Q 2. b) Highlight the teaching methods and techniques recommended by Muslim scholars. Discuss the usability of these methods in the current teaching-learning environment?
Course: Teacher Education in PakistanCourse code 8626
Level: B.Ed (1.5 Years)
Solved Assignment
Answer:
The very first teachers were
commissioned by the Prophet, and like him, they taught for free. Next to
him, they were the architects of an educated society whose leaders were truly its
teachers. Members of this society, the teachers, and the taught were collectively and individually
responsible for upholding its moral standards and correcting lapses: `bidding to
honor, forbidding dis honor.' The number of kuttabscut tabs(learned) and mallams (teachers)
in the Muslim world increased rapidly and on a large scale until almost every village had
its own kuttab if not more than one. In
Palermo, for example, Ibn Hawqal on his visit to Sicily claimed to have counted about 300 elementary teachers.
A contemporary of Caliph Umar's, Jubayr
b. Hayya, who was later an official and governor, was a teacher in a school in Taif. Famous men
like al-Hadjadd and the poets al-Kumayt and al-Tirimmah
are said to have been schoolmasters. In the search for knowledge, al-Faruqi insists, `everybody
felt himself to be a conscript.' In early times
it was
thought wrong to take payment for teaching, especially the Qur'an and religion.
This was carried to extremes; a man fell into
a well and would not let a pupil pull him out, lest this should be
considered payment for his teaching. A scholar bought some things at a shop, more than
he could comfortably carry, so the shopkeeper offered to carry
some for him. On the way, the shopkeeper asked a question.
Before he would answer it, the scholar took from him what he was
carrying. The voluntary help would have become payment.
A
youth studied the traditions without paying any fee, but when he asked to
read al-Mutanabbi
with the
commentary of Abu Zakariya, his teacher demanded a fee because it was poetry; the boy's father paid five dinars in
advance. A man took a mithqal
of silver
a day for teaching someone the Qur'an; the instruction lasted for five or six
months but in the end, the money was returned to the student because the
payment had been only a test of his zeal.
How were these scholars able to devote so much to
the performance of such intellectual feats? According to Pedersen, it
was largely because most of them lived a life of 'great contentment.'
Learning, the life of the intellect, was 'intimately bound up with religion, and
to devote oneself to both afforded an inner satisfaction and was [a] service to God [...] it
not only made men of letters willing to accept deprivation; even more,
it prompted others to lend them aid.'
The
Mosques received a wide variety of aid and grants for scholars from a
a number of institutions. `No matter what their social origins, the
subsistence of the scholars was assured, often in ‘liberal measures'.'
Caliph Umar (12-23 A.H./634-644CE) is famed for his
saying: `Teach your boys swimming, archery, horsemanship, famous
proverbs; and the good of poetry.' Another public curriculum is ascribed
to Ibn al-Tawam who is recorded to have said: `To do their duty towards
their sons, fathers must educate them with writing, arithmetic, and
swimming.' When those who had learned the Qur'an took up the task of educating children,
the Qur'an became the Centre of this elementary course. Learning the
Qur'an then preceded everything, and next came religious instruction.
With grammar and arithmetic, the primary course was concluded.
Ibn al-Hajj (d. 736H/1336CE) has much to say about the
school in general as here summed up by Tritton: ‘The schools
should be the Bazar or a busy street, not in a secluded place. The emphasis on
publicity is strong; the master must not send an elder boy to his house with a
message lest
rumor should start about the relations of the boy with the womenfolk.
The Mosque is no place for a school for some people send little boys to
school to get them out of the way and such children defile their clothes
and the place where the Qur'an is taught.
A school is a place for teaching, not
an eating house, so the boys should not bring food or money to buy it, but
should go home for meals. A check should be kept on the time taken for the trip
to prevent idleness. One reason for this ruling is respect for the feelings of
poor boys who might be jealous of the food brought by the well-to-do.
If food had to be brought, the master might not share it with the boys
nor send any of it to his house. He might take their leavings or if a boy ate none of his food, he might have it
all but, in either case, he must tell the parents.'
From the early times, renowned scholars taught in schools.
Thus Dahak ibn Muzahim, the exercise, traditions, and grammarian, who
died in either 105H/723CE) or 106H/724 CE, had a school in Kufa, said to have
been attended by 3,000 children, where he used to ride up and down among
his pupils on an ass. As language was of the utmost importance, we find a
Bedouin being appointed and paid as a teacher of the youth in Basra [26].
Writers of that period were not class-based but came from all
walks of life. For example, al-Ahmar (d. 194H/810CE),
who taught the children of Harun al-Rashid, gave his lectures
drenched in musk and incense and supplied his audience with all
necessary writing materials.
His contemporary, al-Farra, however, was
modestly dressed and sat on the floor, while his audience squatted in
the dust in front of him. Normally the author would sit cross-legged with his
listeners seated in a circle. Next to him would be his most
trusted
student who would faithfully transcribe all that his teacher said.
