Islamic Education and its Consideration of Contemporary Matters: An Enquiry into School Curricula

Abstract

This research looks at the extent to which Islamic education conveys awareness of contemporary issues. This examination is conducted on secondary school Islamic education textbooks in Egypt. A list of contemporary issues was first classified into four components: Scholarly, environmental, social, and economic. This was followed by analyzing the content of the targeted textbooks. The analysis revealed that those textbooks lacked information on contemporary issues. Following this, the perspectives of Islamic education teachers were surveyed, who stressed the necessity of shaping education to raise students’ awareness of the status quo. Some participants, however, remarked that there is no need to formally incorporate contemporary issues into curricula, although teachers should encourage students to make connections between what is taught and everyday life. The research develops a model for the integration of contemporary matters into Islamic education curricula. It also suggests ways in which teachers can be trained in this respect.