In the final season of the Norwegian drama series "Skam" ("Shame") (2015-2017), the protagonist Sana, navigating in a secular, liberal youth culture, is a practicing Muslim wearing the hijab. The series is analysed as an instance of public religious education focusing on the issue of representation. This approach is informed by…

This article initiates a discussion on incorporating "religious literacy" into Saudi secondary education. It provides a preliminary understanding of the religious education context and emphasizes that religious literacy is not religious education. It examines the arguments for and against the incorporation of religious literacy in the…

This article examines the place of ijtihad in the British Religious Education curriculum. It argues that the concept should be taught to high school students earlier than A-Level. Knowledge of ijtihad enables students to understand diversity of thought and legal interpretation in Islam, and why different conclusions can be reached from the same or…

In the article, 'Agreed Syllabi and Un-Agreed Values: Religious Education and Missed Opportunities for Fostering Social Cohesion', Panjwani (2005) presented a case study of Muslim representation in the selected agreed syllabi and RE textbooks in England and Wales. The present article aims to provide a rear-mirror view, reviewing the representation…

The Qur'an in the Islamic tradition, understood as the veritable word of God addressed directly to Muhammad, is much more than sacred text: it is the embodiment of the divine in humanity's midst. This understanding has impacted how Muslims engage with it, resulting in what I term the "multisensory engagement with the Qur'an." That is,…

Purpose: Islamic schools in Western secular societies are evolving in response to collective concerns over marginalization of Muslim children and communities and to increasing demands for high-quality education in the faith tradition. These schools are at the center of public debate over how they fit within secular societies. This paper aims to…

Drawing on fiqh al-aqalliyyat (the Muslim jurisprudence of diasporic minorities), this article introduces a Muslim minorities curriculum and negotiates the notion of diasporicity as a process that signifies a community's readiness to respond to its own cultural, religious and literacy practices. More specifically, first, I propose a Muslim…

This paper investigates the philosophical tensions between secular-liberalism and Islam, and reviews Islamic conceptualisations of knowledge, personhood and education, in order to conceptualise "shakhsiyah Islamiyah" as an authentic and credible form of personal agency within an Islamic worldview. It begins by examining the liberal…

Nations design their education systems to prepare youth for achieving national goals and objectives as perceived by that nation. The education system reflects nations' epistemological, ontological and axiological assumptions. Accordingly, the secular west has designed its educational intervention based on their assumptions and is diametrically…

The spread of Islam to the nomadic Kazakh community that lived in the steppes of Asia has followed a difficult historical path over many centuries. In recent centuries, a system of Islamic religious education in the regions where Islam was the main religion gradually began to generalize and spread. This process continued until the more recent…

The Calcutta "madrasa" was one of the many institutions which witnessed recurrent attempts at reform in Muslim societies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since the eleventh century, when "madrasas" first emerged as the principal institution of higher Islamic learning, it has undergone many changes, adapting in…

This paper brings attention to the notion of 'religious affects', namely, the affects, emotions and feelings related to religion and religious experience. It is argued that educators and students have a lot to gain from paying attention to and exploring the meaning and role of religious feelings in the context of controversies and debates…

This article is a reflection of the author's experiences teaching a course titled 'Women In Islam' [WIS] in an English Department at a medium, public, Masters granting, Liberal Arts university in the Midwestern United States. This paper argues for the importance of teaching WIS through a multi-genre, interdisciplinary, and global approach. The…

This paper explores the 'indigenous' philosophy of education of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, a Malay-Muslim scholar who's theoretical work culminated in the establishment of a counter-colonial higher education institution. Through presenting al-Attas' life and philosophy and by exploring the arguments of his critics, I aim to shed light on the…

When discussing Religious Education, the topic of religious symbols in educational spaces is largely overlooked in academic literature and often side-lined in political considerations as well. This paper examines the issue of religious symbols in public schools by highlighting two foci: how the Muslim veil is managed in public schools in select…