New Horizons in Muslim Education Published in 1985 by the Islamic Academy, Cambridge, and Hodder and Stoughton

Abstract

New Horizons in Muslim Education
S. A. Ashraf
The Concept of an Islamic University
H. H. Bilgrami and S. A. Ashraf
Islamic Sociology: An Introduction
I. Ba-Yunus and F Ahmad

The three small -average 100 pages -introductory books under review form
a piece and are the first volley from the Islamic Academy at Cambridge. The
Academy’s Islamic Monograph Series is attractively produced and easy to read.
The guiding genius of the Academy is Professor S. A. Ashraf. He was also
one of the key figures, as organizing secretary, of the First World Conference
on Muslim Education in Makkah in 1977. That Conference greatly accelerated
the present trend in Islamic scholarship. Today we hear of Islamic Economics,
Islamic Sociology and so on as one result (see my Towards Islamic Anthropology:
definition, dogma and directions published by the International
Institute of Islamic Thought and Defining Islamic Anthropology in the Royal
Anthropological Institute News, London.)
The two books on education are linked by the authorship and ideas of Professor
Ashraf. In the one on education he clearly plans out an Islamic syllabi,
training courses (for both students and teachers) and conferences.
Islamic scholarship rests on the following assumptions: “Firstly, the Islamic
concept of Man has the width and range no other concept of Man has. As
Man can become Khalifatullah by cultivating or realizing within himself the
attributes of God [strictly at the human level] and as these attributes have
a limitless dimension, Man’s moral, spiritual and intellectual progress is potentially
limitless. Secondly, as knowledge is the source of this progress and
development, Islam does not put any bar to the acquisition of knowledge.
Thirdly, the range of this acquisition must be all by acquiring intellectual expertise
because in isolation a person cannot maintain a baland growth. Fourthly,
the spiritual, moral, intellectual, imaginative, emotional and physical
aspects of man’s personality are kept in view in establishing the interrelationship
among the disciplines., Fifthly, the development of personality is seen
in the context of Man’s relationship with God, Man and Nature. Therefore
the organization of disciplines and arrangement of subjects are planned with
reference to Man as an individual, Man as a social being and Man as a being
who has to live in harmony with Nature.” (Ashraf, page 5) ...