Estimated reading time: 14 minutes
“Amma, did you know grown-ups are evil?”
I heard this from the backseat as I was driving home with Star (who, like most 12-year-olds, only wants to talk to her parents in the car or after bedtime). I said, “Excuse me?”
She explained, “They try to make us get addicted to TV, music, and YouTube. Most kids get so bored with school that they just get their marks and go home. They make our brains rot so we’ll just do whatever they want. They’re basically turning us into slaves.”
“Hmm, so you think they’re taking little kids and putting them into this system that churns out slaves?” I said.
“Yeah! Do you know about that? Is this a big…” Her eyes widened, “… conspiracy?” Conspiracies are very much on the mind of 12-year-olds.
I laughed and told her, “Star, this is the machine your Baba and I have been raging against since we were your age.”
Somewhere between kindergarten and graduation, our children stop being children and start becoming products.
Before my children were even born, I knew I wanted to homeschool, and the primary reason was this—I wanted my kids to be free from the limits of the school system. School is all about control. School controls your time, your behaviour, what you read, and, eventually, what you think. But while the reality of school is control, the reality of home education is freedom. So for me, homeschooling has always been a quiet act of rebellion.
Anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko said, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
To change the world, we need free minds, not oppressed ones.
Here’s the scary part: throughout history, oppressed people internalize their oppression. They develop a negative attitude towards their own group. Let’s look at some examples:
- Internalized racism: when people of a minority race have negative attitudes toward their own race.
- Internalized sexism: when women adopt oppressive attitudes toward their gender.
- Internalized ableism: from a neurodivergent perspective—the unconscious adoption of societal messages that frame neurodivergent traits as flawed.
Now consider—internalized schoolism:
- When graduates look down on those who chose a different educational path;
- When people derive self-worth from their ability to sit still, follow instructions, and get good grades;
- When they say statements like, “I went through it—I had to go to detention and get my work done—and I survived, so you should, too.”
Just as we recognize how people internalize racism, sexism, and ableism, we need to see how we, as graduates of this school system, have internalized the factory model of education.
The industrial model of education we inherited prioritizes conformity over creativity, and it’s costing us our children’s God-given individuality. Allah created us with sibghah—His unique colouring. So why do our schools work so hard to erase it?
The Industrial Revolution and the Birth of Standardized Humans
Let’s go back to the 1800s for a moment.
The Industrial Revolution changed everything. Suddenly, factories needed workers—lots of them—who could show up on time, follow instructions, and repeat the same task for hours without questioning why. Individuality in education wasn’t a priority. Efficiency was the goal. Compliance was the currency.
And so, mass schooling was born.
Mass schooling was designed to create predictable workers. This wasn’t malicious—it was practical for its time. The economy needed people who could operate machines, not people who could think beyond them. So schools borrowed directly from the factory model:
Bells to condition students to move on command.
Rows of desks to ensure uniformity and discourage collaboration.
Standardized tests to measure sameness, not understanding.
Rote memorization to reward regurgitation over curiosity.
Compliance over creativity—because factories don’t need innovators. They need operators.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if you design a factory, you get products. If you design a school like a factory, you get standardized people.
And here we are, over a century later, still using the same blueprint. We’ve upgraded the technology—smartboards instead of chalkboards, tablets instead of textbooks—but the fundamental design hasn’t changed. We’re still measuring children against arbitrary standards, still rewarding conformity, still punishing those who don’t fit the mould.
But our children aren’t products. They’re not meant to come off an assembly line with identical features and predictable outcomes. They’re human beings with souls, gifts, quirks, and a divine purpose that no standardized test can measure.
Islamic Schools: A Parallel Problem
Islamic schools begin with the best of intentions. They’re built as shields—places where our children can grow with a sense of protection, identity, and community. Many parents turn to them, hoping their kids will be safe from harmful influences, grounded in faith, and surrounded by people who understand their values. These are noble goals. Necessary goals. And for many families, Islamic schools offer exactly that.
But good intentions don’t always protect us from unintended consequences.
Somewhere along the way, Islamic schools start to mirror the very systems they were created to resist. Instead of nurturing a diverse ummah, they often promote a single “correct” way to be Muslim—a narrow template that leaves little room for personality, neurodivergence, cultural difference, or spiritual nuance. Children quickly learn that obedience is prized more than understanding, that memorization matters more than meaning, and that cultural norms are sometimes presented as if they were divine commands.
It’s not malicious. It’s structural.
We built our Islamic schools on the same industrial model as every other school—rows of desks, standardized expectations, rigid rules, and a fear of deviation—and they inevitably produce the same outcomes. Only this time, the product isn’t just a compliant student. It’s the “ideal Muslim”: quiet, disciplined, uniform, predictable. A child who doesn’t question. A child who doesn’t push back. A child who fits.
Deviation becomes a problem to fix. Sameness becomes a virtue to reward.
But is this what Allah wants from us?
The Qur’an doesn’t celebrate uniformity. It celebrates diversity—of languages, cultures, temperaments, and ways of thinking. Our tradition is full of scholars who disagreed passionately, companions with wildly different personalities, and prophets whose strengths were as varied as their missions. Allah didn’t create us identical. He created us with intentional differences.
So when our schools—even our Islamic ones—try to manufacture sameness, we have to pause. We have to ask whether we’re honouring Allah’s design or simply repeating the patterns of an educational system built for factories, not souls.
The Sibghah of Allah: Divine Individuality
There’s a reason the Qur’an uses the word sibghah—literally, Allah’s “colouring”—in Surah Al-Baqarah, ayah 138. It’s such a striking metaphor. “The colouring of Allah. And Who is better than Allah in colouring?” The ayah refers to a colouring that Allah gives a person when they believe in and follow Him. Colouring isn’t about erasing what’s underneath. It’s about bringing out depth, richness, and dimension. It’s Allah’s imprint on each soul, the unique hue He chose for every one of us before we ever entered this world. Like a highlighted line on a page, true belief in Allah makes the one who holds it stand out.
And that uniqueness is not incidental. It’s intentional.
Allah created diversity on purpose—in our languages, our cultures, our temperaments, our strengths, and even our ways of thinking. The Qur’an doesn’t shy away from this. It celebrates difference. It invites reflection. It encourages questioning. It repeatedly calls us to look, ponder, consider, and understand. These are not the instructions of a God who wants uniformity. These are the invitations of a God who wants consciousness.
Even our prophets and the sahaba were not made from a single mould.
They had wildly different personalities: gentle and fierce, quiet and outspoken, strategic and spontaneous, scholarly and intuitive. Their differences weren’t flaws to be corrected—they were gifts that made the ummah stronger. Accepting Islam didn’t dilute their individuality. It animated it.
That’s the heart of sibghah.
It doesn’t erase who we are.
It amplifies who we are.
But when our educational systems—especially those meant to nurture faith—push children toward sameness, compliance, and silence, we end up with something far from divine colouring. Instead of individuality in education, we end up with sheep: follow, don’t question; memorize, don’t understand; blend in, don’t stand out.
And that model doesn’t reflect Allah’s design.
It reflects human fear. To forge your own path, trusting that Allah’s sibghah is enough; to make your mission to help others with what Allah gave you; to decide to stand up and lead rather than follow blindly—that requires real bravery.
Sibghah calls us to something higher: to raise children whose individuality shines because of their connection to Allah, not in spite of it. Children who think, reflect, and engage with the world through the unique lens He gave them. Children who carry their faith like a comet carries its light—unmistakable, unrepeatable, and entirely their own.
Why Obedience Without Thought is Dangerous
“We hear, and we obey” is a beautiful phrase—but only when it’s directed toward Allah. Only when the One giving the command is the One who knows the unseen, the One who never wrongs, the One whose guidance is pure mercy. Outside of that context, uncritical obedience becomes something far more fragile, and far more dangerous.
When children are taught to obey without thinking, without questioning, without understanding, to “just do what the teacher says,” we don’t raise righteousness. We raise vulnerability.
Uncritical obedience leads to blind following—the kind that makes a child accept whatever they’re told simply because an adult said it. It creates vulnerability to manipulation, because a child who has never been allowed to question won’t know how to recognize when something is wrong. It results in a loss of moral agency, where choices are made out of fear or habit rather than conviction. And it suppresses the fitrah—that inner compass Allah placed within every soul, the one that nudges us toward truth, justice, and compassion.
Obedience without thought might look like good behaviour. It might look easy to manage. But it comes at the cost of a child’s inner strength.
I don’t want children who obey everything they’re told—even by me. I want children who can think. Children who can ask, “Is this right?” Children who can recognize when something aligns with Allah’s guidance and when it doesn’t. Children who choose righteousness with intention, not out of fear or conditioning.
Because a child who can think is a child who can stand.
A child who can question is a child who can protect themselves.
And a child who understands their faith is a child who will hold onto it—not because they were told to, but because they know why it matters.
What We Actually Need: Critical and Divergent Thinkers
If obedience without thought leaves our children vulnerable, then what’s the alternative? What does a healthier, more faith‑aligned model of learning look like?
We need children who can think, not just repeat. Children who can question, not just comply. Children who can recognize truth, not just absorb whatever is handed to them. This isn’t rebellion—it’s responsibility. It’s the kind of intellectual and spiritual maturity the Qur’an calls us toward again and again.
Critical thinking, in an Islamic sense, isn’t about doubting Allah. It’s about engaging with His signs. It’s the ability to reflect, analyze, and understand before acting. It’s the courage to ask, “What does Allah want from me here?” instead of “What will people think if I don’t obey?”
And then there’s divergent thinking—the creativity, imagination, and problem‑solving that allow a child to see possibilities others miss. This isn’t a luxury. It’s a survival skill. Our ummah has always been strongest when it embraced thinkers, inventors, poets, scholars, strategists, and dreamers. The early Muslims didn’t just follow instructions; they built civilizations.
When we nurture critical and divergent thinkers, we raise children who can:
- recognize when something aligns with their faith and when it doesn’t;
- navigate a world full of conflicting messages;
- innovate instead of imitate;
- bring their unique gifts to the ummah;
- stand firm in their values without being rigid or fearful.
This is the opposite of the factory model. Factories produce identical outputs. Faith produces intentional souls.
Our children were never meant to be standardized. They were meant to be guided—shaped by Allah’s wisdom, not by systems that fear difference. When we raise thinkers, we raise children who can carry Islam with depth, conviction, and creativity. Children who can walk into the world not as products of a system, but as bearers of light.
Reimagining Education for Muslim Children
If the factory model of schooling produces conformity, then we need to imagine something entirely different for our children—something rooted in faith, fitrah, and freedom. Our goal isn’t to raise children who simply survive the system. It’s to raise children who outgrow it. Children who know who they are, Who they belong to, and what they were created for.
To do that, we need to shift our understanding of what education is supposed to accomplish.
Education isn’t about producing identical outputs. It’s about nurturing souls.
We need learning environments—at home, in community spaces, and yes, even in schools—that value:
- Questions over quietness. A child who asks “why?” is not being disrespectful. They’re being awake.
- Understanding over memorization. Meaning sinks deeper than repetition ever will.
- Curiosity over compliance. Curiosity is a sign of life. Compliance is often a sign of fear.
- Difference over uniformity. Allah didn’t create a single personality template for believers. He created an ummah.
- Strength over silence. A child who can advocate for themselves will one day advocate for justice.
Imagine classrooms where children are encouraged to explore ideas, not just absorb them. Where teachers welcome diverse perspectives instead of fearing them. Where neurodivergent children aren’t “fixed” but understood. Where Islamic education is not about producing the “ideal Muslim,” but about helping each child discover how their unique gifts can serve Allah.
My experience with the Islamic school system is second-hand, through discussions with kids and parents who are going through it, and I will always encourage homeschooling as a viable alternative—but even homeschoolers are not immune, because of the internalized schoolism mentioned earlier.
I see so many homeschoolers trying to recreate school at home, looking for ways to keep their kids busy so they won’t have time to explore secular interests, controlling the books they read and friends they might make, essentially trying to keep their kids in a bubble. I truly believe this is a dangerous path to walk for our ummah. Just like kids in Islamic school who memorize a surah for a test and then promptly forget it when they don’t “need it” anymore, or who wear the hijab and “behave” at school but pull out the makeup and short skirts at the mall, what will happen to our homeschooled kids once they leave the nest?
This is not a rejection of discipline or structure.
It’s a rejection of unthinking discipline and rigid structure—the kind that crushes fitrah instead of cultivating it.
I know that homeschooling isn’t an option for everyone. I’m grateful that we were able to make it work for our family, while acknowledging that for many families, school is necessary. When home education isn’t possible, I hope that this article helps create home environments that encourage this type of growth and exploration.
Our children deserve an education that reflects the richness of our tradition: a tradition built by thinkers, scholars, poets, scientists, jurists, warriors, healers, and visionaries. A tradition that never feared knowledge, never feared questions, and never feared difference.
If we want to raise comets—children who blaze their own path with Allah’s light—then we need to build learning spaces that honour their trajectory instead of forcing them into orbit around someone else’s expectations.
Because the ummah doesn’t need more cogs.
It needs more light.
Returning to What Allah Intended
Star, if you’re reading this: know that your parents are not part of that machine. We’re the ones shouting about it, trying to change it, trying to encourage others not to put their kids into it.
Because the Industrial Revolution didn’t just change how we make things. It changed how we make people. Cranking out the next generation after squeezing out all the good stuff.
But we don’t need to manufacture Muslims. We need to nurture souls.
Just as we originally came from the gardens of Jannah and descended on Earth for a short time, we were meant to grow in gardens, not factories. We were meant to bloom and grow, not be pushed through a system of mass production where all our differences are considered defects.