Assalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim
1. Introduction
Friends beloved by Allah,
In managing educational institutions or communities, we often collide with a bitter reality: limited quantity and quality of human resources. There are very few ustadz or teachers, and their capacity is also limited because they rarely receive academic refreshers. Scientifically, in organizational management and industrial psychology, the main solution to HR limitations is not constantly seeking new people, but doing _capacity building_—improving the quality of existing HR through regular training. When a teacher’s competence increases, teaching efficiency and effectiveness multiply, so the shortage in numbers can be covered by high quality. Islam is a religion that strongly encourages continuous self-capacity improvement. A teacher or ustadz is not a rigid tower that stops learning after earning a degree. The best solution for the ummah is to keep training our educators so they have the best teaching methods, broad insight, and the wisdom to embrace the hearts of the younger generation.
Allah Subḥānahu wa Ta‘ālā says about the importance of raising the ranks of those who believe and continuously enrich themselves with knowledge:
يَرْفَعِ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ مِنكُمْ وَٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا۟ ٱلْعِلْمَ دَرَجَٰتٍ ۚوَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ
“Allah will raise those who have believed among you and those who were given knowledge, by degrees. And Allah is Aware of what you do.” (QS. Al-Mujādilah: 11)
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ also reminded that a believer—especially teachers of goodness—must not feel satisfied with their current capacity, but must keep honing their skills:
أَلَا إِنَّ الدُّنْيَا مَلْعُونَةٌ مَلْعُونٌ مَا فِيهَا إِلَّا ذِكْرُ اللَّهِ وَمَا وَالَاهُ وَعَالِمٌ أَوْ مُتَعَلِّمٌ
“Behold, the world is cursed and cursed is what is in it, except the remembrance of Allah and what He loves, and a scholar who keeps teaching or a student who keeps learning.” (HR. Tirmidhi)
2. Lessons and Message
Let us picture a madrasah or school in the interior after a severe disaster. There are only two elderly ustadz who must teach a hundred children across various grade levels. Every day, the two ustadz look exhausted, their hair growing whiter, and their voices hoarse from moving from one group of children to another with the makeshift methods they learned decades ago. One afternoon, one of the ustadz sits in the corner of a leaky emergency office, massaging his forehead while tears fall. He whispers to his colleague, “By Allah, I’m not tired in body, but I weep because I feel sinful… my knowledge and my way of teaching are too outdated. I’m afraid these children gain nothing from my ignorance.” How heartbreaking it is to see sincerity constrained by limited capacity. But how beautiful it is when the institution or community holds regular training programs for them. When the two ustadz are taught multimedia methods, engaging classroom management, and child psychology, their tears turn into smiles full of hope. They return to class with extraordinary new energy.
Friends, imagine a lumberjack in a dense forest. In his hand is only an iron axe that is very dull and rusty. Because lumberjacks are few and the axe is dull, he must swing it thousands of times, draining all his sweat just to fell one small tree. He is exhausted, stressed, and the result is minimal. But what happens if the forest owner calls the lumberjack to rest for a few hours, then gives him a top-quality whetstone to sharpen his axe? In a short time, the axe becomes razor-sharp. When he returns to the forest, with far less energy, he can fell dozens of trees quickly and neatly. Regular training for teachers and ustadz is that “process of sharpening the axe.” Do not let our warriors of knowledge fight on the field of da‘wah with “blunt competence axes.” Sharpen their teaching skills regularly, so that limited HR numbers can be overcome by the excellence of their work.
There was a senior ustadz in a village who was known for being very rigid. His teaching style since the 1980s never changed: sitting upright, holding a rattan stick, and all students had to memorize without asking questions. As a result, the class was always empty because the students ran away. One day, he was required to attend modern teaching-method training based on digital tools and Islamic games. After returning from the training, he tried practicing it in class. He divided the children into teams, used interactive quizzes, and gave prizes to the winners. Seeing the drastic change, a foundation administrator teased him, “Wow, Ustadz is trendy now, no more rattan stick.” The ustadz laughed heartily and replied, “Yes, alhamdulillah, after the training I just realized—all this time it wasn’t the naughty students who were wrong, but the ‘operating system’ in my head that was outdated and needed an update! Lucky the kids didn’t uninstall me yet!” The joke carries great wisdom: it is never too late for an educator to learn. The key to overcoming limitations is the humility to keep updating one’s own skills.
3. Conclusion and Closing
Brothers and sisters, a shortage of human resources is not the end of everything, as long as we are willing to move to multiply the quality of the HR we have. The concrete solution is to hold regular training for our teachers, ustadz, and instructors. Let us invest our institution’s time, thought, and budget to improve their teaching competence. When our teachers’ competence is sharp and up-to-date, from the womb of limitation will be born brilliant generations ready to lead the ummah with excellence. Let us tend our lamps of knowledge so their light shines ever brighter to illuminate the darkness.
والله أعلم بالصواب
الحمد لله رب العالمين
Wassalamu’alaikum Warahmaullahi Wabarakatuh.
ِAbu Sultan Al-Qadrie
