The Role of Religious Authorities in Monitoring Media and Education

The questioner:
Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh:
Peace.

The questioner:
Your Eminence, the father, I sometimes need to make a brief interjection. Dr. 'Abd al-'Aziz asked about social media. There is no doubt that curricula play an active role and that they truly require us to, well, to publish correct and pure Islamic curricula in teaching our children. But now books have come to us that we did not author; books written by Khawarij from outside the country have come to us, along with a cultural invasion and an intellectual invasion. The religious authorities, or the Council of Senior Scholars, for example, or the universities, have a major role in entering this field, the field of social media, because everyone has no longer turned to books or official media like television, for example, or Al-Ghali, or others. You find on television thousands of channels that are not controlled by this blessed country, or radio channels that are not controlled by this country, but rather channels come to us from outside, ideologized, wanting to trample our youth. Also, there are websites, whether in social media on Twitter or in other means, that have become feeding the ideas of the youth, and even casting doubt on the methodology of the Council of Senior Scholars. They have become using and hunting the youth to feed their ideas. This is the question, if you permit it, and your honor, I leave the matter to you, may Allah preserve you, Glorified and Exalted is He.

The Shaykh:
May Allah bless you. This is an important question, and this is what our discussion and speech in this session revolves around: that we do not listen to imported ideas, whether they are imported with the ideas of men coming to us, or in books, or in books that have come to us from here and there, or in a line or something similar, media. We have two things: media and educational means. It is necessary to monitor these two groups, media and educational means. If we are negligent about these two areas, deviant thought will invade us through them, and we will be unaware of it, not knowing what is happening. Previously, I was patient.
We knew the primary schools and studied in them. The one who graduated from the sixth grade would memorize Kashf al-Shubuhat, would memorize the Book of Tawhid, would memorize Kashf al-Shubuhat, would memorize the etiquettes of walking and prayer, would memorize the Nawawi Forty in hadith. He would memorize a complete book in grammar, from the beginning of grammar to the end. The primary school student would graduate with more knowledge than the one who graduates from secondary school and the scientific institute, and he is a student from primary school, because primary school is the foundation upon which things are built. If primary school is lost, do not make them study on top of nothing; they are studying on a foundation that has no basis. Primary school is the foundation; it must be cared for so that secondary studies and higher studies can be built upon it. And if primary school is lost, there is no benefit, even if you study the books of the world, you will not complete them.