What should we teach about Islam? - an article by a Muslim RE teacher.
https://waqarahmedi.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/what-should-we-teach-about-islam/....
While every RE specialist believes that there isn’t a more fascinating subject to teach, it has also become one of the most challenging. Facilitating pupils’ exploration of beliefs and truth claims comes with both pleasure and pressure. Educators are in positions of great privilege and influence; we are tasked with preparing students for a world that is ever changing, and where religion will have an impact on them as global citizens. And we need to do it right.
Events this year brought the RE community much closer, to try to come to terms with so much that has happened, and to consider the implications these developments have for our curriculum and practice.
Social media was abuzz with RE teachers sharing ideas and resources of how to counter sensationalist headlines that often colour pupils’ perception of religion – and Islam in particular.
The ‘ISIS crisis’ has made many practitioners feel that they must defend the Muslim faith. From using the #NotInMyName campaign on Twitter to a beautiful verse from the Qur’an recited in Eastenders, teachers have been keen to show that Islam is a religion of peace.
However, questions have been raised about whether this is really the job of RE teachers. Are we expected to promote religions as torchbearers of tolerance and love, or do we have an obligation to show that faiths have both positive and negative facets, and allow pupils to form their own judgements?
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There's probably quite a bit of sense in the article but things I'd find problematic as well:
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I agree with RE blogger Alan Brine that the claim of some Muslims to have authority for their ‘version’ of Islam should not be taken as a baseline for our teaching about the religion. However, I’m not so sure that “different Islams, some pleasing, others distasteful, are all just versions of Islam.” This suggests that both pacifist and jihadi manifestations are equally ‘Islamic’, akin to saying that the Quakers and Ku Klux Klan are equally ‘Christian’.
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I'm from a Christian background and I'd say that much as I prefer the Quakers I'm not convinced they're more 'Christian' than the KKK. They have a different interpretation and I'm not sure it's even one that's more representative.
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There is, then, a need for greater rigour when it comes to the study of religions like Islam. The Department of Education’s guidance on the new GCSE Religious Studies courses appears to promote just that, including a focus on ‘origins of differences and implications for questions of authority’. This should allow scope for the examination of not just multiple approaches to understanding Muslim sources, but the authenticity of the Qur’an too.
It is important that students engage with scholarship and current debates about this. There has been some disagreement within the RE community about how this should happen, and which voices to pay attention to – and the ones that shout the loudest (or rather, given more airtime) are not necessarily the most helpful ones.
One is Tom Holland, a historian who has been appearing regularly on mainstream TV and radio as an expert on Islam, and recently claimed that the ancient Qur’an fragments discovered at the University of Birmingham may have even pre-dated Muhammad. He appears actually to have little credibility for his work, being widely criticised for commentating on Islam without any specialist knowledge of its texts or Arabic, and lacking historical acumen. Holland’s scholarship, if it can even be called that, has yet to be treated seriously by any reputable academic in the field of Islamic research.
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Obviously this is unfair on Tom Holland. It's interesting that Waqar Ahmedi manages to cite both Karen Armstrong and Chase Robinson with approval. The problems with Karen Armstrong don't really need repeating but Chase Robinson is a good and important revisionist historian. I think the difference with Tom Holland, as far as believers are concerned, may be that iirc he doesn't question the Hijazi origins of Islam. I've seen Robert Hoyland mentioned with approval elsewhere for I think the same reasons.
Topic: What should we teach about Islam?