Changing the religion curricula in the Arab world

Tareq al-Suwaidan gave an episode of his programme "Al-Wasatiyya" to changing and developing the religion curricula in the Arab world. ⁵ The young studio audience rated how effective these curricula are: 43% weak, 29% acceptable, 16% good and only 12% excellent. ^{1 2} The presenter then went through ten aims he sees for religion curricula and asked his guests to rate each. ³ The archived copy of the episode ends at about the fifty-fourth minute, before the close.

The presenter began by saying that everyone learned the basics of the religion from school curricula, and that extraordinary effort lies behind them; but he asked whether they are effective in reaching their aims, or whether, with other things, they contributed to the community's backwardness, some people even holding that parts of them in some states helped spread extremism and sectarianism. ^{6 7} He asked where the fault lies: in the curricula themselves, in the teacher, or in media and society that pull down what the school builds. ⁸ He asked why developing them was considered only when the West demanded it after the September attacks, why the change deleted only the texts on jihad, the Jews and wala' and bara', and whether curricula owned by official bodies with political calculations can be developed at all. ^{8 9 10}

• Dr Khalid al-Qasim, professor of creed and a professor in the College of Education at King Saud University in Riyadh. ²
• Salah Abd al-Sami', professor of curricula in the College of Education at Helwan University. ¹¹
• Ali Labban, researcher and author, member of the Egyptian People's Assembly and a specialist in education. ¹²
• Dr Jamil Allam, dean of the Institute of Islamic Studies and Da'wa in Alexandria. ¹³

• Viewers of Al-Resalah channel were asked, by phone message, whether the change in religion curricula came in response to Western pressure; its result is not read out in the archived part. ^{14 15}
• The studio audience was asked how effective religion curricula are in reaching their aims, with four choices: excellent 12%, good 16%, acceptable 29%, weak 43%. ^{16 1 2}

He then put the same question to the guests. Dr Khalid al-Qasim said he would vote between weak and acceptable; Salah Abd al-Sami' said he did not think the stated aims are achieved in reality, so weak. ¹¹ Dr Jamil Allam said none of the four choices fit, and that the curricula in some three states are below weak. ^{17 18}

Ali Labban said Egypt's religion curricula were set by a committee for reviewing religious textbooks chaired by an American he named as Dr Linda Lambert, who required the curricula to bring out what Islam shares with other religions and the books to be reviewed by followers of other religions; so riba, wine, jihad and ruling were left out, and prayer came to be explained as exercise and ablution as hygiene. ^{12 19 13} This is his account on the programme; neither the committee's name nor its chair has been checked in another source.

The presenter said that, as his own judgement, he had set ten main aims for religion curricula, on which he would write them if he were writing them, and asked his guests to rate the curricula they knew on each aim in one word before discussion: ^{3 20}

1. Rooting the creed: love of God and His Messenger, attachment to the hereafter, awareness of God's watch. Dr Jamil Allam found this present in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and weak in Egypt; Dr Khalid al-Qasim rated it very good in the Saudi curricula. ^{20 21 22 23}
2. Understanding the Qur'an and the Sunna: how to read and understand them and tell sound from weak. Some guests found it better in the Saudi and Yemeni curricula and absent in Egypt. ^{24 25}
3. Understanding the aims and general rules of the sharia: preserving religion, life and honour. The guests agreed it is weak, even in Saudi Arabia, and the presenter said there is a clear problem here everywhere. ^{25 26}
4. The rulings a Muslim needs in daily life: worship and dealings such as marriage, divorce and sales. Ratings ranged from "very weak and very superficial" through "acceptable" to "very good", and Salah Abd al-Sami' held that the rulings are written in the textbooks but the means of practice are missing. ^{26 27 28 29}
5. The middle way and respect for other views, rejecting extremism, terrorism and sectarianism and seeking common ground with people of another school, sect or religion. Ali Labban said, ironically, that after the deletions this side is "more than excellent"; Salah Abd al-Sami' rated it weak; and the presenter asked whether the curricula do the opposite with other Islamic schools. ^{29 30 31}
6. Understanding and analysing history, including that of the prophets and the Companions, without sanctifying what is not sacred. Ali Labban said Islamic history has been erased from the books, and gave figures: the Islamic education books keep only six lines on Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him), four on Khalid ibn al-Walid (may God be pleased with him) and ten pages on the whole prophetic era, against thirty-four pages on Napoleon in the history books; these are his figures. ^{32 33 34 35}
7. Instilling pride in Islam, its history and civilisation. One guest held that the curricula instil a narrow national pride, not an Islamic one; another that they form in the child a habit of acceptance without voicing an opinion; Dr Khalid al-Qasim rated this good in Saudi Arabia. ^{36 37 38 39}
8. Instilling values and morals: truthfulness and trustworthiness. The presenter recalled noticing, while living in the West, that a Muslim would give you an appointment and not keep it while an American kept it to the minute, and asked whether that came from the person or from what was planted in him. ^{39 40} The guests held that the curricula speak about morals in theory but do not instil them, and that the school's educational climate completes the curriculum. ^{41 42}
9. The civilisational role of the community and of the individual Muslim, rather than reducing religion to acts of worship. The guests held that Islam's civilisational contribution is wholly absent from educational discourse, and that the sira and history are presented as wars, battles and disputes without the side of building. ^{43 44 45 46}
10. Civic participation: human rights and duties, the rights of ruler and ruled, and taking part in politics, the economy and civil society. The presenter said Islam, as he understands it, plants this clearly; the guests held that it is absent or was deleted, leaving only acts of worship. ^{47 48}

The presenter concluded that there is a very large problem in religion curricula, and that the discussion had turned on the Egyptian and Saudi curricula in particular but reflected others too, some with bigger problems. ^{48 49}

• A creed emptied out: Ali Labban repeated that the weakness of creed in the curricula comes from the international committee that dismissed curriculum experts, and called for bringing back the competent, lifting American pressure and freeing the author. ^{50 51 52} He held that the West, through an international body, asked for curricula to be emptied of what offends it and promised the same in return, but our governments were able to change while Western governments cannot intervene in their own education. ⁵³
• No overall picture of the religion: Dr Jamil Allam held that what is missing is an overall picture of Islam: the features that set it apart, its comprehensiveness and fitness for every field of life, its universality, and its answer to the great human questions. ^{54 55 56} He said religion is the key to human development, so whoever wants a renaissance must begin with it. ⁵⁴
• Information without feeling or conduct: Salah Abd al-Sami' distinguished "Islamic education", a wider concept, from "religious education", and held that building a Muslim character rests on understanding, feeling and conduct, while the textbooks he has examined stop at understanding. ^{57 58 59 60}
• Rote learning and the aims of the sharia: Dr Khalid al-Qasim agreed that there is heavy emphasis on rote learning, said we copied the heritage of earlier generations, part of which is the ijtihad of a particular age, and held that the aims of legislation matter greatly for understanding rulings, creed and dealings with others but receive weak attention. ^{61 62}

The presenter said he was relaying criticisms he does not adopt, that Saudi Arabia's religion curricula are among the deepest in the Islamic world and the largest, taking about 27% of the curriculum, and that their merits stand. ^{63 64} Among the criticisms he relayed: mobilisation against opponents reaching even the Ash'aris, who are Sunnis; describing anyone who adopts capitalism as a hypocrite outside the faith; so much talk of shirk, unbelief and innovation that he told of a father advising his son to write "shirk" for every creed question and "haram" for every fiqh question; an insulting description of Western civilisation; and calling traffic week an innovation. ^{65 66 67 68 69 70}

Dr Khalid al-Qasim replied that not all of this is so: there is no declaration of the Ash'aris as unbelievers in the curricula, and he studied creed at every stage; but he acknowledged a kind of charged mobilisation and repeated charges of innovation and sin, and that a student of that age cannot tell a Sufi who holds the unity of being from one who does not. ^{70 71 72} He said capitalism is a different system that may be called contrary, agreed with the presenter that calling its adherent an open hypocrite is a hard word, and concluded that the curricula need review. ^{73 74}

The presenter asked Ali Labban, as a member of the People's Assembly, whether the recent change really focused on removing jihad, enmity towards the Jews and wala' and bara', as Islamists had argued in several Arab parliaments. ^{75 76} He said the change covered that and more, in Egypt and some ten states including Pakistan and Iran, and gave examples from the UAE: a lesson on the role of wind in pollinating flowers kept the idea and dropped the verse, a lesson on water development dropped the rain prayer, and he said the prohibition of wine and riba and what was said about the Crusades were also removed; these are his examples. ^{76 77 78 79 80}

Salah Abd al-Sami' said every Arab state without exception has held conferences to develop education, that their participants are citizens of those states, and called for leaving conspiracy theory aside and looking at the results. ^{81 82} Dr Khalid al-Qasim said the change in the Kingdom was small: it did not touch jihad or creed, a subject called "Fiqh and Conduct" was added, religion subjects were reduced at some stages, and this came from pressure at home rather than in response to Western pressure. ^{83 84}

The archived recording breaks off at about minute 54, as the presenter prepares another poll before the break; the archive does not keep the rest of the episode or the presenter's summing-up. ⁸⁴