Should I give up my career plans to study full time at a madrasa?

Look, [music] [laughter] I don't know what he's singing, but it seems so whatever I'll have, whatever he's having cuz he seems to be in an awesome mood. [laughter] Eid Mubarak, right back at you, people.

Right back at you. So, let's have some serious questions now. Serious questions people. Okay. I was asked a question about should one study the is a had asked this question. [snorts] Uh right now it asked that he himself if I've understood the question correctly uh is very interested in learning about the dean.

This is a generic I mean it could be it could apply to many of you watching this today that he has great passion to learn the dean but he's on a trajectory for a career like many young people they could be approaching university or in university or maybe they're out of university but he is on this trajectory to study whatever it is it's going to take a full degree then it's going to take some years of practice and searching a career here for him to go and join a madrasa which is on average a

even an easy route is really like a minimum five year route that's like really fast but um six years on average that's like for the short end of a route um if he's a real quick learner and things like this otherwise between six to eight years but even if we're going with 5 years. Um the equal time that it would take him to finish a degree, finish some some kind of specialist.

So let's say he did a law degree, he could do an LPC after that and he could be now practicing law or he's finished a madrasa. Is this really the thing for him to do to take that choice and go into Madrasa learning? Uh because he's passionate about Islam. Should he do that? But what would he do for a career after all of this? I mean, what's he going to do?

Is he going to end up in a maktub? A muktab is like where they teach kids in a mosque, in a masid. In the UK, they call it maktub. Some places call it kutab. And and they have other names for it. Um, right. I forgot the name. Uh, uh, I remember reading uh the Somali name for it. I forgot what it is. What's And I was reading it completely differently. It's got like a an X in it.

And I was thinking, what on earth is the is it called a doxy or something? But uh and I was thinking, what is this? But it turns out it's the same thing. Uh this maka. Now what are what are my thoughts on this person? Should he do that? I think look [snorts] if I'm to be um give you my I have been through the university system.

I've been through the Madrasa system. I've been through kind of freelance learning off in the Middle East and you know like I've done that uh when I did it. But how would I you know would I advise these people today in this day and age to necessarily do that? Maybe not. Um, you see if you can learn the dean equally without taking a madrasa fullon madrasa route.

Okay, you can do it and you can even do it as effectively if not even more effectively in some ways because there's okay the pros and the cons about a mudrasa life. So the madrasa life and that's like moving into full-time accommodated education. So you see the great thing about this is everything is mapped out for you what you're going to learn.

There's a foundational level to all these sciences like let's say the Quranith Arabic grammar history all of these things are there and then they're going to there's a um uh a kind of gradual approach to uh to accomplishing your learning.

learning. So you're going to in increments grow. So you'll have the basics, then you're going to jump to as the years go by, you're going to cover the same kind of topics again, but in more depth and then again in more depth and then again in more depth and um along [clears throat] with new material as well, obviously. So by the end of it, you are a scholar unquestionably if you if if you have a passion.

Now so the plus side, we're looking at the plus side. Everything is mapped out for you. The hard work in providing the material has been done. The the basic stuff the the kind of scal scal the the kind of structure of it the foundation. Not more than the foundation. It's like all the wiring and everything is being laid out.

The teachers are being brought to you. You are on a kind of conveyor belt. This is the awesome thing of being in a madrasa is that you just have to wake up [laughter] which is in your room in your dorms. [snorts] You have to just get ready and walk to class which is going to be in that in that connected building anyway. So and now you're in class and all the teachers are coming to you.

So that is amazing from that perspective and you can't really beat that and it has a great kind of camaraderie a whole brotherhood or sisterhood arguably the whole you know that friendship and these are the amazing highlights of a madrasa. Um however the the downside of you know the the the cons or the negative the drawbacks of going to a madrasa system through a madras is that it dumbs you down unfortunately because a lot of the assata are so insecure about being questioned about

the whole system is built on from an angle of dogmatism. It's not there is no critical thought at all that will that will exist. The only critical thought thought that does exist is ironically what you will confessionally read within the texts. So when you're reading a book like let's say you're reading I don't know haya of the now it will say that Abu Hanifh said this and said this and critiqued this point like this.

So now you're reading some critical thought and then they will say but we kind of you know we kind of dealt with them with this. There you go. So it's it's not really critical thought at you know applied. It is at a 2D level. It's not 3D. So it's not in your actual lives. You're not encouraged. In fact forget encouraged.

If you start getting critical you'll be told off. So I used to be critical when I used to study and I was told off on several occasions. Um I remember once I got into this whole um it turned [clears throat] into an argument actually. I think I've narrated it before, but this is just a tiny a minor example of where um I was told, oh, you're not allowed to dress with the with collars, like you can't have colors on your uh kamsea ma style shall kamse you know the th

without the collars. So I I said I was trying to make sense of sorry what [laughter] how did that become an Islamic thing? I don't and they said well duh duh you can't even tell that wearing colors isn't Islamic. [laughter] So I I was like uh I don't get that.

Why is that not Islamic? And they said well because uh this resembles the shirts that are made in Europe which is then resembling the non-Muslim kufur. [laughter] I I I thought uh ah this you know any more of this and my thinking is going to be pushed right back to the Neanderal days [laughter] cuz I can imagine like Neanderals if they were sitting in that class they would be like what a point [laughter] the Neanderls would be like

vakia you know our we're evolving we can feel it [laughter] we're on a trae victory for greatness. You guys feel it? Yeah. Yeah. And then they go extinct. [laughter] But this is the kind of mentality that you get in the madrasa. You see, and I was obviously um you know, when you said that to me, I was pissed off that what what the hell are you talking about?

Wh why why that does you do understand that what you said makes zero sense? There's nothing that doesn't make any sense. And they're like, "Of course it makes sense. It makes perfect sense." And I said, like, "No, it doesn't." And then they're like, "Well, you know, if you don't do because then you're in uh breach of Islamic morals." And I thought, I don't [laughter] I don't know where this Have I missed like three seasons?

Are we on a different is this season six now? [laughter] How the hell did we jump to Islamic morals? This is like and so so this is what I mean. It gets so dumb and so uh and then if you challenge them like so when I challenge the teacher he got really upset that how dare you challenge me and I said to him but I'm just asking you to explain what you're telling me because it's not making sense to me.

So he said well your job he he said is to listen to me. Uh and and he said to me these were his words. He said look he said that you right now don't understand this when I was at your stage I didn't understand it but once you graduate and you become a scholar you will understand it so I said to him well okay in that case I take it you've understood it now then so why don't you just now explain it to me [laughter] needless to say that comeback was not a great hit friend.

Friend, [laughter] he was like, he was fuming. He was like, "What the hell?" He said, "Listen, I imbuifi." These were his words. No, not he said, "We are blind like blind people and I imbuif.

So, how dare you ask any question?" I was thinking how did I IMBUIFY'S [laughter] neural networks like how [laughter] have we changed the complete are we watching something entirely different now [laughter] [gasps] I don't know but that's you see I I laughed but this is the truth unfortunately so when they dumb down your thinking It [snorts] can take you in the future so many years to kind of undo that

because they're going to dumb it down day after day, month after month, and year after year. So when you've gone through six years of rigorous training of being dumbed down and being told off for and not being allowed to ear your condition your your kind of thoughts and questions and then it's hard sometimes to later on become like that because you know you're not used to you you start to lack that confidence to do it because every time you try and do it somebody shatters you.

So yeah, so I feel in many ways, you know, when you look at the tradeoff that if a person studied on their own, if they studied Arabic, let's say, when I say on their own, sorry, let me rephrase that part. If they studied independently, so let's say you studied Arabic, you got that out the way within 6 months. Um, within a year, your Arabic's good, but after 6 months, you started picking up like you started reading basic f uh basic other things.