Thoughts on Children’s Education as Presented by Mohd Affandi Hassan in Pujangga Melayu

Abstract

Mohd Affandi Hassan contributed the idea of Genuine Literature in Malaysian literary scene that concerned with knowledge and thinking as a basis of literature. He uses the term and concept of ‘persuratan’ that emphasizes knowledge to distinguish the concept of literature that aside knowledge as the priority. He also put ‘adab’ as the basis of the literature and ‘adab’ turn out to be the key to the Islamic Literature that includes a relationship with God and man. In one of his celebrated work, entitled Pujangga Melayu, the author presented the novel as a template or a manual to craft a work of literature that emphasizes knowledge, thoughts and ideas. One aspect that was highlighted dominantly by Mohd Affandi Hassan in Pujangga Melayu is related to children and adolescents education in Islam. This paper is interested to examine the particular subject as presented by Mohd Affandi Hassan in his novel. In an effort to assess the matter, the paper uses Henry H.H Remak’s framework of comparative literature. According to Remak, comparative literature is also applied to compare literature to any other disciplines. Six aspects of children’s education have been described here. The six aspects are first, the exposure to aspects of ‘akidah’ to Muslim children during early ages, second; the principe of ‘muraqabah’ in their education, third; encouraging physical education that benefit children and adolescents, fourth; strengthening the concept of knowledge for children and youth of Islam, fifth; stressing aspects of ‘akhlak’ and morality for Muslim children and adolescents and sixth the children’s education through ‘ibadah’ or worship and religious rituals. The thoughts on children’s education were brought in his novel using sermon, speech and debate oriented techniques in order to propagate knowledge.