On Liberalism

Ours is an age of bewilderment and disenchantment — odd bedfellows, to say the least. Leading the charge of mass confusion is liberalism. There is not a proverbial cookie jar that doesn’t have its tentacles present, and what perhaps is more alarming is that the vast majority of the Muslim community, particularly in America, is largely unaware of this fox that has made its way into our henhouse.

The following is a short excerpt from the Winter 2020 edition of Modern Age, a conservative journal published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. My point in sharing it is to encourage us to think about the real challenges facing us — as an experiment, while reading, simply replace “literature” with “Deen” and you’ll see the gist of it.

The Ideal Teacher of Literature

by Cicero Bruce, excerpted from Modern Age, Winter 2020

With his students, the ideal teacher of literature seeks the center of knowledge, which he understands in metaphysical or theological terms. His vehicle is poetry, by which he means the imaginative creation of action and character in either prose or verse. When they seek the center in communion with the greatest of poets, teacher and student alike transcend the mutable world and begin to grasp, according to Paul Elmer More, “in a single firm vision, so to speak, the long course of human history” and to distinguish “what is essential therein from what is ephemeral.” By seeking the center with his students and affirming its existence, the ideal teacher of literature fulfills his duty to the humanities and realizes his calling to guard that in which all the humane disciplines have their first and final cause, namely, the Word.

Noble though some might deem his vocation, the ideal teacher of literature is an anomaly in contemporary education. The reason is obvious: education in our time is governed by the sciolistic principles of liberalism, which are fundamentally irreconcilable with the Word.

Read the full essay at Modern Age ↗

It should be clear by this short passage that education for Muslims in America is as vital as it is, currently, dysfunctional and disabling. If our children are to thrive in such a landscape they must be prepared intellectually for these challenges. We must seriously reconsider our commitment to building more and more masajid at the dereliction of their future.