Bismillah.
Setting the Foundation
Homeschooling gave us the freedom to decide that we would design our own curriculum for our children over the course of their education. First, by Allah’s grace and the guidance of our teachers, we developed the content of the Foundations course via our 12 year old daughter. That meant teaching in a non-philosophical, kid-compatible way, the following:
1. Epistemology (how we know something to be true) – based on Imam Nasafi’s classification, applied to all knowledge including the natural sciences, using “the spectrum of creation” tool (more on this later).
2. Ontology (what is real) – based off of āyāt of the Quran and hadith, as distilled by the intellectual tradition of Ahl al Sunnah w’al Jama’ah.
3. Cosmology (the system/nizam/overall structure of creation) – based on the Quranic conception of “the seven heavens” as layers of creation of which the “sama al-dunya” (the lowest heaven, our universe), is just the tip of the iceberg.
4. What Bani Adam is – understanding the heart, the aql, the nafs, and the body, and the implications of this understanding for how we learn.
Once these were established we could explore (1) what the purpose of education really is (which was more for us as parents to be aware of), (2) what a science is, and (3) what the classification of the sciences is. Items (2) and (3) were something we knew from the get-go our kids needed to be grounded in from the beginning of their “higher” studies, which we consider to start around age 13.
Why Teach the Classification of the Sciences?
The classification of sciences is something Muslim scholars thought hard about. Why? Because the classification itself carries a secret: it is born of a traditional mode of learning (i.e. holistic, encompassing and not fragmented), and subtly helps students situate themselves when they are learning any subject, forming a map that helps them link that field of knowledge back to Allah at a cognitive level. The Classification of Sciences gives the learner a thousand-foot view of all the sciences they will learn. Then, knowing the Ten Principles (al-mabādī al-‘asharah) for each science gives them the one-hundred foot view of a particular science (we will be posting some samples of the Ten Principles we used soon insha Allah). Studying the science itself then gets them into the details. This way, a learner is always oriented. The classificaton of the sciences is what shows the entire forest first before getting into the trees, leaves, chloroplasts, etc…
But before we dive into the Classifciation, an important digression.
This is how we understand our general education efforts. There are two main categories: tarbiyyah and ta’līm. Tarbiyyah is the general effort that every parent puts into their child, lovingly raising them stage by stage to develop them spiritually, in their akhlaq, in their physical abilities, adab etc. It’s holistic, experiential, and obviously needs to be customized to each child. The most important aspect of tarbiyyah is that we (the parents) walk the walk. We must be striving to be what we want our kids to become – but not for the sake of our children. We strive to be ever more pleasing to Allah in our body, mind and heart, so that we can have that moment of joy when we – individually – stand before Him, and the eternal reward of His presence in Jannah (we ask Allah for that, ameen). As part of doing what is pleasing to Allah, we need to raise our children. Our children are a high priority, but they are not the highest priority. Allah and His Messenger (ﷺ) and the priority that they have taught us, is what determines our priorities. Tarbiyyah, which entails all of the above and is a topic of its own for another venue, is the foundation.
Ta’lim is the academics. Some could say tarbiyyah is distinct and “education” = ta’lim. That’s fine too, we don’t need to get hung up on the terminology. The point is that there is tarbiyyah and there is ta’lim, and the ta’lim is the academic side of growing up and being a solid Muslim. Also keep in mind that this break down is for us as parents to know, not as much for the kids.
The Classification of the Sciences comes in under ta’līm (academics). We used this classification both in how we planned their education, and in how we taught them to think about the sciences. (We covered this with them after they did all the Inara content, and once they were about 13 years old).
An important note (and this is something they get in our Inara Introduction to Sciences course), not all beneficial knowledge comes packaged via a science. It’s important for Muslim learners to know that (1) natural science is only one of many sciences, (2) that all sciences from fiqh to physics share a core metholodogy that makes them “scientific”, but differ in certain ways depending on the goal (ghāyah) of the science and the type of questions the science seeks to answer, (3) that any given science is simply a tool, and thus (4) there is much knowledge that is immensely important that does not need a science to learn it.
Now back to the Classification.
Our “Classification of the Sciences”
Revelatory Sciences – those sciences that derive primarily from revelation/relate to subject matters related to Allah, His Messenger, the akhira, the unseen aspects of creation etc. You cannot obtain knowledge of these areas without access to revelation.
Rational Sciences – those sciences that derive primarily from rational efforts, of which empirical efforts are a subset (you can’t do any aspect of “science” without thinking rationally).
Instrumental Sciences – exactly what it sounds like. Sciences that allow one to access the sciences in the other two categories. All sciences of Arabic language go in this category, and we prioritize Arabic in the young years for our children (we will have another post on that insha Allah). English language arts and related subjects go here as well.
These divisions are not meant to be perfect. For example, kalam could also go in revelatory sciences, since kalam studies both rational and revelatory proofs for what we believe. However, since it generally has a more rational thrust and its specialty is showing how rational proofs concord with revelatory proofs for our various beliefs, we placed it here. And we explain this to our kids. They get it; it’s all very intuitive. (In our Introduction to Sciences course we teach about common errors when using any science, and one of them we call, “The Hang Up” i.e. getting hung up on categorizations because of forgetting the end-goal (ghāyah) of why the subject is being studied to begin with, so they are comfortable with overlapping concepts which I believe allows for more flexibility of thought).
Fiqh – in fiqh our goal is that they learn the ibadat (how to pray, etc) well, but also the mu’amalat.
Aqida – customized to each child, but we tried to have all of them know Aqidat al-Awwam, Tahawiyyah, and then for those who show interest or we feel they need it, a higher aqidah text. None of them have done any kalam proper, other than very basic kalam given via Inara (mainly just the argument from contingency).
Hadith (meanings) – for hadith, we tried to take advantage of their younger years when they are memory sponges, and have them memorize hadith. We used Content of Character as well as Imam Nawawi’s 40 Hadith, and others. We found programs and teachers for these. We ensure that they have a basic understanding of the meanings of the hadith as well of course.
Tafsir – basic understanding and basic tafsir of 30th juz, via teachers.
What is not on the chart is Hifz efforts.
Modern Natural Science – this is in contrast to pre-modern natural sciences, which we teach our children about in our Introduction to Sciences course. There, they learn about the end-goals (ghāyah) and methods of the pre-modern natural sciences, and are given exposure to carefully selected excerpts from primary texts (that they can understand). The goal was so that our children could learn to see the continuities between pre-modern and modern natural sciences (and the discontinuities). By the end of it they are able to understand the difference between the two types of natural sciences (pre-modern and modern) as a function (1) the subtle yet importance differences in approach to knowledge between Islam and Christianity, both of which formed the matrix in which the rational learning of the time was integrated into and (2) of the changing ontologic commitments that occurred between then and now – all done without using the words “ontology,” “commitments”, “epistemology” or any other philosophical jargon, and with reference only to principles from the Quran, hadith and fiqh.
At the end of it all, the goal is to put every science, whether natural science or otherwise, in its place rooted in an “Islamic” perpsective. They intuitively and naturally understand the difference between “knowledge related to what Allah has sent” and “knowledge we figured out” (i.e. the revelatory and rational sciences), while recognizing that all of it, is only by Allah’s permission. We also taught them a hierarchy of the sciences, which we actually have them construct on their own, after doing an exercise on ranking the importance of a bunch of different questions like, “how to I get into Jannah”; “what temperature does water boil at”; “how many marbles in this jar”; “how do I make my mother happy.” That was also part of the Introduction to Sciences course, but can only be properly understood once they have their ontology and cosmology down.
History & Hadith (preservation) – we placed the study of hadith preservation in the rational sciences because the basis of the science of hadith preservation – i.e. being able to ascertain whether a particular report about the Prophet ﷺ is properly attributable to him or not, is a rational science par excellence. In fact – and we will have more posts on this insha Allah – our entire approach to the study of history in a more general sense starts with a detailed study of how the hadith were preserved from the time of the Prophet ﷺ to Imam al-Bukhari. Once they have seen these details, they have witnessed first-hand the greatest historical method known to humankind, and this then leaves no room for doubt regarding the veracity of our hadith system, and also allows them to see how modern historical methods and claims regarding, for example, ancient history or even European or other history, are full of large, glaring gaps, that end up being filled by interpretations that are informed by the worldviews of the scholars trying to connect between those gaps. Since most of them are not grounded in tawhid, they absolutize some aspect of creation (whether economics, lower desires, or something else), and then provide interpretations informed by those hidden commitments. We set the standard of historical accuracy using the science of the preservation of hadith. All other forms of history thereafter pale in comparison – not because we believe them to be as such, but because once they study it, they see that fact for themselves.
