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

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical religious education
• teaching Islam
• education into religion
• liberal Islamic education
• progressive Islamic education
• citizenship education
• Islam and democracy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Salafi is a person who claims to follow the salaf – pious ancestors who lived during the first three generations of Islam after the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Saeed, 2006). Salafism is a revivalist Islamization movement developed in Muslim countries as a traditionalist reaction to modernity (Talbani, 1996).

2 The sayings and statements of Prophet Muhammad.

3 It is an Islamic and puritanical movement established by Muhammad ibn Àbdl-Wahhab during the nineteenth century in the Arab peninsula. He wanted to purify Islam by focusing on polytheism (shirk), unity of God (tawhid), and discarding all kinds of innovation (bid`a). He believed in the significance of returning to the pristine and ‘authentic’ Islam and was skeptical of philosophy and rational reasoning (Saeed, 2006). His philosophy was adopted later as the basic theology of Saudi Arabia (Ali & Leaman, 2008).

4 Independent legal reasoning (Ali & Leaman, 2008).

5 Sharia relies on the Quran, the sunna (the deeds and statements of the Prophet Muhammad), and the fiqh (jurisprudence) (Ali & Leaman, 2008).

6 Such as chronic problems of poverty, political tyranny, failure of educational systems, unemployment in Arab and Muslim countries.

7 A ‘class of scholars in the Islamic sciences who have traditionally comprised the intellectual elite in the Muslim world’ (Ali & Leaman, 2008, p. 146).

8 He is known as Averroes (1126–1198) in Western thought. He was a medieval Muslim philosopher and a jurist (Jackson, 2006).

9 It means what is allowed or forbidden in Islam in terms of behaviors.

10 It is assumed that these ideals were established during the life of Prophet Muhammad and his four companions – the Rashidun (Rightly Guided) Caliphs (Moussali, 2003).

11 A system of ruling the Islamic world produced after the death of Prophet Muhammad (Ali & Leaman, 2008).

12 It is a political philosophy in Islam which means that human beings do not have control over their actions, as they are all predetermined by God (Saeed, 2006, p. 8).

13 A Salafi jihadi extremist and militant group led by Sunni Arabs who believe and work violently on the re-establishment of caliphate-Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (Al-Yaqoubi, 2015)

14 The use of empirical, experiential and logical methods in producing the Islamic knowledge (Niyozov, 2011).

15 Striving or exertion especially in the religious path or in holy war (Jackson, 2006).

16 This method was conducted in selecting the Rightly Guided Caliphs after the death of Prophet Muhammad.

17 Followers of pre-Islamic monotheistic religions with some form of scripture believed to be of divine origin which are mentioned in Quran: Jews, Christians (Ali & Leaman, 2008).

18 A term related to people of the book (Christians and Jews) living under the protection of the Muslim state (Ali & Leaman, 2008).

19 For instance, they need to pay jizya (A tax specified in the Quran (9:29) to be paid by non-Muslim males living under Muslim political control) (Huwaidi, 1999).

20 Muslims are required to believe and profess that there is no God but God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God (Abou El Fadl, 2007), to perform five formal ritual prayers a day, to fast during the Muslim month of Ramadan (siyam), almsgiving (zakat), and the pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca.