Critical Islamic Education, Cultural Empowerment & Democratic Citizenship (Abdullah Sahin)

Описание: Keynote by Abdullah Sahin (Islamic Education, University of Warwick)

The social significance of religion in Western European societies is reflected in the continuing presence of religious education and faith-based schooling within their diverse secular educational systems. Minority religious communities benefit from this inclusive democratic right which enables them to educate their young generations within the educational vision of their cultural, religious traditions. However, the increasing association of Islam with extremism and international terrorism have rekindled questions over the relevance and desirability of faith (Islamic) schools in modern Europe. Islamic Education has emerged as a contested ideological space. Diverse community-based actors/networks have claimed it to reproduce certain contextual Islamic identities. Similarly, the secular state, in the name of social integration, has started to utilize Islamic Education in order to refashion religiosity of its Muslim citizens through hegemonic securitization policies. This highly politicized context urges us to rethink critically what constitutes Islamic Education and Islamic schooling in culturally and religiously plural secular Europe.

Abdullah Sahin is a Reader in Islamic Education at the Department of Education Studies, University of Warwick, UK. He comes from an Islamic Studies, Theology and Social Sciences background. He has conducted research on religious identity formation among British Muslim youth and worked on educational strategies to address the impact of religious extremism within Muslim minority and majority contexts. He has developed the first recognized Masters’ level degree programme on Islamic Education within the UK higher education system. He has taught at the universities of Birmingham, Aberdeen, and the Gulf University for Science and Technology (Kuwait). He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, ‘New Directions in Islamic Education: pedagogy and identity formation (Kube, 2015). He is a member of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values (ISREV) and has recently been appointed as Honorary Professor of Contemporary Muslim Educational Thought at the Indonesian International Islamic University (UIII), Jakarta, Indonesia.

This was one of the keynote lectures at the conference 'Education of Islam – Islam in Education in Europe' on 23-25 March 2022 at the University of Antwerp (Belgium).

More information on the conference:
https://www.ucsia.org/home-en/themes/...