Nicole Correri - Keys to Islamic Literacy

29 Bekeken· 24/07/31

Muslim Group of USA and Canada
abonnees

In anders

Presented during the 2014 Muslim Group Conference

Laat meer zien

Transcript

[0:28]muhammad our whole religion is founded on literacy read in the name

[0:47]of your lord that created you read recite here's the first command

[0:52]we've been given in our religion it is a fundamental foundation of

[0:58]this revelation and of our purpose and destiny as human beings on

[1:04]this earth so here we start when we look at the traditions

[1:08]of the bait what do we see imam ali salaam says the

[1:13]intellect is the human's most precious asset for it restores the human

[1:17]being's dignity after humiliation uplifts the human if he or she falls

[1:26]guides him or her if they are lost and gives firmness and

[1:33]rectitude to speech when the human speaks the intellect which is the

[1:40]capacity by which you acquire knowledge by which you do this process

[1:46]of reading by which you recite and give knowledge as well it

[1:50]is the intellect that is at the core as well of our

[1:56]faith and we need to come back to this center if you

[1:59]will if we're to talk about literacy in general now the faculty

[2:05]of the intellect but literacy as well is the hallmark of a

[2:09]successful and vibrant society it is the hallmark of a growing and

[2:13]flourishing society indeed this is a key aspect to the growth of

[2:20]humanity in general and that is why this topic is so relevant

[2:23]today because literacy is declining at an amazingly rapid rate and so

[2:30]much is filling that space and we're going to get to that

[2:33]topic of what exactly is interfering with our development as human beings

[2:37]not just as muslims but as a culture in general as a

[2:41]human nation what is happening to the intellect what is happening to

[2:46]literacy worldwide globally that is impacting our evolutionary and our spiritual progress

[2:51]now islam itself considers the faculty of the intellect to have a

[2:55]fundamental role in the development of human beings and it emphasizes its

[3:02]employment for free thought and action keep those two words in mind

[3:08]free thought and action throughout life so that every person may put

[3:14]to use his or her powers of cognition in order to do

[3:18]what in order to realize one's genuine humanity so free thought leading

[3:23]to action is what one does to become fully human now this

[3:27]is from the work of saiyad mujtabalari and from his book in

[3:33]ethics and spiritual growth so again we're seeing that this religion confirms

[3:37]intellect is primary but what's fascinating is that when you look at

[3:43]the history of islam literacy and intellectual development was at its peak

[3:50]in all the cultures from all times the islamic golden age as

[3:54]it's called was a period of time that lasted over 700 years

[3:59]why was it significant because knowledge and the flourishing of sciences literature

[4:06]writing exploration discovery was at its peak and it is exactly what

[4:10]laid the foundation for the renaissance and the expansion of the new

[4:16]world and the world that we all live in today fundamental and

[4:19]what is its basis its basis was the direct command from allah

[4:27]to read to explore to understand life to understand the universe to

[4:31]understand one's place in it what all of these great muslim thinkers

[4:34]and scientists did was establish this intellectual drive but all for the

[4:40]purpose of glorifying allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala into recognizing his majesty and the

[4:45]beauty in the created world and it's fast how it impacted all

[4:50]of our lives from the glasses you were wearing on your uh

[4:55]face to the optics that are happening with these cameras to the

[4:58]architecture that we see all around us to in fact global navigation

[5:04]so there's a professor by the name of jared diamond and he's

[5:07]actually a professor of physiology at ucla school of medicine and he's

[5:11]a recipient of the pulitzer prize for non-fiction in 1998 and he's

[5:16]written this book called guns germs and steel the fates of human

[5:21]societies now what's interesting look at what he has to say about

[5:24]the islamic golden age he says medieval islam was technologically advanced and

[5:30]open to innovation technologically advanced open to innovation it achieved far higher

[5:38]literacy rates than contemporary europe literacy he says also that assimilated the

[5:44]legacy of the classical greeks and to such a degree that many

[5:49]of the classical books that are now known to all of us

[5:52]came through these arabic copies yes writing translation vibrant academic work research

[6:00]yes and so what else do we see not only did they

[6:06]advance in these areas but all kinds of sciences and all kinds

[6:08]of technology metallurgy mechanical and chemical engineering yes jabba ibn hayan is

[6:16]the father of chemistry masha'allah and then what else irrigation methods and

[6:22]on and on let me tell you some of the fantastic inventions

[6:25]from this golden age windmills trigonometry the advancement of astronomy what else

[6:33]how many of you know what a latine sale is what is

[6:39]it and what was so special about it is what absolutely triangular

[6:50]but it also could be against and with the wind it could

[6:55]be moved and so what this allowed was the exploration and the

[6:58]great navigation that took place globally it's what allowed commerce and discovery

[7:03]to expand at an incredible pace and this came from the muslims

[7:09]and their drive towards knowledge so we see that this is an

[7:13]amazing flourishing period and it was really this flow of knowledge the

[7:16]author goes on to say from islam into europe that revibrated or

[7:21]reinvigorated the europeans who are in what is called the dark ages

[7:26]the golden age of islam enlivened europe and all because of literacy

[7:32]but the question is here we all are as muslims today where

[7:36]are we with respect to our heritage where are we with respect

[7:42]to this incredible in drive for knowledge this incredible pace of discovery

[7:46]and curiosity and interest in the world all for the glorification of

[7:52]allah subhanahu wa ta'ala where are we well we are saturated in

[7:55]a culture today and it's not just in the west it's global

[7:58]because there's no question that materialism consumerism superficiality knows no boundaries but

[8:04]if we look in a book written by chris hedges it's called

[8:09]the empire of illusion the end of literacy and the triumph of

[8:12]spectacle this author takes a really potent look at mass delusion and

[8:18]what does he say he says our nation has kind of embedded

[8:22]ourselves in this reality of illusion yeah they've replaced reality with illusion

[8:31]and we've become addicted to violence in many forms from pornography to

[8:36]professional wrestling to just the the worship of idols in the form

[8:42]of celebrities and people who have even no talent whatsoever so there

[8:46]are personalities that are considered socialites and everybody keeps up with them

[8:50]you know who i'm talking about and they haven't achieved anything they're

[8:53]not even a singer they're not even an actress they haven't written

[8:55]anything but somehow they're popular how's this possible in this day and

[9:01]age that someone of no substance becomes the most sought after most

[9:05]followed individual in their look and in their approach to life what

[9:08]on earth where are we as human beings and this is not

[9:12]just to the muslims but this is a global phenomenon this is

[9:17]a human problem so what else is happening so we see that

[9:21]all of this widespread infiltration of illusion so to speak and distraction

[9:27]is replacing the fundamental capacity to think and the fundament fundamental capacity

[9:33]to have complex thoughts to deal with complexities not just simple answers

[9:39]but look at things in depth that's missing and we are becoming

[9:46]so prone to have the inability to distinguish truth from illusion they

[9:51]are being whitewashed so to speak and one is becoming inseparable from

[9:55]the other and now today we have another aspect and that's social

[10:00]media and we call it social media but that's a misnomer because

[10:03]it does nothing but make you anti-social in many respects now giving

[10:08]information for current events or global phenomena or political issues fantastic getting

[10:13]information fantastic but we all know that that's not the only way

[10:17]it infiltrates our lives we know for a fact that social media

[10:22]has made us anti-social human beings the fact that you might take

[10:27]a call right now in the middle of my lecture the fact

[10:28]that you might text your friend right now in the middle of

[10:33]my lecture is an anti-social behavior it's a breaking down of norms

[10:35]of social norms and this is not something that we should take

[10:41]lightly because this is the beginning of ripping apart the fabric of

[10:45]human society and of breaking apart accountability responsibility and the heart of

[10:51]the human being now when we look at the advice of our

[10:54]holy prophet salallahu the holy prophet encouraged his companions to acquire knowledge

[11:07]and literacy and with this end he made it compulsory for the

[11:13]children of his companions to learn to read and write compulsory and

[11:18]on top of that he encouraged the companions to learn other languages

[11:23]syriac for example or other local languages within that region so that

[11:29]they could communicate the knowledge of islam to others so learning languages

[11:32]is an advancement of literacy as well here in the united states

[11:36]we're at a great deficit it is very common right now to

[11:38]travel anywhere in the world and people speak what english they can

[11:43]be from finland they can be from spain they can be from

[11:48]venezuela they can be from anywhere you name it but they also

[11:51]speak english it's become a global language but not only that many

[11:56]people with in other cultures have multiple language capacities they can connect

[12:01]and understand and relate to other cultures and to other people and

[12:07]that's a value and an asset that we have lost in this

[12:12]particular society now what else does the social media do social media

[12:15]renders us as victims yes to excessive narcissism where you are the

[12:23]beginning middle and end of everything and where does that leave you

[12:28]as a believer it leaves you isolated and alone it leaves you

[12:35]hopeless you're the beginning and end of everything you are no longer

[12:40]connected to something greater than yourself and you become a very isolated

[12:46]lonely broken human being in the long run because you have no

[12:49]point of reference but yourself and we have limits as dr sajad

[12:55]rizvi just reminded us of knowledge and this is actually one aspect

[13:01]of that as well when we only reference the self now when

[13:04]we look at the writing of ayatollah mo tahari in man in

[13:08]universe which is one of my favorite books he talks about this

[13:10]in terms of islam's love and encouragement of knowledge acquisition of knowledge

[13:15]and the pursuit of learning he says that the the emphasis on

[13:20]knowledge was the reason why muslims so speedily spread to all corners

[13:24]of the world it was knowledge that drove him to these places

[13:27]and it secured the scientific works wherever they went yes they gathered

[13:33]information they brought in the text they translated them they coveted them

[13:37]they took care of them he says the muslims not only translated

[13:41]these works but they took this research and all of this academic

[13:46]pursuit and they advanced it and so then they became the link

[13:51]of the ancient cultures of greece of rome of iran of mesopotamia

[13:55]of india of egypt and they brought that to the modern culture

[13:58]of europe he says in the course of time the muslims themselves

[14:02]became the founders of one of the grandest civilization and cultures of

[14:06]all human history known to the world as the muslim civilization and

[14:10]culture don't let any authors fool you and say the arabs had

[14:14]this you know they called the arab golden age it was the

[14:18]muslim golden age because it was this guidance from allah that was

[14:22]the impetus for this gathering and pursuit of knowledge the recognition of

[14:27]allah's hand in all aspects of life in all aspects of natural

[14:31]phenomena in all aspects of celestial phenomenon so this is really important

[14:37]to remember now literacy is tied with our islamic duties and as

[14:42]muslims the love of knowledge is actually a foundational point that we

[14:48]should all have in our lives that love of knowledge and literacy

[14:52]is completely within the scope of our belief system so i invite

[14:57]you all to think about how you can fall in love with

[15:01]books because i'm not just talking about quranic literacy today which is

[15:05]a foundational element of all this literary movement the quran is the

[15:11]basis and this is a topic i've discussed at other times and

[15:13]last year we did a quran clinic to encourage the encourage the

[15:18]connection with the holy quran and even the awareness because we're at

[15:21]a deficit and i often ask my audiences how many of you

[15:26]know the art of tajweed raise your hand fully so if i

[15:31]were to ask you about various mud well i know shaykh rastu

[15:35]definitely can raise his hand and our other sheikh i'm sure one

[15:40]two three four five six seven eight people in this audience eight

[15:50]people in this audience of what do we have about 200 people

[15:52]perhaps maybe 150 how is it that eight of us muslims no

[16:00]tajweed it's a sorry state we have to access our own holy

[16:06]book we have to know it inside and out and we have

[16:08]to know how we give each letter it's due and from there

[16:12]we have a fundamental basis with which to explore life and to

[16:16]glorify allah subhanahu wa so when we look again at islamic history

[16:19]during the 8th century there was a famous author but also a

[16:25]polymath and this is something significant about the muslim golden age many

[16:28]of these great writers and thinkers and explorers and scientists were polymaths

[16:32]meaning they were experts in many fields pali meaning multiple right they

[16:37]were experts in many fields mathema by the way means knowledge all

[16:43]right so al-jahes who was a black muslim philosopher and man of

[16:49]literature in basra iraq he authored how many books 10 20 30

[16:58]200 200 books on the variety on a variety of subjects from

[17:03]arabic grammar zoology poetry lexicography rhetoric and on and on he was

[17:08]someone who was interested and deeply invested in life and this is

[17:12]unique to the muslim golden age it was that interest in all

[17:16]aspects of life and that's missing today that's missing greatly we've become

[17:21]specialists or we've become trivialists interested in minutia and irrelevant issues like

[17:28]what's the latest this the latest fad latest game how to do

[17:32]this uh hairstyle how to fix your hijab like that how to

[17:35]like you know work out and get you know abs i don't

[17:38]know what we've got all this little minutiae information that surrounds us

[17:40]but it's nothing enriching it's nothing enriching and it's nothing that will

[17:44]gain give us an opportunity to gain more knowledge and more proximity

[17:49]to allah or to enliven humanity or heal humanity in any way

[17:54]so we've saturated ourselves and with trivialities and we've left aside real

[17:59]meaningful pursuits that are about taking care of humanity for the sake

[18:05]of allah so when we look at him he talks about books

[18:08]he talks about the love of books and this is true for

[18:14]any bibliophile anybody who's a lover of books yes you will appreciate

[18:18]this verse that i'm going to earn this quote the book is

[18:21]silent as long as you need silence eloquent whenever you want discourse

[18:27]she never interrupts you if you are engaged but if you feel

[18:31]lonely she will be a good companion she is a friend who

[18:34]never deceives or flatters you and she's a companion who does not

[18:38]grow tired of you this is a book it has constant enrichment

[18:43]for you now if any of you have studied norse mythology you

[18:48]will find the story of how the runes were discovered and why

[18:54]they were considered sacred the writing that was considered sacred it was

[19:00]considered as a tool to speak to those who did not yet

[19:02]exist it was considered magical that you could leave something in print

[19:08]for future generations that's amazing think about what writing means it means

[19:16]preserving knowledge and connecting with people who are yet don't exist that's

[19:19]how powerful reading is that's how powerful books are that's how powerful

[19:24]knowledge is and how enduring it is so we have to recognize

[19:28]that our history has this richness from the 8th century muslims produced

[19:33]a prolific amount of books because of two fundamental things one that

[19:37]drive to connect to allah's guidance and to worship allah and to

[19:42]and glorify him also the knowledge of paper making yes what did

[19:45]they do they recorded their experiments they recorded their work they worked

[19:51]on all these translations and they flourished under the patronage of our

[19:55]fifth and sixth holy imams may the peace and blessing allah be

[20:06]upon them give me a salawat allah and that's a fundamental point

[20:10]because often in many literature or in various literature you'll see that

[20:12]it was under the guidance of the caliphates and yes there were

[20:16]various caliphates but there were few in number the imams themselves as

[20:20]well were patrons of this flourishing knowledge and encouraged it in many

[20:24]ways and we'll talk about that in specifics at the end of

[20:29]this lecture now hundreds of libraries were opened and let me tell

[20:33]you something the custodian of the library was considered one of the

[20:38]most sacred and special elite roles of that society the custodian of

[20:44]the library and elevated sa status in that community and the librarian

[20:48]would take care of the text preserve the texts and there was

[20:54]lending libraries at this golden age as well so this is not

[20:57]a new phenomenon and it didn't start with benjamin franklin the idea

[21:00]of a lending library has been within our tradition for hundreds of

[21:04]years now what did these libraries look like there's a medieval historian

[21:08]by the name of al-muqaddasi and he describes the libraries in shiraz

[21:13]iran this is beautiful see i'm trying to make you in love

[21:18]with the library i'm trying to make you in love with books

[21:20]you can't get a good smell out of a tablet but if

[21:25]you hold that book up ah it's like perfume in shiraz the

[21:31]buildings were surrounded by gardens with lakes and waterways they were topped

[21:38]with domes and they were comprised of an upper story and a

[21:41]lower story with a total of 360 rooms so that's the egyptian

[21:48]calendar by the way 360 or the mesopotamian calendar so if you

[21:52]were following that calendar there would be one library reading room per

[21:56]day for the entire year how about that i know our scholars

[22:01]over here would love to lose themselves in these libraries where you

[22:04]have one room after another to discover and explore now in each

[22:08]department there were catalogs that were placed on the shelf so that's

[22:11]like what we have today or we used to have real catalogs

[22:15]that you could actually pull out a card and read about the

[22:16]book and go and find it and all of these glorious rooms

[22:20]were furnished with carpets and those low-lying sofas you know beautiful tapestries

[22:27]employees so they were such inviting places now these kinds of libraries

[22:30]existed throughout the muslim world in cordoba in cairo in baghdad and

[22:35]they were spacious with all these rooms for different uses shelved galleries

[22:39]would be everywhere there would be reading rooms and there would be

[22:43]copying rooms so their manuscripts would be copied by hand no technology

[22:48]like we have today the the copier machine right the xerox and

[22:51]so forth no this was done by hand there were also meeting

[22:55]rooms where scholars would come together and have gatherings have events even

[22:59]so this was a flourishing intellectual environment these places were also well

[23:05]lit and comfortable carpeted and very inviting isn't that beautiful that's part

[23:10]of our history now i want to come back to today here

[23:15]we are in a media saturated world what do we see and

[23:18]what are the impacts from this environment we find ourselves in today

[23:20]in fact the question i have for you is how do we

[23:24]see through this media fog because we're saturated with information but it

[23:28]doesn't necessarily mean uh much to us nor does it necessarily penetrate

[23:33]right how do we navigate the virtual ror the virtual world to

[23:37]become real human beings that's the question now we have this beautiful

[23:43]heritage this rich heritage how do we navigate this virtual world today

[23:46]to still become real and authentic human beings and how can we

[23:51]discern the effects of technology versus the benefits because without a doubt

[23:56]with every new development in society there's a cost and there's a

[24:02]benefit and these costs must be examined carefully because we don't want

[24:06]to go into something blindly now both our religion and the system

[24:11]of education that i follow called waldorf education whose proponent is rudolf

[24:15]steiner both say the same thing with respect to technology and the

[24:18]development of a culture they say it's not about us rejecting a

[24:22]contemporary culture right but it's about understanding its effects its impact the

[24:29]benefits and the cost with clarity of mind and not blind acceptance

[24:33]life is always going to progress and change and it's not that

[24:38]we reject this technology but we say what way does it benefit

[24:41]us and what way does it harm us because with every technology

[24:44]there's a loss and you can't underestimate that loss because you're also

[24:52]losing human capacity human skill and human brain capacity reference 1984 as

[24:58]i mentioned to some folks before if you look at george orwell's

[25:04]writing you'll see that one of his tasks was to rewrite history

[25:07]yes and one of the institutions of that fictionalized dystopian world was

[25:12]the reduction of language remember newspeak good plus good ungood double plus

[25:22]ungood reducing intellectual capacity through manipulating language does that happen today you

[25:27]do it every day when you reduce texts to letters to single

[25:34]numbers and your phone and every time you do that you're slicing

[25:38]a part of your brain off you're slicing intellectual capacity off you're

[25:44]dissolving part of your human intellect and orwell spells that out for

[25:52]us that's a warning and that's something you should think about we

[25:55]have another image in the media today of the impact of excessive

[26:02]technology and it's from the movie wally when you saw the human

[26:07]beings they were all like gelatinous blobs floating on devices that had

[26:12]push buttons and yet they were completely and totally unaware of one

[26:16]another in fact it's at the towards the end of the movie

[26:20]where two of the individuals on these floating carpets so to speak

[26:22]bump into one another and recognize that there's another human being there

[26:26]that's a potent statement of our cultural state today and this is

[26:32]an image that should warn us about the excessive reliance on these

[26:36]technologies in fact what do we see in the statistics children today

[26:42]from the ages of two to 18 average almost five hours outside

[26:49]of school plugged into some type of electronic media five hours every

[26:59]day another statistic says even adults are on technology social media in

[27:08]particular hours a week 30 hours a week is practically an entire

[27:12]work week 30 hours a week of human potential being dissolved and

[27:19]drained away now what do we see with this technology we see

[27:24]that it's addictive we see that it's almost impossible to part with

[27:28]it you see when a parent says to a child no time

[27:32]to turn the tv off do they ever go oh hey mom

[27:33]yeah no problem no you don't see that at all you see

[27:37]kicking and screaming and frustration anxiety and you also see that they

[27:42]spin off after this boob tube so to speak time why is

[27:47]that because they have all this pent up energy that has to

[27:51]be released all this physical reaction to what they've observed that has

[27:55]to be released and so you see it's caused something in them

[27:58]and you have to recognize that in our religion we are meant

[28:02]to be what did i say in the beginning free thinkers yes

[28:04]and in order to be free you have to not be an

[28:08]addict you have to not be an addict and addiction makes you

[28:12]a slave so on thursday sayeth sulaiman hasan abadi gave a talk

[28:16]to be free and the description of the lecture that was in

[28:19]your books says from a hadith from imam ali al-islam be not

[28:26]a slave unto others for god has created you free be not

[28:31]a slave unto others for god has created you free meaning here

[28:35]in this context these devices this social media these technologies these video

[28:41]games and on and on and on have become things like shackles

[28:46]of the human mind and the human will and it's not a

[28:51]small thing so what i advise you is to remember that you're

[28:55]not sheep we don't huddle like sheep for safety isn't that right

[29:00]don't you see packs of sheep they huddle together we're not sheep

[29:04]so don't go after things in a huddle well this person has

[29:09]this game or that boy has the latest phone or all my

[29:14]friends have this or that you're not sheep you're human beings with

[29:18]a capacity to think to be different to be unique to question

[29:22]and instead you want to huddle like sheep stop being sheep be

[29:30]human beings because allah has created you to be a free and

[29:32]unenslaved free your mind now really many people believe that technology such

[29:38]as computers has led us to advancements in education specifically but if

[29:43]you actually look at the research what do we see 30 years

[29:47]of research regarding how technology within the school specifically has impacted the

[29:53]development of children and their advancement academically shows that there's absolutely no

[29:58]clear link between using computers in the early grades and improved learning

[30:04]there's no link so what are we going to do with this

[30:10]information we have to understand that the healthy child the healthy human

[30:13]being is a mobile one moving acting being involved in life and

[30:18]therefore if you want to develop healthily i'm going to give you

[30:22]the advice on how to do so right now and this is

[30:24]where we're going to begin to wrap up you have to recognize

[30:28]that the visual centers of the brain are active when the child

[30:35]is watching a screen okay but the body is passive and what

[30:42]most people think is that children can acquire for example language skills

[30:46]or literacy skills from devices this is a fallacy because the brain

[30:51]literally the literacy portions of the brain that are about acquiring reading

[30:58]skills and comprehension skills are not activated during the passive act of

[31:03]watching a screen so this is where we come to understand that

[31:08]all the claims that this technology will bring advancements and literacy or

[31:12]advance advances in academics is actually false so what do we see

[31:18]there's a doctor by the name of susan johnson she's a medical

[31:21]doctor she says the proprioceptive system of the body okay what is

[31:26]this system this is a system of the body that gives you

[31:28]spatial awareness has this gives you the sense of balance is a

[31:33]sense of your being within the world okay proprioceptive center of the

[31:39]brain it's activated and developed through active play and through hands-on actions

[31:44]and through movement yes now if this center is inhibited what happens

[31:51]this is actually the center of the brain that is directly related

[31:57]to reading writing and spelling which are abstract capacities look at that

[32:04]physical movement balance play sensory motor activity is directly linked to what

[32:08]reading writing and acquiring abstract information and what do most children have

[32:16]to do today sit what sit still and more and more children

[32:21]are sitting still at earlier ages and are being immobilized when they

[32:24]need to be playing they need to be active they need to

[32:29]be exploring so i want to give a real shout out to

[32:30]muhammad islami and all of the young women and men who participated

[32:35]in the program for the youth here because it was a hands-on

[32:40]active involved way in which to teach and that's exactly what these

[32:44]kids needed excellent work and that is something that will develop further

[32:47]intellectual skills in the future so remember that technology immobilizes whereas the

[32:53]young child needs to be mobile if you remember that point today

[32:56]that is the most critical point because it's the basis for future

[33:01]literacy development now there's more to say about this topic and it's

[33:04]hard to encapsulate it in my i've already gone over time but

[33:08]i want to end with reminding you that again this is just

[33:12]an introduction there's plenty more to discuss about the impact of media

[33:16]we could even do a whole weekend seminar on this topic but

[33:19]i want to leave you with a beautiful picture of what our

[33:21]holy imams have for us as an image as a pattern as

[33:27]a process for us to encourage and develop literacy when we look

[33:31]at the history of imam jaffar assad muhammad by the way means

[33:50]allah connect us from wasala connect it's not just peace and blessings

[33:54]connect us to these beings why we need to be lifted up

[33:57]what can we be connected to the system imam jafar sadiq is

[34:04]this during his time he encouraged literacy development and dialogue now remember

[34:06]the arabs of the holy prophet may peace and blessings be upon

[34:12]them time they were confined to poetry rhyme and rhythm and meter

[34:15]and so forth to express now when the imam jaffra saw that

[34:19]came he encouraged people to write and explore through prose meaning unmetered

[34:23]unstructured writing he wanted people to develop their thinking outside of limitations

[34:28]so what he actually did is that he developed a system in

[34:32]which he would encourage peoples to develop manuscripts and they would be

[34:37]presented to a a committee of himself and two other individuals and

[34:41]these manuscripts would be discussed and presented and then there would be

[34:46]a winner so in other words he's encouraging what we would call

[34:50]today like a nobel prize meaning people submit their work their discoveries

[34:53]their explorations and it would be judged and it would be promoted

[34:56]and it would be presented and it would encourage others to do

[35:00]the same because now became a competition and who doesn't like a

[35:04]good competition right and now the competition wasn't to be the greatest

[35:07]warrior the competition wasn't be to the best poet anymore now the

[35:10]competition was who's going to be the most intellectually advanced who's going

[35:14]to promote literacy and advance the human condition inshallah it will be

[35:25]all of you so salaam warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

0 Comments

Volgende

Nicole Correri - Keys to Islamic Literacy

Transcript

Volgende

Ontdek meer

Houd er rekening mee dat als u jonger bent dan 18 jaar, u geen toegang kunt krijgen tot deze site.

Volgende

Nicole Correri - Keys to Islamic Literacy

Transcript

Volgende

Ontdek meer

Kies een betaal methode

Taal