The Education Policy Between the Failure of the Modern State and the Vision of the Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly Guided Caliphate)
(Translated)

The education policy in Tunisia, as one of the pillars of the modern state, has failed, and the repeated reforms have not succeeded. Our children have come to be at the bottom of the global ranking, and our schools and universities are outside the classifications, while tens of thousands of students drop out of school annually and are thrown into the street, to be absorbed by unemployment, drugs, the boats of death, and organized criminal groups, until everyone testifies to the corruption of the educational curriculum and the failure of its outputs, not to mention the marginalization of teachers and leaving them at the bottom of the wage ladder.

And today, despite the succession of initiatives, from the national consultation on education reform (September–December 2023) to the establishment of the Higher Council of Education stipulated in the 2022 Constitution, what was proposed in the consultation is nothing but formal patching and an entrenchment of a Westernizing, colonial, secular project established in 1958 by the Frenchman Jean Dupiace and implemented by the then-Minister of Education Mahmoud Al-Messadi, to exclude Islam from education and strike the civilizational identity of society and the rising generations.

Recycling this bankrupt model will produce nothing but more decadence, dissolution, and dependency on the West, and the Ummah will not rise except with an authentic educational vision that stems from its creed. For the correct educational policy is the one that is based on the Islamic creed, so educational policies and their objectives are set according to a methodology that preserves the identity of the Ummah and its Islamic creed, to graduate Islamic personalities with Islamic mentality and disposition, and to prepare the sons of the Muslims so that among them are the specialized scholars in all fields of life, such as the Islamic sciences (from ijtihad, fiqh, judiciary, and others), and the experimental sciences (from mathematics, informatics, chemistry, physics, medicine, and others).

An educational policy implemented by a strong state, feared and possessing its decision, uniting the Muslims under the banner of Islam (There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah), namely the Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly guided Caliphate) on the Method of Prophethood, which rules by Islam and solves all problems and crises of the Muslims and the whole world because it rules by a system from the Creator of mankind who alone knows what benefits them in every time and place, producing a great scientific renaissance and a huge industrial revolution and an unprecedented advancement, and restoring the right to its people.

For the Khilafah (Caliphate) system has a clear and independent political vision; it makes education a factory for men of state of the highest caliber and fertile soil that produces strong personalities aspiring to leadership and not accepting humiliating dependency. It considers education an essential need and provides it free of charge with the highest quality, with the restructuring of priorities according to the rulings of the Shariah to accelerate scientific progress, allocating huge revenues from public property and what is under its hand (such as minerals, energy, agriculture, and livestock) and others, for the sake of building subsidiary systems that support its ability to attain the highest levels of knowledge, among the most important of which are:

1. Building a comprehensive education system that develops the Islamic personality from primary to university, to create a generation that combines the leadership quality with the sincerity of the believer, and enjoys a diverse set of skills and fields of expertise that the Ummah needs in the struggle of life.

2. Building a research and development system to conduct research, invention, and development in integration between the universities and the state’s research centers, such that all of them are under the administration of the state in supervision, encouragement, and funding.

3. Building a strategic industrial system managed by the state independently, to develop military capabilities with modern means and provide the basic needs of individuals, and to form integrated industrial chains of heavy industries with the state’s supervision over them and securing all supplies needed for these industries, including raw materials, technology, expertise, engineering, and financing.

O Muslims, in the land of Al-Zaytuna, the oldest universities of the world:

The Khilafah (Caliphate) system, which adopts Islam’s distinguished viewpoint on education, is capable today of establishing a first-class exemplary educational system, a system that combines the pursuit of knowledge with fulfilling vital issues and the interests of the state and society alike, and guarantees at the same time self-sufficiency in everything the Ummah needs; something that will put an end to this separation between the educational systems in our lands and the needs of our industrial, agricultural, technical, and other societies, something that led to dependency on other states. This, in addition to the intensive investment of the Khilafah State in the field of manufacturing to fulfill the needs of the society independently and to make the Caliphate a great global power, enables the state to benefit from the distinguished skills and minds of the sons of the Ummah in developing the state, so that their precious energies are not wasted nor foreign states allowed to steal them.

So hasten, O Muslims in Tunisia, to put this wonderful model into application and implementation by immediately undertaking what Allah has obliged upon you: working to establish the Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly guided Caliphate), for it is the only Shariah cure for all your issues.

Allah the Exalted said:

[الَّذِينَ إِن مَّكَّنَّاهُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ أَقَامُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآتَوُا الزَّكَاةَ وَأَمَرُوا بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَنَهَوْا عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَلِلَّهِ عَاقِبَةُ الْأُمُورِ]

“And they are] those who, if We give them authority in the land, establish prayer and give zakah and enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. And to Allah belongs the outcome of [all] matters.”[Surat Al-Hajj:41].