The following recommendations are from Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani’s short treatise on how to study the dars nizāmī. The advice, though aimed at students of the Mīzān al-Ṣarf or ʿIlm al-Ṣīghah, is largely applicable to any beginning student of Arabic morphology. 1) Its absolutely necessary to memorize the conjugation tables. In fact, the conjugations should… Continue reading How to Study Arabic Morphology (Ṣarf) Based on Mufti Taqi Usmani’s Recommendations

Year 4: 1. al-Balaghat al-Wadihah/Jawahir al-Balaghah: The first was the primary text that was used this year. Jawahir was only used as a supplement, as it contains certain discussions not in al-Wadihah. A lot more than Balaghah and Adab could have been covered this year. In any case, our teacher gave so much emphasis to… Continue reading Madrasat al-Hasanayn: Further Details on the Curriculum

To learn more about Madrasat al-Hasanayn’s method of teaching and its curriculum, here is a brief synopsis of the books/subjects covered each year and how they are taught. Keep in mind that this is how the curriculum looked when I was there around fifteen years ago. There have been significant changes in the curriculum since then.… Continue reading Madrasat al-Hasanayn: Educational Outlook, Curriculum, and Methodology of Instruction

Here are some interesting points I noted down from reading Makdisi’s The Rise of Colleges: 1. Fiqh was studied over the course of four years. It was taught without any focus on dialectics (jadal), disputation (munazarah), or comparitive fiqh (ikhtilaf). Study of ikhtilaf, academic disputations, and dialectics was taught to students after the four year… Continue reading Some Notes from Reading Makdisi’s “The Rise of Colleges”

In reading through the history of Islamic education, it has become quite clear that there is no hard and fast rule about the reliance on specific texts for the study of all the Islamic sciences. It can be safely said that some subjects require more dependency on texts than others.