| Enrichment Programme Curriculum |
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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. |
Google Translation
Sayyida Zainab as
Syria
