast, its not that easy to make sense of some of it and knowledge cant always be passed on through books)

Personally, majority of my knowledge has come from independent learning. I don’t have a teacher to refer to or anyone particularly knowledgeable. It may have something to do with the small number of Muslims in the city, the lack of resources available, or perhaps i’m not looking hard enough.

Whats the best method of learning? And how does one go about obtaining and adhering to that method?

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Salaam alaikum,

Please, please, people out there, leave comments! I’m a relatively new Muslim who’d really like to increase her knowledge and I’d benefit from your suggestions, I know. So far I’m largely self-taught, but while that method can be good in some ways it can also leave big gaps.

Comment by Hana — April 17, 2007 #

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I, myself, have mainly relied on self-learning so far, just to catch up on the basics. However, I suspect that learning from a good teacher is best. In fact, i would say it would be better to learn from a few good teachers, to avoid becoming dependent on one opinion, because even the most learned of scholars is simply human, and thus subject to making errors.

Comment by iMuslim — April 17, 2007 #

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One thing I like about “your” city is that there are few Muslims! LOL

I went to a religious evening school for six years when I was growing up. That is where I learnt much and that is when I wore hijab for seven years. But that was not in your city.

Comment by Suroor — April 18, 2007 #

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Hana: WalaykumAsalaam. I think self-learning although has its advantages, has major disadvantages to it, which is why I believe having a teacher is a very good thing. But where/how does one go about getting one is a different issue altogether

iMuslim: Might it be perhaps better having a few teachers, so you could seek the opinion of each and then make your own decision? That’d be a luxury, since its hard enough finding one teacher!

Suroor: In some ways its a good thing :p but in other ways its a real drawback. I really feel the gap ever since i’ve been back from where I was staying 6 months ago, they have so much more going on, more resources, more courses, more in that city.

Comment by Sumera — April 18, 2007 #

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You bring up good points here. How we all come about what we know – or think we know – is a good question.

With the internet, i’ve been able to find lots of information, and things like tracking down old hadiths i remember reading as a child. ( i.e. the ones that really horrified me – and check up whether they are supposed to be ’solid’ hadiths or not. etc.)

the thing that worries me is when i think back to the kinds of things they told us in R.E classes – and the kinds of things I research on now – I never knew what kind of questions to ask back then. for example, no one ever told me about concubinage or enslaving war captives when i was little. If they had, i would have asked them a thing or two! But i feel that is purposeful – holding back that kind of knowledge – people then have to find out for themselves later. how that happens – is a good

Comment by sonia — April 21, 2007 #

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