Monologue
University is a city of perspiring dream which some people turn into inheritable reality but which others keep in perpetual suspense.
The knowledge that propels the world into great hopes may sometimes be packaged in the University classrooms or laboratories.
But the basis of such knowledge is surely outside the University. The most knowledgeable human beings in history never knew anything called University. Yet, they ventilated the environment that brought University into being.
Crescent University, Abeokuta held its 7th convocation on Saturday, October 10, 2015. But its Convocation Lecture which yours sincerely was privileged to deliver came up a day earlier (Friday, October 9, 2015).
The theme of the lecture was ‘Moral Education and Nation Building’. The intention was to publish that lecture in this column today. However, since the lecture was too lengthy to be published in a single edition of ‘The Message’ column, culling an excerpt from it may not be a bad idea. Please, read on:
Preamble
Any time I remember an historic inscription once placed conspicuously at the main entrance of the University of Cordoba in Spain, my heart throbs. The inscription goes as thus:
“The world is sustained by four formidable pillars: The Wisdom of the Learned; the Justice of the Great; the prayers of the Righteous and the Valour of the Brave”.
It must be noted that the key words in that inscription are four: Learning, Justice, Righteousness and Bravery. Those words are the real factors of ethics and morality embedded in the University curriculum from inception. The factors were coined to accentuate the high level of discipline and fear of Allah required to form the character of an average University graduate.
Those factors simply summarise the essence of temporal and spiritual life of man in all ramifications through the vehicle of education. Without them, no life can be said to be worthy of living and no education can be rightly proclaimed.
University of Cordoba
For those who did not know, University of Cordoba was the very first formal and standardised University ever established in the world. It was established in the mid 10th century CE by Caliph Abdur-Rahman III of the second Umayyad dynasty who ruled in Spain from 912 to 961 CE. University of Cordoba preceded the three oldest universities in the world today: Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt; Qarawiyyin University in Fez, Morocco and Zaytuniyyah University in Tunis, Tunisia. Each of these universities is well over 1000 years old now.
It was at the University of Cordoba that the Christian Europe first came in contact with the yoke of the knowledge that fetched it what is now called modern civilisation. Thus, at a time when the city of Cordoba under the Muslim rule, was styled ‘The Jewel of the World’ by the Europeans because of its beauty, serenity and grandeur, the University of Cordoba stood out as a second to none citadel of learning in the entire world.
Attestation
To attest to this fact, a French Historian of the 20th century and author of ‘The Civilisation of the Arabs’, Gustave Le Bon, had the following to say:
“At an epoch when the rest of Europe was plunged into the darkest barbarism, Baghdad and Cordoba, the two great cities where Islam held sway, were centres of civilisation which illumined the whole world with the light of their brilliance”.
Arabic Numerals
If some people in the present generation are still in doubt over the above narration and quotes, then, we can shift our focus to a related but more familiar terrain that has no shadow and cannot be doubted.
At least most of us can still recall that the numerals which we inherited from our colonial masters are called Arabic numerals. Those are the numerals with which we were taught mathematics in schools when we were young. They are the same numerals with which we now conduct our economic activities. It was through those numerals that Muslim intellectuals introduced the figure called zero (0) into the world thereby bringing decimal system into being. Today, everyone knows that without decimal system the achievement of any scientific advancement would have been impossible.
The Roman Numerals
Before the invention of zero by the Muslims, Europe had relied heavily on the clumsy system of Roman numerals which required enormous expenditure of time and labour. For instance, while the decimal system makes it easy to write such figure as 1848 in only four numerals and within a second, the Europeans used to write the same figure as follows: MDCCCXLVIII in Roman numerals.
Essence of Zero
The real essence of inventing zero (0) by the Muslim intellectuals was not just to advance the course of science and technology for academic purpose but also to boost human morality by facilitating transparency in economic transactions that could be devoid of manipulation and thereby prevent corruption.
This further confirms that the end result of education in those days was not just to obtain certificate but to pave way for civility. But can there be any civility in the absence of good human conduct? This is where the question of ethics and morality comes in. It is through high level of discipline and sound ethics that exemplary leaders emerge.
Qualities of Leadership
University is so named because of the universality of certain human norms and mannerism that distinguish between man and animal. This does not however make it for anybody aspiring to leadership to pass through a university. The greatest leaders in history never passed through a university education even as the most educated human being that ever lived (Prophet Muhammad (SAW), was an illiterate. Yet from the fountain of his education many nonentities have become professors in various fields of learning while many more (literate or illiterate) people across nations and continents have become employees of Islam.
Education and Literacy
The difference between education and literacy is grossly misconceived in Nigeria. While the one is universally beneficial to all and sundry, the other is beneficial only to the so-called literate. Whereas education is about knowledge, cultural value, responsibility and legacy, literacy is about momentary material benefit that can never become a legacy or a heritage. The death of a literate person connotes the end of literacy in him while an educated person lives on even long after his demise. Prophet Muhammad is a typical example of the latter.
Benefits of education
Our ancestors who domesticated plants and turned them into edible foods did not attend any school and were therefore not literate. It was from their education that we came to inherit how to turn cassava into gari and eba and yam into yam flour (amala) and pounded yam (iyan) and maize into pap (Eko). It was from their knowledge also that we came to turn melon (egusi) as well as locust beans (Iru) into nutritious soup. It was also those ancestors who cultivated cotton and silk without learning textile technology in any classrooms, and turned them into fabrics with which they designed a variety of dresses for men and women of different generations.
Thus, if we wear such dresses as Buba and Iro as well as Agbada, Danshiki, Oyala and the likes today it is due to the sound education of our illiterate ancestral fathers and mothers rather than the ingenuity of our literacy. As a matter of fact, the modern Professors have not added anything tangible to those foods and dresses despite their five star certificates in nutrition and textile technology. If anything, they have rather used their so-called literacy to bring various diseases and immorality into the world through malnutrition and nudism. Whereas education abhors corruption literacy encourages and upholds it.
Pseudo-Education
Today, what remains of most Nigerian universities is mere nomenclature attributable only to literacy rather than education. Even such literacy has so evidently dwindled to a stage of mockery that one sometimes wonders if university as an institution of learning in Nigeria still has anything tangible to contribute to education for the benefit of mankind. The quality of most Nigerian graduates today is so un-befitting to the status of the tertiary institution called university that the phrase ‘University Education’ has virtually a mockery. This is because the main objective of seeking admission into Nigerian universities these days is just to obtain certificate that can serve as meal ticket rather than education that can pave way for quality life.
The heavily pregnant inscription quoted at the beginning of this speech, in respect of the University of Cordoba, is quite symbolic of the intellectual and humanitarian qualities of the initiators of university education. It enabled the Muslims of that time to pilot the world, with knowledge, into the realm of what is now termed ‘Modern Civilisation’. It constitutes the summary of good leadership theoretically and practically whether in the primordial or contemporary times.
It connotes the necessary equanimity with which excellent leadership is managed and maintained in any sane society. That is what a well-focused university should be. That is what Crescent University is grooming its graduates to become. We pray Allah to enable the Crescent University also become as great in history as the notable universities that preceded it. Amin.
