...Teacher : A Paragon, in Classical… Forever-al Learning...

“Knowledge without action is like a glowing wick,
It gives light to others, but dies burning, itself…”

Whoever takes up the profession of teaching should observe the following duties:

· (A teacher) should show kindness and sympathy to the students and threat them as his own children… (while) a father is the immediate cause of this transient life, a teacher is the cause of immortal life. A teacher ruins himself and also his students if he teaches for the sake of the world.

· (A teacher) should not seek remuneration for teaching but nearness to God. Wealth and property are the servants of body which is the vehicle of soul of which the essence is knowledge and for which there is honor of soul. He who searches wealth in lieu of knowledge is like one who has got his face besmeared with impurities but wants to cleanse his body.

· (A teacher) should not withhold from his students any advice. After he finishes the outward sciences, he should teach them the inward sciences. He should tell them that the object of education is to gain nearness to God, not power or riches, and that God created ambition as a means of perpetuating knowledge which is essential for these sciences.

· (A teacher should) dissuade his students from evil ways with care and caution, with sympathy and not with rebuke and harshness … (since the latter)… destroys the veil of awe and encourages disobedience.

· (A teacher) shall not belittle the value of other sciences before his students. In fact, the teacher of one learning should prepare his students for study of other learnings and then, he should observe the rules of gradual progress from one stage to another.

· The students should not be taught things that are beyond the capacity of their understanding. The Prophet SAW said, “When a person speaks such a word to a people who cannot grasp it with their intellect, it becomes a danger to some people.”

· (A teacher) should himself do what he teaches and should not give a lie to his teaching. Hazrat Ali said, “Two men have broken my back, the learned man who ruins himself, and the fool who adopts asceticism. The learned man misleads people through his sins and the fool through his evil actions.”

Acquisition of Knowledge, Chapter One,
The Book of Worship, Volume One,
Imam Ghazali’s Ihya Ulum-id-Din