There is an ongoing debate in our society today whether it is problematic to teach students about other religions.
The Social Studies textbook handed out to grade 3 students by Gateway International School in Hulhumale’, has sparked debate over the issue due to pictures of Christian Churches on one of the pages. The matter of teaching other religions and rumors of expatriate teachers’ spreading non-Islamic teachings at some international schools previously in Maldives, has further prompted questions in the hearts of the citizens.
The topic had spread like wildfire in media when the books handed out by Gateway International School had pictures of churches on them. Regarding this, the education ministry has notified the school not to hand out those books to students and to take back all the books that had already been given out. The school has responded to the ministry saying that it was a mistake and they would amend it promptly. The school also assured that they would never allow anything that would harm the Islamic Religion.
However this debate is unlikely to stop due to the numerous questions that keep surfacing. Firstly, the question arises whether the school authorities had not considered, that the matter of teaching other religions through the curriculum or otherwise to Maldivian students while being a 100% Muslim country, would be a wrongdoing. Secondly many wonder at the possibility of this being an error. Next is the real issue at hand. Is it a problem to teach students about other religions? Forgoing the other two questions, it is important to take a closer look at this query due to various reasons.
Firstly, the fact lies in many Maldivians are asking this very question while others claim that it is in fact not a problem. As pointed out earlier, regarding the Gateway school’s books issue, some comments on the news include, "is it a problem to teach students about other religions?", "what problems could arise by teaching them about this" and "though they learn about other religions, it is their responsibility to remain steadfast on Islam".
"Students should learn about all the religions. Choosing Islam while having knowledge of other religions is what makes a person truly Muslim," read an online comment on a news post.
The topic has to be further dwelled into because so many people are commenting on news posts. These comments could just be posted for political reasons or otherwise without much thought put into it. However, each expresses their own thoughts, which they have to take responsibility for. The next issue is the issue of our religion. Therefore, one has to find out what our religion says about the issue before commenting on social media. If Allah and His Messenger (pbuh) has forbade something, there is no way we can make it permissible. Hence, it is important to know what the religion says before commenting on these issues. We are, after all, 100% Muslims who are proud of our religion and hold steadfast to it.
Responding to the question from a religious perspective, Sheikh Hassan Moosa Fikury said, "it is not permissible for a person to read books on other religions for academic purposes or otherwise, unless he is very well versed in Islamic Aqeedah. The Prophet (pbuh) had forbade Umar (ra) to read the Torah. Nobody disputes the station of Umar is Islam. Allah had honored Islam by Umar’s acceptance of Islam."
At the time of the Prophet, He (pbuh) saw that Umar(ra) had part of the Torah with him and He (pbuh) got angry and said: "By the One in Whose Hand is my soul, I brought the guidance to you in a pure form.’ He further said, ‘If Moses had been alive today, he would have been obliged to follow me."
Sheikh also discussed other hadith on the issue.
The points discussed above show that learning about or finding information about other religions are not allowed in Islam because they contain fabrications, which is hard to distinguish unless one is well learned on the subject.
While only well versed people are allowed to find information about other religions, it is obvious that teaching young children about other religions, showing them pictures of churches and such, is a very big issue. These are not allowed and we have to be cautious about it. Therefore, institutions have to be more responsible. This is not a small issue that can be disregarded.
More importantly, this should not be brought to the attention of authorities due to people talking about it on social media. It should have been monitored by the authorities and steps have to be taken before it can reach the public in the first place.