Religious education and hermeneutics: the case of teaching about Islam

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to do three things: the first is an exploration of the ways in which Islam is presented in an essentialist way (with a focus on religious education (RE) in England and Wales), leading to stereotypes and unsubstantiated generalisations that are then embedded in resources and agreed syllabi, secondly, it provides a critique of essentialism, and finally a case is made for the role of hermeneutics in the teaching and learning of Islam. We argue that a hermeneutical approach is a sound way to both conceptualise the phenomenon of Islam and a pedagogical opening to make sense of it, that may help overcome some of the weaknesses of the current ways of teaching about Islam.

KEYWORDS:

• Hermeneutics
• Islam
• essentialism
• stereotypes
• diversity
• Muslims

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In the study of religions this tendency can be traced back to the 19th century when the disciplines of religious study, comparative religion and Islamic studies emerged. There was a stress on textual and philological approaches to search for the authentically religious in ‘mythological, textual and doctrinal sources with an emphasis on the classic literary expressions of intellectual elites’ (King 2017, 7).

2. The word literally means, ‘being there’ but in Heideggerian sense it has technical use referring to a being, such as humans, that is situated in the world and is aware of the situatedness and seeks to make sense of it.

3. Often, the Qura’anic translation done from a Sunni perspective will have the following translation: ‘And those who are firmly rooted in knowledge, say: “We believe in them; the whole is from our Lord”.but only those with understanding really grasp.’ And, below is the translation from a Shi’I perspective: ‘And those who are firmly rooted in knowledge, say: ‘We believe in them; the whole is from our Lord’. but only those with understanding really grasp.” (Qur’an 3:7)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Farid Panjwani

Farid Panjwani is a senior lecturer and founding Director of the Centre for Research and Evaluation in Muslim Education (CRÈME) at the Institute of Education, University College London. He is particularly interested in education about inter- and intra-religious diversity, interface between religious and citizenship education and the philosophical questions posed by the need for social cohesion in contemporary multicultural societies. His current research is on critical pedagogy, education and poverty, teaching of philosophy in Muslim faith schools and the pedagogical approaches to religious diversity.

Lynn Revell

Lynn Revell is a reader in Religion and Education at Canterbury Christ Church University where she leads the Doctorate in Education. She is currently involved in research on extremism and fundamental British Values in schools and co leads the World Educational Research Association on extremism in education.