Nana Asma’u: A Spark Who Continues to Illuminate

Posted in Africa, African women, Gender Relations in Islam, Inspiration/Motivation, Islam in Africa, Islamic Education, Knowledge, Mothers, Muslim Intellectuals, Muslim Scholars, Muslim Women, Nigeria, Traditional Islam, Uncategorized, Women's Work by Margari Aziza Hill

Living as a Muslim minority in the West, I have often felt frustrated by religious intolerance, but also from a community that does not fully honor the rights that are accorded to women in Islam or provide many outlets for women to become scholars. This was the case in late 18^th century West Africa, in what is now modern day Northern Nigeria, when Uthman Dan Fodio criticized oppressive customs and encouraged female education. Nana Asma’u bint Uthman Dan Fodio was a product of her father’s commitment to quality Islamic education for women. She became a legend in her own right and through her writings and education movement, ‘Yan Taru, she has inspired countless women for generations.

As a Nigerian with dual American and British citizenship, researcher Rukayat Modupe Yakub is aware of the legacy of Nana Asma’u. Rukayat points outs, “For so many Muslims Nana Asma’u is still unknown, but for those who are familiar with her she was an educator, writer and poet who was passionate about education, For this reason you find schools in places like Nigeria named after her.” In addition to her poetry and education movement, Nana Asm’au is also considered an Islamic leader who was known for her ability to mediate political disagreements. She was fluent in Arabic, Hausa, and the Tamasheq language of the Tuareg. Like her father and brothers Muhammad Bello and Abdullahi, Nana Asma’u was a prolific writer who left a tremendous literary legacy. She wrote to keep her father’s memory alive in the minds of the people and in support of her brother Muhammad Bello’s Caliphate. At 27, she was given the task of organizing her father’s corpus of works, all while overseeing a household of several hundred people and ensuring that they were provided for.

Jean Boyd gained access to her works in 1975 and later wrote The Caliph’s Sister, which provides a detailed biography of Nana Asma’u’s life and legacy. Jean Boyd collaborated with Beverly Mack to compile her poetry and religious treatises in Collected Works of Nana Asma’u, Daughter of Usman dan Fodio (1793-1864). The book compiles her impressive body of poems and treatises in Arabic, the Fula language, and Hausa. Beverly Mack and Jean Boyd also co-wrote a book which analyzes the social and political function of many of her poems titled One Woman’s Jihad: Nana Asma’u, Scholar and Scribe.

Rukayat says that Nana Asma’u continues to serve as an important inspiration because “She was involved in social work and had political clout, she was a mother and wife, sister of the head of state, daughter of a legendary a political and spiritual leader, she could have had any life she wanted but she choose to be of service.” Around 1830, Nana Asma’u trained a group of women to travel around the Sokoto Caliphate to educate women. Each woman in this cadre held the title jaji (leader of the caravan) to designate their role as female leaders.

One hundred and eighty years later, Dylia bin Hamadi Camara is one such Jaji who explains, “We have the name of all the jajis before me so mine comes after a long line of the unbroken chain of scholarship and service to women, children and the Ummah at large.” Jaji Dylia explains that the methodology of learning that Nana Asma’u develop still educates men, women, and children. In the United States, the ‘Yan Taru Education Foundation and Charitable trust has chapters in Pennsylvania, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and California with 33 women in intensive training and intensive seminars and classes which are open to the public.* Teachers like Jaji Dylia travel internationally and use email, teleconferencing, and text messaging to educate their students on classical Islam. Preparing for a trip to Guinea, Dylia stated her next goal is to translate Nana Asma’u’s teachings into French because the Francophone world has largely been unaware of this rich legacy. My hope is that we begin to learn more and more about the named and unnamed women who have been responsible for educating our ummah. They have passed on a rich legacy, one that reminds me that even when faced with the greatest challenges, we as women can be brilliant and provide guiding lights for others.

You can read find other stories of inspirational Muslim women, along with this one, in the February edition SISTERS magazine .
*Jaji Dylia updated us and told us that Yan Taru trust has chapters in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Oakland , Florida and Massachusetts. She also has some students in Toronto who are not Yan Taru. She is currently in Benin, where she also has students.
To date, Dylia translated Tanbeeh l Ghafileen and prays that Allah grants her the himma to translate even more in the future, insha’Allah.

4Sep2011

Muslim Habitus

Posted in Inspiration/Motivation, Islam, Knowledge, Sunnah, Uncategorized by Margari Aziza Hill

Over the past years, I realized that much of the spiritual problems I faced were largely due to my inability to bridge the disconnect between my intellectual knowledge and application of important principals. The knowledge I gained was not transformative, so where was the misunderstanding? Ali ibn Abi Talib said:

O you who carry knowledge around with you; are you only carrying it around with you ? For surely knowledge belongs to who ever knows and then acts accordingly, so that his action corresponds to his knowledge. There will be a people who will carry knowledge around with them, but it will not pass beyond their shoulders. Their inner most thoughts will contradict what they display in public, and their actions will contradict what they know.

Knowledge has not entered your heart until your legs, arms, and entire body act accordingly. There is a difference between knowledge and Muslim habits. The Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) said: “I was only sent to perfect good character” [Muwatta’ and Musnad of Ahmad]. The primary purpose of knowledge in Islam is so that it can influence the individual to the correct course of action. And the correct course of actions should be guided by an intention to do that which is pleasing to God. This contrasts with doing that which is pleasing to oneself or others and guided by one’s own inclinations.

How does knowledge of the traditions of Muhammad become part of the character of the average Muslim? It is through understanding, or as we educators tend to emphasize, application and practice of that knowledge. One of the most powerful ways of understanding this came to me while I was in graduate school and looking at Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of “habitus.” The simplest and most digestible definition of Habitus can be found on wikipedia:

Habitus is the set of socially learnt dispositions, skills and ways of acting, that are often taken for granted, and which are acquired through the activities and experiences of everyday life.

…

Habitus is a complex concept, but in its simplest usage could be understood as a structure of the mind characterized by a set of acquired schemata, sensibilities, dispositions and taste.

We are all creatures of habit (good and bad), but how do we develop them? How do we develop our tastes, dispositions, and inclinations? These are important questions that we need to ask ourselves, especially if we are concerned with personal and moral development. Many of our habits are learned, while other arise out of our own inner inclinations. We can learn through mimicking others or through experience. At the same time, we can supress our inclinations and habits in order to yield different results.

But breaking bad habits or developing healthy habits can be a difficult thing, especially when we come to accept certain behaviors as part of our personality. For those of us who are self-reflective and want to change for the better, we have to make some conscious efforts to change many things that are often not really thought about.

The way we think shapes our actions, but our knowledge does not really penetrate our hearts until we set about a course of actions to embody those principles. I believe this is the problem with the over intellectualization of Islam. It is also the problem with the tendency of many Muslims to focus on political or social identity issues. There is a lack of embodiment of some important concepts. So, the way we should think about things is not changing our actions. At the same time, the ways we are doing things are not changing the ways our mind works. Somehow, our thoughts and actions become hollow. That embodiment only happens through rigor and training, which can take spiritual, mental, and physical components. While we accept anyone who declares shahadah as Muslim, we recognize that there are different gradations of faith. In Surah 49 The Private Apartments, verse 14 God says:

The bedouins say, “We have believed.” Say, “You have not [yet] believed; but say [instead], ‘We have submitted,’ for faith has not yet entered your hearts. And if you obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not deprive you from your deeds of anything. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.”

This verse is very profound, because it highlights the key for that spiritual development. Faith is developed through obedience. And even if we are struggling, by taking those steps, we will be rewarded by the Most Forgiving and Merciful. Sometimes the steps can be small, the most prominent example is salat. In actuality the combined time for the salat is about 17 minutes. Even then, I see people struggle with the idea of submission and it becomes apparent in their forms of resistance to the requirements of ritual prayer. How have you developed Muslim habitus, if you as a man would never come to a job interview in sagging shorts that expose your butt crack, but you will come to the King of all worlds dressed inappropriately? The perfection of the Muslim habitus is worshipping your Lord as if you see Him, but you cannot, knowing that He always sees you. This is Ihsan, or the perfection of faith. And many, myself included, have a lot of work in that area.

Moving away from outer garments in order to wrap up this discussion, I want to talk about a simple way to develop our Muslim habitus. The first friday sermon I heard my husband give shed light habit-practice-application. He brought up Michael Jordan and asked rhetorically what does he think when he was about to make a play. Marc answered that MJ doesn’t think. His body knew exactly what to do from all those hours of practice. This is the true meaning of understanding, a real embodiment of that knowledge in a way that it becomes a part of you. Without thinking, MJ knew exactly what to do at a given moment. It reminds me of the final moments of a former principal of Philadelphia’s Clara Muhammad School. She was in a car accident in Egypt and her family reported that while she awaited medical attention she remained in constant remembrance of God. Although she was in pain, her thoughts were on her Lord. In that moment during her final true test, she faced death with courage and grace. And I wondered how I would react. I thought about some words, which I won’t repeat here, that I’ve said when I had a close brush with death or something traumatic. I think back to the times I experienced severe pain. I wondered would my last act be recorded as having yelled vulgar language, crying about why me, or would I remember my Lord instead. I realized that only through constant practice of remembrance and prayer that I out of habit, I would just do the right thing without thinking about it.

We practice and practice so that during a real moment when we are tested, our habitus goes into auto-pilot and we know just what to do without thinking. So as part of that development, I’m not going to ask God to damn the thing I stubbed my toe on. Instead I’ll say something glorying Him (in English or Arabic). Whenever I get frustrated with something or someone, I’m going to avoid cursing at it. I will ask God to help me deal with the situation with dignity and grace. And importantly, I will learn the appropriate prayers for the appropriate times so that constant remembrance become a habit, therefore my Muslim habitus. By bringing God into center focus throughout the day, I can make steps towards embodying all that I have learned over the years. This is the cognitive shift that happens with real transformation. My hope is that more of us move from just being members of the I verbally proclaim to submit (I’m just a Muslim)club , to become those who truly believe and try to ultimately perfect our faith.

References:

Quran Sahih international http://quran.com/49/2-14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_(sociology)

27Aug2011

The Critical Thinking Muslim

Posted in Academia, Fiqh, Islamic Education, Knowledge, Literature, Muslim Communities in America, Muslim Intellectuals, Muslim Scholars, Traditional Islam, Ulema, Ummah, Uncategorized, Writing by Margari Aziza Hill

—Image from ModDB

“Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used.” – Carl Sagan

The Muslim world possesses a wealth of knowledge, especially in regards devotional literature, theology, and jurisprudence, yet we have not transformed our knowledge into thoughtful and well-executed ways of addressing our most pressing needs. Muslim communities throughout the world face a plethora of problems: poverty, authoritarianism, civil war, neo-colonialism, occupation, sectarianism, sexual exploitation, corruption, social inequality, civil war, natural disasters, etc. Even American Muslims, who are largely shielded from these perils, are challenged. We face a number of issues: cronyism, crime, domestic violence, poverty, ineptly run institutions, sexism, tribalism, infighting, isolationism, Islamophobia, and an inability to address the needs of marginalized members of our community. The American Muslim community is increasingly literate, with unprecedented access to traditional scholarship and information. Islamic institutions of learning are filled to the brim. Although the American Muslim community is predominantly middle class and highly literate, we somehow still seem ill equipped and are stuck in a quagmire (Pew). We are unable to talk to each other, work together, and develop a common vision. That special something is missing and that something is Critical thinking.

As Muslims, the command to “seek knowledge” is almost like a mantra. But how often are we encouraged to think on a higher level, let alone think critically? This is especially important to think about considering how God speaks of comprehension and thinking in the Quran. Tafakkur تفكر is the reflexive form of the root فكر, which means to reflect, meditate cogitate, ponder, muse, speculate. Tafakkur means to reflect, meditate cogitate, ponder muse speculate revolve in one’s mind, think over, contemplate, and consider. It is mentioned in the Quran 17 times. In Surah A-Rum verse 8 Allah says:

Do they not contemplate within themselves? Allah has not created the heavens and the earth and what is between them except in truth and for a specified term. And indeed, many of the people, in [the matter of] the meeting with their Lord, are disbelievers. (Sahih International)

The word for “Intellect” is ‘Aql عقل, meaning sense, sentience, reason, understanding, comprehension, discernment, insight, rationality, mind, intellect, intelligence. The verb form that we will see commonly used in Qur’an is عقل to be endowed with (the faculty of) reason, be reasonable, have intelligence, to be in one’s senses, be conscious, to realize, comprehend, and understand. In the 49 references of the word in the Qur’an, God often speaks of the disbelievers who do not comprehend.
In Surah Baqarah verse 276, Allah says:

And when they meet those who believe, they say, “We have believed”; but when they are alone with one another, they say, “Do you talk to them about what Allah has revealed to you so they can argue with you about it before your Lord?” Then will you not reason? (Sahih international)

Another important Arabic word that corresponds to critical thinking is the word for logic, منطق which means the faculty of speech, manner of speech, eloquence, diction, enunciation, logic. All three terms, are important to consider when we think of critical thinking. And, I will discuss later, we will see how Muslim scholars employed critical thinking in their struggle to determine what God intended for us to do when an issue was not explicitly stated in the Quran or Hadith literature. Critical thinking implies:

that there is a reason or purpose to the thinking, some problem to be solved or question to be answered.
analysis, synthesis and evaluation of information (CTILAC)

Without these two, we were seriously hamstrung. While having the faculty for critical thinking, our community has either ignored its tradition of critical thinking or underdeveloped due to reactionary thinking. As a result, we are a bit hamstrung by our own intellectual deficiencies. I say this with all respect, because we have many knowledgeable people, but they are not good problem solvers and their analysis and evaluation of information is lacking.
As a result, we hit a number of roadblocks. Many Muslims see Islam as a monolith and try to impose their rigid and authoritarian models on others. Our leaders are unable to come up with solutions to problems that were never imagined by classical or early modern legal and religious scholars. Individuals with little experience in non-profit development or leadership, build institutions with little understanding of how to meet social needs. And lay members of our community lock horns in heated theological and juristic debates that take away from a sense of fellowship and coherent communities. Our communities are fragmented by endless polemics where labels and plastic words substitute for real engagement with our differences and our commonalities. All of these problems come about because critical thinking in Islamic studies and devotional education is not something that is valued within our community. Despite our undervaluing of it, there is a great need for critically thinking Muslims, from your average lay member of the community, leaders, and scholars.

If we understand our own legacy of critical thinking and continue to develop critical thinking at all levels of devotional and Islamic education, Muslims will be better equipped to deal with our most daunting challenges. Before going into our legacy of critical thinking, it is important to understand how the term is currently used. The term “Critical Thinking” encompasses a wide array of ways of thinking and processing information. Scriven and Paul write, “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” In my experience of teaching, from a high school to college level classes, the most important tool I have tried to help my students develop has been critical thinking. One of the best ways of seeing critical thinking in action was to have students write research papers with sound arguments. That is because “in essence, critical thinking is a disciplined manner of thought that a person uses to assess the validity of something (statements, news stories, arguments, research, etc.)” (Adsit). But I often found that most students lacked not only discipline and curiosity, but also an interest in developing their higher order thinking abilities. Instead, they often focused on trying to get the right answer, rather than learning to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information. When students don’t think well, they don’t write well. Writing is a higher order level of thinking, but anyone can write without thinking, just as someone can speak without thinking on a subject. But eloquent and logical speeches and well written papers reflect disciplined critical thinking. And both can be subject to critique by others who are keen to see logical fallacies, misuse of sources, or failure to include other factors.

Critical thinking is something that develops with practice. It is something we have to train for. Scriven and Paul write that critical thinking is a set of skills that help us “process and generate information and beliefs.” They also a “habit,” or inclination based on intellectual commitment, “of using those skills to guide behavior.” Critical thinking helps an individual recognize the following:

i. patterns and provides a way to use those patterns to solve a problem or answer a question
ii. errors in logic, reasoning, or the thought process
iii. what is irrelevant or extraneous information
iv. preconceptions, bias, values and the way that these affect our thinking. that these preconceptions and values mean that any inferences are within a certain context
v. ambiguity – that there may be more than one solution or more than one way to solve a problem.” (CTILAC)

Critical thinking is not limited to subjects, so religious thinking has also benefited from critical thinking and in fact, our own tradition of scholarship shines due to our classical medieval scholars’ commitment to critical thinking. One very insightful friend of mine reminded me that we go to college and pay for the skills that our classical scholars had developed. While people outside of the academy have natural inclinations towards certain aspects of critical thinking, often those skills are sharpened and refined during the process of learning a discipline. There is a stark difference between the ways someone like Suhaib Webb discusses a topic, drawing on his years of study and a lay member of the community. People recognize disciplines such as astrophysics and medicine, but often experts on subjects involving in the human experience are not as respected. And people will delve into these subjects without the requisite critical skills or mental rigor to truly engage with them. I found this out as I went into graduate school and developed my field of expertise on Islam in Africa and African History. Friends and family members would discuss a subject and if somehow my view did not agree with theirs and I explained my stance, I would experience their resentment. I learned to be quiet for the sake of peace, even if a loved one was speaking on an issue they were largely ignorant about. Our own willful ignorance in our community is especially detrimental to developing critical thinking. This is especially the case in terms of how some groups of Muslims overlook the 1400 year legacy of critical thinking and scholarship that has allowed our tradition to maintain continuity without a central body or leader to guide it.

Before I took my first course on Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudents) at Zaytuna in the late 90s, I had no idea about the rich legacy of critical thinking in Islam. I learned about the skills qualified jurists needed to draw on the Quran, Sunna (Prophetic traditions), scholarly consensus, and qiyas (analogy) to come up with rulings on new issues. That basic class whet my appetite on the study of Usul al-Fiqh (Sources of Islamic Jurisprudence), which I later studied a bit in graduate school. Usul al-Fiqh is concerned with the source of Islamic law and methodology in which legal rules are deduced. Kamali explains that the process by which scholars use to deduce sources to try to understand Shariah, Holy Law, is ijtihad. (1). The rules of fiqh use various methods of reasoning, including “analogy (qiyas), juristic preference (istihsan), presumption of continuity (istishab), and rules of interpretations and deduction.” In essence, Kamali points out that Usul al-Fiqh provides standard criteria for deriving correct rulings from the sources (2). However this standard of criteria is now overlooked by many who use ijtihad to come up with convenient rules that can lead to one of two extremes: ultra-liberal positions based on Western inclinations and not on Quran and Sunnah or ultra-conservative positions that purport to be derived strictly from Quran and Sunnah but violate the spirit of Islam.

Before delving further into this discussion, I must admit that I feel woefully ill equipped to engage in any Usuli debate on some religious issue. However, I find that many Muslims will become locked into debates that were never solved by our most gifted jurists. Often lay Muslims, with access to translations of the Quran and volumes of hadith, in addition to treatises and polemics, will derive their own rulings on religious matters based on their understanding of a Quranic verse or a hadith. According to Kamali, historically “the need for methodology became apparent when unqualified persons attempt to carry out ijtihad, and the risk of error and confusion in the development of Shari‘ah became a source of anxiety for the ‘ulama” (4). As a champion of inquiry and free thinking, it is difficult for me to openly admit that I understand their anxiety. But the reality is that our community is struggling with a crisis of authority, and that is mainly who has the authoritative voice in interpreting Islamic law.

The independent, thinking Muslim may feel like he/she is engaging in critical thinking when approaching the highest sources. However, a critical piece is missing. Ebrahim Moosa writes “… untrained in the various exegetical and interpretive traditions, lay people are not aware that a complex methodology is applicable to materials dealing with law, even if these are stated in the revelation” (121). Most lay Muslims are not trained in the language or historical context to know whether a verse was a commandment to a specific group of people at a specific time or to all Muslims of all times. Nor do they always know whether a verse was simply a statement of fact at a historical moment. Similarly, Muslims will use a statement of the Prophet (s.a.w.) without any context or understanding if it was a religious injunction and apply it to their lives. While ignoring aspects of that scholastic tradition, they will draw on it to reject a hadith and say it is da’if (weak). Or they might draw on the polemical writings of a classical author to dismiss the ideas of another tradition. Yet, they often draw on these traditions in sloppy ways that result in more confusion. Sadly, this is because many of the polemical books were written, not for lay people, but for other people who have the requisite skills and training in evaluating and analyzing sources and discipline in reason and logic.

This does not mean that a lay member of the community solely rely upon someone else’s critical thinking, rather that we recognize our own limitations in our knowledge and training and leave open some room for ambiguity. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so willing to condemn others if we don’t have the skills to even assess the validity of their stances. This requires humility which many, me included, often lack. Humility is an important part of sincerity, which is an important component of purifying our intentions before going about any endeavor. When I first converted to Islam and read my few dozen books, I felt a lot more sound in my knowledge than I do now. I didn’t know how much I didn’t know or my deficiencies in training. The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know. The less arrogant I feel about my own knowledge and the more in awe I feel of those scholars who wrote without laptops and cut and paste. Even as we have unprecedented levels of literacy in our community, we must fight narrow mindedness and gathering up of information without being able to judge and assess or use that information for the greater good. And through developing our critical thinking, that Islam is more expansive, rather than restrictive and reactionary. Our greater comprehension through this intellectual struggle will be a truly enriching and humbling experience.

[Note: In order to keep this article digestible, I will continue to develop the themes in later posts to explore other aspects of critical thinking in our community. So, please consider this a part 1 of a longer series. ]

References
Adsit, Karen I. “Teaching Critical Thinking Skills”
http://academic.udayton.edu/legaled/ctskills/ctskills01.htm
retrieved August 13, 2011

CTILAC Faculty Critical Thinking & Information Literacy Across the Curriculum http://bellevuecollege.edu/lmc/ilac/critdef.htm11/18/98. Retrieved from Internet August 13, 2011

Foundation for Critical Thinking “Critical Thinking Professional Development for K-12” http://www.criticalthinking.org/professionalDev/k12.cfm
retrieved from the internet August 20, 2011

Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence. Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge, UK, 2003

Moosa, Ebrahim. “The Debts and Burdens of Critical Islam” Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism. One World Publication, 2003

Pew Research. “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream.” May 22, 2007

The Quran: Sahih International Almunatada Alislami; Abul Qasim Publishing House http://quran.com

Scriven, Michael and Paul, Richard. “A Working Definition of critical thinking by Michael Scriven and Richard Paul” http://lonestar.texas.net/~mseifert/crit2.html
Retrieved August 10, 2010

2Jul2011

A Virtuous Life

Posted in Disease, Inspiration/Motivation, Islam, Knowledge, Life, Muslim Intellectuals, Muslim Scholars, Sufism, teaching, Uncategorized by Margari Aziza Hill

Why is it that every khutbah, every lecture, and every conference plays out more like a pep rally where we are mere spectators and fans, instead of the players who should be training and practicing for the big game? And we keep wondering why our team is losing. That’s because none of us are in shape, we can’t decode the playbook, worse, we don’t know how to land that shot. Okay, I’ll stop the sports metaphor because I was never good at team sports. The whole point is that our community life is not necessarily helping us truly transform, improving our conduct and living good, wholesome, and happy lives. What constitutes happiness and a good life is an ancient question and people have come up with different answers. But the most consistent in their views have been philosophers and religious thinkers. Even during the ancient period, both have agreed that living a good life entails living a life of virtue. A virtuous life is not just about the ability to follow a rule book or perform rhetorical dexterity to find legal loopholes to justify our means to that end. The dominant approach that Muslims have taken towards virtue is the rule book or laundry list approach. However, this approach is often self-defeating, making us focus on the virtue without exploring what’s wrong with us. This is the same approach that Muslims take to the sunnah, where we focus on traditions and practices that appeal to us, hoping to be cured of certain ills. Often, we are treating mere symptoms, rather than curing the disease. It is time we begin a holistic approach to bettering ourselves, treating both the symptoms and eradicating the diseases that are destroying the quality of our own lives and our community life overall. Moral and personal development should be the focus of living a virtuous life or good life. Living a good life is based on universal principles that we find in Islam, as well as many other faiths. There are many tools to achieve that end, many found in Islam, but also wisdom that we can draw from ancient sages, philosophers, and even insights from our own society. We should not ignore any tool that can help us with personal mastery.

While many Muslims are concerned with righteousness, we seem to be confused about what does that truly mean. And this is why we should begin to think about virtue and ethics to understand the big picture or (كلٌيات). Before we begin throwing around the term virtue and ethics, let’s first look at what do these terms mean:

vir·tue [vur-choo] –noun
1. moral excellence; goodness; righteousness.
2. conformity of one’s life and conduct to moral and ethical principles; uprightness; rectitude.
3. chastity; virginity: to lose one’s virtue.

eth·ics [eth-iks] –plural noun
1.( used with a singular or plural verb ) a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture.
2.the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics.
3.moral principles, as of an individual: His ethics forbade betrayal of a confide

As I stated earlier, religious thinkers and philosophers have mulled over virtue and ethics for thousands of years. Socrates dedicated the latter part of his life to the investigation the development of moral character. Plato recounts a dialogue that Socrates had with Meno about the nature of virtue. Meno asks Socrates whether virtue can be taught, whether it is something that someone can practice, or whether it is something that someone is born with. Socrates believed that there was a link between virtue and knowledge. Only, he believed that people aren’t taught things, they simply remember what their soul had forgotten. If this gets confusing, just remember that Socrates believed that the soul was immortal and that people were born over and over again. Therefore, they just had to remember what they knew before. But, let’s ignore this part of his philosophy and focus on his idea that in order for someone to be virtuous, that person has to have sufficient knowledge. Two arguments that back this up are as follows:

All rational desires are focused on what is good; therefore if one knows what is good, he or she not act contrary.

If one has non-rational desires, but knowledge is sufficient to overcome them, so if one is knowledgeable of goodness, he will not act irrationally. [7]

Socrates believes that no rational person would act in a way that was harmful to his/herself. Maybe people are mistaken in their knowledge? I guess Socrates didn’t account for atrocities like the Holocaust or Rwandan genocide. Harming someone else destroys our own humanity. So moving on to the next group of Hellenistic thinkers. The Stoics were sort of the inheritors of Socratic views on rational thought and virtue. They believed that human beings by nature were rational animals, and therefore it was natural to live “the life acording to reason.” Virtue was excellence and according to the divine law of the cosmos. John Stobaeus the following as stoic goals in life:

Zeno: living in agreement

Cleanthes: living in agreement with nature

Chrysippus: to live according to the experience of the things that happen by nature

Diogenes: to be reasonable in the selection and rejection of natural things

Archedemus: to live completing all the appropriate acts

Antipater: to live invariably selecting natural things and rejecting unnatural things

Stobeaus goes on to define the four main virtues of the stoics:

Prudence: (concerns appropriate acts) knowledge of what one is to do and not to do and what is neither
Temperance: (concerning human impulses) knowledge of what is to be chosen and avoided and what is neither
Justice: (concerning distributions) knowledge of the distribution of proper value to each person
Courage: (concerning standing firm) knowledge of what is terrible and what is not terrible and what is neither. [8]

These are all reasonable enough and can be found in many traditions, but who would like to live like a stoic, unaffected by passions or hardships? I suppose a lot of people, which is the appeal of Zen Buddhism for many people. Without going in uncharted waters (at least for me), let’s move on to the lineage of philosophy and ethics within Muslim traditions.

Socratic thought profoundly influenced medieval Muslim philosophers, the Muatazilites. But I won’t go into the controversies surrounding their philosophical school, especially in their argument that one can derive God’s laws without revelation. Instead, I bring them up to point out that in using their Greek influenced dialectical methods, scholars like Imam Ghazali were able to safeguard and in many ways revive Islam. The strength of Islamic institutions and thought was in applying universal Islamic principles to local institutions or cultural forms to produce something that was relevant in societies across the globe and over 1400 years. But since Imam Ghazali was so successful in shutting down the philosophers that very few Muslims have ventured back in the territory of exploring virtue through reason, and not just solely from revelation and hadith traditions. The unfortunate consequence is that we are back to the laundry list approach to dealing with virtue in Islam. We are a community concerned with ethics, but without an ethical system.

A few western scholars have approached Azhari scholars over the need to consider ethical systems. Some of the traditional scholars were amenable to this idea, but perhaps we all lack the training in performing the task. That doesn’t mean that we can develop the requisite skills, especially with some effort. I think this would be a fruitful direction to go in because over the past few years, I have often wondered how is that many religious people can do things that are harmful to themselves and others, but still consider themselves moral and receive no censure by the religious community. In many conversations with friends, peers, and loved ones, the answer came to the lack of a consistent ethical system. The basic assumption is that if something is allowed in Islam that it is the right thing to do at any given point in time. People often overlook the question of whether something was right in one given circumstance could be wrong in another, and what guiding principles should we draw upon to determine a proper course of action. The salad bar approach to the religion undermines holistic development and moral consistency. Further, many adherents have used Islam to justify their own shortcomings, in effect deluding themselves with self righteousness. This is how we have people hiding behind, beneath, and under the guise of religion.

Recalling Socrates, I do think that even though many Muslims rejected the Greek influence in Muatazilite thought, they still seem to be influenced by his intellectualism. Tariq Ramadan writes:

Islamic literature is full of injunctions about the centrality of an education based on ethics and proper ends. Individual responsibility, when it comes to communicating, learning and teaching is central to the Islamic message. Muslims are expected to be “witnesses to their message before people”, which means speaking in a decent way, preventing cheating and corruption, and respecting the environment. [9]

Muslims are obsessed with knowledge and knowing. We love books, classes, lectures, debates, pamphlets, websites, forums, podcasts and blogs that make us feel knowledgeable. The assumption is that correct knowledge leads to better practice. The problem is that true knowledge is not just limited to thought or reason. But knowing how to act sometimes takes practice and constant strength training.

If you want to really know how to play basketball, you can’t just read a bunch of books. You have to get on the court, practice making shots, until your hand-eye coordination has figured out how to make that perfect arch to land the shot. At first, you must be very conscious of each action, how to dribble, how to pass, rebound, and with time things come natural. So, while Socrates believed that knowledge was the key to virtue, virtue actually comes from something you practice over and over again until you get it right. Of course, knowledge is essential, but one has to inculcate that knowledge so that we embody it. Action is essential in applying that knowledge. This is why Muslims perform salat, fast, go on hajj and are reminded to constantly perform remembrance. These actions reinforce the declaration of faith. And we do all of those things to achieve one important goal, pleasing our Lord.

You must be aware of the goal you are aiming, so that when you miss the shot you understand what you did wrong. If you have no knowledge of your goal and are unreflective, then you will keep making that same bad shot over and over. I admit, I slipped back into the sports metaphor and, honestly, I was never good at basketball. I’m a sore sport, but I have trained and gotten in shape for different reasons. Over the years, I have some modicum of self-discipline because of my deep commitment to self-development. I believe in setting goals. As Muslims, we should be aware of what our true goal is, and that is to be successful in this life and the hereafter. Outside of Imam Ghazali’s account of his spiritual crisis, I haven’t found too many detailed stories of how individual Muslims conquered their own shortcomings. So, I turn to my own cultural context to see who has developed systems of personal development, especially focusing on moral development.

Benjamin Franklin comes to mind not because I live in Philadelphia and there are statues of him everywhere, but rather because he created a self improvement program long before the self-help craze of the late 20th century. Franklin’s list of virtues and his efforts to gain mastery over them are an interesting case study. Franklin listed thirteen virtues that he considered to be the most important and they are as follows:

1 . Temperance. Eat not to . not to Elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself.Avoid trifling Conversation.
3. Order. Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought.Perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.
6. Industry. Lose no Time. Be always employ’d in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice. Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.
9. Moderation. Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Clothes or Habitation.
11 . Tranquillity.Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity. Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or Reputation.
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

The thing that made Franklin so important in this area was his effort at tracking his progress on these virtues, with the aim of mastering each one. I think it is important to note how self-reflexive he was in this process. This was all about personal accountability. At the end of the day, he’d do an inventory of his actions. If he violated one of the virtues, he checked it off. Initially, he had a lot of check marks. But over time, the check marks became fewer and fewer. Eventually he gave up the keeping a daily log, but he continued the path of self-improvement throughout his life. For some, this may seem a bit OCD. But for others, it may be a useful tool in taking inventory of ourselves. There are even people today who have a similar chart on their iPhones. You can download the chart and some people have incorporated similar charts in self-help programs.

Now this takes us to the self-help industry. According to wikipedia, “the self-improvement industry, inclusive of books, seminars, audio and video products, and personal coaching, is said to constitute a 2.48-billion dollars-a-year industry [5]. Samuel Smiles coined the term “self-help” in 1882, in his book, Self-Help [4] While there are many controversies surrounding the self-help industry, and many valid critiques including the psycho-babble and placebo effect of some of the more dubious methods such as subliminal programming, there is great merit to self-improvement. People can transform themselves. One of the most powerful self-help programs, is Alcoholics Anonymous. The thing that I find very telling of their success can be found in the original Twelve Steps:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. [6]

First, the admit that they don’t have control over the urges, they turn to a higher power for help, they take a serious inventory of their own shortcoming, repent and try to make amends to those whom they hurt. Importantly, through the constant process of prayer and correcting wrongs, AA members can have a spiritual awakening. In many ways this is a process of repentance that can be found in Islam: leaving the wrong action, making sincere repentance to our Lord for sinning against ourselves and Him, and asking forgiveness of another person if we harmed him or her. Repentance is a great blessing in Islam, it is an opportunity to experience Allah’s Grace and Mercy. Many people have achieved spiritual awakenings after a fall from grace.

Still a believer is not to be content with cyclical sinning. We are all taught the three stations of faith: submission ( Ihsan إسلام), belief (Iman إمان), and finally perfecting faith (Ihsan إحسان). Only through self-improvement and refining can an individual achieve Ihsan. Ihsan is the highest state of faith, where we live our lives knowing God can see us, even though we cannot see Him. This type of consciousness keeps us on our best behavior. But to have this consciousness at all times, we have to go through spiritual and moral development. In Islam, the method of spiritual development is called Purification of the heart, some calling it Tazkiyyah and others calling it Tasawwuf. Without going into the controversies surrounding Sufi/Salafi polemics, let us just note that the term tazkiyya has Quranic roots meaning to purify. Tasawwuf is a term that came later and is often associated with institutional developments in mystical brotherhoods. Still, the purpose was the same, to purify and improve the moral and spiritual standing of the adherent.

There are a great many virtues listed in the Quran. As pointed out earlier, many Muslims have created a laundry list of Islamic virtues. There is no shortage of literature on traits that Muslims should exemplify. And these are are beautiful and useful in improving ourselves. Muslim scholars are also concerned with what keeps Muslims from improving their station. Scholars, such as ibn Jawziyya and Imam Ghazali, have listed out several impediments to that refining process through tazkiyya or tasawwuf:

Neglect or forgetfulness
Submitting to one’s own passions (Nafs or Hawa)
Shaytan
Bad company or evil environment
Arrogance or self-delusion
Love of the material world
Despair

Or they can be found in the four poisons of the heart.

Excessive Talking
Unrestrained glances
Too much food
Keeping Bad Company [3]

Sometimes that list of Muslim virtues is so long that an individual can feel very overwhelmed. Or we may think that avoiding one of the poisons or overcoming one of the impediments will cure us from a spiritual or emotional ailment. The list approach may blind us from looking at what is really wrong with ourselves. This is why I felt that it may be appropriate to try to consider some patterns that can give us a big picture approach. The Quran tells us:

Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so – for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward. [33:35]

This verse from Surah Ahzab is a good place to start in trying to find key virtues: belief, obedience, truthfulness, patience, humility, charity, abstinence and moderation, chastity, and mindfulness of God. I also began searching in the Quran to find the names of people who God is pleased with and who are successful. The most common names I found are:

مؤمنون Mu’minun- Those who believe

صابرون Sabirun- Those who are steadfast/patient

صالحون Salihun- Those who are righteous

مخلصون Mukhlisun- Those who are sincere

محصنون muhsinun- Those who are good-doers

متقون Mutaqun- Those who have taqwa (scrupulousness)

خشعون Khashi’un- Those who are humble

Who wouldn’t want to be among those whom the Creator is pleased with? Who wouldn’t want to be forgiven and receive a great reward from our Lord? I believe in the coherence of the Quran and the importance of coherence in our lives. This is why I think that it is important that we look beyond the laundry list approach and focus on the key virtues outlined in the Quran. These virtues can be guiding lights in determining our course of action, leading us to live richer, fuller and happier lives. This is why it is important to explore each of these terms, to consider how they can guide us not just to a moralistic life, but a virtuous life. Some of the explorations may lead to dead ends, but with patience, dialogue, and careful consideration, they may lead to something fruitful. I hope you join me in this journey, as my aim is to explore virtue in Islam in search of an ethical system.

References:
[1] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/franklin-virtue.html
[2] http://www.islamic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Tazkiyyah/station_of_muraqabah.htm
[3] http://www.islamic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Tazkiyyah/four_poisons_of_the_heart.htm
[4] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1882smiles.html
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-help
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program
[7]http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/ancient/athens/Socrates.htm
[8]http://philosophy.ucdavis.edu/mattey/phi143/stoaeth.htm
[9] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/feb/23/ethics-citizenship-islam

21Jun2010

The Ignorance that Begets Overconfidence and its Ramification on the Ummah

Posted in Knowledge, Muslim Scholars, Polemics, Uncategorized by Margari Aziza Hill

In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Bertrand Russell

Early this morning I read Errol Morris’s New York Times Opinion Piece, The Anosogosic’s Dilemma, an intriguing article which sheds light on a groundbreaking study that shows how sheer incompetence leads to overconfidence [1]. Morris highlights how sheer incompetence can lead to overconfidence, what many now call the Dunning-Kruger effect. David Dunning, one of the study’s authors, writes, “If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.” The scientific explanation of this phenomena opens up so many possibilities for explaining many of the struggles both my husband and I have face as intellectuals who are committed to educating and empowering both the Black American and Muslim communities.

Daniel Hawes explains that the Dunning-Kruger effect is, ” a cognitive bias in which people perform poorly on a task, but lack the meta-cognitive capacity to properly evaluate their performance. As a result, such people remain unaware of their incompetence and accordingly fail to take any self-improvement measures that might rid them of their incompetence.”[2] The Widipedia article on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, outlines their hypothesis on the way typical humans assess a skill as follows:

Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.

Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.

Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.

If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill. [3]

In their Study, Dunning and Kruger cite numerous psychological studies which show how the incompetent are less able to gauge their own skill set than their more skilled peers. They write, for example, “high school students tend to see themselves as having more ability in leadership, getting along with others, and written expression than their peers….Mediocre students are less accurate than other students at evaluating their course performance….Unskilled readers are less able to assess their text comprehension than are more skilled readers.”[4] The reality is, most people see themselves as above average. And this is a cognitive bias, which has some negative ramifications on our self improvement and can lead to continual bickering and debates as we discount expert opinion.

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains my observations of the the debates and struggles over legitimacy in the Muslim community. I found that the less informed a person was, the more he/she was absolutely sure of their opinions. I never knew there was a name for the inability of incompetent people to recognize their own incompetence, but it is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know.

Socrates

Strangely, my quest for mastering Arabic illustrated the inverse effect of gaining knowledge only to learn how little I knew. After nearly five years of studying Arabic, I was in Egypt to shore up my skills. However, I felt as if my progress was stalling. Whenever I spoke, I could hear the mistakes roll out of my mouth. I constantly self corrected in mid-sentence and my conversations felt even more stilted. I thought I hit a wall, partly due to the quality of programs I had previously enrolled in. Even as I studied in some of the most prestigious and rigorous programs, I became much more self conscious about my language than I was two years before. Back then, I spoke with much more confidence. My dear friend and roommate at the time, who was earning an MA in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language, reminded me that it was a good thing. My language was improving, as evidenced by the awareness of my mistakes. My other teachers reminded me that my growing self-consciousness in language was a good sign. I was aware of the grammar mistakes that I made even as I spoke them. Earlier, I was not able to distinguish the nuances of language, so this was a clear sign in my development. My self-consciousness contrasted with some newbie students who were so self-assured that they’d master the language in less than half the time only to become frustrated that they couldn’t hold a conversation after a year of study.

The more you know, the less you understand.

Lao-Tse

In addition to language, I found that my student of the history of Muslim societies opened up huge chasms of questions. When I got to graduate school I found it increasingly hard to write a definitive essay about anything. It wasn’t just reading post-modern literature, and its refusal to acknowledge that there was truth in the world, that confused me. Well, Foucault and Derrida’s difficult language did befuddle me and plenty of incoherent texts perplexed me. But even more than the boring theoretical texts, it was the inverse effect of specialization on my sense of mastery of any particular subject. I found each exploration to be like peeling an onion, layer after layer. One could never get to the bottom of it all.

I remember a Muslim artist who was cocky enough to tell me, “I can know just as someone with a doctorate by just watching documentaries.” I jockingly agreed acknowledging the increasingly narrowing specialization that made it difficult to make one’s study relevant. I was self-effacing about what I knew in order to diffuse the potential the battle of wills. The reality was that the Dunning-Kruger effect had inflated his sense of his own ability to grasp the Humanities, let alone Social Sciences. The self-assured Muslim man made the assertion in an effort to put me and my knowledge in place. And I had learned from many negative encounters with lay people with strong opinions and little backing that it could turn ugly really quick if I weigh in with my expertise. You can find the dismissal of scholars, and especially anyone who has been trained in Western institutions, in most public discussions. Some people will even accused scholarly people as “asserting privilege” as part of some ruling class and “silencing voices.” While that is sometimes the case, often this language is meant to dismiss a valid argument made by someone like myself who did not come from a privileged background and was a non-traditional student. The Dunning-Kruger effect can explain many of the exasperating interactions I’ve had as a student, a teacher, public intellectual and mentor.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

Charles Darwin

As a student of history, I found that many lay people would often assert they knew more about a particular subject than most experts. And of course, most people would assert that they knew more about a particular subject than I did, especially when it came to Islamic history, Middle East history and politics, and African history. This was especially the case when it came to non-Muslims telling me about the history of Muslims. Often I sit and nod silently as I get mini-lectures from someone who watch too much history channel. Gaining a graduate degree has been an ultimate lesson in humility.

While in the social field I avoided heavy handed intellectual discussions, I made my splash in the blogosphere in defense of a friend who was getting slammed on Umar Lee’s Blog. I remember those early discussions where I would openly tell people they didn’t know what they were talking about and couldn’t see me until they read up. I’d give them a list of books read before they could discuss any further, knowing full well that they wouldn’t read them. It was harsh, but I wrote that stuff with sincerity. And it was some vindication for all the crap I had to go through dealing with people who would become resentful, talk me down, or become passive aggressive once they knew I was a Stanford grad student. Over time, my approach became less heavy handed. I had sharpened my writing chops enough in the blogosphere. But over time, I didn’t enjoy the fitnah or the intellectual smack down. But still the Dunning-Kruger effect pops up time and time again.

In a recent blog entry, A Basic Primer on Sunnah, Marc Manely posted a selection of Sherman Jackson’s book, Towards Empowering The Common Muslim,. Someone posted the following well meaning comment that illustrates my point:

May Allah bless you in your effort to help Muslims new and old in better understanding the Sunnah of our beloved Prophet {PBUH}. But I am feeling that to much emphasis is put into what the scholars say {which might be a little to hard to digest for new muslims} and not what the Quraan and The Prophet {PBUH} have to say on the necessity of not only following his {PBUH} sunnah but obeying The Prophet, which is initself is a requirement to attain Allahs pleasure, which would be pointed out if the whole the verse was quoted and not only part of it.
Secondly, a better understanding of following his sunnah or in this case his behaviour would be to explain the series of verses that this particular verse is in and also why it was revealed.

Within this quote is a basic assumption that an untrained layman can fully understand the Qur’an and Hadith without the aid of scholars. There is also an assumption that scholars are not following a consistent methodology to unravel the meaning of a verse or hadith in an effort to understand what Allah intends in that revelation. Often Muslims in the West have a rugged individualist approach to Islam, without understanding the intertextual nature of the Quran and Sunnah. Last year, as I tried to organize a halaqah, a sister told me she felt that tafsir was not necessary because the Qur’an was straight forward. The sister did not understand tafsir as a legitimate Islamic science. For her, reading the Qur’an’s English translation was straight forward. But the thing is, the translation is not the Qur’an. The Qur’an is the reading in Arabic. But even with Arabic, can we go back to understand something written 1400 years ago and understand it without the aid of generations of scholars? Without coming to terms withe the layers of meaning, in addition to bridges that help us arrive at the text, we will probably be lost.

Finally, I’d like to get into how lay people with too much confidence in what they think they know who involve themselves polemics. These are the same people who were offended by the “Pledge of Mutual Respect” which states:

Likewise, detailed discussions in matters of theology are the specific domain of trained specialists, and proceed on the basis of well-defined principles and methodologies, which are beyond the knowledge of the generality of Muslims. Our forebears in faith, with all the dedication, brilliance and sincerity clearly manifested in their works, have debated and discussed abstruse and complex issues of creed and practice, and have failed in most instances to convince their opponents of the veracity and accuracy of their positions. The average Muslim is only responsible for knowing the basics of creed as they relate to a simple belief in Allah, His Angels, Scriptures, the Prophets and Messengers, the Last Day, and the Divine Decree.

Some claimed that this pledge was meant to silence average Muslims. Instead, it was to let the unskilled and ignorant know that they should not quibble about that which they don’t understand. And that includes myself, I can’t argue about Kalam, Islamic theology because my training is limited. The pledge goes on to do the following:

Urge Muslims in the West, especially our youth, to leave off unproductive and divisive discussions of involved theological issues that are the proper domain of trained specialists, and we especially discourage participation in those internet chat rooms, campus discussion groups, and other forums that only serve to create ill-will among many Muslims, while fostering a divisive, sectarian spirit;

Urge all teachers to instruct their students, especially those attending intensive programs, to respect the diverse nature of our communities and to refrain from aggressive challenges to local scholars, especially those known for their learning and piety;

Urge our brothers and sisters in faith to concentrate on enriching their lives by deepening their practice of Islam through properly learning the basics of the faith, adopting a consistent regimen of Qur’anic recitation, endeavoring to remember and invoke Allah in the morning and evening, learning the basics of jurisprudence, attempting to engage in voluntary fasting as much as possible, studying the Prophetic biography on a consistent basis, studying the etiquettes that guide our interactions with our fellow Muslims, and the performance of other beneficial religious acts, to the extent practical for their circumstances [5]

Ignorance is breeding overconfidence, and overconfidence is nothing short of arrogance. And I have found that some of the most ignorant people are the most boisterous in causing problems both within and outside of the Muslim community. Before the accusations of intellectual elitism go flying, I want to emphasize the importance of public scholarship and empowering the common Muslim. “The rather odd element of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that the incompetent don’t become aware of it until they become more competent. The key is education.”[6] My overall goal is to increase the Islamic literacy of average Muslims in order for us to be aware of our own shortcomings in knowledge. By doing so, we can rectify the situation. We can also increase humility. Once we have gained a greater competence in our Deen, we will see where our gaps lie. I think that through education, many lay Muslims will avoid disputations. We will also have better etiquette in doing so. Further, by educating ourselves, and becoming aware of our own shortfalls in knowledge, we can work towards solving discord and respect the rights of our our brothers and sisters. Through education initiatives in the Muslim community, such as the Alim program, Madinah Institute, Zaytuna Institute, The Madinah Way, Maghrib Institute, etc, we are slowly reversing the disastrous consequences that the Dunning-Kruger effect has had on our community.

Notes:

1.Errol Morris, “The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)” New York Times. June 20, 2010.

2. Daniel Hawes, “When Ignorance Begets Confidence: The Classic Dunning-Kruger Effect” Psychology Today Published June 6, 2010 Retrieved June 21, 2010

3. “Dunning-Kruger Effect” Wikipedia. Last modified June 18, 2010 Retreived June 21, 2010

4. Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated
Self-Assessments”Psychology, 2009, 1, 30-46

5. Pledge of Mutual Respect and Cooperation Between Sunni Muslim Scholars, Organizations, and Students of Sacred Knowledge

6. Daniel Keogh, “The Dunning-Kruger Effect.” The Science Show May 8, 2010

	Caleb on Black Palestinians
	Intersectionality: C… on What’s In a Name?: Using “Musl…
	جميلة ميخائيل on Gender Segregation and Free Mi…
	Umm Maryam on Strategies for Coping with…
	Ann on Azizah Weighs in on African Am…

Margari Aziza

Reflections on the Intersection of Religion, Race, and Gender

Category Archives: Knowledge