What Are We Trying to Do Here?
Everything we do at Inara is aimed to change how we learn so that whether we study fiqh or physics, every detail is a path to The One. If you are not uttering ecstatic “subhanAllah’s!” and feeling like you simply must stop what you are doing and run to catch your prayer after reading about Gauss’s Law (which describes how the total electric flux through any closed surface is directly proportional to the total electric charge enclosed by that surface) then that means either we’re not doing something right or you’re not following our advice.
But what is our advice?
Follow those Who Know and Use the 90-10 Rule
If we could provide a high-level summary of everything you need to know and everything our teachers have taught us on this issue, based on their knowledge of the Quran, Sunnah and their practice of it, it would go like this:
To reach a state where when one learns any detail from the natural sciences (or any other subject forthat matter) and genuinely finds that by doing so they increase in spirituality, worship, remembrance, and, ultimately, closeness to Allah, one must address both faculties of learning: the heart and the intellect.
And, in doing so, they should follow the 90-10 Rule:
90% of one’s effort should be on the heart, because it is the King of the body, mind and soul.
10% of one’s effort should be intellectual.
Everything we do at Inara, and by extension all efforts to “Islamicize curricula” (whatever that means) are only 10% of the issue. It’s important, but it’s still only 10%. We tend over-estimate how important the intellectual side of the discussion is because of the society we live in.
What does the 90% look like? The principles are easy. They are four.
- Stay away from haram.
- Do what Allah has commanded.
- Keep the company of the people of Allah.
- Remember Allah a lot.
The above are the basis for all knowledge, whether revelatory or rational, “religious” or otherwise.
What does the 10% look like?
We are offering one version of that 10% here at Inara.
As for developing mental habits, they fall in the 10% category, and developing a mental habit requires thinking that way again and again. It requires a structure, and it requires practicing in that structure. Our ultimate goal at Inara is to reimagine, redesign, rewrite, and redo education in a way that establishes correct foundational concepts and builds Quranic Mental Habits, while learning everything you really need to learn to make your way in the world for Allah’s sake.
But each individual, each family, is responsible for engendering the four principles in themselves and their young Muslim learners.
We ask Allah for tawfīq.
