B. Aisha Lemu
Islamic Education Trust

Before starting a discussion of religious education in Nigeria, and Islamic education in particular, it is worth providing an initial overview of the ethnic and religious groups in the country. Generally speaking, Muslims and Christians in Nigeria have lived in peace with one another and there has been a fair amount of inter-marriage, especially in the southwest where there is roughly an equal population of both faiths. In the north, the majority of Christians are from minority ethnic groups who are comparatively recent converts from African traditional religions. On the other hand, the bulk of Hausa/Fulanis, Kanuris, Nupes, etc…, have been Muslims for centuries. When so called "religious disturbances" take place in Nigeria with worrying frequency they usually occur in the north between the indigenous ethnic groups who converted to Christianity and the Hausa "settlers" who have long lived in their midst. In more recent times, the conflict has also involved Christian Ibo settlers from the southeast who have long settled in the north. Insulting statements about Islam made by Ibo religious and political leaders have also fueled the recent conflicts over the extension of the scope of Shar'iah (Muslim) law in many of Nigeria's northern states.

About 2 years ago, the Government set up a body called the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council where Christian and Muslim leaders would have a chance to meet. While these leaders are well-educated and can come to some mutual understandings among themselves, they often find a lot of ignorance, intolerance, and criticism of compromise among their followers.1 While there are some non-governmental bodies who have promoted inter-religious dialogue and harmony with limited successes, there is a great need to build on these efforts in all parts of the community.

The Place of Religious Education:

When the British extended their control over Nigeria during the 19th and 20th centuries, a system of Islamic education had already been in existence for centuries in the Muslim Emirates of what is now northern Nigeria. Overall, the British established a cordial relationship with the Emirs under a system of indirect rule and, when modern schools were set up in the colonial period, Islamic religious knowledge was included as a subject of study in the northern states. Christian religious education was included in the southern states in the same way.

In due course, both Islam and Christianity were taught in both the north and the south and large numbers of students took them as examination subjects for the West African School Certificate. When periods for religious instruction came up, however, Muslims and Christians would go to separate classes taught by teachers of their own respective religions. Teacher training colleges and universities introduced appropriate courses at various levels.

In the early 1980s, the Government carried out a major revision of the educational system. All subject syllabi were revised and more weight was given to moral education based on religious values. There was at this time, however, an attempt by secularists to eliminate "Religious Knowledge" -- both Christian and Islamic -- in favor of "Moral Education." Both Christian and Muslim bodies resisted this effort on that grounds that Christian and Muslim parents wanted their children to be brought up "in the religion of their parents." Since this time, there have been no major changes. Each syllabus contains minor elements of information about other religions and about African traditional religion.

Understanding Islam:

As my own experience is with Islamic education, I will share some thoughts on potential improvements to Islamic education in this region. Some years ago I had the interesting experience of working with the NERC (Nigerian Educational Research Council) panel set up to revise the National syllabus for Islamic Studies. We began with examining Islamic education at the primary level. Initially, our group was composed of about fifteen or more people, including professors, lecturers, and teachers drawn from Universities, Colleges of Education and Schools, as well as some of the Grand Kadis of State Shari'ah Courts of Appeal. We began by listing the things children at primary level should be expected to learn.

It soon became apparent that we were looking upon these children as bottomless receptacles into which were to be poured as many buckets of information as possible about Islam. The children must learn to read the Arabic text of the Qur'an, the children must memorize X - number of Surahs, the children must memorize the 99 Names of Allah, the children must memorize the compulsory and Sunnah acts of Ablution and Prayer. They must also memorize some Hadith and some du'a', and the names of the Prophet's father, mother, wet-nurse, uncle, and so on and so forth.

In effect, the children's first experience of Islam was to be based almost entirely on the memorization of many sounds and words of unknown meaning, of actions of unknown significance, and of facts of no obvious relevance to the question of what Islam is and what it means to be a Muslim. This is, after all, the way most Muslims who are born into the religion are taught about Islam and they tend to feel it is the only way in which it can be passed on to the next generation. The children are, therefore, naturally under the impression that Islam is something you memorize and hopefully are able to repeat when asked …the alternative being some whacks with a stick.

Across most of Africa, and indeed in many other parts of the world, this is how the majority of children learn Islam. So when we wonder why so many Muslims have such little understanding of Islam, we have only to look at the Qur'anic schools and their modern variants - the 'Mallams' in the Primary schools - to understand why. The curriculum is extremely narrow and the method is more suitable for training parrots. Learning "Islamic Studies" has not helped the growing child to understand anything. It has not given him/her any insight and he/she is not encouraged to ask questions. By the time these children become teenager, they are quite likely to drop the subject and therefore to grow up as a "religious illiterate." It is such people with a very weak understanding of Islam who can most easily be led astray - whether by the modern secular culture, or by other religious or extremist groups. They also become the nominal Muslims who sometimes rise to high positions where they constitute an obstacle to all attempts to improve our society in line with moral principles.

The Need for Meaningful Islamic Education:

It is therefore a matter of great importance that Islam should be taught in a way that is meaningful to the learner, which assists his/her understanding of the meaning and purpose of life and guides him/her to think and act as a Muslim in all his/her affairs. These are the challenges before the curriculum developer, textbook writers, and teachers.

Islam is a religion whose divine revelation requires us to think, to observe, to inquire, to investigate, to test statements, to reflect and to understand. The whole of the Qur'an is full of challenges for people to use their reason. Islam is not a religion of blind faith. This should be reflected in the way we teach it, using references to the Qur'an where it tells us to consider the creation (e.g. Surah 27:59-64) and draw lessons from our reasoning. Even young children soon start to use their reason, as any parent knows from the daily asking of questions beginning with "why?" Children are very curious and, in teaching Islam, we should make use of that curiosity and try to satisfy their wish to find out. For example, children may ask why we pray in the way we do. Some teachers may rightly say that "That is the way the Prophet showed us," but they may also add a lot of reasons why the Islamic form of prayer has other moral, spiritual, and social benefits.2

In this respect, it is important not to regard Islamic Studies in isolation from other knowledge which the child learns - whether from other school subjects, or from the home, or from watching television. Teachers of Islam should themselves read widely and broaden their general knowledge so as to be able to relate Islamic values to the child's other experience and knowledge. For example, Islamic moral values can be related to themes in the poems, novels, and dramas studied for English Literature. The same can be done for events in history. In the sciences, there is a wealth of materials - including pictures and video cassettes - which illustrate references in the Qur'an to natural phenomena, the behaviour of animals, the heavenly bodies, human embryology, and so on.3 The moral dimension is also of great importance. Islam teaches that human beings are all in a state of loss unless they attain to faith and do good (Qur'an Surah 103). We are taught that it is also obligatory to promote what is morally right and to try to stop or resist what is morally wrong. The Qur'an and Hadith go on to define specific examples of good and bad deeds.

These are not arbitrary commands and prohibitions, but are directly related to what may in the short or long term help us or harm us. Sometimes the reasons are stated in the Qur'an, e.g. "But (since) good and evil cannot be equal, return evil with that which is better, so that the person between you and whom there was enmity may become like a close friend" (Qur'an 41:34). Or, in respect of charitable giving, "And neither allow your hand to be shackled to your neck, nor stretch it to the utmost limit (of your capacity), lest you find yourself blamed (by your dependants) or even destitute" (Qur'an 17:29). Sometimes the reasons are not stated, but can be deduced by investigation or reflection. For example, in Qur'an 2:71 where the Prophet is told, "They will ask you about intoxicants and gambling. Say: In both there is great evil as well as some benefit for man; but the evil which they cause is greater than the benefit which they bring…"

Therefore, children should be encouraged to think about and discuss what may be the benefit or harm of certain actions. Faith which is supported by reason is doubly strong. It gives a child a feeling of confidence in his/her faith if he/she can point out the benefits of Islamic practices, duties and prohibitions, and answer any questions that may be raised. In order to prepare children for such reasoning, they should be encouraged to ask questions about what they don't understand and they should be given reasonable answers. Moreover, a child who has been taught to reason grows up equipped to discuss religious and moral issues with people of all faiths and philosophies. Side by side with classroom teachings, students need to broaden their general knowledge of Islam and of other religions. In the modern world, we need to interact peacefully, non only with our immediate non-Muslim neighbors, but also with people of other beliefs. Fruitful dialogue with them needs to be based on true understanding.

The Importance of Role Models:

In teaching moral values to children it is advisable to illustrate such values by either using true stories drawn from the life of Prophet Muhammad and his companions, or from the earlier prophets, or from respected Muslims. The teacher may also use fables or other fictional stories as parables to illustrate the point. Children - and indeed even adults - find it easier to appreciate moral conduct when it is demonstrated in the behaviour of a particular person, rather than as a set of abstract principles.

This point is important. Surveys conducted to find out why some non-Muslims embrace Islam, and why some born Muslims grow to become committed Muslims, often indicate that the change took place because they came to know a committed Muslim and admired his or her behaviour and wanted to become like that person. Ideally, the teacher should be that role model and he or she should strive to be worthy of emulation by pupils or students. However, we have to acknowledge that many teachers of Islamic Studies do not have an inspiring personality or outstanding moral conduct. Many teach as a job of work in order to earn a salary because Islamic Studies was the only subject they did well in while at school. Therefore, it is important that teachers make use of examples of great Muslims, male and female, and tell interesting stories to inspire the young to emulate them.

Fitting the Parts Together:

We have referred to the need to relate Islamic Studies to other areas of knowledge and to develop an integrated approach where faith and reason support one another. We sometimes neglect the need to inter-relate the various aspects of Islamic Studies so that the learner can perceive not only the parts of it, but the whole structure. And, how do the parts fit into the whole? (For example, how are moral values reflected in Islamic economic principles or in our treatment of the environment?) This approach is often overlooked, with the result that young people may know quite a lot of detail about various aspects of Islam, but still fail to understand what it is all about.

The reason for this lack of a unified perspective is the way the subject is broken up into little pieces in order to spread the syllabus over the term, over the year, and over the whole course of studies. For example, a secondary school student may learn Islamic Studies among ten or more other subjects three times a week for a period of 40 minutes. On Monday for 40 minutes he learns a bit of Qur'an or Hadith, or some moral teachings. Perhaps he learns about the Isnad and Matn of a Hadith. On Wednesdays he has 40 minutes of Fiqh and learns what are the things that spoil fasting. On Friday for 40 minutes he has Sirah and learns about theBattle of Uhud. What does the child make of these fragments of knowledge? How can he/she know their significance within the framework of Islam if he/she has no concept of the framework of Islam?

It is rather like doing a jigsaw puzzle when you have not seen the picture you are trying to put together. For example, if you were given a piece of jigsaw puzzle you might not know what it is. You could not know its use or where it belongs in the overall picture. However, if you were shown the whole picture, you would better understand the function of the small piece you were looking at and where it fits into the bigger picture. Now the way our children learn Islamic Studies, by merely repeating what the teacher says without understanding and without knowing how one thing relates to another, is like giving the piece of puzzle to the child and saying "copy this." He may copy what he sees 10 times and copy it well. He may reproduce it in an examination, but the child still does not understand it or grasp how it fits into the whole. When a person converts to Islam out of conviction that it is the true religion, he learns about it in quite a different way. He will start perhaps with a book that gives a general outline of Islam. When he meets some new information, or something he doesn't understand, he asks questions or reads more until he is satisfied. Thus, his understanding and his conviction grow together in a natural and organic way.

When the convert reads about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, he reads it continuously and has finished it in a day or a week, leaving a strong impression on his mind. The Muslim schoolchild, on the other hand, will find the life of the Prophet split up into little units so that it could take months or even years to cover them all. The overall impression and the magnitude of the Prophet's achievement is not perceived because it is like watching a film in slow motion with constant interruptions.

In effect, as trained teachers will have realized, we are talking about the Gestalt Theory of Learning Psychology. The Concise Oxford Dictionary describes this as "Perceived organized whole that is more than the sum of its parts, e.g. a melody as distinct from the separate notes of it," from the German word "Gestalt" meaning form or shape. Islam has a unique structure and is characterized by a perfect balance - balance between this world and the Hereafter, between faith and reason, between Allah's grace and human responsibility, between male and female, between work and worship. This is one of the most attractive features of Islam, which Muslims should be taught to appreciate -- to see Islam as a whole and balanced way of life.

END NOTES
1 In a country with very poor economic conditions, there are vast numbers of uneducated and unemployed young men who will readily join in any cause - religious, ethnic, or political - when there is an opportunity for killing and looting.
2 e.g. punctuality, orderliness of lining up, unity and solidarity, showing humility before God, following a leader but correcting him if he makes a mistake, etc.
3 Examples: Qur'an 41:11; 36:36; 15:22; 21:30; 23:14; 10:62

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