Islamic Studies Quotes
This is a very important point as most Muslims believe that the actual wording of the Sharia—Islamic Law—comes from the Prophet directly and are not the words of various legal scholars which is just what they are. Needless to say, there are many differences and even contradictions depending on time and the particular scholar. Islam however has no authority that religiously is higher than any other. In that respect, it is like Judaism. There is not a recognized religious hierarchy as there is in Christian churches.
In early Islam, scholarship and science was encouraged in all fields and in most areas the Muslims state of knowledge was greater than that of Christian Europe. However, over time the fundamentalists restricted the concept of knowledge to the Koran under the theory that anything worth knowing was in the Koran and that which was not should not be studied. In modern times Islamic nations, holding this very narrow view of education and learning, have intellectually stagnated—especially in modern science, technology, politics and philosophy. Most Islamic universities and madrasses teach only theological subjects and Koranic prescriptions of life and law and the few exceptions tend to be in strongly secular countries like Turkey.
Legal Religious Ruling. This is an example of a source of tension between some Muslims and others. Non-Muslims are required to have a Muslim Education in Muslim countries, but they insist that any required Christian or secular education in a non Muslim country is anti-Islamic.
The Palace of Wisdom is said to be the first official non-religious academy or university in the Islamic World—it seems the Christian world as well. It taught the sciences including astronomy, logic, philosophy, mathematics, as well as history, theology, languages and medicine. Note that women were educated also, albeit separately. And this was under a Caliph who was a fundamentalist. This quotation is frequently used to demonstrate that the recent trend of some Islamic fundamentalism—the Taliban for example—toward keeping females in ignorance is not a Muslim tradition and has not traditionally been interpreted as a mandate of the religion until recently. Note that the same male “professors” who taught the men, also taught the women. So just as women could be in the presence of male close relatives, teachers were provided the same exception, unlike the interpretation of the Taliban and other fundamentalist Muslims who would not allow women to be taught be men if at all.
Nowhere else in the world was there this large a number and density of sophisticated learning institutions. These colleges were midway between a college and a high school in the learning level and student ages of modern times.
