Divisions,diversity and educational directives: IRE teachers’ didactic choices in Kisumu,Kenya

The present article focuses on the choices teachers make when teaching Islamic religious education (IRE) in the town of Kisumu, Kenya. The data were collected through interviews with IRE teachers and participant observations in schools that offered IRE during several fieldwork sessions in the period 2003–2006. The fieldwork revealed that the choices teachers made were related to social and religious contexts both inside and outside the school setting and also the more immediate contexts of the teaching–learning situation. Most clearly, the choices were influenced by the fact that IRE is an examinable subject in a larger educational system. This article claims that an alternation between a confessional education into Islam and a more fact‐oriented education about Islam was a strategy used by some teachers balancing between competing demands posed by the educational system, students, parents and the surrounding local society.     

Islamic education and the challenge of democratic citizenship: a critical perspective

This article analyzes how concepts of liberal and progressive Islam, which have been developed in the political and theological academic literature, may inform the curriculum of Islamic education and the practice of religious educators in Islamic schools in the US. We investigate the meaning of in-faith Islamic education and how it can conform to the life in a democratic, multicultural, and multi-faith society. Liberal Islam challenges the transmission-oriented and rigid interpretations of Islam and seeks to appreciate and to contextualize the religious claims which are compatible with ideals of reflective education, rational thinking, mutual respect, and equal citizenship. It suggests that students become critical ‘consumers’ of Islam, its moral and civic purposes, and the cultural politics of religious interrogations.     

Between “Islamic” and “un-Islamic”: Navigating Religion at an American Islamic High School

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate how one American Islamic school community grapples with external and internal demands on religion, and how this process impacts notions of what is religious. At ‘Ilm High School, an Islamic high school on America’s West Coast, school administrators and teachers must accommodate students’ and parents’ diverse and often competing ideas about Islam and the “Islamic.” In doing so, they sometimes downplay the “Islamic” in their Islamic Studies classes, policies, and school representation. They do this without venturing into the “un-Islamic”, casting a wide “religious net” and keeping Islam capacious and relevant enough for Muslim students.     

Teaching Islamic education in Finnish schools: A field of negotiations

The challenges of contemporary multicultural societies have resulted in changing aims for religious education and the necessity to adjust teacher education accordingly. The processes of negotiation related to the coexistence of different religious and cultural groups are intertwined in the Finnish curriculum for religious education. This case study examines three Islamic education teachers who negotiated intra- and inter-religious tensions as well as tensions between societal and religious orientations of education. Through their ideological, pedagogical and interpersonal negotiations teachers can mediate the contested practices of Islam as well as the ideals of liberal democracies and contribute to the emergence of Finnish Islam.     

Epistemological shifts in knowledge and education in Islam: A new perspective on the emergence of radicalization amongst Muslims

I theorize that the idea of knowledge and education has shifted in Islam from an inclusive and rational search for all knowledge to a narrowed focus on religious knowledge, void of rationality. By synthesizing literature on education and knowledge in Islam, this study identifies three shifts in the cultural history of Islamic education. I argue that those shifts in what was deemed valuable knowledge have played a significant role in the emergence of radicalization today. The study shows that once the social world of Islam destabilized, the sense of belonging and sense making became inward and less reflexive as compared to that of early Muslims. Belief became privileged over the rationality mechanisms that had previously formed Islamic endeavors. I demonstrate that a decline in intellectual and scientific production followed, allowing extremists to skew Islam’s narrative by putting forward an idealized version of the Islamic caliphate divorced from rationality.     

The extreme as the normal; binary teaching and negative identification in religious education lessons about Islam

ABSTRACT

This article examines how representations of Islam in the media influence religious education. Reporting from a case study of religious education in an upper secondary school in Norway, the article analyses the way aspects of Islam are approached and structured by ongoing media debates. Based on research into media coverage of Islam in Norway, the article argues that when teachers adopt the polarized structure of media debates, they also come to privilege the more extreme actors in their teaching. Although the debates commonly present opposing views in order to give a balanced representation of the issue, the observed lessons often revolve around the most controversial side of the debate. This happens through what is called binary teaching and negative identification. In this way, lessons aimed at nuancing what is seen as biased media coverage of Islam, favouring controversial issues and extremism, may come to revolve around these same issues. The article claims that religious education in some instances reinforces the strong focus on controversial issues prominent in media coverage, confirming the ‘normality’ of extremism in Islam.     

A conversational analysis of developments in religious education in Europe and in Turkey

This contribution is focusing on the question: ‘In what way is the issue of religious education in general and Islamic religious education in particular articulated in Europe and in Turkey, and what can be learned from the respective articulations for the interreligious dialogue?’ In the first section, the historical context is presented that makes up the diversity and situatedness of models of religious education (RE) in Europe, and its relation to citizenship education. Then the role of Islam in RE in Europe is addressed. In particular, Islam and RE/Islamic RE in the Dutch context is highlighted. In the second section, the Turkish educational system is described from the Ottoman Empire to the Republican Era, including the position of Islam. Turkey’s present day secularised educational system is presented and the changed position of Islam in education. In the third section, the authors introduce the concept of ‘conversational analysis’ by using ‘European tinted lenses’ to further explore the Turkish articulation of Islam in education, and ‘Turkish tinted lenses’ to explore the European articulation with regard to Islam in RE. Concluding, some interesting aspects are emphasised where European and Turkish educators can learn from and with each other, and some recommendations for further research are given.     

Spiritual Education in Islamic Tradition: Revisiting Ghazali’s “Deliverance”

Any religion has three aspects: moral–ritual orders, metaphysical–cosmological beliefs, and the feelings that are the foundations of “religious experience”; focusing on any of these particular aspects results in a different approach toward the concept of “religion” and “religious education.” This study will examine Ghazali’s version of Sufism as a significant way of spirituality in Islam. He thought that mystical vision was the sublime ideal of Islam and education. But he redefined the other two aspects in line with achieving religious experience. Thus, he achieved a special interpretation of spiritual education that could be called negative education.     

Zina and the enigma of sex education for Indonesian Muslim youth

Sexuality and sex education cannot be divorced from the moral values of the societies within which we must negotiate our sexual identities and relationships. Rather than pandering to the moral panic that is too often associated with the provision of sex education in non‐secular societies where religion is more visibly active in shaping sexual ideals and norms, this article takes up the challenge of investigating a relationship that is often represented as being innately contradictory. It explores the Islamic notion of zina (illicit sex) in relation to the provision of comprehensive sex education for Muslim youth in contemporary Indonesia. The article initially establishes the demand for sex education among Indonesian youth from the overlapping perspectives of health, human rights and Islam. It then explores the notion of zina in detail and exposes how Islamic stipulations against premarital sex are not necessarily in conflict with the provision of sex education. The final section of the article refines the argument in favour of utilizing Islam as a framework for developing religiously appropriate sex education and describes a suitable approach and content for Islamic sex education curricula for Indonesian youth.     

Pedagogy of hizmet in Germany – non-formal educational practices and biographical views of its participants

ABSTRACT

The Gülen Movement, a global network and religious community revolving the Turkish Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, has become a topic of political discourses in worldwide media since the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. Earlier, it was particularly known for its worldwide education activities. The article discusses first results of a reconstructive analysis of practices and biographies in a context of a weekly religious sohbet (conversation circle) for male university students within the DFG-financed project Pedagogy of the ‘Gülen Movement’ (2016–2019). The Islamic culture of education inside the sohbet can be understood in the context of ongoing educational inequalities of Turkish-Muslim students in the German migration-society. Against this background, in Germany, Gülen Movement’s idea of education hizmet comes along with certain religious practices and subjectifications, which aim to enable young Turkish Muslims taking a recognised standing in society.     

Islamic religious education and the plan against violent radicalization in Spain

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the importance of Islamic religious education in public schools in Spain as an instrument in the prevention and fight against violent radicalisation. In this article, we examine the legal status of Islamic religious education and the latest regulations on Islamic religious education that emphasise the fight against Islamist terrorism. We also study the regulation of teachers of Islamic religious education and their role in the counter-narrative required to deter the message of Islamist terrorists and prevent violent radicalisation.     

Islamic morality: Teaching to balance the record

The article proposes that the teaching of Islamic morality presents as an important if not urgent task for moral education. It offers the opportunity to inform a student body about a vital historical development in the formation of moral thought and action; to challenge and offset a blind spot in Western thinking about Islam in general; to challenge the ease with which radical Islamist views of Islam have captured the minds of Muslim and non-Muslim audiences alike; and, because of the contentious nature of the topic, to provide the kind of robust debate that should accompany moral pedagogy in general. The article focusses on select aspects of historical Islamic morality as exemplars of the contribution to morality made by the religious tradition.     

Empirical research: Challenges and impulses for Islamic religious education

ABSTRACT

The following article describes how empirical research can give new impulses to Islamic religious education. These impulses could lead to a reconciliation of the Islamic religious heritage with the fast-changing reality of Muslims in non-Muslim countries and societies. Due to the presence of Muslim children in public schools and the urgent question of their religious education, as an academic discipline, Islamic religious pedagogy (Islamische Religionspädagogik) has acquired a pioneering role among the various Islamic theological disciplines. On a scientific level, it has already taken its first steps in the scientific landscape in Germany and Austria and has established diverse references to modern science. Islamic religious pedagogy, as a young scientific discipline, necessarily requires empirical research to provide sound foundations for the quality of Islamic religious education and for a better understanding of religious educational processes. This calls for a dialogue between empirical educational research and theology and cannot be achieved based on purely theoretical assumptions.     

Islamic higher education and social cohesion in Indonesia

This study explores the role of public Islamic higher education in promoting better relations between various religious communities in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Based on field research conducted between December 2005 and March 2006, it documents how progressive Islamic education leaders have advanced a tradition of critical intellectualism in efforts toward the “renewal” of Islamic thought. This report provides an analysis of how this tradition has served as a foundation for educators seeking to promote democratization and address issues of social cohesion. It examines some of the core values expressed by educational leaders as they have aspired to transform the most prominent State Institutes for Islamic Studies (IAIN) into genuine universities. The study also highlights the conservative backlash against public Islamic higher education and other purveyors of progressive ideas within Indonesian society.

Can Cosmopolitanism Work Religiously? A Response to David T. Hansen

This response to David T. Hansen's 2016 plenary address to the Religious Education Association tests the viability of educational cosmopolitanism for religious education. Using a Deweyan methodology of understanding an idea through its consequences, Hansen's proposal is analyzed using dialogues with interreligious and Islamic pedagogies. The question is asked, Can Islam be cosmopolitan?     

伊斯兰教的经济观

伊斯兰教并不限制人们追求现世财富和物质享受,但对一个虔诚的穆斯林来说,这种追求和享受不能妨碍他履行宗教责任与宗教义务;另一方面,对真主的绝对服从是获得今世财富和来世幸福的条件和保证,辜负真主的人不但会失去今世的财富,也得不到来世的幸福。伊斯兰教的这种经济观在全球经济现代化的浪潮中面临着挑战,伊斯兰现代主义者试图对伊斯兰教的传统进行新的解释,从而使伊斯兰教适应并推动现代经济的发展。     

Misconceptions About Human Rights and Women’s Rights in Islam

This paper aims to clarify three current misconceptions about the Islamic faith and issues of human rights and women’s rights in the West. The first misconception is that Muslims are terrorists because they believe in Jihad. It is factually the case that Islamic teachings stress the value of peace and prosperity for all human beings. The second misconception is that Muslims prohibit scientific knowledge and only aim to seek religious knowledge. To the contrary, Qur’an emphasizes that the opportunity to seek all forms of knowledge is a human right and responsibility of all Muslims. The third misconception and perhaps, the most controversial, is that Islam oppresses women. In reality, Islam offers women the right to make their own choices in the areas of education, business, and property, to name a few. By sharing my own experiential narrative as a Muslim born woman and that of a Canadian women who converted to Islam, I can actually see the similarities between human rights in Islam and the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).     

Religious Tolerance and Understanding in the French Education System

This research is based on an interview and survey-based case study of an Islamic lycée, a Catholic lycée, and two public lycées in the Ile-de-France region of France. The study investigated whether students in private schools receiving some form of education about religion tend to be more tolerant and demonstrate more religious understanding than students in public schools receiving little to none. The results showed that tolerance and understanding were not necessarily codependent and that a number of other factors seem to have a similarly significant impact on student religious tolerance and understanding as receiving education about religion.     

The religious–secular interface and representations of Islam in phenomenological religious education

Abstract

Alongside community-based education, a principal agency which has contributed to defining multi-faith identities in England and Wales over the past five decades has been the subject of religious education in state maintained schools. Over this period, formulations of the social category of ‘Muslims’ and the curricular concept of ‘Islam’ in religious education have been significantly influenced by the application of the phenomenology of religion, a methodology derived from religious studies that has come under question for its decontextualised readings of religion. Drawing upon critiques of this approach, this article seeks to examine representations of Islam and Muslims in religious education based on the phenomenological model, with particular reference to the interface between the religious and the secular. Looking ahead, the article considers proposals on intercultural education which aim at preparing the young for a contributive role in society.     

Islam in Egyptian Education: Grades K–12

Abstract

This article explores the important role that the religion of Islam plays in the education of Egyptian children. The scrutiny under which the Islamic world finds itself in the after-math of September 11, 2001 has resulted in calls for educational reform, not only from the outside world, but also from the Muslim world itself. The author has a personal interest in the educational reform debate in Egypt as she has two granddaughters who attend a private Christian school in Cairo. Research for the article is grounded in direct interviews of students, teachers, and parents during a 5-month stay as well as analysis of Arabic and social studies textbooks. This study reveals that while education of children in Egypt is essentially Islamic, the question is: What kind of Islam will prevail? Will it be the Islam of the moderate Islamists who see the purpose of education to be the advancement of the ideals of Islam above all other concerns? Or will it be the Islam of Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, and his government, which promotes national unity and non-sectarian ethics? In this article the author gives a brief review of early Arab education, surveys challenges in Egyptian education today, discusses ways in which the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is attempting to help reform education in Egypt, and, finally, focuses on students and teachers at New Ramses College in Cairo and how they are handling some of the challenges.