Growing up, how Islam was presented and explained wasn’t always appealing. I knew this revelation was from God, but I found myself disassociating from what I saw around me — what I perceived to be cultural practices mixed with religion.

I couldn’t ‘turn off’ the skills we were taught in school. In History, we were taught to reason; we evaluated historical sources considering biases, political context, and veracity. Who is saying it and why are they saying it? In Science, we thought about population size, variables restricting the ability to draw conclusions from limited data sets, and the wonders of the natural world. In Sociology and Psychology, we learned about the various factors governing group dynamics and how individuals may conform to a group. In English, we explored inference, metaphor, rhetorical devices, imagery, and how one word may deliberately be used to mean something else. In Maths, we learned how to think systematically and perceive patterns.

We learned to see beyond the literal, to question the veracity of information and data, to appreciate how a sunflower grows from a seed.

I no longer wanted īmān boosters (motivational talks). They felt nice at first, but after 5 years of the same information, I started wondering how I can effectively spend my time to make real progress. I still was no closer to understanding the Qurʾān. I couldn’t make sense of it. Why was God talking to the Children of Israel?

I learned the technicalities of how to pray but didn’t know why I pray, nor did I know that previous nations before us also had ṣalāh (devotional connection). That made everything click for me and was the first course to improve my devotional connection. This is a covenantal code. It’s not a religion that began 1,400 years ago.

For my friends, community and myself, being educated in the UK, attending university and working in various fields, the level of explanation regarding God’s code and law didn’t match up.

Within the UK education system, intricate concepts are introduced at Year 1 and 2 (when the child is 6-7 years old) and continuously built on until they are 16 years old. The child’s understanding of maths goes from basic understanding of place value to multiplication facts and differentiation and integration. In primary school, they learn what an adjective is. By the time a child is in secondary school, they are doing comparative readings of poems and various texts. A similar curriculum for the Qurʾān may look like: content and themes, basic facts, historical context (primary school); comparative analysis of chapters, intra- and inter-textual study (secondary school), situating God’s final revelation (Qurʾān) within the historical backdrop of various decrees sent to humanity (Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus). But we aren’t ready for this yet, because we are still working on the primary curriculum. This isn’t how we reason/function in any other aspect of our lives.

For someone who’s educated in this country and perhaps even attended university, the level has to be higher. There is a lot of work to be done. God facilitate good for us all and make us from His loyal subjects.