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…

This paper outlines a set of analytical perspectives grounded in affect theory for decolonising religious education. In particular, these perspectives are: recognising the role of religious feelings; examining the extent to which decolonial affective spaces can be created in the classroom; and, understanding how contemporary public discourses…

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…

This article explores the integration of hip-hop with Islamic themes in the religious education (RE) classroom, with a focus on transcending the constraints of traditional narratives and creating a dynamic and wide-ranging understanding of Islamic traditions of interpretations. Drawing inspiration from Richard Bulliet's book Islam: A View from the…

Articles 28 and 30 of the Indian Constitution (1950) guarantee the right of religious minorities to establish their educational institutions and impart religious education. Analysing the curriculum, textbooks, and pedagogical practices of one such minority-run institution for girls makes it possible for us to see how contemporary Muslims in India…

Muslim education is constituted by a notion of "tarbiyyah"--that is, being socialized into an inherited body of facts with little, if any, opportunity for critical appraisal of such tenets of faith. Such a notion of Muslim education is still dominant in South African Muslim educational institutions--mostly schools and…

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…

In Islamic religious education (IRE), as well as in the context of pedagogical and theological Islamic Studies at universities, Muslim educators, teachers, and learners in Germany and Austria encounter each other in a cultural, religious, theological, and ideological plurality. However, the existing intra-Muslim plurality is often neglected and…

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…

The Muslim world has witnessed the emergence of several Islamic-based institutes and universities in the last four decades, in keeping with some of the recommendations of the World Conferences on Muslim Education. Yet there has not been a comprehensive study of the system as operated in various contemporary Muslim settings, with a view to…

This paper traces Middle Eastern elements in Islamic education in Indonesia by looking at their institutions, curricula, method of teaching, orientations, and Islamic ideological transmission. The information on values and impacts of Indonesian and Middle Eastern Islam takes a one-way traffic pattern in general terms. The dynamics of Islam in…

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…