The Enrichment Programme consisting of 16 Modules, forms an integral
part of the Muballigheen Training Programme, balancing between the
traditional curriculum and the Western modules. The topics have been
well chosen to prepare the students to be able to communicate to Muslim
as well as non-Muslim audiences in a wholistic manner.
Module Outlines:
1. Preaching, Teaching, Reaching
Preaching, a form of monologue, is an ineffective method of
communication. Scientific studies show that passive listening leads
only to a small percentage of retention. People remember only about 20
per cent of what they hear, 40 per cent of what they see and hear, but
80 per cent of what they discover for themselves. In view of the fact
that the monologue of the majlis still remains a predominant form of
communication, Muballigheen need to learn how to optimize the monologue
as well as use other modes of communication to reach the community.
This Module will familiarize students with a range of alternative and
complimentary methods and techniques to ensure that learning can be
more effective when a combination of teaching methods and visual aids
are used to reach the audience.
2. Comparative Religions
This comparative Module will provide an insight into the world’s three
major monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The
Module will initially trace the roots of the three religions, examine
their historical development and focus on themes that are salient to
all the three religious traditions – revelation, the community, and the
role of scripture. The module will further examine the mystical
dimension, the emergence of the priestly class and analyze how the
peoples that espouse religious beliefs respond to the challenges of
modernity.
3. Religion & Women
Leadership of religious organizations has been for hundreds of years
dominated by males. However, it has always been known, if not
acknowledged, that much religious work as well as support of the
institutional religions has been done by women. Only within the recent
decades have women been admitted into the leadership of many religious
groups. In others, their access to leadership roles is still being
contested. It is only recently, too, that women's contribution to the
history of faith communities has become a topic research. This Module
discusses the topic of women in religion.
4. Methodologies in the study of religion
Religious behaviour can often seem strange to the outsider. Why should
people meet together for an hour or so on Sunday morning or Friday
afternoon, and stand, sit or kneel at predetermined intervals, chant,
perhaps burn incense or light candles, and do many more things that
would be regarded as downright bizarre if an individual performed them
outside the context of worship? If the onlooker doubts their apparent
strangeness, he or she might try reciting verses of the Qur’an or sing
a hymn on the bus to work or even be seen reading the Qur’an or the
Bible in public. What do such actions achieve, and why do some people
engage in them? The aim of this Module is to make sense of religious
behaviour: neither to endorse it, nor to critisize it, but to endeavour
to understand it.
5. Understanding the Media and analyzing Current Affairs
The mass communications media (newspapers, radio, film, television, and
now the internet,) have a profound impact on all societies. An
understanding of how the media operate is vital for our Muballigheen.
This Module will help in understanding how communication works, by
taking an in-depth look at television programmes and newspapers, and
understand how they communicate with their audiences. The primary aim
of this Module is to equip students with a practical understanding of
the main issues facing the Community as consumers of the media in a day
and age saturated by media messages. The techniques of analysis
include the study of the language used by the media as well a critical
appraisal of how different media tell their stories and how they
‘represent’ the different interests.
6. Youth Issues
This Module will be constructed around the ‘hot button’ issues raised
by the youth, in particular those living in the West. The content for
this Module will be crafted based on a survey of focus groups in
conjunction with the Qunut Foundation and other youth activists in the
Community.
7. Classical Islam
The first centuries of Islam saw the development of many different
schools of thought in Islam and witnessed varied divisions of opinion
within the Muslim community. In order to provide an introduction to
Islam’s central beliefs, institutions and practices, topics to be
examined in this Module will include: the life of the Prophet Muhammad,
the Qur’an, Islamic law, Shi‘ism and Islamic Mysticism. While focusing
on the developments in Islamic thought during the classical period of
Islam, the Module will also look at the responses of mediaeval Muslim
authors to key issues concerning Islamic practice and Muslim identity
and the resulting implications for Islamic intellectual and political
life in the formative period of Islam.
8. Islam and the West
The Module will initially look at the background to Islam’s encounter
with the west. It will also examine the impact of modernization on the
Muslim world. In particular, students will study the thoughts of
diverse Muslim thinkers and reformers ranging from those who called for
complete assimilation with the West to those who preferred a more
isolationist approach. Whether through dialogue or confrontation,
Muslims are beginning to make significant contributions to shaping
Western society. The Module will tackle issues such as how do Muslims
maintain their values and cultures in non-Muslim countries? How do they
maintain their identity and express themselves to the “other”?
9. Islam in the American Mosaic
The Module will trace the historical origins of Islam in America and
emergence of identifiable Muslim communities throughout the US,
patterns of migration, the ethnic makeup of such communities, political
identity, and cases of conversion to Islam. Time will be spent in
articulating the indigenous and immigrant Muslim experiences in
America. The Module will also examine the emergence of national,
regional, and local Muslim institutions, patterns of development
pursued by a number of them, and levels of cooperation or antagonism.
Finally, time will be devoted to a study of the re-interpretation of
Islam that is undertaken in light of the exigencies in the West along
with a critical examination of the impacts of 9/11 on Muslim
communities and the trajectory of Islam in America.
10. Islamic Fundamentalism
The Module will examine the rise and appeal of Islamic Fundamentalism.
Why and when did the fundamentalist movements begin? Why do many
Muslims find the fundamentalist movements appealing? In documenting the
growth and appeal of fundamentalist religious tenets among segments of
the Islamic community, it becomes apparent that the fundamentalist
enterprise has become or seeks to be a potent force on the
geo-political stage. The Module will also compare and contrast the
diverse movements. It will be argued that there are more differences
than similarities between the fundamentalist movements.
11. Just War
Just War theory is a doctrine of military ethics of Roman philosophical
origin studied by moral theologians, ethicists and international policy
makers which holds that a conflict can and ought to meet the criteria
of philosophical, religious or political justice, provided it follows
certain conditions. Just War theorists combine both a moral abhorrence
towards war with a readiness to accept that war may sometimes be
necessary. The criteria of the just war tradition act as an aid to
determining whether resorting to arms is morally permissible.
12. Islamic Cultural Heritage
This Module will cover some aspects of the Islamic cultural heritage,
and the special features of Islamic fine arts dealing with the meaning
of forms, symbols, and images of each type of art as seen from the
Islamic view point. It will also trace the development of Islamic
architecture and decorative arts from the beginning to modern times.
13. Islamic Mysticism
This is a historical and topical survey of the origins and development
of Islamic mysticism. The Module is primarily concerned with the growth
of the mystical tradition in Islam, the rise of asceticism, the early
Sufis, the role of the Sufi masters, the development of Sufi orders and
the eventual systematization of Sufi teachings. The Module will also
delve into Shi‘i esotericism and study the lives of prominent Sufi
figures like Rabi'a, Hallaj, Rumi, Ghazali and others. The Module will
end with a discussion on how Sufism can act as a link between East and
West.
14. Survey of Shia Thought
This Module puts the Shia into focus as an important religious
minority, concerned with minority rights, and devoted more to justice
than legalism. Students will discuss accounts of Shia fortunes in
nations from Lebanon to India and in the process challenge a host of
misconceptions which commonly cloud our view of modern events.
15. Islamic Law and Legal theory
This Module will look at the origin and evolution of Islamic Law and
Legal theory. One of the fundamental features of the so-called modern
Islamic resurgence is the call to restore the religious law of Islam.
This has generated in western academia a renewed interest in this
field, which had attracted only peripheral scholarly interest during
the preceding decades. And even though the formative and modern periods
were, and continue to be, two of the most studied epochs in the history
of Islamic Law, they remain comparatively unexplored.
16. Islamic Finance – (Shaykh Safder Jaffer)
This Module will cover Islamic Banking; Islamic Insurance; Iqtisaduna
(our economics), with reference to the current Islamic Financial
Markets and products available. The Module will also blend the modern
finances with the fiqhi perspectives and comparative rulings of maraj'e
on these issues. The research subjects could then involve the
permissibility of derivatives, Options, futures etc and this subject is
so important that due to lack of understanding in Qum, clarity and
rulings on a number of financial instruments have yet to be answered.
The student should be in a good position to apply conventional
understanding to the Islamic jurisprudential laws on finance and relate
these to find solutions to current unanswered questions.
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