Kindling Thought with Kalam and Qalam in the Classroom

The start of a university semester is not only about new schedules and course contracts. In Indonesia’s digital age, higher education faces a deeper challenge: students are changing how they obtain, process and understand knowledge.

The issue is no longer simply how to find an answer. Universities must help students learn how to think, engage in dialogue and take responsibility for what they know. Lecturer Muhamad Towil Akhirudin of Jakarta’s Darunnajah University argues that teachers should do more than deliver course material. They should keep alive the traditions of thinking, discussion and writing within academic life.

A rush of information does not require universities merely to produce students who can find answers quickly. The greater task is to form academics who can understand problems, build arguments and produce knowledge that serves society.

Akhirudin links this task to two traditions in Islamic intellectual life: kalam and qalam. He uses kalam to mean dialogue and the spoken transmission of knowledge, while qalam refers to the pen, writing and the documentation of learning. Together, they symbolize how knowledge is acquired, developed and passed on. The message of Surah Al-‘Alaq, verses 1 to 5, gives reading and writing an important place in the journey of knowledge and connects ‘ilm, or knowledge, with ‘amal, its practice.

New students often arrive with habits formed by earlier schooling. They may wait for a lecturer’s explanation, copy material from slides and review information only before exams. Those habits need not be blamed, the article says, but university should guide students toward a different academic culture. Students must learn to examine problems, ask questions, construct arguments and defend their views. The classroom should be a meeting place for ideas, supported by discussion, case studies and academic debate. Asking questions is not a sign of ignorance, and expressing disagreement respectfully is part of discovering knowledge.