Growing up in Egypt, I spent 16 years studying Islamic studies and philosophy at Al-Azhar University (Sunni Islam’s foremost centre of learning). As an Islamic university, for a good deal of time, we observed the Islamic calendar for our annual holidays, as opposed to the Gregorian Calendar. The holiday would be three months a year. These were the seventh, eighth and ninth month of the year (Rajab, Shaban and Ramadan). Today, for practical reasons, the Gregorian calendar has been employed. So, the annual holiday is the same as it is in the U.K.
As a Muslim student back then, the end of academic year was often associated with three concepts: recollection, reflection, and re-direction. It was a time to recollect on how we started our academic year. This act of recollection often helped reflect on how much we have fared in our educational journeys, which helped us not to look at education as an instrument to getting a certificate, but primarily as an end in and of itself. Hence, if one did not fare much in their spiritual and intellectual growth, this would naturally become a time to lament instead. Lamenting was not seen as a negative vice but as a valuable virtue. A virtue that prompted us to avoid not only falling into the same mistakes again, but also awakened the value of time to our lives. Here lies the sense of re-direction which extended to how we planned even our summer holiday.
Moving to England for my MA and PhD degrees, my end of academic year was equally recollective, reflective and re-directive but in a different way. That is to say that while in Egypt the focus tended to be more on what went wrong in the past year, I ironically and automatically started to focus more on what went right. Up until now, I failed to fully grasp why this change had happened. Maybe because my university education in Egypt was more of a necessity rather than a luxury? Or because I had a lot more novel things to learn in the U.K. - from the English language to my academic field - and hence mistakes were more to be expected? I do not know. Either way, both ways of ending the academic year helped me in their unique ways and I am deeply indebted to both alma maters. A good note here is that alma mater is a Latin term that literary means a nurturing mother. How can one not be grateful to his nurturing mother?
Before I bring this reflection to a full stop, I like to share a prophetic advice from Prophet Muhammad SAW with our dear students at the University of Bath. It is a hadith in which he is reported to have said: “Take advantage of five before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your illness, your riches before your poverty, your free time before your becoming busy, and your life before your death.” Peace be upon you all.
Dr Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour
Visiting Local Faith Leader and Imam of Bath Mosque
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