Rethinking Reform in Higher Education Ziauddin Sardar

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The Reform of Higher Education in Muslim Societies is in
sum a paradigm shift in perspective driven by important
considerations including the aims of education itself. It may
require reforming existing disciplines, inventing new ones,
as well as working in conjunction with current knowledge(s)
and discourses by taking effective account of the ethical,
spiritual norms of Muslim society, the guiding principles
that it operates under, which in turn mark the underlying
basis of its makeup and spiritual identity. Rather than
creating divisions, reform of Higher Education in Muslim
Societies recognizes the plurality and diversity of the mod-
ern networked world, and seeks to replace sterile and
uniform approaches to knowledge with a broader and
more creative understanding of reality as lived on different
soils and different cultures. Moderation, balance and
effective communication are paramount features of the
underlying philosophy.
IIIT Books-In-Brief Seriesis a valuable collection of the
Institute’s key publications written in condensed form to give
readers a core understanding of the main contents of the
original.
Rethinking Reform
in Higher Education
Books-in-Brief
978-1-56564-954-5
ZIAUDDIN SARDAR & JEREMY HENZELL-THOMAS
RETHINKING REFORM
HIGHER EDUCATION
From Islamization to Integration of Knowledge
in
From Islamization to Integration of Knowledge
BIB Reform Hier Educ Cover PRINT_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:02 Page 1

RETHINKING REFORM IN
HIGHER EDUCATION
Ziauddin Sardar & Jeremy Henzell-Thomas
Abridged by C Scott Jordan
From Islamization to Integration of Knowledge
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 1

©International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2018
The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
P.O. Box 669
Herndon, VA 20172, USA
www.iiit.org
IIIT London Office
P.O. Box 126
Richmond, Surrey
TW9 2UD, UK
www.iiituk.com
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and
to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of the publishers.
The views and opinions expressed in this book are those of
the author and not necessarily those of the publishers.
Published in cooperation with The Centre for Postnormal Policy
and Futures Studies.
978-1-56564-954-5
Series Editors
Dr. Anas S. al-Shaikh-Ali
Shiraz Khan
Typesetting by Saddiq Ali
Cover design by Shiraz Khan
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 2

IIIT Books-in-Brief Series
The IIIT Books-in-Brief Series is a valuable collection of the
Institute’s key publications written in condensed form designed
to give readers a core understanding of the main contents of the
original. Produced in a short, easy to read, time-saving format,
these companion synopses offer a close, carefully written over-
view of the larger publication and it is hoped will stimulate
readers into further exploration of the original.
Rethinking Reform in Higher Educationis in sum a paradigm shift
in perspective driven by important considerations including the aims of
education itself. It may require reforming existing disciplines, innovating
new ones, as well as working in conjunction with current knowledge(s)
and discourses by taking effective account of the ethical, spiritual norms
of Muslim society, the guiding principles that it operates under, which
in turn mark the underlying basis of its makeup and spiritual identity.
Rather than creating divisions, reform of Higher Education in Muslim
Societies recognizes the plurality and diversity of the modern networked
world, and seeks to replace sterile and uniform approaches to knowl-
edge with a broader and more creative understanding of reality as lived
on different soils and different cultures. Moderation, balance and effec-
tive communication are paramount features of the underlying philosophy.
Abridged Edition of Ziauddin Sardar and Jeremy Henzell-Thomas’
Original
RETHINKING REFORM IN HIGHER EDUCATION
ISBN hbk: 978-1-56564-982-8
ISBN pbk: 978-1-56564-977-4
2017
Published in cooperation with The Centre for Postnormal Policy and
Futures Studies
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 3

Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 4

Introduction to the Original Book
Muslim societies are experiencing a crisis of education at all levels. A
plethora of recent studies has highlighted just how ruinous the situation
has become. The 2003 Arab Human Development Report pointed out
that the ‘knowledge deficit’ in Arab societies was ‘grave’ and ‘deeply
rooted;’ a similar inference could be made about other Muslim nations.
More recently, a number of research papers and other publications
have reported similar findings.
Early in the 1980s, IIIT stated in its Work Planthat the ‘centuries of
decline have caused illiteracy, ignorance and superstition to spread
among Muslims’ and ‘these evils have caused the average Muslim to
withdraw into the bliss of blind faith, to lean toward literalism and
dogmatism.’ The Institute identified ‘intellectual and methodological
decline’ as the core cause of this malaise, and we could go further in
seeing it as a failure of both mind and heart.
Over the last few years, the IIIT has held a number of meetings to
discuss the state of education in Muslim societies and to chart a viable
way forward. Following this a Two-Day Symposium on Reform of
Higher Education in Muslim Societies was held on 9
th
-10
th
December
2013 jointly with the Wilson Center.
Further intensive deliberations took place at IIIT meetings in the UK
and led to a number of conclusions. It was noted that the social sciences
in general have come under severe criticism for fragmenting reality as
though the political, social, economic and psychological human being
were a different species to be studied in compartmentalized fashion.
It was also realized that the crisis of education, including Higher
Education, is not limited to Muslim societies. Higher Education in the
West is also facing a predicament – although the crisis here is of a
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 5

different nature. The former Dean of Harvard College, Harry R. Lewis,
has dealt with this in his book Excellence Without a Soul: Does Liberal
Education Have a Future? Many other concerns have been raised in
books and papers.
Another conclusion was that the overall problems of Higher Education
are epistemological and ethical in nature. The way forward requires us
to meet those challenges through the integration of knowledge – which
necessitates rethinking disciplinary identities and a new mode of
thought that would integrate Revealed knowledge with human efforts
in knowledge production. In other words, we need a new paradigm
rooted in the Qur’anic worldview and an epistemology based on the
doctrine of tawhid (the Oneness of God) and on responsibility to God,
one’s own soul, humankind, all created beings, and the natural world.
This paradigm accords importance to Revealed and human knowledge,
and recognizes the diversity and plurality of our societies, as well as
the accelerating pace of new technologies and innovations that are
transforming the world.
Following the intensive UK meetings Professor Abdelwahab El-Affendi
was requested to write a concept paper on Education Reform. The
paper he produced was commented on by Dr. Jeremy Henzell-Thomas.
Both papers were then synthesized and developed in a paper entitled
“From Islamization to Integration of Knowledge: Rethinking Reform
in Higher Education” by Professor Ziauddin Sardar. The resulting
paper was circulated for discussion at the conference on Reform of
Education in Muslim Societies organized in Turkey by IIIT jointly with
the Faculty of Theology, Istanbul University, and MAHYA, on 18
th
-
19
th
March 2016. The discussion paper is included in this publication,
in addition to three other papers. This volume represents the first
publication of the IIIT Reform of Higher Education in Muslim Societies
Project (RHEMS), and is being jointly published with The Center for
Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies.
The Reform of Education in Muslim Societies conference held in
Istanbul was structured around four major themes:
•The Nature and Characteristics of Islamic Legacy and Ethics of
Islam in Education
•Issues in Integration of Knowledge and Legacy of IIIT
•Issues and Currents in the Dominant Paradigms of Education
•The Future of Education in a Globalized World
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 6

Following the conference a number of roundtable meetings were
convened in Istanbul, Konya, Washington, London, Brussels, Cape
Town and elsewhere. The purpose was to initiate further in-depth
discussion on a number of key issues, share recommendations as well
as examples of good initiatives and practices, and ultimately chart an
effective way forward. One-to-one discussions were also convened with
university rectors, faculty deans and members in different countries.
In addition to the current abridged edition, as well as the original
unabridged edition, we are producing a publication entitled The
Postnormal Times Readeraspects of which will focus on education, to
be published in cooperation with The Centre for Postnormal Policy
and Futures Studies.
This reform project is in sum a paradigm shift in perspective driven by
important considerations including the aims of education itself. It may
require reforming existing disciplines, inventing new ones, as well as
working in conjunction with current knowledge(s) and discourses by
taking effective account of the ethical, spiritual norms of Muslim
society, the guiding principles that it operates under, which in turn
mark the underlying basis of its makeup and spiritual identity. Rather
than creating divisions, reform of Higher Education recognizes the
plurality and diversity of the modern networked world, and seeks to
replace sterile and uniform approaches to knowledge with a broader
and more creative understanding of reality as lived on different soils
and different cultures. Moderation, balance and effective communi-
cation are paramount features of the underlying philosophy.
We hope the ideas and thoughts offered in this volume will act as a
catalyst to stimulate further debate and discussion on the issues
explored. The aim is to generate refreshing, workable and practical
proposals in all areas of Higher Education that could enrich and
support the Reform of Higher Education in Muslim Societies Project.
We invite researchers and experts to join this brainstorming exercise
by submitting their ideas, critique and original contributions.
January 2018
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 7

Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 8

Mapping the Terrain
By Ziauddin Sardar
Education is at a turning point; it has reached a moment where it is
incapable of healing itself with its current conceptual, intellectual,
moral and organizational capabilities. Education is in crisis. But a crisis
does not emerge in isolation. It is a product of and connected to a host
of other crises: Crisis Economics,
1
the crisis of social democracy,
2
Crisis
of Moral Authority,
3
the environmental crisis, and the crisis of faith.
To fully appreciate the dimension of the crisis in higher education, we
need to see it as one particular node in a web of multiple, inter-
connected, crises. All of which suggests that conventional ideas we have
been relying on are broken.
Higher education is in crisis because the nation state itself is broken,
promoting and protecting national culture is no longer important for
many, and the economy of globalization means that the university is
no longer called upon to train citizen subjects. As a result, universities
are turning into corporations, and culture is being replaced with a
discourse of excellence.
The underlying argument of most of the literature on the crisis of
education is that, thanks to the rise of neoliberalism, universities have
become big businesses. Leading universities of the world now behave
as multinational corporations with global partners, joint ventures, and
liaisons with the corporate and investment banking communities. They
have been ‘deconstructed’ and now package their programs and mod-
ules to cater for a celebrity obsessed public.
4
The traditional role of
universities of acquiring, transmitting and preserving knowledge has
been eroded and replaced with the role of service providers catering to
their clients and consumers.
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 1

Increased use of advancing technologies complements the corporati-
zation of universities, as well as creating the illusion of progress.
However, ‘in a wired world, the cost per bit of information is getting
cheaper, yet the cost per useful bit is become dearer.’ An illiterate
person with computer and coding skills is still illiterate. Students
remain semi-literate even when they have acquired highly specialized
technological skills and higher degrees. This assembly line of under
educated, highly skilled, and highly credentialed graduates is expanding
at an exponential rate; and setting off more and more complex chain
reactions. Change is not just rapid but rapidly increasing. All of this
leads to one, undeniable, conclusion: institutions of higher education
are out of sync with the contemporary world and are now way past
their ‘sell by’ dates. There is an urgent ‘need to change the educational
paradigm.’
5
Rethinking Universities (or Not)
The crisis has not stopped the field of higher education from growing
and expanding. This growth has been attributed to internationalization
and globalization as two distinct trends with different consequences.
6
Internationalization has led to the growth of international cooperation,
including student and staff mobility, cooperative research, and the
diversification of curriculum. Globalization, a more complex and
‘ideologically more suspect’ process, imposes a neoliberal market
framework and undermines the authority of the state over higher
education. These trends led to cuts in government funding,
7
student
numbers and fees have increased, curriculum changes have been forced
and tenured faculty have been forced out,
8
while there is constant
pressure to introduce more and more online and distant learning
courses. This drive to expand and expedite the educational process
aimed ultimately at monetary gain has left universities in a complex
state of confusion.
This confusion is well illustrated by the EU’s ‘European Higher
Education at the Crossroads’ project. Most of the solutions offered for
moving forward are standard and derivative, however, a couple of
policy recommendations are somewhat original. First: a transformation
from course structures to academic cultures, with emphasis on both
skills and employability ‘as a response to the challenges facing Europe
within the global knowledge economy,’ and social inequality in Europe.
Second: an emphasis on foresight (also known as futures studies) as a
consequence of the changing dynamic between Europe and the world,
recognition of the economic interdependence and decisive political
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 2

action, and cultural perils of Eurocentrism.
9
However, despite an
awareness of the changing landscape and concerns for social justice,
universities are still reframed within the dominant (failing) economic
paradigm.
The overall emphasis of the Crossroads project is not too far removed
from what the World Bank and the IMF, both major investors in higher
education in Muslim and developing countries, have been advocating.
Thus, the accent has remained on monetarist economic model that
underpins the philosophy and work of the World Bank and IMF.
However, the IMF has acknowledged that the neoliberal agenda of the
past thirty years has turned universities into supermarkets catering to
venture capitalists who are interested in ‘liberal studies majors, because
the arcane art of his practice could be mastered in 30 days on the job’
and the core of traditional education is ‘being pushed progressively
over the edge and off the table, like coins in a penny arcade game.’
10
The dominance of intuitions such as the World Bank means that higher
education reform is often imposed from above rather than organically
emerged from below.
One potential path out of this impasse is to move towards interdis-
ciplinarity. America’s Arizona State University (ASU) provides us with
an example of how interdisciplinarity can be used both to redesign the
curriculum and as a philosophy of the university. Facing steep budget
cuts following the 2008 financial crisis, ASU initiated an aggressive
plan to reimagine itself. It involved ‘interdisciplinary reconfiguration’
of the university and establishing a number of innovative multidis-
ciplinary centres of excellence. A record number of joint-appointments
in Art History, Computer Science and such emerging fields as social
dynamics and complexity were made with a focus on sustainability.
This has been achieved because ASU embraces its cultural, socioeco-
nomic and physical setting; catalyses social change by being connected
to social needs; uses its knowledge and encourages innovation; creates
knowledge by transcending disciplines; connects with communities
through mutually beneficial partnerships; engages with people locally,
regionally, and internationally; commits to the success of each unique
student; and hence its research has purpose and impact. ASU does still
retain its dependence on corporate interests and the paradigm of neo-
liberalism,
11
but provides us with a stepping stone. To expand this
model onto European universities, first we must address Europe’s own
identity crisis.
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 3

The main problem for the confusion surrounding European higher
education and its reform is that we do not know what a university is
for. The modern European universities developed in three different
countries, with three different traditions, each with a different notion
of what a university is for. The German tradition, developed by
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1807), sees the university’s purpose as the
advancement of science and scholarship. Humboldt’s model focusses
on basic research; and the academics themselves govern the universities
in collegial fashion. The French Napoleonic model (1806) sees the
purpose of the university as providing knowledge and expertise needed
by the nation. The main aim of the university is the training of the
professionals who manage and run society and government. In the
model of Cardinal John Newman (1852), the British tradition sees the
university’s purpose as to provide expertise and trained professionals
to run both the nation and the Empire. The emphasis is on the
development of character and competence of individual student and
the governing structure is professional management of the university.
These traditions ‘have merged, creating tensions within European
universities, and indeed all over the world where universities operate
based on the European model.’
12
Accelerating technological change,
growing global interconnections and complexity has transformed this
lack of vision into an acute identity crisis.
We need to see and understand a university as ‘a conversation, a place
where people, who are trying to understand the world and their own
existence within the context of a common pursuit for knowledge, come
together to converse and exchange ideas.’
13
As a community actively
engaged in conversation, a university need not be physically located in
a particular place but can easily be globalized – not least with the help
of modern communication technologies. Cooperation and collabo-
ration flourishes in this international and cross-cultural conversation.
The ethical mission of the university is thus to reflect continuously and
systematically on our ideas and work for their advancement in a
rapidly changing world.
Knowledge Societies and Knowledge Production
The inadequacy of conventional ways of knowing, and the university
as a repository of knowledge, is increasingly being questioned by
Generation Z, the tech savvy cohort growing up with digital tech-
nologies.
14
These Western ways of knowing are organized into disci-
plines and departments which have become increasingly irrelevant to
the context of non-Western societies. Disciplines are like burgers and
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 4

coke: just because they are eaten and drank everywhere does not mean
they are universal and were made in heaven. Disciplines ‘do not exist
out there in some “reality” but are socially constructed and develop
and grow with specific world views and cultural milieux.’
15
The
conventional knowledge production around disciplines has been chang-
ing for some time now and is being replaced by the emergence of a
distributed knowledge production that tends to be interdisciplinary,
diffused, complex, and often has high levels of uncertainty. The
emerging realization is that higher education, learning and research
must shift toward creating new knowledge that has relevance in a
particular context, to a particular community, in a particular situa-
tion.
16
The mission of the universities must change ‘from gatekeepers
of knowledge to curators, creators, connectors, certifiers and codifiers
of knowledge.’
17
One particular approach to new knowledge is the ‘extended peer
community’ framework, which includes not just academics and experts
but also critics, activists, and lay persons. Different parties bring their
own ‘extended facts’ – that may include local knowledge, indigenous
knowledge, leaked documents, and other material not on the radar of
the experts; the end product is a polylogue that leads to a ‘democ-
ratization of expertise.’ A polylogue involves multiple and often contra-
dictory perspectives where positions and assumptions are challenged
and interrogated from different viewpoints, and a synthesis emerges
through contestation as well as appreciation of all outlooks. This
gradually makes dents and cracks in the edifice of the dominant
paradigms.
Paradigms: Old and Not Necessarily New
A change in paradigm ought to involve a change in the basic set of
beliefs, metaphysics and worldview. New methodologies within the
existing paradigms are not going to take us to a new paradigm. The
discourse on new paradigms is thus caught in a bind; it seeks to create
a new paradigm using methods based on the old paradigm, which does
not permit jettisoning of the metaphysical structure that sustains it.
When an intellectual struggle occurs between different visions within
a field which is losing legitimacy, internal and external doxa are
imposed to provide much needed legitimacy. To challenge this kind of
methodological doxa means confronting the long traditions in the field.
Researchers cannot think outside of their methods because these
methods define the reality they perceive. The nature of change itself is
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 5

daunting, perplexing and complex, and it is being driven by what
appear to be uncontrollable capitalist and technological forces.
Paradigm wars are just wars in disciplines. The old disciplines may fall
and new ones rise, or morph in an interdisciplinary fashion, but the
old paradigm remains. However, there is general consensus amongst
the reform minded scholars that the journey towards new paradigms
should take account of sustainability and transdisciplinarity, emerging
complexity, and be firmly focused towards the future.
Sustainability and Sustainable Futures
The advent of sustainability sent shockwaves throughout almost all
educational disciplines and academic fields; and sustainability, often
used synonymously with ‘sustainable development’ has now become a
‘normal’ discourse. The Brundtland Commission Report defined sus-
tainable development as meeting the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.’
18
Sustainability itself is not a new paradigm.
Sustainable development has been criticized for being subservient to
capitalism, which has led to the emergence of the new discourse of
‘sustainable futures.’
19
As the name suggests, it is more future oriented,
but it is also more grounded in ecology and ethics, and more focussed
on producing pragmatic pedagogic methods.
There is a great deal of emphasis on how ethics can be incorporated
within university courses, how priority can be given to diversity and
cultural concerns, and how a critical questioning attitude can be incul-
cated in students and professors alike. Students have to be ushered
away from the doctrinaire aspects of higher education. A sustainable-
democratic curriculum is based on ethos, consciousness, discomfort
and conversation and co-learning of students and professors in coop-
eration, collaboration and competition.
20
This is done by highlighting the importance of systems thinking – the
process of understanding how a set of interconnected or interdependent
components, influence one another – ‘collaborative academic work’
and ‘the skills of community participation and community-making’ for
students. The importance of visioning – a planning process that centres
on defining the parameters of one’s preferred future – must be
emphasized.
21
Rather than devising a step-by-step plan, visioning acts
as a tool for navigation and offers guideposts to keep one moving in
preferred directions. The overall emphasis in sustainable futures,
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 6

however, is not on breaking disciplines but working within inter- and
transdisciplinary frameworks.
Transdisciplinarity: Shaping New Paradigms
Different types of disciplinarities are illustrated in the diagram below.
Intradisciplinary research is simply working within a single discipline;
crossdisciplinary inquiry views one discipline from the perspective of
another; multidisciplinary research has ‘people from different disci-
plines working together; interdisciplinary methods aims at ‘integrating
knowledge and methods from different disciplines, using a synthesis of
approaches;’ ‘creating a unity of intellectual frameworks beyond the
disciplinary perspectives.’
22
Transdisciplinarity, seen as a method rather than paradigm is widely
regarded as a strength, if only to keep it from being reified and con-
sumed by existing modes of inquiry within higher education. Main-
taining a recalcitrant ambiguity – one that offers a cogent challenge
to business-as-usual academics – transdisciplinarity is essential for
navigating complex systems.
Complexity and Complex Systems
To begin with we ought to differentiate between what is complicated
and what is complex. A complicated system is like a knotted ball of
wool: it may take time and considerable effort, but the knots can
eventually be undone. Complex systems present us with a totally
different phenomenon. A complex system is like an intricate and
elaborate web in which everything is connected to everything else. It is
impossible to detangle the web; the more you struggle the more
entangled you become. The world itself is becoming more complex.
23
Complexity is not just an important theory. It is the way our world is
structured and now functions. In regard to knowledge and higher
Intradisciplinary Multidisciplinary Crossdisciplinary Interdisciplinary Transdisciplinary
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 7

education, complexity thrusts upon us certain insights that we cannot
afford to ignore. Complexity tells us that: our world is globalized and
interconnected; change can only be studied meaningfully in a trans-
disciplinary framework; knowledge is generated within communities
and is constantly expanding; education requires open-ended questions;
learning is all about being a certain person; and reforms in higher
education cannot be reduced to prescriptions, fixed plans and agendas.
Complexity, then, has the potential to open up new possibilities and
take us towards a new paradigm – in the real sense of radically
changing dominant sets of beliefs, conventional structures, and modes
of knowing, being and doing. But the results cannot be known in
advance. By definition, emergence cannot be predicted or predeter-
mined. However, it could lead to new elements and insights and hence
to unlimited possibilities. It is as much changing others and other things
as changing our expectations and selves.
Future and the Question of Values
Futures studies implicitly works with multiple perspectives; its basic
assumption is that there is not one but many futures. It incorporates
both complexity and transdisciplinarity as its key pillars; and aims at
pluralizing knowledge as well as the very means by which knowledge
is produced. Futures studies cannot ignore the complexity of the world,
or its continuing complexification that is always occurring. Futures
cannot be managed or controlled by predications or strategic plans,
but must remain open and subject to radical change.
‘It is absolutely essential to determine first what the futures of society
generally might be before deciding what the futures of education should
be.’ In relation to society, there are two factors to consider: what the
futures of society mightbe given the current trends; and what the
futures of society oughtto be given our hopes and aspiration. The
ought question is, of course, a question of values. We need to navigate
away from might to ought; which means we need to have a good grasp
of what values we want to project on, and a viable vision of the society
we wish to create in the future.
24
The knowledge produced by futures thinking is based not just on trends
and issues in the external world, but also connected to culture,
tradition, the world of human subjectivity, analysis of issues of power
and agency, and essentially includes a system of values and meaning
that goes beyond data and facts. Meaningful futures thinking and
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 8

research should aim to reconceptualize higher education as a human
moral enterprise that promotes equality, diversity, and social justice.
A New Awareness
In the absence of new, clearly defined paradigm of higher education, a
number of themes are clearly evident:
1.Higher Education is entangled in uncertainty, rapid technological
change, and a crisis of aims, values, and epistemology.
2.Attempts to rethink universities do not amount to much.
3.Alternatively, we should think of universities as moral and intel-
lectual entities independent of political and economic authority.
4.The modes of knowledge production are changing.
5.Our globalized world is becoming more interconnected and com-
plex, to remain relevant, higher education needs a greater awareness
of complex and unknowable possibilities.
6.No one discipline can resolve, let alone study, complex problems
and issues.
7.Complex subjects require complex and collaborative approaches.
8.The world is becoming less and less sustainable; and education
must embrace sustainability.
9.Futures Studies must be incorporated into higher education exam-
ining current knowledge as well as creatively navigating towards
new and alternative ways of producing and transmitting knowledge.
10.Many of our assumptions about the aims of higher education,
curriculum development, learning, knowledge production, the
function of universities, employment opportunities for graduates,
and career paths, though may not be necessarily wrong, have now
become irrelevant.
We can contribute to the emergence of new paradigms as well as play
an active part in shaping them. However, this cannot be achieved
through a single megaproject. It requires a reiterative process that
constantly adjusts to rapidly changing circumstances. The map is not
the territory. There are innovative discourses, new transdisciplinary
modes of inquiry, fresh understanding of how new knowledge is
produced in a complex, uncertain, networked, globalized world, and
not-so-emerging paradigms in a state of gestation. But the terrain of
reform in higher education and shaping of new paradigms is wide open.
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 9

1
Roubini, Nouriel, and Stephen Mihm. 2011. Crisis Economics: A Crash Course
in the Future of Finance. Penguin.
2
Keating, Michael, and David McCrone. 2013. The Crisis of Social Democracy
in Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
3
Cupitt, Don. 2012. Crisis of Moral Authority. New edition. SCM Press.
4
Abeles, Tom P. 2001. “Rethinking the University.” Foresight 3 (6): 563-68.
doi:10.1108/14636680110420486.
5
Tomozii, Simona Elena, and Ioana Topală. 2014. “Why Do We Need to
Change the Educational Paradigms?” Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences
142 (August): 586-91. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.07.670.
6
Enders, Jürgen, and Oliver Fulton, eds. 2002. Higher Education in a Global-
ising World: International Trends and Mutual Observations: A Festschrift in
Honour of Ulrich Teichler. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
7
Olif, Phil, Vincent Palacios, Igrid Johnson, and Michael Leachman. 2013.
“Recent Deep State Higher Education Cuts May Harm Students and the
Economy for Years to Come |Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.” March
19. http://www.cbpp.org/research/recent-deep-state-higher-education-cuts-
may-harm-students-and-the-economy-for-years-to-come.
8
Flaherty, Colleen. 2014. “Faculty members at Upper Iowa U. say they lost jobs
for questioning curricular changes.” July 22. https://www.insidehighered.
com/news/2014/07/22/faculty-members-upper-iowa-u-say-they-lost-jobs-
questioning-curricular-changes.
9
Curaj, Adrian, Luke Georghiou, Jennifer Cassingena Harper, and Eva Egron-
Polak, eds. 2015. Mergers and Alliances in Higher Education. Switzerland:
Springer International Publishing. http://www.springer.com/gb/book/978331
9131344.
10
Abeles, Tom P. 2001. “Rethinking the University.” Foresight 3 (6): 563-68.
doi:10.1108/14636680110420486.
11
Crow, Michael M., and William B. Dabars. 2015. Designing the New Amer-
ican University. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.
12
Skú|lason, Páll. 2015. A Critique of Universities: Reflections on the status and
direction of the modern university. Reykjavík: University of Iceland Press.
13
Ibid.
14
White, Tom. 2016. “Generation Z – Why We Need to Future-Proof
Universities – University World News.” University World News. June 10.
Notes
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http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2016052514252692.
15
Sardar, Ziauddin. 1997. ‘Beyond Development: An Islamic Perspective’ in
Vincent Tucker (editor), Cultural Perspectives on Development, Frank Cass,
London.
16
Moravec, John W. 2013. “Knowmad Society: The ‘new’ Work and Edu-
cation.” Edited by John Moravec. On the Horizon 21 (2): 79-83.
doi:10.1108/10748121311322978.
17
Wolfe, Julianne K., and David W. Andrews. 2014. “The Changing Roles of
Higher Education: Curator, Evaluator, Connector and Analyst.” On the
Horizon22 (3): 210-17. doi:10.1108/OTH-05-2014-0019.
18
Brundtland, Gro Harlem. 1987. “Our Common Future: Report of the World
Commission on Environment and Development.” United Nations. http://
conspect.nl/pdf/Our_Common_Future-Brundtland_Report_1987.pdf.
19
Tonn, Bruce E. 2007. “Futures Sustainability.” Futures39 (9): 1097-1116.
doi:10.1016/j.futures.2007.03.018. Conway, Maree. 2012. “Sustainble
Futures: What Higher Education Has to Offer.” Social Alternatives 31 (4): 35-
40. Su, Ya-Hui, Li-Yia Feng, Chao-Chin Yang, and Tzu-Ling Chen. 2012.
“How Teachers Support University Students’ Lifelong Learning Development
for Sustainable Futures: The Student’s Perspective.” Futures44 (2): 158-65.
doi:10.1016/j.futures.2011.09.008. Kempen, Elizabeth. 2014. “Special Issue
on Sustainable Futures: Editorial.” International Journal of Consumer Studies
38 (5): 443-443. doi:10.1111/ijcs.12132.
20
Kiel, L. Douglas, and Euel W. Elliott, eds. 1997. Chaos Theory in the Social
Sciences: Foundations and Applications. Revised edition. University of Michi-
gan Press.
21
Wheeler, Keith A., and Anne Perraca Bijur, eds. 2000. Education for a
Sustainable Future: A Paradigm of Hope for the 21st Century. Innovations in
Science Education and Technology. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Publishers.
22
Jensenius, Alexander Refsum. 2012. “Disciplinarities: Intra, Cross, Multi, Inter,
Trans.” ARJ. March 12. http://www.arj.no/2012/03/12/disciplinarities-2/.
23
Dilger, Alexander. 2012. “Endogenous Complexity, Specialisation and General
Education.” On the Horizon. 20 (1): 49-53.
24
Dator, James A., ed. 2002. Advancing Futures: Futures Studies in Higher
Education. Praeger Studies on the 21st Century. Westport, Conn: Praeger.
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From Islamization to Integration of Knowledge
By Ziauddin Sardar
It is through education that a nation, a society, or a civilization, con-
sciously passes on the accumulated skills, knowledge and wisdom of
the past to future generations. Education not only preserves the cultural
identity and historical legacy of a society but ensures its survival as a
distinct entity. A society without its own sophisticated education
system, designed to preserve and transmit the values and cultural traits
that ensure its survival, will either be colonized or lose the distinct
elements of its worldview. Both the individual and society suffer from
the absence of appropriate educational institutions. The individual is
denied the social instrument through which a positive sense of religious
values and cultural identity can be developed. The society is deprived
of its human capital with the result that almost all spheres – from
values and skills to governance, law, commerce, finance, industry and
cultural production – go into irreparable decline.
Even if Muslim societies have values to share, without a thriving
education system it ‘does not have much knowledge to share.’ This is
‘the crisis’ that has confronted Muslim societies since the seventeenth
century onwards when ‘almost all the knowledge Muslims possessed
became worthless overnight in terms of worldly value.’
1
So we need to
balance the other side of the equation: ‘we need to admit that our
spiritual values cannot survive without the power to protect our
societies from subjugation.’
Revisiting Histories
Our concerns and criticism about knowledge and education are not
too far removed from those that led Ismail Raji al Faruqi and the
International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) to embark on the
‘Islamization of Knowledge’ project. Al Faruqi and his colleagues
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understood that the modern education system, transferred and imposed
wholesale from the West complete with its basic assumptions and
dogmatic conceptions, was corrosive to the value system of Muslim
societies. Westernized universities in Muslim countries tend to exem-
plify middle-class Western culture, and the norms and values that go
with it. The education they provide either overlooks or undermines the
spiritual development of the individual as well as emphasize the
material aspect of education at all levels.
The most obvious thing that jumps out of the pages of Al Faruqi’s
Islamization of Knowledge: General Principles and Work Plan
(hitherto referred as Work Plan) is its pain and anger. There is an all
too evident acute agony at the plight of the Muslims: ‘the centuries of
decline have caused illiteracy, ignorance and superstition to spread
among Muslims.’ The anger is largely directed towards the West: it has
‘successfully fragmented the ummah;’ imposed, both by force and
persuasion, ‘a secular system of education’ that has undermined ‘the
very foundations of the faith and culture’ of Muslim societies; and
through ‘a well-thought out and well-planned strategy’ ensured that
‘the Islamic components of the curriculum remain out of touch with
reality and modernity.’
However, there is something that is explicitly stated: ‘first principles
of Islamic methodology.’ I would suggest that it is not so much an overt
methodology but the basic axioms of the worldview of Islam. Starting
from the Unity of Allah, ‘the first principle of Islam and of everything
Islamic,’ the Work Plansystematically leads us to the unity of creation
(cosmic order, and the interconnection of everything), the unity of
knowledge, unity of life (human existence is an amanahfrom God, and
human beings are trustees, or khalifah, of the abode of our terrestrial
journey), unity of humanity, and finally the complementary nature of
revelation and reason. Collectively, these axioms offer us an excellent
framework both for the pursuit of knowledge and for the reform of
Muslim education.
The Work Planproposes that we start by mastering contemporary
disciplines of social sciences and the legacy of Islam and infuse the
two. Muslim scholars must, it states, integrate the new (Western)
‘knowledge into the corpus of the Islamic legacy by eliminating,
amending, reinterpreting, and adapting its component as the worldview
of Islam and its values dictate. This is where the Work Planbecomes
problematic.
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The Work Planreveals a lack of awareness about how knowledge is
produced in contemporary society, how disciplines have evolved and
the functions they perform, and about the relationship between
knowledge and worldview. One must also note the tendency amongst
certain traditional and conservative Muslims to see Islamic history,
particularly the formative phase of Islam, as offering neat and complete
solutions to all our ills. Our historic legacy ‘consists of contradictions
and radical alternatives,’ and deserves to be appreciated as ‘a record
of thinking about human experience’ in a particular time and context.
Our future direction of travel thus involves basing our analysis on the
first principle of the Work Plan, the creative use of our intellectual
history, and a much more advanced understanding of how knowledge
is produced, maintained and used in contemporary society.
The Fabric of Knowledge
Knowledge and worldview are intimately related. Knowledge is always
embedded within the axioms and assumptions of the culture and
worldview within which it is produced. The structure of ‘modern
knowledge,’ and its divisions into various disciplines, is a direct product
of the Western worldview. The idea that reality is compartmentalized
is not based on some objective and universal axiom; rather, it is a
construction designed according to how a particular culture sees
‘reality’ and how it seeks to understand, manage, control and subjugate
all that is ‘out there.’ Disciplines developed and evolved to solve the
particular physical, material, mental and intellectual problems of
Western society and tradition. Whatever the discipline, the overall
narrative was the same: to perpetuate the worldview of the West.
There are three other aspects of academic disciplines that we need to
appreciate. First, they discipline, that is punish and correct knowledge.
Second, they colonize the future. Third, they provide the West with its
ultimate power, the power to define. The West defines what is freedom
and progress; law, democracy, and human rights; what is real and what
it means to be human. To reform education is to strike at the very
pillars of power and definition in the contemporary world.
The task of reforming education in Muslim societies is thus much more
profound then we have hitherto imagined. It has two basic compo-
nents: to deconstruct the definitional power of the modern knowledge
system and its Western worldview; and to produce alternative
paradigms of knowledge formation, that take into account the Islamic
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tradition and offer a more humane and value based appreciation of
what constitutes learning and its advancement. The need for new
paradigms is not simply a Muslim concern. Indeed, a growing number
of scholars, West and East, are now questioning the dominant par-
adigms and calling for more humane paradigms. Changes in the
contemporary context, and the accelerating pace of new technologies
and innovations, have given urgency to these demands.
The Contemporary Context
Reform, by its very nature, is a future oriented exercise. But it begins
in the present; without appreciating the context within which we live
and operate meaningful reform is not possible. The old paradigm of
America leading the world is being undermined as power shifts to
China, India, Brazil and a re-emergent Russia. Serious cracks are begin-
ning to emerge in academic disciplines themselves, for centuries a
bastion of stability. So the crisis, in all its social, cultural and intel-
lectual dimension, we face is not limited to Muslim societies. The West,
indeed the globe, is also in a state of acute crisis.
Elsewhere, I have described the current turbulent and changing times
– focused on complexity, contradictions and chaos (the 3Cs) – as
‘postnormal times.’ The function of the theory is to emphasize that
normal paradigms that have so far guided the West and the rest are
collapsing. Postnormal times approach underlines the interconnection
of everything (‘the unity of creation’), the multi-dimensional political,
economic, ecological, social and cultural challenges confronting us all,
East and West (‘unity of humanity’); and the fact that we are all living
interdependent lives on the earth (‘unity of life’). So the first principles
turn out to be essential both for navigating postnormal times and
for the future survival of all humanity. Any attempt at knowledge
production that begins with these axioms, even though they are rooted
in Islamic thought and worldview, is intrinsically universal.
The Question of Language
Language is the basic tool through which we learn, teach, adapt to
change and advance knowledge. It is an inseparable part of how we
articulate our worldview, how we conceive ourselves as individuals and
societies, and engage with the world to change it. Yet, language is full
of ambiguity and a fertile ground for misinterpretation or misunder-
standing. Language, like culture, has a history, layered like a vast
archaeological site, the repository of acquired meaning. We thus need
to be precise in our use of language.
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Our first task in moving forward towards new paradigms is the
development of ‘a balance and nuanced terminology based on different
levels of description,’ which is ‘a key means in itself of resolving facile
dichotomies.’ The terms we use come wrapped with their particular
histories, have positive and negative connotations, and are thus
problematic. The overall aim here is to guard against ideological
constructions of Islam as well as absolute relativism promoted so
eagerly in postmodernist thought – moving towards plurality. Many
terms require this analysis to insure this goal.
In perceiving our context and developing our lingua franca of reform
we need to also resolve the fundamental dichotomies which consis-
tently and persistently confront us such as tradition and modernity,
text and context, stability and dynamism. These contradictions have
societies at an impasse. Contradictions, which often emerge in complex
systems, are by definition opposing, irreconcilable views, which cannot
be resolved: they can only be transcended.
Muslims often assume that they face unique contradictions and create
research programmes and institutions that are exclusively suited for
Muslims. This is a truncated approach to a complex, interconnected
world. The contradictory problems of religion and secularism, as well
as ethical and technological issues, that we witness in the West are also
problems of Muslim societies. Thus, the major moral, ethical, political,
social, scientific, technological and cultural challenges facing the world
have to be an integral part of a programme of reform.
But to be truly inclusive we need to involve all potential stakeholders
in our discussions. This means we have to consciously bring people of
different backgrounds, ages, genders, sects, and perspectives into our
meetings – and then provide them enough space to state their view-
points. We must nurture the young through a direct understanding of
their needs, anxieties and aspirations. The lack of such respect and
engagement with young voices is surely one of the main reasons for
many of the problems besetting Muslim societies. Instructing the global
youth in this new language, contextualized and future oriented, will
boost our efforts and the overall mission of developing a new paradigm
for the Integration of Knowledge.
Moving Forward
Our goal is to create a new paradigm, based on the first principles,
where knowledge, creation, life and humanity are perceived as integrated
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within a universal framework. As such, we must realize that the way
forward is a new mode of consciousness which is integrative and
inclusive and involves embracing the Other. We aim to initiate a
process that will usher a revival of thought and spirit of inquiry in
Muslim societies, shifted away from a politics of identity towards
aspirational values, encourage engagement with the contemporary
world with all its complexity and contradictions, and create an
informed citizenry fully equipped to take leadership roles in the modern
world.
A more holistic picture emerges when we combine what we wish to
achieve with what we need to achieve it. In essence, what we are saying
is that the world is not just there to be talked about; it has to be
brought into being. We are thus aiming to create a new set of dis-
courses: a system of knowledge, new paradigms, concepts, termi-
nology, canons, statements that have meaning for us, through which
we deconstruct power and ideologies and engage and change the world.
I propose we start with a network of discourse community which we
build from the ground upwards. As the network – the community –
come together and develops, it will produce new knowledge, and the
new knowledge will feed into the discourse and propel it. First, we need
to begin with values, which mean we have to ‘re-open the questions
raised first in theology (kalam) in reaction to the challenge of
rationalism in the history of Islamic thought.’ Second, we need to
deconstruct the definitional power of the modern knowledge system
and examine the current paradigm of knowledge and education in
Muslim societies with the aim of producing alternative paradigms of
knowledge formation. The goal is to produce alternatives that are more
inclusive and humane but also rooted in both the intellectual history
and tradition of Islam. Third, we need to see our heritage in all its
sophisticated diversity. We need to see the Muslim civilization as a
human civilization. We need a group of scholars, including of Islam
and Islamic history but also historians and philosophers of science and
technology, artists and novelists as well as literary critics and art
historians, to produce a more coherent and integrated picture of our
legacy as human achievements. Fourth, we need a group of sociologists,
critics and futurists to work on contemporary trends – how they are
affecting Muslim societies, changing social, economic and cultural
behaviour, and creating desires and aspirations – and explore their
impact on future generations of Muslims. Meaningful work of reform
can only be done with an eye to the future.
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1
Quotations from Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Abdulkader Tayob, Abdulaziz
Sachedina and Anwar Ibrahim are taken from their contributions to 8 October
2014 IIIT meetings on ‘Reform in Higher Education:’ Abdelwahab El-Affendi,
‘The Reconfiguration of Muslim Higher Education: Some Points for
Reflection;’ Abdulkader Tayob, ‘Identity and Islamic Educational Reform,’
Abdulaziz Sachedina, ‘Reform of Education in the Muslim World;’ and Anwar
Ibrahim, ‘Reflections on Abdelwahab El-Affendi’s “The Reconfiguration of
Muslim Higher Education: Some Points for Reflection” and Jeremy Henzell-
Thomas’s Comments.’ Citations from Jeremy Henzell-Thomas are from his
extensive email comments.
Notes
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The Integration We Seek
By Jeremy Henzell-Thomas
The natural tendency in Western culture is to warn, help, teach, instruct
and improve instead of allowing learning from experience. Perhaps the
modern world needs more of the skills so prized by the Native
American – running, living in the woods, and survival. These along
with such skills as counselling were needed for the preservation of their
culture and also of high demand to the contemporary world, so fraught
with mental health problems.
1
A balance of these styles can provide us
with a view of the new vista that I desire.
The concepts which guide us towards this new vista of integrated
knowledge need to be both a broad panoramic vision, seeing on all
sides and far into the distance, and a depth of field which gives us sharp
focus when we need it. To do so, we need, above all, to understand that
there are different though complementary levels of description in a
multi-layered and multi-faceted reality where the diversity of forms is
infinite and ever-changing, but which, nevertheless, has an origin and
a centre, an immutable essence which is the source of everything and
where all diversity and multiplicity find ultimate unity and reconcil-
iation.
To encompass this unity in diversity within the field of education, we
need to critically examine the massive impediment caused by the
human tendency to divide reality into competing, mutually exclusive
ideas, approaches, and paradigms of thought which generate and
sustain adversarial positions.
I suggest that binary thinking and dichotomization are embedded in us
as one of the chief features of the simple ‘narrative’ which gives us the
means to judge and act quickly and decisively. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ is a
powerful call to incite action, judgement, and hostility. By contrast,
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the armchair philosopher who scrutinizes the logical minutiae of every
proposition and agonizes over every minor dissonance and nuance may
never get out of his chair. This paralysis of indecision is of course the
extreme of one end of the spectrum, just as the conditioned reflex of
the instant opinion or ingrained prejudice lies at the other extreme,
reflecting as it does our propensity for the ‘narrative fallacy,’ the simple
story that makes comforting sense of an increasingly complex world.
We are vulnerable to rapid thinking, and the dichotomization which is
so often a key feature of such thinking can so easily tend to the norm
and become habitual and mainstream.
A brief reflection on some of the terms inherent to our narrative can
equip our minds for the task of balancing concepts and of navigating
towards an integrated knowledge. Dichotomization and dialectic, for
instance stand on different ends of the continuum of the great dis-
cussion before us. On one end, dichotomy creates opposition and
alienation, and on the other dialectic brings the two distinctions
together advancing the debate within logical and openly relational
parameters. A synthesizing polylogue ideally can result. Cultural
relativism can also be seen in this continuum. Instead of solely being
the buzz word of moral laxity, it can also gradate from an ‘anything
goes’ mentality to the more positive ability to form ‘relationship.’ The
placing of such diametrically opposed definitions in this continuum
allows for a polylogue to occur recognizing all viewpoints on various
issues, including but not limited to multiculturalism and the trouble-
some term modernity.
It is precisely by recognizing and understanding the condition of the
world at this particular time that we can meet the challenge of religious
and cultural pluralism. To understand that human minds are condi-
tioned differently in each age, and that tradition must be dynamically
self-renewing and responsive to new conditions and new questions if
it is to remain a living tradition. In other words, time, place and people
cannot be ignored in the development of human understanding.
The Circumference of Integration
To advance the development of human understanding clear distinctions
in the use of terminology is needed. I introduced the phrase ‘integral
perspective’ in considering how we might transform apparent oppo-
sition into complementarity and I would like to take the term ‘integral’
(and its relations ‘integration’ and ‘integrity’) as the key pointers to the
new vista we need to open up.
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Jean Gebser believed that humanity is at the stage of transition from
the ‘Mental’ to the ‘Integral’ structure of consciousness. He described
the deficient form of the ‘Mental’ structure as the value-free ontology
of rational materialism, but this structure could not be renewed
through a return to ‘values;’ rather, a transition was needed to an
‘Integral’ mode of consciousness which was not fixated on dualistically
opposed categories, one-sided perspectives, fixed frames, and com-
peting paradigms.
2
Yet, the convergence between the dialectical process
as an advanced mode of human thought and the idea of an emerging
integral mode of consciousness is only partial. The question remains
as to the way in which any putative emerging ‘integral’ mode of
consciousness can carry further the degree of synthesis which can be
attained through a methodology based largely on analytical tools.
Beyond Dichotomies
How can we expand our view beyond the dichotomy of seeing either
‘Westernization’ or ‘Islamization’ as a panacea? How can we go
beyond the ‘lame-duck’ mentality which frames the answer only in
terms of ‘catching up’ with Western models of knowledge production
and all other factors which seem to ensure the dominance of Western
universities? Ultimately, how can we create an educational culture for
all humanity?
We need to have the humility to realize that we can indeed reclaim and
revive forgotten or stagnant aspects of Islamic tradition through
dynamic contact with other intellectual and pedagogic traditions which
have partially carried the underlying Qur’anic spirit of inquiry into the
modern age. But this ‘reclamation’ must be a truly creative process,
and not the tedious harking back to the achievements of the golden age
of Islamic civilization. It must examine how the values and principles
which gave rise to such a civilization can be renewed, re-interpreted
and applied in the contemporary world.
‘We have made you into nations and tribes so that you may come to
know one another,’ says the Qur’an. And it is that saving grace of
‘relationship’ which is, for me, the heart of the matter. As we reach for
an integral perspective, whether we conceive of it as an emerging
consciousness, a shift to a new ‘mental structure,’ or simply as a new
paradigm, we need to see that this requires the totality of human
faculties, ‘the hearing, sight and hearts.’
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The Holistic University
How then can we extend the function of a university as a ‘critical
institution?’ To include not just conventional analytical tools of
rationality or ‘critical thinking’ but capacities and virtues such as
intellectual insight, the imagination, inquisitiveness, risk-taking, social
responsibility and the struggle for justice as well as the liberation of
the human mind and spirit, the search for deeper meaning and purpose,
and a vision of what it means to be a human being. Let us add
creativity, independent thinking, and that expansiveness and receptivity
of the open heart and mind which can listen as well as talk and reaches
out to the ‘other’ not only through dialogue and discussion, but also
through transforming love.
I deliberately include the ‘heart and mind’ in my approach to the
extended range of faculties (and hence a truly integral perspective)
because it is the composite organ of ‘mind-heart’ (fu’ad) which is
indicated by those Qur’anic verses which exhort us to be grateful for
the faculties with which we have been endowed. The intellectual and
spiritual element of knowledge converges usefully with modern advances
in the field of cognitive psychology which question the conventional
reduction of human intelligence to a single unitary or a factor for
‘general intelligence’ and point instead to ‘multiple intelligences.’ The
combination of knowledge and understanding, and of emotional, social
and moral intelligence, is also traditionally suggested by the term
‘wisdom’ and is manifested in ‘personal integrity, conscience and
effective behaviour.’
3
In reclaiming its higher purposes from corporatization or any other
corruption in ideals, higher education might embrace some of those
advanced critical faculties and socially responsible virtues. A good
teacher should be not only be a mu’allim, a transmitter of knowledge
but also a murabbi, a nurturer of souls and developer of character.
But let us return to the vista we might hope to reach through educa-
tional reform founded on integration of knowledge, values, and the
transforming power of relationship. Rumi’s appreciation of both unity
and multiplicity in the world, and his profound perception that ‘the
road to the self passes through the other,’
4
opens a path to modern
educational reform which can transcend the attachment to distinction
and difference. Attachment to dichotomization is only too evident in
the dispositions of anti-Western ‘rejectionism’ and the ‘bifurcation’
which led to the disconnection between religious and secular education,
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but it is also present in the ‘Islamization’ movement. Though ostensibly
‘integrationist,’ this ‘takes one step in the direction of universality and
unity’ only to ‘retreat as quickly with another step towards distinction
and difference.’ The approach of Islamization might be characterized
as a false dawn which purports to lead to integration but which
ultimately focuses only on the self and does not learn any of Rumi’s
lessons. Islamization’s unintended cultivation of fear in the other has
led to extreme global xenophobic expression.
Both these insights are immensely valuable, and one way to move
towards a resolution of any seeming contradictions is to take ‘radical’
in its sense of relating to the ‘root’ or origin, and not in its later
subsidiary sense as referring to political activism or innovative reform
and change. It is only too evident how terminological entropy has
further truncated the term in its sense of ‘radicalization’ applied to
extremists. In the same way we might refer to the root of the word
‘identity.’ Its original sense is best preserved in its derivative ‘identical’
which reflects the meaning of Latin identitas, literally ‘sameness,’
derived from Latin idem, ‘same.’ There is a common ‘identity’ in all
human beings residing in the essential nature with which we have been
divinely endowed.
In all of these semantic excavations, we might discern a primordial
language which articulates the fundamental unity and interconnection
at the root of everything that exists. That ‘radical unity’ in its deepest
sense must be at the heart of the radical educational reform needed in
all societies. Rooted in living relationship between the ‘self and the
other,’ our diverse identities, orientations and values find a common
origin and centre which dissolves the rigid oppositions erected by
dualism. Now, we ‘move forward’ with ‘Integration of Knowledge’ but
also with that panoramic integral perspective which can only be
encompassed by the totality of human faculties.
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 23

1
Peat, F. David. 1994. Blackfoot Physics: A Journey into the Native American
Worldview(London: Fourth Estate), 57.
2
Jean Gebser’s description of structural changes in human consciousness is set
out in his The Ever-Present Origin, authorized translation by Noel Barstad
with Algis Mickunas (Athens: University of Ohio Press, 1985).
3
Crow, Karim Douglas. 1999. ‘Between Wisdom and Reason: Aspects of ‘Aql
(Mind-Cognition) in Early Islam,’ Islamica, 3:1.
4
For Jalaluddin Rumi’s distinction between the two types of intelligence, see
MathnawiIII, 2527-2528 and IV, 1960-1968. On ‘d-mode’ and ‘practical
intelligence,’ see Guy Claxton, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind: Why Intelligence
Increases When you Think Less(London: Fourth Estate, 1997).
Notes
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 24

Towards a Language of Integration
By Jeremy Henzell-Thomas
I am sure most of us know some version of the Biblical story of the
Tower of Babel and even those of us who do not may be familiar with
the metaphorical application of the word ‘Babel’ to denote a confused
medley of sounds or the din of mutually incomprehensible speech. The
Qur’an, however, does not support the idea that the diversity of
languages and races is a punishment, a fall from monolithic identity
and monolingual and monocultural purity and cohesion. On the con-
trary, it divinely ordains unity in diversity, not only in terms of culture,
language and race, but also in religion.
Religious diversity is a normal human situation. It is the consequence
of the diversity of human cultures, languages, races and different
environments. ‘Revelation is always an accommodation to the capacity
of man. No two minds are alike, just as no two faces are alike. The
voice of God reaches the spirit of man in a variety of ways, in a
multiplicity of languages. One truth comes to expression in many ways
of understanding.’
1
The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said:
‘The diversity of my people is a blessing.’
The Expanding Horizons of Human Knowledge
The golden opportunity for the advancement of knowledge and
understanding bestowed by diversity is also implied in the symbolism
of the Pen in the Qur’an. ‘We are created with the capacity to be
knowledgeable beings with the ability to learn. Learning and knowl-
edge are by their very nature cumulative, so I take it as axiomatic
that we have the potential as well as the responsibility to progress in
understanding.’
2
And this process of growing awareness is suggested in the Qur’anic
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 25

verse ‘We will show them Our signs in the furthest horizons of the
universe and within their own souls so that it will become clear to them
that this revelation is indeed the Truth.’ (41:53) This verse indicates ‘a
progressive deepening and widening of man’s insight into the wonders
of the universe as well as a deeper understanding of his own psyche.’
3
That such deepening understanding can only come after a period of
growth and maturation of consciousness.
A crucial driver of the advancement of knowledge and the maturation
of consciousness is the process of dialectic. Dichotomous or binary
thinking is often marshalled to divide reality by adopting a polarized
and oppositional posture which rejects the ‘other’ and can find no
commonality or convergence between competing positions. Dialectic
is the talking and thinking process which emerges from an under-
standing that all human knowledge is provisional. Through it, one
seeks to refine an existing hypothesis or position and advance
knowledge and civilization through critical engagement with a range
of evidence and a plurality of alternative views, arguments, perspective
and paradigms of thought, and through open and respectful dialogue
and polylogue with a wider community of interlocutors.
Timothy Williamson’s book, Tetralogue, has the subtitle ‘I’m Right;
You’re Wrong.’ Modelled on the tradition of Socratic dialogue, it is an
extended discussion between four people on a train. Each of them starts
off convinced that he or she is right, but as the conversation develops,
ranging from cool logical reasoning to heated personal confrontation,
they all come to realize that they need to reframe what they think about
certain key concepts.
4
And in relation to this active process of moving
beyond fixations on ‘right answers,’ we might take on board the insight
that a genuine higher learning is ‘unsettling’ in the sense of ‘subverting
the student’s taken-for-granted world,’ and ‘disturbing because,
ultimately, the student comes to see that things could always be other
than they are. A higher education experience is not complete unless the
student realizes that, no matter how much effort is put in, or how much
library research, there are no final answers.’
5
Recent research has revealed that group discussion confers the remark-
able and almost mysterious power to detect falsehood and ‘sniff out
what is authentic.’ In fact, people in a group are ‘more likely to identify
lies than even the best trained individual.’
6
In other words, it could be
said that polylogue activates the discriminating faculty, that criterion
or standard which enables us to distinguish truth from falsehood.
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 26

This raises some difficult questions, not least what is meant by the
word ‘authentic.’ The tetralogue between the travellers on the train
does not come to any conclusions about who is right and who is wrong,
but leaves it up to the reader to decide. The direction of travel powered
by dialectic is towards a destination which can be labelled as ‘truth,’
and which has the stamp of ‘authenticity.’
7
One of the main issues before us is ‘the obvious tension between the
difficulty of pinning down what is supposedly “authentic” and being
as true as possible to the “original essence” of things.’ It raises a critical
question we need to address in our exploration of terminology. How
can we resolve the potential dichotomy between what is ‘original,’
‘authentic’ and ‘authoritative,’ and what is open to interpretation and
contextualization? How can we accommodate in the language we use
both the divine and the human, revelation and reason, unity and mul-
tiplicity, what is ‘complete’ and ‘incomplete,’ ‘certain’ and ‘uncertain’?
Language is at the root of so much of what we think and do, and
absolutely germane to the higher ethical and spiritual dimension of our
endeavours. From an Islamic perspective, letters and words are the very
substance of the created universe. It is therefore a sacred trust to use
words which are fair, fitting, balanced, equitable and just, words which
are ‘in due measure and proportion.’ The divine gift of language, allied
to free will, has given us a stick with two ends; it can either veil, ob-
scure, confuse, deceive, corrupt, and incite to harm, or it can clarify,
enlighten, and inspire to do what is right and good.
In trying to express the inexpressible, the language of the mystics may
be profoundly subtle, abstruse and even impenetrable, but we should
not shy away from the tension between essence and form. It mirrors
too the critical questions raised earlier: how to resolve the potential
dichotomy between what is ‘original,’ ‘essential,’ ‘authentic’ and
‘authoritative’? Meeting this challenge is integral to our intention to
find what might best be described as a seminal language to activate,
shape and drive forward a new and dynamic discourse on the
integration of knowledge for the revitalization of education in Muslim
societies.
How do we adhere to a principled compass in our quest for knowledge
which avoids the peril of chronic rootlessness and disorientation and
yet also steers us away from the fixity and aridity of the false certainty
bestowed by the closed mind in its narrow understanding of the closed
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 27

book? Either way leads to shipwreck. If the former is a whirlpool of
relativism which gives us no foothold, the latter is the crushing rock of
authoritarian dogma and ‘scripturalism,’ the study of texts subject to
human interpretation yet cast in stone and divorced from context and
circumstance, shackling us to unbending formalisms and rigid conser-
vatism, to disputes about the law, its interdictions, prescriptions,
rulings, prohibitions and taboos, and ultimately the reduction of Islam
to the details which has been likened to looking at Islam through the
wrong end of opera glasses.
By looking both forwards and backwards, we hold to that paradox
which protects us from capitulating either to a fundamentalism stripped
of humanity or a progressivism emptied of the sacred.
The role of discourse is central to shaping our understanding of the
world. ‘A discourse is a strongly bounded area of social and cultural
knowledge, a system of assumptions, statements, disciplines and ideas.
It is through discourses that the world is brought into being.”
8
If the
strategic action of discourse is dependent to some extent on the
psychological disposition of the audience, this is also a reciprocal
process in that the psychological disposition is itself conditioned by the
discourse. Thoughts and feelings are created and reinforced by dis-
course, as much as discourse is used to express them.
Disentangling Muddled Terminology
Francis Bacon appealed for a radical move away from the scholastic
tradition imprisoned by arguments and reliance on authority. To do
so we must reconnect knowledge with action for ‘the use and benefit
of man’ by purging the mind of prejudice, conditioning, false notions,
and unquestioned authority – those fixations which he called the ‘idols
of the human mind’ and which distort and discolour the true nature of
things and rely instead on direct experience, perception, observation,
and ‘true induction’ as methods of gaining sound knowledge. We can
clearly see one of the foundational concepts of critical discourse
analysis within the wider field of cultural studies – the way that text is
instrumental in creating and sustaining power relationships.
As new meanings and implications of language are being developed
there is no inflexible law decreeing that old implications, associations
or evocative import disappear. To disentangle this muddle, and set a
navigable course which can begin to meet our objectives, we need to
start from the guiding premise that ‘language is the basic tool through
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 28

which we learn, teach, adapt to change and advance knowledge….’ We
therefore need to define a set of key terms ‘in our own specific way,
give them a contemporary meaning, and incorporate them within the
Integration of Knowledge discourse….’
Our orientation must begin with definition. Paradoxically, the words
used in any definition must in turn be defined, an unending process
which can never generate an exact understanding of the meaning of
the words.Yes, the ‘letter’ can be a source of confusion and distraction,
misinterpretation and misunderstanding,’ but this is precisely why we
need a glossary which provides orientation and balance in the way we
navigate concepts, the building blocks of the Integration of Knowledge
discourse. Three terms – orientation, balance and integration – provide,
I believe, the essential matrix for our endeavour.
In this integration towards a new paradigm, we must not shy away
from the belief that we are also engaged in the pursuit of ‘truth;’ and
we must follow the Middle Way in our pursuit of truth. It is the Golden
Mean, an aspect of the ‘due measure and proportion’ with which
everything is created. So the most fitting use of words in any language
needs to be based on a creative geometry of concepts. And this is a
matter of ‘justice’ in its deepest sense in the same way as the deepest
sense of ‘beauty’ in Arabic (husn) combines both beauty and moral
excellence.
An integrative approach to a glossary of terms needs to include the
recognition of what is best in every culture and civilization. As such it
might also be regarded as including the reclamation of a ‘primordial’
language of universal concepts which permeate all human languages.
In reclaiming the lost, we must remain cognisant of the evolution of
these terms, and be creative at how we look towards the future.
Excavating the Best Meanings
English, having a dual linguistic heritage, allows for important
differences to exist between words which may be used interchangeably
but have very different meanings based on their contextual usage and
origin. Freedom and Liberty are two such words that come about from
very different origins but have developed, over time to be readily used
interchangeably in contemporary speech. Language evolves organically
over time and cannot be radically changed on demand. Language is a
process and a process must be followed to change or reclaim it. A
conceptual richness emerges from the understanding that English is
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 29

itself the product of a polylogue. It also illustrates the important
principle of the continuum of meanings, and, within that, the positive
and negative meanings we need to navigate. Rather than set up a
quibbling and judgmental dichotomy between ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty,’
it is far more useful to focus on the underlying concepts, so that
whichever word we use, we are investing it with the best and most
beneficent of the senses derived from the range of meanings associated
with both words.
Understanding earlier connotations can be useful in shaping the
rounded definitions we aspire to use in the creation of a discourse
which can serve as a suitable vehicle for the Integration of Knowledge.
The origin of the word reminds us that even though we may hold
‘multiple identities’ we can still be faithful to an integrative vision of
unity in diversity which perceives the Divine Singularity as the ‘original’
core of our ‘identity.’
Perhaps the most prominent example of the contrast between positive
and negative concepts is the way in which the abstract suffix -ism,
when added to a word, so often fundamentally changes its orientation,
tending to indicate an abstract ideology or system of thought rather
than a concrete experience. Just as we might distinguish the creative
world of ideas from the abstract constructs of ideology, we must also
be aware of the potential trap of a brand of relativism which abolishes
all stable meaning.
All these considerations might prompt us, no matter what our ethnic,
cultural or religious affiliation, to wish to define our own vision of
multiculturalism and pluralism as going well beyond the bog standard
of mere tolerance and aspiring to that level of mutual self-under-
standing and transformation. This involves a process of ‘integration’
which first and foremost refers to the personal integration which comes
about through psychological, moral and spiritual development.
In conclusion, it is fundamental to begin the creation of a glossary of
key terms defined in our own specific way to serve as the building
blocks for the Integration of Knowledge discourse.
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 30

1
Rabbi Abraham Heschel’s affirmation of the creativity inherent in human
diversity is quoted by Prince Hasan Bin Talal in his Introduction to Talking to
the Other: Jewish Interfaith Dialogue with Christians and Muslimsby Rabbi
Jonathan Magonet (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), vii.
2
Sardar, Ziauddin. 2013. Future: All That Matters(London: Hodder and
Stoughton), 97-101.
3
Asad’s comments on the Qur’anic roots of the ‘age of science’ are from his
Foreword to The Message of the Qur’an, vi.
4
Tetralogueis by the philosopher Timothy Williamson and published by Oxford
University Press (2015).
5
For ideas about the purposes of higher education, see R. Barnett, The Idea of
Higher Education(Open University Press and SRHE, Buckingham, 1990).
6
The research by the University of Chicago which revealed the role of group
discussion in distinguishing truth from falsehood was referred to by the Rt Rev-
erend Graham James, Bishop of Norwich, in ‘Thought for Today’ on BBC
radio 4 on 29/05/2015.
7
Ibid.
8
Sardar, Ziauddin. 2013. Future: All That Matters(London: Hodder and
Stoughton).
Notes
Rethinking Reform BIB_Layout 1 30/01/2018 13:05 Page 31

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— Scusate, signore, — disse Guglielmo — non avevo capito. No, ho
noleggiato un calessino.
— S'è occupato qualcuno del vostro cavallo?
— L'ho attaccato davanti alla casa. —
Guglielmo andò alla finestra per vedere se l'animale fosse ancora
dove l'aveva lasciato. Scendeva già il crepuscolo.
Il signor Graham tornò ad accomodarsi nella sua poltrona, e si mise
a guardare il fuoco. Seguì una seconda pausa, più penosa della
prima.
Questa volta ruppe il silenzio Gertrude, rispondendo all'osservazione
interrotta:
— Anche voi siete molto mutato. —
Subito temè che le sue parole lo avessero ferito, potendo egli
interpretarle in senso ben diverso, e di nuovo il sangue le affluì alle
gote.
Ma egli non parve addarsene.
— Sì, — disse — il clima dell'Oriente produce notevoli alterazioni
nell'aspetto di una persona; ma non credo d'esser mutato quanto
voi. Pensate, Gertrude, ch'eravate una bambina quando io partii da
Boston! Dovevo pur sapere che troverei una signorina fatta, ma non
me la figuravo punto!
— Quando lasciaste Calcutta?
— Verso la fine di febbraio. Passai la primavera a Parigi.
— Non me lo scriveste, — mormorò Gertrude con voce spenta.
— No, perchè ero in procinto sempre d'imbarcarmi, e volevo farvi
un'improvvisata. —
Ella sentì di non aver mostrato la maraviglia che egli s'attendeva, e si
confuse. Tuttavia ripigliò:

— Fui veramente in pena per la mancanza di lettere; ma ci
rivediamo, Guglielmo, e ne sono lieta di tutto cuore.
— Oh, non potete esserne lieta al pari di me! — egli disse
abbassando la voce e guardando la fanciulla con grande tenerezza.
— Più vi guardo e più voi mi sembrate la Gertrudina d'un tempo....
Comincio a credere però che avrei dovuto scrivere e annunziarvi il
mio arrivo. —
Gertrude sorrise. Le maniere di Guglielmo erano così immutate, le
sue parole così affettuose, che sarebbe stata ingratitudine mettere in
dubbio la sua amicizia, se anche ella non era più tutto per lui.
— Ma no, — rispose — le improvvisate mi sono sempre piaciute. Non
ve ne ricordate?
— Se me ne ricordo? Io non ho scordato nulla di ciò che vi
piaceva. —
In quel momento gli uccellini indiani la cui gabbia pendeva nel vano
della finestra presso la quale il giovane era seduto, presero a
cinguettare come solevano verso sera. Egli alzò gli occhi.
— Sono i vostri uccellini, — disse ella — quelli che mi mandaste da
Calcutta.
— Sempre tutti vivi e sani?
— Sì, tutti.
— Siete stata per loro una padroncina amorosa. Quelle creaturine
sono tanto delicate!
— Li ho molto cari.
— Oh, voi, Gertrude, vi prendete tal cura di coloro che amate, da
conservarli in vita quanto più a lungo sia possibile! —
Il tono, meglio ancora che le parole, esprimeva il suo sentimento.
Gertrude tacque.
— La signorina Graham sta bene? — domandò Guglielmo.

Ella rispose che i suoi nervi avevano sofferto una grande scossa nella
terribile catastrofe per cui era passata; vennero così a discorrere del
piroscafo incendiato, ma la fanciulla s'astenne dal dirgli che si
trovava anche lei tra i passeggeri.
Guglielmo parlò con viva commozione del disastro, biasimò
severamente la temerità e la negligenza che lo avevano cagionato; e
terminò dicendo che v'erano a bordo alcuni suoi pregiati amici, ma
ch'egli ignorava che ci fosse tra essi la signorina Graham, da lui
venerata ed amata per amor di Gertrude.
A poco a poco la conversazione dei due giovani andava facendosi più
spigliata, inclinava all'antica familiarità. Egli era venuto a sedersi sul
canapè, accanto a lei, a fine di parlare più liberamente, perchè
sebbene il signor Graham fosse, o almeno sembrasse di nuovo
addormentato, non si poteva già dimenticare la sua presenza.
Ma Gertrude evitava a bello studio certi soggetti sui quali sarebbe
stato naturalissimo che s'intrattenessero, e anzi ch'ella manifestasse
una curiosità affettuosa: le cause dell'inopinato ritorno di Guglielmo,
la durata della sua permanenza in patria, i suoi disegni per
l'avvenire, e segnatamente le ragioni che lo avevano indotto a
differire più d'una settimana, dopo arrivato, la visita alla fida amica.
Ella vietava a sè stessa queste domande. Non si sentiva preparata a
ricevere nè a chiedere le sue confidenze su cose che
indubitatamente concernevano il suo fidanzamento con Isabella
Clinton; pertanto non solo non lo interrogò in proposito, ma si diede
gran pena di stornare il discorso s'egli accennava a dirne qualche
cosa. E Guglielmo, ferito nel profondo dell'anima da quell'apparente
strana indifferenza, si ratteneva dal forzarla ad ascoltare particolari
dei quali ella mostrava di non curarsi.
Parlarono della vita di Calcutta, delle novità di Parigi, della scuola
dov'ella aveva insegnato, e di molte altre cose, ma non dissero
parola di ciò che stava loro sul cuore. Infine una delle persone di
servizio si presentò sulla soglia, e, senza vedere Guglielmo, avvertì
che il tè era pronto. Il signor Graham si rizzò, e si volse, dando le
spalle al fuoco. Si rizzò tosto anche il giovane e fece per

accomiatarsi. Con rigido tono d'urbanità il padrone di casa lo invitò a
rimanere. Gertrude avrebbe voluto insistere perchè accettasse, ma
egli ringraziò ricusando così recisamente ch'ella comprese che la
poco graziosa accoglienza del signor Graham lo aveva offeso.
Il vecchio gentiluomo non sentiva punta simpatia per i giovanotti in
generale, e Guglielmo era venuto a disturbargli la beatitudine d'una
di quelle ore di quiete e libertà, divenute piuttosto rare; inoltre, e
questo era il peggio, ricordava sempre con amaro cruccio che
Gertrude aveva abbandonato Emilia e lui (così egli considerava la sua
coscienziosa elezione tra due doveri in conflitto tra loro) a fine
d'assistere i parenti di quell'importuno visitatore. E, si capisce,
questo ricordo non era proprio a conciliare al giovane Sullivan
l'animo d'un uomo così caparbio e ostinato nei suoi pregiudizi.
Gertrude accompagnò il suo amico fino alla porta di casa. La pioggia
era cessata, ma il vento fischiava sotto il portico. Voleva essere una
serata fresca. Guglielmo s'abbottonò l'abito, mentre s'accomiatava
promettendo di ritornare il giorno seguente.
— Non avete soprabito, — ella disse. — L'aria della notte è frizzante,
e voi siete avvezzo a un clima caldo. Fareste bene a prendere questo
scialle. —
Tolse dall'attaccapanni un grave plaid scozzese che ci si trovava
sempre per un caso di bisogno.
Egli se lo gettò sul braccio ringraziandola, poi le prese tutt'e due le
mani tra le proprie, e la guardò fisso negli occhi, come se bramasse
dirle qualche cosa. Ma visto ch'ella li distoglieva dal suo sguardo
amoroso, si spiccò da lei, la salutò con viso turbato e scese la
scalinata di corsa. Gertrude stette con la gruccia della porta in mano
finchè udì risonare i passi del suo cavallo sulla strada, poi chiuse a
precipizio e s'affrettò a nascondersi nella sua camera. Ella aveva
sostenuto valorosamente la prova di quell'incontro tanto desiderato e
tanto temuto, aveva recitato la sua parte con calma e naturalezza;
ma adesso tutto il suo coraggio l'abbandonava; pensava ai giorni, ai

mesi, agli anni futuri, e comprendeva che prove più tremende
l'aspettavano.
Se Guglielmo si fosse mutato essenzialmente, se fosse divenuto lo
zerbinotto spensierato, galante, mondano, o l'uomo d'affari, di cuor
freddo, e intento solo ai guadagni, ch'ella ultimamente, a volta a
volta, s'era figurata di dover forse trovare in lui, se l'avesse salutata
con gelida formalità, o con dura indifferenza, o con goffo riserbo,
avrebbe potuto disprezzarlo, compatirlo o biasimarlo, e quindi
amarlo meno. Ma ritornava qual'era partito: franco e generoso,
affettuoso e virile; le manifestava la stessa calda cordialità, la stessa
delicata tenerezza di prima. Insomma era il Guglielmo ch'ella aveva
tanto sognato, tanto amato. Evidentemente, pur avendo dato il
cuore ad un'altra, non dimenticava l'amica della sua adolescenza.
Amava Isabella d'amore, ma conservava per Gertrude un sentimento
quasi fraterno. E mai non s'era pensato d'essere per lei più che un
fratello.
Conveniva dunque ch'ella si preparasse a sopportare la pena crudele
di vederlo e udirlo parlare della sua fidanzata, e augurargli ogni
felicità come una sorella al buon fratello affezionato. Ella doveva
vincere una passione di cui fino allora non aveva conosciuto tutta la
potenza, e trasformarla in semplice amicizia. A quest'idea il suo
povero cuore dolorante si gonfiava, palpitava con violenza selvaggia,
irrefrenabile.
Si gettò sul letto, nascose la faccia nel guanciale, e pianse.
La scosse una leggera picchiata all'uscio. Credendo che la
chiamassero per il tè, disse senza alzarsi:
— Siete voi, Gianna? Non ho voglia di prender nulla stasera....
— Non vengo per questo, signorina; — rispose la ragazza — c'è una
lettera. —
Gertrude balzò a terra e corse ad aprire.
— Un ragazzino me l'ha consegnata, ed è scappato a gambe, —
proseguì Gianna mettendole in mano un plico voluminoso. — M'ha

raccomandato di darvela immediatamente.
— Portatemi un lume, — disse ella.
Mentre la servetta andava per il lume, Gertrude esaminava il plico
cercando d'indovinare che potesse contenere quella missiva di così
straordinarie dimensioni e tanto pesante. Non credeva possibile che
fosse la risposta del signor Amory: l'aspettava al più presto entro il
giorno seguente. Da chi mai proveniva? Ma non appena Gianna
rientrò recando luce nella stanza, ella riconobbe la scrittura di lui:
ansiosamente ruppe il suggello ed estrasse dalla busta parecchi fogli
coperti di fitti caratteri.
Li lesse con un'avidità e un'intensa commozione, che la grave
importanza del contenuto ben giustificava.

XLVI.
Ha rapide e violente ore la vita
Che nel precipitoso corso l'opra
Fanno d'una tempesta....
Hemans.
Il manoscritto diceva così:
«Figliuola mia, mia dolce e amorosa creatura.
«Poichè tu stessa m'incoraggi assicurandomi che il peggiore dei miei
timori era infondato (il timore che fin dalla tua fanciullezza il mio
nome fosse stato infamato al tuo orecchio e il tuo giovane cuore
avesse appreso ad aborrire tuo padre); poichè posso fare appello a
te come a un giudice imparziale, ti rivelerò il dramma della mia vita;
e ti proverò così che sei veramente mia figlia confidandomi che tu
almeno mi crederai e m'amerai ad onta dell'ingiustizia del mondo.
«Non voglio nasconderti nulla. Voglio palesare anzi subito ciò che più
pavento di dire: le spiegazioni che seguono varranno, spero, ad
attenuare l'orrore della mia storia.
«Il signor Graham è il mio patrigno, e la mia santa madre, morta da
lunghi anni, fu in tutto, fuorchè nell'opera della natura, la vera madre
d'Emilia. Ma quantunque io sia, a questo titolo, congiunto di coloro
che tu ami tanto, mi divide da essi una terribile maledizione: perchè
fu la mia quella mano sciagurata che precipitò l'infelice Emilia in
perpetue tenebre, (oh, non odiarmi ancora, Gertrude!). E non è

tutto: a questo fatto orrendo s'aggiunse una grave accusa che mi
denigrava agli occhi dei miei simili: l'accusa d'un delitto basso e
vergognoso. Pure, io che vivo sotto un bando, io che vo errante per
il mondo col cuore spezzato, vittima d'un funesto destino, sono
innocente d'ogni colpa volontaria, come tu sarai persuasa se puoi
fidare nella veracità di ciò che ti narro.
«La natura mi diede e l'educazione alimentò in me uno spirito ribelle.
Ero l'idolo di mia madre, donna di debole complessione, la quale
sebbene m'amasse d'un amore per cui benedico sempre la sua
memoria, non aveva l'energia necessaria a domare e governare la
mia indole appassionata e pertinace. Tuttavia, per quanto
indisciplinato, non inclinavo nè alla malvagità nè al vizio; m'arrogavo
bensì un dominio incontrastabile, tanto a scuola che a casa, ma mi
facevo molti amici, e nessun nemico. Quand'ecco d'un tratto fu posto
un freno all'estrema libertà di cui godevo. Mia madre, ch'era vedova,
sposò il signor Graham, e subito sentii gravare duramente la mano
del suo secondo marito sulla mia indipendente adolescenza. S'egli
m'avesse trattato con benignità, se si fosse cattivato il mio affetto
(come gli sarebbe stato agevole, perchè il mio cuore ardente e
sensitivo era disposto alla tenerezza e alla gratitudine), egli avrebbe
potuto avere un immenso influsso sul mio carattere non ancora
formato.
«Invece fu il contrario. Egli usò verso di me un contegno pieno di
glaciale freddezza e di sussiego. Al primo tentativo d'accostarmi a
lui, fatto per esortazione della mamma, chiamandolo col nome di
padre, venni respinto sdegnosamente, sicchè mi guardai bene dal
ricadere in questa colpa. Ma di quel titolo ch'egli rifiutava, assumeva
però tutti i privilegi e tutta l'autorità, ferendomi così nei sentimenti
più delicati e nei più fieri, ed eccitando in me uno spirito di ribellione
ad ogni suo comando.
«Due cose in ispecie mi amareggiavano e accrescevano la mia
avversione contro il prepotente patrigno: l'una era l'assoluta
dipendenza dalla sua liberalità in cui sapevo di trovarmi; l'altra la
confidenza fattami imprudentemente, benchè con benevole

intenzioni, da una persona di servizio ch'era da molto tempo in casa
Graham, circa l'origine della sua antipatia per me: la quale pare
fosse un'antica inimicizia tra lui e mio padre, uomo onorevole e di
alti sensi, a cui ero superbo di rassomigliare, come mi affermavano
quelli che lo avevano conosciuto.
«In questa guerra disuguale io mi trovavo soverchiato dalla forza
preponderante del nemico; ero ancora un ragazzo, soggetto a tutela,
e dall'altra parte non potevo rimaner sordo alle implorazioni di mia
madre che mi supplicava di sottomettermi per amor suo. Quindi io,
soltanto in qualche caso, quando mi pareva d'essere stato trattato
con troppo oltraggiosa ingiustizia, mi ribellavo apertamente; ed
anche allora c'era chi s'adoperava a ricondurre la pace, e almeno
l'apparenza della buona armonia, in famiglia.
«Così passarono parecchi anni, e, se non giungevo ad amare il
signor Graham, tuttavia la potenza dell'abitudine, i miei studi che
m'occupavano e m'appassionavano, e una crescente padronanza di
me stesso, conferivano a rendermi più tollerabile la vita nella casa
del patrigno.
«E poi c'era qualche cosa che mi compensava di tutte le mie pene: il
mio amore per Emilia, la quale vi corrispondeva con pari tenerezza.
Non l'amavo già perchè era una preziosa mediatrice tra me e suo
padre, nè perchè si assoggettava pazientemente a tutte le mie
volontà e m'aiutava in tutti i miei disegni; ma perchè le nostre anime
erano fatte l'una per l'altra, e più si sviluppavano e s'espandevano,
più forte le avvinceva un legame che solo una mano barbara poteva
strappare e spezzare. Non mi dilungherò sull'ardore e la profondità di
quest'affezione: basti il dire ch'era divenuta la vita della mia vita.
«Mia madre morì. Io ero purtroppo allora, a mal mio grado,
impiegato nel banco del signor Graham, e abitavo sempre in casa
sua. D'improvviso, senza ragione e senza scusa, egli cominciò a
modificare la nostra vita domestica, seguendo una condotta non
meno stolta che crudele, la quale irritava il mio orgoglio, torturava i
miei sentimenti, eccitava la mia focosa natura a segno da rendermi
quasi pazzo. Si era proposto di privarmi dell'unico bene che

m'allietasse, che addolcisse i rigori della mia sorte: l'amore d'Emilia.
Tralascio di raccontarti i motivi che io gl'imputavo, i mezzi ch'egli
usava: ma erano tali da cambiare la mia antipatia per lui in odio
amarissimo, la mia riluttante obbedienza ai suoi voleri in aperta e
deliberata opposizione.
«Lungi dal rassegnarmi a un divieto che stimavo tirannico, cercavo la
compagnia d'Emilia in ogni maniera, e persuadevo la gentile fanciulla
a prestarsi ai miei strattagemmi per sventare i disegni di suo padre.
Io non le parlavo d'amore, non tentavo di legarla a me con una
promessa, non accennavo al matrimonio: un senso d'onore me lo
proibiva. Ma con una giovanile audacia che, temo, era il colmo della
follia e dell'imprudenza, coglievo tutte le opportunità, fosse anche
presente il signor Graham, per manifestare la mia ferma
determinazione di mantenere liberamente con lei quella familiarità
affettuosa ch'era nata dalle circostanze, e non poteva essere più
repressa se non con la forza.
«Emilia cadde malata, e durante sei settimane non mi fu concesso di
vederla un momento. Non appena ella fu in istato d'uscire dalla sua
camera, spiai costantemente un'occasione di parlarle. Alfine mi si
offerse. Eravamo da un'ora insieme nella biblioteca, quando il signor
Graham venne a sorprenderci. Egli s'avanzò verso di noi con una
faccia di cui mai non scorderò la durezza e la severità. Io non mi
sgomentai di quell'intrusione credendomi preparato a sfidarne le
probabili conseguenze; ma non potevo aspettarmi un attacco di ben
altra natura.
«Ch'egli mi rimproverasse di disobbedienza a desiderî da lui datimi a
intendere in ogni possibile modo, che mi dichiarasse più
esplicitamente la sua risoluzione di mettere una barriera tra la sua
figliuola e me, erano cose ch'io prevedevo, e mi trovavo
apparecchiato a rispondergli: ma quando egli proruppe in
sanguinose e volgari ingiurie, quando furiosamente m'investì con
ignobili accuse, apponendomi fini egoistici e vili in cui neppure per
un attimo s'era mai fissato il mio pensiero, ammutolii dallo stupore e
dalla collera.

«Nè questo fu il peggio. In presenza della pura giovanetta ch'io
adoravo egli m'imputò d'uno dei più bassi, più neri delitti, del delitto
di falso, affermando che la mia colpa, allora allora scoperta, era
provata, indubitabile.
«L'ira che m'ardeva dentro divampò. Alzai la mano, strinsi il pugno.
Che fossi in procinto di fare non so dirtelo. Avrei trovato parole per
asserire la mia innocenza, respingere la calunnia, dimostrare la
falsità dell'imputazione? O, mancandomi la voce soffocata dal furore,
mi sarei slanciato sul mio patrigno, scostandolo da me con violenza,
buttandolo forse a terra, e sarei corso fuori per calmarmi all'aria
aperta e raccogliere il mio spirito? Non posso congetturarlo, perchè
in quel punto un acuto grido d'Emilia mi richiamò in me; e nel
volgermi la vidi cadere svenuta sul divano.
«Ella pareva colpita a morte dall'orrore di quella scena.
Dimenticando ogni altra cosa mi precipitai verso di lei, ansioso di
soccorrerla. Accanto al divano c'era un tavolino sul quale stavano
parecchie boccette. Frettolosamente ne afferrai una, e nella mia
agitazione m'accadde di versarne il contenuto, ch'io credevo
un'essenza corroborante, sulla faccia d'Emilia, la quale giaceva
supina.... Io non so di che si componesse la funesta mistura, ma
ahimè, gli effetti ne furono evidenti.... l'atto irrimediabile era
compiuto.... e compiuto per mia mano!
«Lo spasimo atroce ridestò nella sventurata fanciulla la coscienza
della vita. Ella balzò dal divano e, urlando selvaggiamente, le braccia
alzate sul capo, come una pazza, si diede a correre attraverso la
stanza, poi s'acquattò in un angolo. Io la seguii disperato, in preda a
un'angoscia quasi pari alla sua; ma ella mi respinse, stendendo le
mani con grida strazianti.
«Il signor Graham, che su quel subito era rimasto impietrito,
s'avventò allora contro di me, furibondo. Invece d'aiutarmi nei miei
sforzi per sollevare la povera Emilia da terra, egli, senza alcuna pietà
del mio stato, che era poco meno compassionevole di quello di lei,
inveì ferocemente, rimproverandomi con parole crudeli, torturanti,
che mi suonano ancora all'orecchio, d'esser la sola causa della

disgrazia, accusandomi d'avergli uccisa la sua figliuola; e detto
ch'ebbe, mi cacciò dalla stanza e dalla casa, espulsione alla quale io,
schiacciato dal dolore e dal rimorso, non avevo la forza nè il
desiderio d'oppormi.
«Oh, quanto fu terribile la notte, quanto terribile il giorno seguente!
Non posso darti un'idea di come li passai. Fino all'alba andai errando
per la campagna, cercando invano di collegare i miei pensieri, di
riacquistare un po' di calma. Ma al riapparire della luce, sebbene
avessi ancora il polso febbrile e il cervello eccitato, cominciai a
comprendere la necessità di tracciarmi una via di condotta.
«La condizione infelicissima d'Emilia, l'ansia intensa di conoscere i
peggiori effetti dell'orrendo caso, mi sollecitavano a recarmi
furtivamente o palesemente, ma il più presto possibile, alla casa del
signor Graham. Inoltre, tutto il poco ch'io possedevo, consistente,
quanto a denaro, nel solo residuo del mio ultimo trimestre di
stipendio, e quanto al resto nei miei indumenti e qualche oggetto di
valore donatomi da mia madre, si trovava nella camera da me fino
allora occupata. Non potevo quindi evitare di ritornarci almeno una
volta. E presa questa risoluzione mi riposi in cammino verso la città,
pronto, se era necessario, per ottenere notizie d'Emilia, anche ad
incontrarmi a faccia a faccia con suo padre.
«Tuttavia, quando fui vicino alla casa, titubai, non osai proseguire. Il
signor Graham non mi aveva nulla risparmiato, neppure la minaccia
d'espellermi con la violenza se osassi ripresentarmi sulla sua soglia:
ed io temevo d'avventurare il mio temperamento focoso in una
colluttazione con quell'uomo al quale avevo fatto già male
abbastanza.
«Non avevo io forse col terribile mio atto della sera innanzi, atto di
cui già presagivo le funeste conseguenze, desolato la vita dell'unica
e adorata sua figliuola, sepolto sotto un nero pallio le sue più care
speranze? No, per nulla al mondo non avrei voluto aggiungere al mio
involontario misfatto la colpa d'alzar la mano su colui che per quanto
ingiusto fosse stato verso un giovanetto innocente, era punito con
un castigo assai troppo severo.

«Io sapevo che il suo furore era implacato, che egli avrebbe potuto
eccitare il mio fino alla frenesia, e però mi proposi di non affrontarlo
inconsideratamente. Un colloquio con lui dovevo averlo, a fine di
confutare le calunniose accuse portate a mio carico; ma non tra le
mura della sua casa, dove sua figlia soffriva per causa mia. Là, nel
banco dove egli pretendeva ch'io avessi commesso un falso, ed, in
presenza de' miei colleghi, avrei pubblicamente negato il delitto
appostomi, e sfidato l'accusatore a darne le prove.
«Ma anzi tutto bisognava ch'io vedessi Emilia, o che almeno avessi
sue notizie. Prima d'incontrarmi con quel padre, conveniva che
conoscessi esattamente la natura e la gravità del male ch'io gli avevo
fatto nella sua creatura. E per questo m'era forza attendere il favore
delle tenebre, ed introdurmi nella casa di soppiatto.
«Vagai tutto il giorno, assillato dal mio cruccio, senza gustare nè
desiderare cibo e riposo. Il pensiero della mia povera, adorata,
torturata Emilia m'era presente sempre, mi tormentava
indicibilmente. Le ore mi parevano eterne. Quella giornata conta ne'
miei ricordi quanto un anno intero di miserie. Scese alfine la notte:
una notte oscura, nuvolosa. L'aria era densa d'una nebbia così fitta,
che nascondeva ogni cosa intorno alla distanza di pochi passi. La
casa non m'apparve che quando fui davanti al portone. C'era fermo
un legno che io riconobbi per il carrozzino del dottor Jeremy.
Sussultai. Le sue visite ad Emilia erano cessate da più d'una
settimana: lo avevano dunque richiamato a cagione della disgrazia!
Data la presenza del medico, doveva esserci di certo anche il signor
Graham. Perciò non entrai, e celato dalla nebbia attesi il momento
opportuno.
«Da uno spiraglio del portone potevo esplorare con lo sguardo
l'interno dell'atrio. Vidi due volte la signora Ellis scendere e risalire;
alfine scese il dottore, a passi lenti: il signor Graham lo seguiva, e
poichè quegli se n'andava direttamente, lo trattenne per interrogarlo
sullo stato della figliuola, come arguivo dalla profonda ansietà che si
dipingeva nel suo volto, mentre con una mano sulla spalla di quel
vecchio amico della famiglia cercava di leggergli negli occhi la sua

opinione. Il dottore mi volgeva il dorso, e io non potevo giudicare
delle sue risposte se non dall'effetto che producevano sul padre
d'Emilia, il quale nell'aspetto già sconvolto, abbattuto, tradiva
un'angoscia crescente ad ogni sillaba proferita dalle labbra del
medico le cui oneste e sincere parole erano oracoli per chi conosceva
la somma sua perizia.
«Non occorrevano quindi altre testimonianze perchè fosse ribadita in
me la certezza che il fato della sventurata fanciulla era irrevocabile; e
guardando con pietà l'afflitto padre, pensando con terrore ch'io ero
l'agente immediato in quell'opera di distruzione, sentivo ch'egli non
poteva maledirmi più fieramente di quanto io maledissi me stesso.
Ma per grandi che fossero il mio dolore e il mio pentimento, non mai
scemati, d'aver avuto parte nello scatenarsi di quella tempesta in cui
la giovanetta era così miseramente naufragata, non giungevo a
dimenticare che ben maggior colpa ne aveva il signor Graham, nè a
perdonargli la scellerata ingiustizia e gli oltraggi che mi avevano
tratto di senno e snervato per modo da rendere uno strumento di
rovina la mia mano tesa a recare soccorso.
«Quando poi, partito il dottor Jeremy, uscì anche il mio patrigno, ed
io, osservandolo mentre passava sotto un lampione, vidi che
all'espressione di dolore già era succeduta sulla sua faccia quella
consueta di sussiego, di compiacimento di sè e d'arroganza; quando
compresi, udendo il picchiare sonoro e misurato della sua mazza sul
lastrico, ch'egli era assai lontano dalla mia umiltà e dalla mia
contrizione, cessai di sprecare quei sentimenti pietosi di cui egli non
pareva aver gran bisogno e che ancor meno meritava. Non
compiansi più che me solo, e fissai il mio sguardo su quella figura
d'uomo duro e superbo, con l'anima riboccante d'un odio
implacabile.
«Non ritrarti da me, mia Gertrude, nel leggere questa franca
confessione della mia natura appassionata e in quel momento
eccitatissima. Tu forse non sai che sia odiare; ma fosti mai posta a
simili prove?

«Non appena il signor Graham ebbe svoltato il canto, m'avvicinai alla
casa; il portone era chiuso, ma avevo la mia chiave: apersi ed entrai.
Tutto pareva tranquillo: nelle stanze terrene non c'era nessuno. Salii
pian piano, passai in una stanzina in fondo al corridoio che metteva
nella camera d'Emilia ed aspettai un pezzo. Non s'udiva una voce,
non si vedeva anima viva. Alfine, temendo che il mio patrigno
ritornasse presto, risolsi d'andare nella camera mia, ch'era al
secondo piano, a prendere il mio denaro ed alcuni oggetti di valore
di cui non volevo privarmi, e poi scendere nella cucina ed ottenere
almeno quelle notizie d'Emilia che avrebbe potuto darmi la cuoca,
certa signora Prime, donna d'ottimo cuore, la quale, n'ero sicuro,
m'avrebbe compatito.
«Mi riuscì d'attuare la prima parte del mio disegno, ma a piè della
scala di servizio m'imbattei nella signora Ellis che veniva dalla cucina
con una tazza di brodo in mano. Costei era in casa Graham da poche
settimane, messavi per ispiare le mie azioni, e perciò a me invisa.
Ella conosceva tutti i particolari della disgrazia, ed era stata
testimone della mia espulsione. Al vedermi si fermò di botto, gettò
un grido soffocato, lasciò cadere la tazza e fece l'atto di fuggire,
come davanti a una bestia feroce: infatti il mio aspetto in cui si
dipingevano una selvaggia disperazione e il digiuno e la stanchezza,
doveva darne l'idea....
«Io le sbarrai il cammino e la forzai ad ascoltarmi. Ma prima ch'io
potessi rivolgerle la domanda che mi bruciava le labbra ella
proruppe, confermando i miei più atroci timori:
«— Via di qui, ribaldo, via! Volete accecare anche me?
«— Dov'è Emilia? — gridai. — Permettete ch'io la vegga!
«— Vederla, voi? Orribile scellerato! No, ha già troppo sofferto per
causa vostra. Pensa anche lei che basta, oramai. Lasciatela in pace.
«— Che intendete dire? — io feci con un urlo, scotendo
violentemente per le spalle la governante le cui parole mi
sbranavano il cuore, mi rendevano frenetico.

«— Che intendo dire? — ella continuò. — Che Emilia non vedrà mai
più nessuno: e quando pur avesse mille occhi, voi non vorrebbe
vedervi certo!
«— Dunque anch'ella mi odia? — io esclamai, piuttosto parlando a
me stesso che interrogando la donna.
«Ma ella rispose prontamente:
«— Se vi odia? Oh, sì, e peggio.... Non può trovare termini
abbastanza severi per voi.... Mormora fino tra' suoi spasimi:
«Crudele! Malvagio!» E via dicendo. Il suono del vostro nome la fa
raccapricciare, e a noi tutti è proibito di pronunziarlo in sua
presenza. —
«Non aspettai d'udir altro: mi volsi e mi precipitai fuori.
«Quella fu la crisi della mia vita. Il fulmine mi aveva colpito e
atterrato. Speranze terrene, felicità, fortuna, buon nome, tutto già
era perduto; un'unica luce solitaria brillava ancora nelle mie tenebre:
l'amore d'Emilia. In esso fidavo; solo in esso. Ed ecco che perdevo
anche quello; e ciò era perdere la mia giovinezza, la mia fede, la
suprema speranza del Cielo. Io non ero più niente sulla terra: poco
m'importava dove andassi nè che avvenisse di me.
«Da quel momento cessai d'esser io. Scese su me la nube che da
allora m'avvolge e sotto la cui oscura ombra tu mi vedesti e
conoscesti. Fui tocco da quel male che mutò il gaio mio riso in un
sorriso amaro, che diede i toni dell'ironia mal celata e del sarcasmo
al mio parlare, un tempo franco e piacevole. I miei capelli
incanutirono precocemente, i miei lineamenti presero un'espressione
dura, spesso severa; i miei simili, per i quali nobilmente ambivo
divenire un benefattore, m'apparvero come antagonisti armati contro
cui avrei dovuto sostenere una perpetua guerra; e il Dio che avevo
adorato, nel quale avevo creduto come in un amico fedele e un
giusto vendicatore, chi era Egli? dove era Egli? perchè non faceva
trionfare la mia innocenza? Di qual nero e premeditato delitto ero
colpevole perchè mi abbandonasse così? Ahimè, sventura somma fra
le mie sventure, avevo perduto la fede nel Signore.

«Non so da qual parte mi diressi, uscendo dalla casa del signor
Graham. Le strade che attraversai m'erano, senza dubbio, tutte
familiari, ma non ne rammento neppur una: soltanto so che non mi
fermai finchè non venni a trovarmi all'estremità d'una banchina, con
gli occhi fissi sull'acqua profonda, tentato di spiccare pazzamente un
salto e inabissarmi nell'oblio eterno!
«Senza quell'ultimo colpo che aveva abbattuto la mia virile energia,
mi sarei attaccato ancora alla vita, almeno per rivendicare la mia
buona fama; non avrei mai voluto lasciare di me una memoria
denigrata da cui gli uomini m'avrebbero giudicato e su cui Emilia
avrebbe pianto. Ma ora che m'importava più della gente? Ed Emilia?
Aveva cessato d'amarmi, e però non si sarebbe afflitta: ed io non
bramavo più altro che la tomba, il nulla.
«Vi sono istanti nella vita in cui una parola, uno sguardo, un
pensiero, possono pesare sulla bilancia, del fato, e determinare un
destino.
«Così m'avvenne. Io ero incapace di concepire un qualsiasi disegno:
il caso risolse per me. Un rumore di remi nell'acqua mi scosse dalla
mia apatia; pochi minuti dopo una barchetta venne ad ormeggiarsi a
breve distanza dal posto dove stavo. Tostò udii da presso, sulla
banchina, un passo rapido e sonoro, e voltandomi vidi al lume della
luna che usciva appunto da un cumulo di nubi, un robusto uomo di
mare con una grave giacca impermeabile sotto il braccio destro e
una vecchia sacca da viaggio nella mano sinistra. Egli aveva una
faccia rubiconda e gioviale, e nel passarmi accanto per saltare nella
barca dove due marinari lo aspettavano, coi remi stillanti sollevati,
pronti a rituffarli, mi picchiò cordialmente una spalla esclamando:
«— Ebbene, mio bel signorino, v'imbarcate con noi? —
«Senza esitare io risposi di sì. L'uomo diede un'occhiata alla mia
faccia, e un'altra al mio vestito, il quale parve fargli pensar bene di
me circa la condizione sociale e la possibilità di pagare la traversata;
e disse ridendo:
«— A bordo, dunque! —

«Con suo stupore, perchè aveva creduto che scherzassi, io saltai
nella barca, e alcuni minuti dopo mi trovavo a bordo d'una bella nave
a tre alberi, in procinto di salpare: non sapevo per dove.
«Appena in capo a due o tre giorni di navigazione appresi ch'era
diretta a Rio Janeiro: ma a me, qua o là, faceva lo stesso.
«Io non ero l'unico passeggero: avevo per compagna di viaggio la
figliuola del capitano, a nome Lucia Grey, la quale sembrava a casa
propria, tanto sopra coperta che sotto. Durante la prima settimana
quasi non m'accòrsi della sua presenza, e probabilmente avrei
compiuto l'intera traversata senza occuparmi di quella giovanetta,
mezzo bambina, mezzo donna, se il mio strano e misterioso
contegno non l'avesse tratta a condursi verso di me in un modo che
mi maravigliò e finì col commuovermi. La mia aria selvaggia e
smarrita, la mia continua irrequietudine, la ripugnanza che avevo per
il cibo, l'indifferenza che mostravo per tutto quanto m'accadeva
dintorno, la colpirono ed eccitarono la sua compassione. Da principio
mi credette squilibrato di mente, e mi trattò come tale. Spesso
veniva a sedersi sulla tolda, di fronte a me, e stava a guardarmi per
un'ora buona, ignorando o non curandosi d'essere a sua volta
osservata: poi se n'andava con un profondo sospiro. Ogni tanto
m'offriva qualche bocconcino prelibato, pregandomi che mi sforzassi
di mangiare; e poichè io, commosso da quella gentile benevolenza,
accettavo più volentieri il nutrimento dalla sua mano che da un'altra,
queste piccole attenzioni divennero quotidiane.
«A misura però che il mio aspetto e le mie maniere si
ricomponevano, e il tormento febbrile a cui ero in preda si quotava in
una malinconia profonda ma meno torbida e fiera, ella si comportava
con maggiore ritegno; e quando cominciai ad essere più simile al
comune degli uomini, a sedermi a tavola con gli altri, a dormire nel
mio camerotto una parte almeno della notte invece di passarla tutta
passeggiando sul ponte, Lucia cessò di frequentare quella parte della
nave dove solevo stare durante la giornata; sicchè di rado avevo
occasione di scambiare una parola con lei, se non la cercavo
apposta.

«Ma avemmo tempi burrascosi che mi costringevano a cercare
rifugio nella cabina, e là quasi sempre m'incontravo con la fanciulla
che, seduta sulla traversa di poppa, leggeva o contemplava le onde
agitate. Il viaggio era lungo; necessariamente quindi ci si trovava
spesso insieme, tanto più che il capitano Grey, quegli che m'aveva
scherzosamente invitato ad imbarcarmi, continuava a mostrare una
cordiale simpatia per me, e incoraggiava benignamente quell'amicizia
considerandola come un aiuto a trarmi dal mio stato di malinconia, il
quale sembrava stupire e addolorare il gioviale comandante del
bastimento quasi quanto la sua pietosa e sensitiva figliuola.
«La timidità di Lucia andava a poco a poco dissipandosi, e molto
innanzi il termine della traversata io non ero più un estraneo per lei.
Ella parlava meco familiarmente, o, piuttosto, mi parlava: perchè
mentre io, nonostante qualche accenno di curiosità da parte della
ragazza, mantenevo un rigido silenzio circa i casi miei, ai quali non
potevo nemmeno pensare nonchè discorrerne, ella, in compenso,
s'ingegnava d'intrattenermi raccontandomi la storia della sua vita, di
cui mi riferiva con semplice franchezza quasi tutti i particolari.
«A volte l'ascoltavo attento; a volte, assorto nelle mie dolorose
riflessioni, non udivo più la sua voce e dimenticavo la sua presenza.
Allora ella s'interrompeva, e quando, scotendomi dalla mia
fantasticheria, alzavo subitamente gli occhi, sorprendevo il suo
sguardo fisso nel mio volto con un'espressione di rimprovero che mi
faceva raccogliere tutta la mia forza di volontà per mostrare di
prestarle una seria attenzione, che spesso ella alfine riusciva a
cattivarsi davvero.
«Fino ai quattordici anni Lucia era vissuta con sua madre in una
casina sul Capo Cod. Soltanto a rari intervalli il focolare domestico
veniva rallegrato dal ritorno del padre da uno de' suoi lunghi viaggi.
Di solito si recavano in quelle occasioni nella città dove il bastimento
era approdato, passavano alcune settimane in continuo tripudio, e
poi se ne tornavano a piangere la partenza del gaio capitano, e a
contare le settimane e i mesi che dovevano trascorrere prima di
rivederlo.

«E infine avvenne che la madre ammalò e morì. Lucia mi diceva con
parole commoventi il suo immenso dolore, e quanto amaramente il
babbo aveva pianto apprendendo al suo arrivo la triste notizia; mi
narrava la sua vita a bordo della nave che dopo la perdita della
mamma era divenuta la sua casa; mi confidava come si sentisse
mesta e abbandonata quando infuriava la burrasca ed ella, mentre il
capitano era al suo posto sul ponte, sedeva sola sola nella cabina,
ascoltando l'urlo del vento e il ruggito delle onde.
«Ella aveva gli occhi gonfi di lacrime nel parlare di queste cose, ed io
la guardavo con pietà come una che il dolore faceva mia sorella. Ma
le prove sofferte non potevano tuttavia soffocare in lei i vivaci e baldi
spiriti giovanili. Cinque minuti dopo finito di raccontare con patetica
eloquenza un episodio delle sue precoci peripezie, se il padre,
sempre allegro, capitava a sorprenderla con qualche burletta e a
stuzzicarla provocando le sue rappresaglie, ella era già bell'e pronta
a un duello di frizzi, e perfino di scherzi un po' rudi. La cabina o la
tolda risonavan di chiassose risate, di motti giocosi, le malinconie
erano dimenticate; e io, rifuggendo da una gaiezza che mal
s'accordava con la mia infelicità e feriva i miei nervi irritati, mi
ritiravo in qualche angolo remoto a meditare e piangere su miserie
per le quali non potevo sperare simpatia, cui nessuno poteva
partecipare, che dovevo soffrire solo, senza conforto.
«Le mie sventure m'avevano reso così misantropo, che la gara di
piacevolezze tra il buon capitano e la sua vispa figliuola, il riso
musicale con cui la fanciulla rispondeva alle barzellette di due o tre
vecchi marinari privilegiati, mi urtavano come un'offesa: nè avrei
creduto possibile che una creatura tanto poco atta a comprendere le
profonde mie pene, come Lucia, provasse per me una compassione
sincera, se non avessi talvolta veduto, non senza commozione, la
sua innocente ilarità cadere d'un tratto, e dar luogo ad un'aria grave
e triste, quando per caso i suoi sguardi incontravano il mio viso
addolorato, reso più scuro ancora dal contrasto con la sua allegria e
quella de' suoi compagni.

«Ma non devo più dilungarmi sulla nostra vita a bordo, perchè ho da
riferire gli eventi di anni, e conviene ch'io mi tenga nei limiti d'una
concisa esposizione dei fatti. M'astengo dunque dal descriverti la
spaventosa tempesta durante la quale, per due giorni e una notte, la
povera Lucia fu pazza di terrore, e che a me, noncurante dei disagi,
indifferente al pericolo, diede occasione di contraccambiare la sua
benevolenza, prodigandole tutte le cure e tutti i conforti ch'era in
mia facoltà darle. Ma questo ed altri casi del lungo viaggio,
conferirono a farle concepire una fiducia in me che quando fummo
arrivati in porto mi pose a una difficile prova, piuttosto impacciante.

XLVII.
Non rigettar
La mia preghiera! Questo lungo errare
Sempre più lunge, troppo m'ha estenuato,
Nè so una spiaggia dove il disperato
Mio dolor possa mai requie trovare.
E. B. Browning .
«Il capitano Grey morì. Eravamo a circa sei o sette giorni di
navigazione da Rio Janeiro quando cadde improvvisamente
ammalato, e tre giorni innanzi che gettassimo l'àncora in quel porto
esalò l'ultimo respiro. Io aiutai Lucia ad assisterlo, gli chiusi gli occhi,
e portai tra le mie braccia la fanciulla svenuta, in un'altra parte della
nave. Le feci riprendere i sensi, e tentai di confortarla con parole
affettuose; ma quando ella ebbe piena coscienza della sua sventura,
s'abbattè in una cupa disperazione più penosa a vedersi che la
precedente assoluta insensibilità.
«Suo padre non aveva in alcun modo provveduto a lei; nè invero egli
avrebbe potuto farlo come provò in seguito lo stato de' suoi affari.
Ben a ragione la poveretta si doleva della triste sua sorte, perchè ella
si trovava senza altri parenti e senza denaro, e doveva sbarcare in
una terra straniera che non offriva alcun ricovero all'orfana.
«Seppellimmo il capitano in mare. Compiuto il lugubre ufficio, andai
in traccia di Lucia, e procurai novamente, come già m'ero provato
senza alcun successo, di destare in lei il sentimento della sua
condizione, e deliberare sul da farsi, posto ch'eravamo già vicini al
porto, e tra alcune ore saremmo stati costretti a lasciare il

bastimento e cercare alloggio nella città. Ella m'ascoltò, ma non aprì
bocca,
«Infine accennai alla necessità di separarci, e le domandai che idee
avesse per il suo avvenire. La sua risposta fu uno scoppio di lacrime.
«Io manifestai tutta la mia pietà per il suo cordoglio, la esortai a non
disperarsi.
«Allora, tra i singhiozzi, e interrompendosi spesso per dare in
esclamazioni di dolore, ella si raccomandò con semplicità infantile
alla mia compassione, supplicandomi di non lasciarla, anzi diceva di
non «abbandonarla», ricordandomi ch'era sola al mondo, e che
toccando terra sarebbe stata sperduta in paese straniero, implorando
la mia misericordia perchè la salvassi dal morire derelitta e disperata.
«Che dovevo fare? Mi trovavo anch'io solo e sperduto, la mia vita
non aveva alcun fine. Eravamo tutt'e due del pari, orfani e desolati.
Non v'era che un punto di differenza: io potevo lavorare e
proteggerla, ella non era in grado d'aiutarsi. A me ella offriva una
ragione di vivere: il rifugio ch'io avrei offerto a lei, per quanto
povero, sarebbe stato sempre qualche cosa di meglio che il rimanere
esposta ad ogni sorta di sofferenze e di pericoli. Io le dissi
chiaramente che ben poco avevo da darle; perfino il mio cuore era
spezzato. Ma volentieri avrei lavorato per sostentarla, l'avrei difesa,
consolata, e forse anche amata, col tempo.
«L'ingenua fanciulla non pensava al matrimonio invocando il mio
appoggio: cercava la protezione d'un amico, non già un marito. Io le
spiegai che soltanto il vincolo coniugale poteva impedire la nostra
separazione, ed ella nell'umiltà della sventura finì con l'accettare la
mia non molto lusinghiera profferta.
«L'unico confidente del nostro subitaneo fidanzamento, l'unico
testimonio della cerimonia nuziale, seguita poche ore dopo, fu un
vecchio marinaro, un veterano incotto dal sole e dai venti, che aveva
conosciuto ed amato Lucia fin da bambina, e il cui nome ti sarà
probabilmente familiare: Ben Grant. Egli scese a terra con noi e ci
accompagnò alla chiesa, che fu la nostra prima mèta, e poi nel più

che modesto alloggio di cui bisognava per allora contentarsi. Il buon
uomo si dedicò alla figlia del suo capitano con abnegazione; ma
ahimè, in un frangente che or ora saprai, il suo zelo fu malinteso e
riuscì funesto.
«Dopo molte difficoltà ottenni un impiego da un negoziante nel
quale riconobbi per caso un ottimo amico del mio defunto padre. Egli
era stabilito a Rio da parecchi anni, ed esercitava un vasto traffico.
Volentieri m'accolse nella sua casa commerciale in qualità di
commesso, e di tanto in tanto mi mandava anche a trattare affari in
posti più o meno lontani. Le mie occupazioni erano regolari e
proficue, sicchè presto non solo fui al riparo dal bisogno, ma potei
procurare alla mia giovane sposa una certa agiatezza, se non il
lusso.
«Il suo carattere dolce, il buon animo e l'umor gaio con cui aveva
sopportato le privazioni, l'ardore de' suoi sforzi per rendermi felice,
non rimasero senz'effetto. Combattei la mia torva malinconia,
pervenni a rasserenare il mio aspetto; e le rughe precoci che la sua
piccola mano amorosamente spianava, alfine non ricomparvero più.
Il breve tempo che passai con tua madre, Gertrude, è un episodio
soave nella memoria della tempestosa mia vita. Giunsi ad amarla
molto; non come amavo Emilia.... questo sarebbe stato
impossibile.... ma ella era il fiore solitario che cresceva sulla tomba
delle mie speranze giovanili e diffondeva intorno a me una gentile
fragranza. La figliuola ch'ella mi diede non m'è più cara perchè è una
parte di me stesso che per essere il frutto di quel caro fiore, tanto
presto divelto e schiacciato....
«Circa due mesi dopo la tua nascita, bambina mia, innanzi che i tuoi
occhi avessero appreso a sorridere alla vista di tuo padre
necessariamente molto spesso lontano da casa, gli affari di cui ero
incaricato quale agente mi chiamarono in una piazza piuttosto
distante da Rio. Ero assente da quasi un mese, avendo dovuto
estendere il mio viaggio oltre l'itinerario fissatomi, e avevo sempre
mandato regolari notizie a Lucia (la quale, però, credo non ricevette
mai le mie lettere), quando capitai in un posto i cui dintorni erano

infestati da malaria. Per amore della mia famiglia presi tutte le
precauzioni a fine d'evitare l'infezione, ma furono inutili. La terribile
febbre mi colse e giacqui settimane tra la vita e la morte. Durante la
mia malattia fui crudelmente negletto, perchè non avevo colà alcun
amico, e l'esiguità della mia borsa non allettava i mercenari: ma la
pena in cui ero per Lucia e per te, superava di gran lunga i patimenti
fisici, pur tanto gravi.
«La mia immaginazione inquieta mi suscitava ogni sorta di paure:
ahimè, nessuna delle peggiori s'avvicinava alla realtà che
m'attendeva al mio ritorno. Dopo un'interminabile degenza, ripresi la
via di Rio, emaciato, estenuato, quasi privo di denaro e con le vesti
lacere. E quando cercai la mia casa la trovai deserta, e fui ammonito
d'allontanarmene, poichè la funesta epidemia della quale io ero stato
preda, aveva poco meno che spopolato quella strada e le adiacenti.
Benchè facessi le più minuziose inchieste, non potei saper nulla di
mia moglie e della mia creatura. Corsi all'orribile carnaio dove
durante l'infierire della pestilenza venivano esposti i cadaveri non
riconosciuti; ma tra quei miserandi avanzi sfigurati era impossibile
distinguere i propri congiunti dagli estranei. Errai giorni e giorni per
la città sperando d'ottenere qualche informazione concernente Lucia:
nessuno l'aveva mai udita menzionare. Esplorai tutte le banchine che
Ben Grant, al quale v'avevo affidate, tua madre e te, soleva
frequentare, chiesi di lui, descrivendo esattamente la sua persona:
non ne scopersi la minima traccia.
«Il mio primo pensiero era stato ch'egli e Lucia si fossero, com'era
naturale, rivolti al negoziante per cui viaggiavo a fine di conoscere la
causa della mia prolungata assenza. E però trovando vuota la mia
casa avevo affrettato il passo in cerca di lui. Anch'egli era caduto
vittima del morbo dominante! Il suo banco era chiuso, la sua ditta
cancellata. Io continuai le indagini finchè l'ultimo bagliore di
speranza non fu spento. Ma venni assicurato che quasi nessuno tra
gli abitanti del rione dove avevo lasciato la mia famiglia era sfuggito
al flagello; e persuaso alfine che il mio fato continuava a
perseguitarmi con un implacabile furore di cui quest'ultimo colpo,
ch'io mi avrei dovuto aspettare, non era se non un singolo sfogo,

disperatamente risolsi d'imbarcarmi, pagando la traversata col mio
lavoro, sulla prima nave che mi portasse a questo prezzo lontano dai
luoghi pieni di così strazianti ricordi.
«Da quel punto cominciò quella corsa angosciosa attraverso il
mondo, senza termine e senza requie, in cui si riassume la mia vita.
Con vari propositi, e lottando con varia fortuna per conseguirli,
viaggiai in tutte le regioni del globo. Non v'è quasi una terra che il
mio piede non abbia premuta; ho navigato tutti i mari, respirato
l'aria di tutti i climi. Ho vissuto parimente nella città e nel deserto, fra
gli uomini inciviliti e fra i selvaggi. Ed ho imparato la triste verità, che
la pace non esiste in nessun luogo, e che l'amicizia per lo più è un
nome vano. Se sono giunto a odiare, a sfuggire, a disprezzare il
genere umano, è perchè io lo conosco bene.
«Una volta visitai perfino la dimora dove trascorse la mia
adolescenza. Non conosciuto, non veduto, calcai il suolo familiare,
mirai le facce familiari benchè tocche dal tempo. Stetti davanti alla
finestra della biblioteca del signor Graham, vidi l'aspetto sereno
d'Emilia, contenta, felice nella sua cecità e nell'oblio del passato. Una
fanciulla sedeva accanto al fuoco tentando di leggere alla luce
vacillante della fiamma. Io non sapevo allora che desse un così dolce
incanto alla sua fisonomia pensosa, nè perchè il mio sguardo vi si
posasse con raro piacere: nessuna voce diceva al mio cuore paterno
che io contemplavo il volto della mia figliuola. Non giurerei che il
forte impulso da cui mi sentivo spinto ad entrare, a farmi
riconoscere, ad implorare da Emilia una parola di perdono non fosse
per prevalere sul timore del suo sdegno; ma in quella apparve il
signor Graham, con la sua aria glaciale e severa, ed io fuggii di là....
Il giorno seguente ripartivo alla volta di luoghi lontani.
«Quantunque nei diversi lavori che ero costretto a intraprendere per
mantenermi decentemente, io guadagnassi spesso tanto da poter
godere una temporaria indipendenza, e concedermi il lusso di costosi
viaggi, non pensavo ad accumulare un patrimonio: a che m'avrebbe
servito, poichè non avevo da provvedere che alla sodisfazione de'

miei bisogni immediati? Ma il caso mi gettò dinanzi quella ricchezza
ch'io non m'affannavo a cercare.
«Dopo un anno passato nelle selvagge solitudini dell'Occidente, tra
avventure il cui racconto ti sembrerebbe incredibile, seguitai ad
attraversare quella regione, compiendo, senza compagni, un aspro e
lungo viaggio, il quale aveva l'unico fine d'appagare il mio umore
vagabondo. Venni così a trovarmi nel paese che fu poi chiamato la
«terra promessa», nonostante che per molti dei cupidi emigranti
fosse invece una terra di false lusinghe e di amari disinganni.
Tuttavia per me ne scaturì l'oro di cui non avevo sete. Io fui tra i
primi scopritori delle prodigiose miniere, e uno dei più fortunati,
benchè dei meno diligenti e meno bramosi d'arricchirsi.
«Ma questa non fu la sola nè la maggiore delle fortune toccatemi.
Coi primi frutti delle mie fatiche comperai un'immensa distesa di
terreni, approfittando di un'occasione offertasi. Ero ben lungi dal
sognarmi che quei campi deserti diverrebbero un giorno le strade e
le piazze d'una grande e prospera città. Eppure fu così: ed io senza
sforzi, quasi senza saper come, acquistai ricchezze favolose.
«Non è tutto. Il caso felice che guidò i miei passi alla terra dell'oro,
mi condusse a scoprire una perla preziosa, un tesoro a paragone del
quale le miniere della California sono un nulla ai miei occhi.
«Tu sai che il grido della conquista corse il mondo, e uomini d'ogni
nazione portarono le loro braccia al campo della fortuna. Poi venne
la fame, seguita dalla malattia e dalla morte; e molti furono quelli
che mentre s'affrettavano ansiosamente verso l'aurea mèsse,
caddero sul margine della via prima d'averla pur veduta ondeggiare
da lontano.
«Per quanto io disprezzassi quell'avida canaglia, non potevo, nelle
mie privilegiate condizioni, ricusarmi di soccorrere gli sciagurati che
venivano ad abbattersi ai miei piedi; e, per una volta, la mia umanità
trovò la sua ricompensa.
«Un uomo di miserabile aspetto, cencioso, sfinito, mezzo morto, si
trascinò fino alla mia tenda (il paese, in quel tempo primitivo, non

Rethinking Reform in Higher Education Ziauddin Sardar

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