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A Fully Integrated Program
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We aim to ensure that the cumulative effect of the whole set of books will be to prepare our young people to become true Muslims, who act in accordance with their fitra, their innate capacity, and strive to embody the divine attributes in the conduct of their lives; people of insight, discrimination and psychological awareness.
The Islamic community needs to develop the minds of its young people in a way that will allow them to make creative contributions to their tradition and their societies. In light of the challenges we face, can there be a more worthy goal than this? It will be necessary to motivate the best minds to participate in the realization of a comprehensive educational system that places its emphasis on intellectual excellence in harmony with spiritual development. We are in the process of defining the necesssary subject areas and recruiting the intellectual and creative talent to accomplish our goals.
The Qur'an emphasizes the importance of acquiring knowledge and even asks the Prophet to pray: Lord increase me in knowledge. (20:114) There can be no doubt that from an Islamic perspective the increase of knowledge also means the increase of faith.
In practice much of modern education is still based on a machine-age model of separate subject areas which encourage a fragmented view of learning and a separation of knowledge from ethical values and spirituality. A key concept in the design of our programs is the mutual reinforcement of our educational and developmental objectives in every subject area. An Islamic system of education must be based in a metaphysics derived from the Qur'an, a comprehensive spiritual perspective that will give meaning, order, and harmony to life.
We hope to offer teacher training intensives to contribute to the development of teachers who themselves embody a wisdom and consciousness consistent with these spiritual goals.
We aim to ensure, through our integrated approach, that the cumulative effect of the whole set of programs will be to prepare our young people to become: true Muslims, who act in accordance with fitra, their innate nature, and strive to embody the divine attributes in the conduct of their lives; people of insight, discrimination and psychological awareness, able to resist unconscious and conditioned responses and assume conscious control of their own development; compassionate and tolerant individuals able to build bridges of mutual understanding and goodwill between people of different cultures and traditions; responsible and exemplary citizens of the world; self-motivated, lifelong learners, who actively seek and transmit knowledge and are responsive to changing conditions; effective communicators with good interpersonal skills; and well-informed individuals with an understanding of pressing contemporary issues.
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Contact Us:
Jeremy Henzell-Thomas --
Kabir Helminski
Last Updated: Nov 3rd, 2004 - 22:50:34
©2002-2003 The Book Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
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