Author: Woodward

ISLAM IN THE SCAA MODEL SYLLABUSES

Shaikh Abdul Mabud

Deputy Director General, the Islamic Academy, Cambridge

In this article I would like to discuss
briefly some of the major issues relating
to the Islamic content of the SCAA
Model Syllabuses for Religious Education. A
fuller response and an alternative model are
under preparation and will be published
elsewhere. Also, this article does not examine
the broader philosophy of religious education
on which these Model Syllabuses are based.

Of all the books relating to the Model
Syllabuses, I find Faith Communities' Working
Group Reports (abbr. Reports) of particular
importance because it is from these reports that
the two model syllabuses, Model 1 and Model
2, have been developed. The Reports says in
the introduction that "the Working Group
Reports are innovative in that each faith group
has chosen the areas of study it considers
essential to gain an understanding of its
religious traditions ... the headings for each
column were also selected by the working
groups" (p. 3). As different faith groups had a
lot of freedom in the selection of the content,
headings, and presentation of their faith, one
would expect that these syllabuses would
present Islam the way most believers under-
stand it. However, we find that the syllabuses
suffer from some conceptual and methodological 
problems. Of course there is no doubt that
these syllabuses are better than most of the
earlier syllabuses in many ways and we must
thank the members of the Islam Working
Group for their time and efforts to produce
these models. But it is time for us to look at
the syllabuses critically and see in what way
we can make further improvement. Some
major problems are discussed below.

(a) PROBLEMS OF CLASSIFICATIONS

There is a lack of breadth and balance in the
presentation of the key concepts representing
the religion of Islam. I do not understand why
Islam was presented as encapsulated in four
concepts, Tawhid, Iman, Ibadah and Akhlaq
{Reports, pp. 21-24). What is the basis of this
classification? How far does it help to gain an
understanding of Islam properly? If we look at
the Hadith Jibril or the Hadith dealing with
five pillars or the shahadah itself or any other
Hadith or Qur'anic verses, we find that there
are different ways of presenting the faith but
the one chosen here is none of them. As a
result, some minor issues have received more
prominence and some major issues less
prominence. The key concepts should have
been chosen in the light of the Qur'an and
Hadith. The advantage of sticking to a
classification according to the Qur'an or
Hadith is that, at least we would then have
some theological justification for this and if
there was any problems, we would be able to
solve those using the wealth of literature that
exists on these issues. This way the problem
would have been less controversial.

Tawhid is the main heading under which
comes the subheading, Allah (Reports, pp.
21-24). Allah is the Name of Majesty and the
Supreme Name whereas Tawhid or Oneness is
an attribute of Allah, so Allah should have
been the main heading and Tawhid should
have come under it. In the column dealing
with Iman, the first thing that appears is the
Qur'an, surprisingly the word Allah is missing
in that column, whereas faith in Allah is the
first article of faith and should be followed by
other articles of faith. Also, we do not
understand how the "Sunni view of Khilafah"
was placed under Iman (Reports, p. 24 &
Model 1, p. 64). Equally puzzling is the placing
of Imamah under Khilafah (Reports, p. 24).

In the fourth column, Akhlaq (character and
moral conduct) there are many items which
cannot be related to Akhlaq except through a
complex explanation. For example, "the three
most important mosques are the Haram Sharif
in Makkah, the Prophet's Mosque in Madina
and al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem" (Reports,
p. 22) and "Islamic world view as a viable
alternative to both capitalism and com-
munism" (Reports, p. 24) have been put under
Akhlaq. A non-Muslim teacher will have a
serious problem in relating these to Akhlaq.

(b) A LIMITED VIEW OF IBADAH

Another problem is a limited view of Ibadah
(worship/belief in action) as presented in the
third column (pp. 21 -24). Ibadah has a
comprehensive meaning in Islam. The Qur'an
says, "I have not created jinn and mankind
except to worship Me" (Qur'an,  51:56).
Actions done in an Islamic way for the sake of
Allah are part of Ibadah. This comprehensive
meaning of the word Ibadah which en-
compasses all aspects of our life must be
brought out to teachers and pupils. It was
wrong to put 'family life' and 'social life' in a

different column as if these were something
other than Ibadah. In fact Ibadah is so
comprehensive that it should not have been
used as a column heading because it would be
the same as using Islam as a column heading.
Ibadah has also a limited sense in which it is
sometimes used in books of jurisprudence but
that is not the sense in which it has been used
in these models.

(c) A NARROW VIEW OF ISLAM

Certain statements in the Model Syllabuses
will simply confirm in the minds of teachers
and pupils a narrow view of Islam. For
example, the statements, "role of mosque as a
social, religious, educational, and welfare
centre" (Reports, p. 22), "political, economic,
social, and religious aspects of Shari'ah"
(Reports p. 24) and "discuss the importance of
religion, culture, family and social structures..."
(Model 1, p. 50) show religion as something
different from other aspects of life. Is there any
aspect of Shari 'ah which is other than
religious? Muslims never separate culture from
religion or religion from the political structure.
Islam as a way of life integrates all aspects of
our life in a harmonious whole. Islam does not
allow different areas of human life to be
compartmentalised and ruled by different
ideologies or philosophies.

Islam is not a private religion - it touches both
the interior and the exterior of human beings, it
claims our total being while at the same time
being flexible and recognising human limitations.

(d) THE CENTRAL POSITION OF THE PROPHET

The peculiar categorisation of religious issues
in the Model Syllabuses has failed to bring out
the centrality of the Prophet of Islam. Prophet
Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, "none
of you will be a believer until you love me
more than you love your children, your parents
and the whole humanity." The Qur'an says,
"Say [O Prophet], if you love Allah, follow
me, and Allah will love you and forgive you
your sins" (3:31). So, to love Allah is to follow
the Prophet. This explains why Muslims are
ready to make great sacrifices for the love of
the Prophet. No religious education course on
Islam can ignore this unique position of the
Prophet. There has been a lot of misunderstanding 
surrounding this issue but once
people know how deep a love Muslims have
for their Prophet, they will understand many
things that Muslims say and do. The Prophet
occupies a central position in Islam, and unlike
Judeo-Christian prophets, the Prophet of Islam
is a perfect human being, a model (uswatun
hasanah) for human beings to emulate.

(e) PROBLEMS OF THE CHOICE 
OF KEY WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS

As stated in the introduction, Religious
Education: Glossary of Terms (abbr. Glossary)
has been devised "to give guidance to teachers
on key words and their meanings within each
religious tradition" and "to reach some form
of consensus on spellings" (p.l). The first aim
has been achieved to a large extent. Teachers
will find it very useful to have these key words
listed in one place. However, there are two
problems here. Firstly, the choice of the key
words. Of course, no list of key words can be
perfect. But it is disappointing that certain
words which pertain to normal life of a
Muslim and which non-Muslim pupils are
more likely to come across in discussions with
their Muslim friends, books, newspapers, etc.
are conspicuously absent in Glossary, e.g.,
‘amal (action), iftar (first meal after sunset
during Ramadan), sahur (last meal before
daybreak during the month of Ramadan),
'aqiqah (the naming ceremony) and wahy
(revelation). From the point of view of pupils
at British schools these terms are more
important than such terms as isnad or miqat
which occur in the glossary.

Secondly, as regards conveying meanings of
the words, some explanations are misleadingly
incomplete. For example, the most important
key word, Islam has been defined as "peace
attained through willing obedience to Allah's
divine guidance" (p. 29) and nothing else is
written in that entry. This does not convey the
exact meaning of the word. The literal
meaning of the word Islam is 'surrender' or
'submission'. Its explanatory meaning is "the
religion brought to humanity by Prophet
Muhammad (peace be upon him)". The
universalistic explanation of Islam (Islam as
the religion) may not be appropriate for school
children but to describe it as just 'peace' is not
enough, it does not give the sense of Islam as a
religion or a way of life. Another example is
the word ghusl which means "formal washing
of the whole body prior to worship" (p. 28).
But, worship (Ibadah), according to Glossary,
is "any permissible action performed with the
intention to obey Allah" (p. 29). Every Muslim
pupil knows that one does not need a ghusl for
"any permissible action performed". It is
understandable that such a glossary cannot
give a rigorous explanation of all Islamic terms
but as books of guidance to teachers they
should have avoided those inaccuracies which
would only create confusion about Islam.

(f) PROBLEMS OF TRANSLITERATION

As regards the second aim of reaching a
"consensus on spellings", the Glossary has not
been successful. It claims to follow a system of
transliteration which is a "simplified version of
that used by contemporary scholars" (p. 26)
but its main problem is that it is not consistent.
A simple way would have been to take a
standard system of transliteration and simply
to omit bars on short vowels (a, i, u) and dots
under certain letters {h, s, d, t, z). The writers
of the glossary have of course removed the
bars and dots to make it simple. Although
many would disagree with this departure from
the standard practice in order to maintain a
uniformity throughout all levels of education
from primary school to university level, in my
opinion it was a right thing to do for school
children, but what is surprising, no distinction
has been made in the glossary between an
hamzah and an 'ayn which are denoted in
standard transliteration by two types of
inverted commas ( ‘ and  ’ which are curled or
tapered in opposite directions). This distinction
would not have caused any problem for school
pupils because they are aware of the existence
of these two types of commas from a very
early age. However, even if we accept this on
the ground of simplicity of writing and
avoiding confusion, there is no justification
for the statement that "an apostrophe is used to
indicate a pause" (p. 26). In no system of
transliteration is a pause indicated by an
apostrophe. In fact a pause has a different
meaning and is never shown in any transliteration. 
Wherever the glossary employs an
apostrophe it actually does so in cases of
hamzah and 'ayn of which the former is a
'glottal stop' and the latter is neither a pause
nor a glottal stop.

The apostrophe has been used correctly (if we
are prepared to forget the distinction between
a hamzah and an 'ayn) in most places but in
certain words they have been omitted for no
reason, e.g. isha, mumin, khulafa, etc. To be
consistent, these words should have been
written as 'isha’, mu’min, khulafa’. Also more
care should have been taken about the
transliteration of doubled vowels (shaddah).

The word muadhin should have been spelt as
mu'adhdhin. The letter ya’ has been sometimes 
denoted by 'y' and sometimes by  ‘I’, e.g.
sa‘y, has been spelt with 'y' and nabi with ‘i’
(pp. 31 & 32). There is thus no consistency in
this case also.

So far as learning about Islam is concerned,
these minor mistakes in transliteration will not
be very detrimental, but because of the
mistakes and inconsistencies mentioned above
it will not be possible to realise the hope of
SCAA that "all resources produced henceforth
to support religious education, all new agreed
syllabuses and religious studies exams will
adopt the preferred form emphasised in bold
within this document" (Glossary, p. 3).

The model syllabuses are good in the sense
that they are heavy in their content, so agreed
syllabus conferences or teachers looking for
Islamic content or ideas will definitely benefit
from these syllabuses. These syllabuses are
probably the most comprehensive ones ever
produced for schools in this country. But what
I am afraid is that teachers will get a wrong
impression about Islam and be sometimes
confused from the way Islam has been
presented in these syllabuses.

In view of the problems discussed above I
hope that teachers and agreed syllabus
conferences will make a note of the points
raised in this article. It would be better if a
revised version of the syllabuses could be
brought out in course of time.