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Perspectives
Teaching Islamic Studiesin higher education
Issue 1
November 2010
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2 Perspectives
Perspectives is the magazine of the Higher
Education Academys Islamic Studies Network.
The Islamic Studies Network brings together those
working in Islamic Studies from a wide range of
disciplines to enhance teaching and learning in
higher education by: hosting events and workshops;
providing grants to develop teaching and learning;
and encouraging the sharing of resources and good
practice. For information on all our activities, visit
www.heacademy.ac.uk/islamicstudies.
Perspectives is a forum for those involved in
teaching Islamic Studies in higher education to
share practice and resources. As well as updates
on Islamic Studies Network activity, Perspectives
publishes articles on a wide range of topics related
to Islamic Studies in higher education. If you would
like to submit an article, highlight a set of teaching
resources you have used or developed, or write
a review of a book, lm or other media, please
contact the Academic Co-ordinator for the network,
Lisa Bernasek, at [email protected].
Perspectives is distributed free of charge to
members of the Islamic Studies Network andis available online at www.heacademy.ac.uk/
islamicstudies. To join the network, please visit our
website or email [email protected].
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Perspectives
Teaching Islamic Studies
in higher education
2 Welcome Lisa Bernasek
3 News News from the Islamic Studies
Network
4 News News from the subject centres
6 Feature Teaching and researching Islam
in the UK: some contemporary
challenges
Ron Geaves
11 Resources JISC digital resources for Islamic
Studies
Alastair Dunning
12 Feature Islamic Studies: discipline or
specialist eld? Implications for
curriculum development
Carool Kersten
18 Report Perspectives on Islamic Studies in
higher education
Lisa Bernasek and Gary Bunt
24 Feature She who disputes: the challenges of
translating the views and lived realitiesof those who have been otherised into
policies and the curriculum
Haleh Afshar
30 Resources Islamic law curriculum project takes
the sharia challenge
Shaheen Mansoor
32 Feature Designing modules for research-
based teaching in Islamic Studies
Ayla Gl
38 Review Four Lions Maxim Farrar
40 Events calendar
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2 Perspectives
Lisa Bernasek
Academic Co-ordinator, Islamic
Studies Network
Welcome to the rst issue of Perspectives: Teaching
Islamic Studies in higher education. Perspectives is
the magazine of the Higher Education Academys
Islamic Studies Network, and is a forum for those
involved in teaching Islamic Studies to share
practice and resources. Along with updates on
Islamic Studies Network activity, Perspectives
publishes articles related to Islamic Studies in
higher education on a wide range of topics.
For the rst issue we have a number of pieces
that will hopefully pique your interest and perhaps
cause some debate. Professor Ron Geaves provides
a thought-provoking article based on his many years
of experience teaching and researching Islam in the
UK, with a particular focus on the contemporary
context and political climate. Professor the Baroness
Haleh Afshar calls for interdisciplinarity as a wayto bring more attention to womens voices and
experiences within mainstream Islamic Studies. Both
authors raise some of the ethical issues and other
considerations involved when individual research
interests and government policy agendas coincide.
In articles focused more closely on teaching
practice, Dr Carool Kersten and Dr Ayla Gl share
their experiences. Dr Kersten reects on the state of
Islamic Studies as an academic eld, and explores
the conceptualisation of curriculum development
and its implications for Islamic Studies. Dr Gl
provides a rich account of the process of designing
two modules for Islamic Studies within an
International Politics department, and argues for
the importance of a research-based and student-
centred approach to teaching.
We also have a report on some of the
discussions that took place at the Islamic Studies
Networks inaugural event in May 2010, and we
highlight resources for Islamic Studies teaching and
research that are available from JISC and from the
UK Centre for Legal Education.
We hope you enjoy the rst edition of
Perspectives. If you would like to contribute to a
future issue by writing an article or case study,
reviewing a book, lm, or other media, or by
reporting on a set of teaching resources you have
used or developed, please get in touch.
Welcome
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Recent activity
The inaugural event for the Islamic Studies Network
was held on 2526 May 2010 in Birmingham. The
event attracted 62 participants with a wide range
of disciplinary interests, who generated interesting
discussions over the two days. Papers from two of
the three keynote speakers can be found on pages
6 and 24. The full event report can be downloaded
from the Resources tab of our website: www.
heacademy.ac.uk/islamicstudies.
There are now over 200 people subscribed to the
networks JISCmail list ([email protected]).
The list is used to send out updates on network
and sector-wide activity, and is a discussion base
for issues relating to Islamic Studies in higher
education. Activity updates and information on
funding opportunities, recent publications and
resources are also provided in our quarterly online
newsletter. If you would like to be added to the
JISCmail list or receive the newsletter, please email:
Forthcoming activity
The network is organising four regional workshops
in 201011, the rst of which was held at the
University of Edinburgh on 22 October. The
workshops are an opportunity for Islamic Studies
practitioners to network, gain a sense of the
different ways Islamic Studies is taught in a
regional context, and discuss region-specic
issues. The events are open to both specialists
and non-specialists who teach on modules related
to Islam. Future workshops dates and venues
are: 10 December 2010, University of Oxford; 9
March 2011, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
(Lampeter); and 26 May 2011, University of Leeds.
We are also organising a two-day workshop
for PhD students in Islamic Studies on 1617
February 2011 in Birmingham. This event will be an
opportunity for postgraduates to network, discuss
their research and teaching activities, and address
issues related to life as a postgraduate and beyond.
If you are interested in attending any of the
workshops, please email us at: [email protected].
The network has issued two calls for project
funding this year, with two projects being funded in
the rst round: Dr Mark Van Hoorebeek (Lecturer in
Law, University of Bradford) is developing teaching
materials in the area of sharia-compliant nancial
instruments and intellectual property; and Dr Alison
Scott-Baumann (Reader Emeritus, University of
Gloucestershire) and Dr Sariya Contractor (Muslim
Chaplain, University of Gloucestershire) are
investigating how to encourage Muslim women
into higher education through partnerships and
collaborative pathways. Further information about
these projects can be found on the Projects tab of
our website (www.heacademy.ac.uk/islamicstudies).
The successful projects from the second funding
call will be announced in January 2011.
News from the Islamic Studies Network
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4 Perspectives
Along with contributing to cross-disciplinary
network activity, colleagues from the Higher
Education Academy subject centres are
developing subject-specic activities for the
academic year 201011. Below are some of the
highlights for further information, please consult
the Islamic Studies Network website (www.
heacademy.ac.uk/islamicstudies) or the website of
the relevant subject centre.
In addition to the ve subject centres below, the
History Subject Centre (www.historysubjectcentre.
ac.uk) is supporting the network and will contribute
to specic activities as appropriate.
Business, Management, Accountancy and
Finance Network (BMAF)
BMAF will hold the rst meeting of its Special
Interest Group for Islamic Studies on 23 March
2011 at the University of Northampton. Colleagues
with an interest in any aspect of Islamic banking,
nance, management and related areas are
welcome to attend. This workshop will followon from discussions held at the Islamic Studies
Network inaugural event in May 2010 and will
be an opportunity for participants to discuss
approaches and share materials. Please register
via the BMAF website.
www.heacademy.ac.uk/business
Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and
Area Studies (LLAS)
LLAS led on a data collection project carried out
from May to August 2009 that identied over 1,000
modules in Islamic Studies and related disciplines
taught at UK higher education institutions. The
data gathered was analysed for a report published
by HEFCE in February 2010. As follow-up to this
project, LLAS is coordinating making the data
collected available to the public. This database,
which will be of use to students, prospective
students and lecturers, will be made accessible to
the public in the coming months.
www.llas.ac.uk
Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious
Studies (PRS)
PRS will be organising discipline-specic sessions
at the Islamic Studies Networks postgraduate
student event in February 2011. Colleagues at PRS
are also developing two publications on Islam in
Religious Studies a student guide and an edited
volume on teaching Islam in Religious Studies.
These publications will be valuable resources for
students and lecturers working on issues related to
Islam in a Religious Studies context.
www.prs.heacademy.ac.uk
Subject Network for Sociology, Anthropology,
Politics (C-SAP)
C-SAP carried out a call for case studies on teaching
relating to Islam within the social sciences in the Spring
and Summer of 2010. A set of ten case studies and
a report that draws out the implications for teaching,learning and curriculum development on Islam within
the social sciences are available at: http://stores.lulu.
com/csappublications. A second call for case studies
looking at the ways in which issues relating to Islam
might appear in Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology
or Politics courses at undergraduate or postgraduate
level is now open. The case studies will be showcased
at a C-SAP symposium to be held in June/July 2011. If
you are interested in submitting a case study, please
contact Dr Malcolm Todd at: [email protected].
www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk
UK Centre for Legal Education (UKCLE)
UKCLE has produced a set of resources related to
teaching Islamic law (see Islamic law curriculum
project takes the sharia challenge on page 30),
which can be found on their website at: www.ukcle.
ac.uk/resources/teaching-and-learning-strategies/
islamiclaw. These resources will be further
developed and disseminated in 201011 through
workshops for new lecturers and non-lawyers.
UKCLE is also developing a Special Interest Group
for Islamic law, building on the AHRC/ESRC-funded
Network of British Researchers and Practitioners
of Islamic Law. The rst meeting of this SpecialInterest Group was held on 10 November 2010.
www.ukcle.ac.uk
News from the subject centres
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Professor Ron Geaves
Director of the Centre for the
Applied Study of Muslims and
Islam in Britain and Professor of
the Comparative Study of Religion,
Liverpool Hope University1
As a scholar of religion I am essentially interested
in religious questions and I came to the Muslim
presence in Britain through the questions: What
happens to a religion when it moves from one
location to another through migration? and How
far can a religion be transformed by major social
upheaval before it loses something so integral
to itself that it ceases to be itself?2 Phrased
another way, what is core to a religion and what
is peripheral, what can be changed and what
cannot? It was this question that brought me to
the University of Leeds in 1988 to do an MA in
Religious Studies under the auspices of the newly
established Community Religions Project. The
project, under the direction of Kim Knott, was
beginning to explore the presence of religions thathad arrived in Britain through migration and, as we
know, radically transformed the landscape of British
religious life. The Community Religions Project
was groundbreaking because it was an attempt to
engage Religious Studies in the academic study
of migration. The literature on British Muslims was
small and outside of Anthropology and Sociology
very few scholars in the study of religion were
researching lived religions. There was Francis
Robinsons small pamphlet on the diversity of
South Asian Islam, which introduced Deobandis,
Barelwis, Tablighi Jamaat, Jamaati Islami, and Ahl i
Hadith (Robinson 1988); Barbara Metcalfs work on
South Asian Islam and its religious diversity (Metcalf
1 The ideas expressed in this article were rst
presented in The Role of Higher Education in
the Integration of British Muslims, my inaugural
lecture at Liverpool Hope University delivered
on 12 March 2008.
2 I had originally been inspired to ask these
questions after reading the novel by David Lodge
How Far Can You Go (1978), which explored the
transformations in British Catholicism after WorldWar II and particularly after Vatican II.
1982); and Roger and Catherine Ballards study
of Sikhs in Leeds, which posited the well-known,
four-stage development of South Asian migration
into Britain (Ballard and Ballard 1977). Alison
Shaw had produced work on Pakistanis in Oxford
(Shaw 1988). Philip Lewis had raised the issue of
what people actually did in the world of popular
religion as opposed to the textual focus on historic
orthodoxies in his small booklet on Pakistani
shrine traditions, and paved the way for the study
of Muslims as opposed to Islamic Studies (Lewis
1985). The Muslims in Britain Research Network
created by Jorgen Nielson existed in its infancy.
However, two events changed everything
for my career. The rst was the publication of
Salman Rushdies The Satanic Verses. It not only
transformed the Muslim communities in Britain,
but it also placed an obscure area of academic
study into the centre of political controversies and
introduced a number of complexities in the study
of Islam and Muslims in Britain. The second was
more personal but still signicant for the discipline.
I had done my rst eldwork in 1989; workingon the Ballards thesis I decided to explore the
early Muslim arrivals in Leeds, testing the rst
stage of the development of South Asian migrant
communities, that is, the early pioneers. I wanted
to establish how these pioneering gures impacted
upon the way that the Muslim community in Leeds
organised itself religiously. It was to become my rst
published paper and led to a passion for eldwork.
I still grapple with the challenge of what eldwork
means for the scholar of religion as opposed to
the anthropologist or the sociologist; however, in
this instance I discovered painfully that working
with living people is full of ethical pitfalls for the
unwary. I had unwittingly got myself caught in
historic divisions in the Leeds Muslim community
between settlers of Pakistani and Bengali origin. My
Pakistani informants had neglected to mention that
a signicant gure in the development of the early
Leeds Muslim presence had originated from Bengal.
Consequently his pioneering efforts and remarkable
story did not appear in the published paper. He
was upset and complained to the department. As
a solution we organised an event at the City Hall in
which the Mayor honoured his achievements and
I spoke of his contribution to the development of
Muslim religious institutions in the city. It was an
important lesson that taught me that research ethicsare more than fullling legal obligations but must be
Teaching and researching Islam in the UK:
some contemporary challenges1
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rooted in the sensitivities of living people.
We are all too familiar with the political crises
that followed in the next two decades: the Gulf
Wars, 9/11, 7/7, Glasgow, the War on Terror, the
emphasis on radicalisation, the Governments
Prevent programme, and the identication of
Islamic Studies as a strategically important subject.
Looking at the current situation, it would seem
to me that I now gaze on a subject area that has
become increasingly complex to study. In the rest
of this paper I discuss two concerns that both
arise out of the securitisation of the subject. They
are signicant for the study of religion at a wider
level, and not disconnected. The rst is an issueof methodology and approaches to the study of
religion and concerns what has been labelled
the engaged approach to the study of religion;
the second is an issue of value and raises a
Nietzschean dilemma.
Since the events of 7/7 and subsequent religious
acts of violence in Glasgow and London, the
previous British Government turned its attention
to the role of higher education in either preventing
extremism or promoting integration. Academics
have been asked to monitor students for signs
of extremism and the Siddiqui Report assessed
the role of departments that teach IslamicStudies in promoting integration and challenging
extremism (Siddiqui 2007). Attention turned to the
education of British imams, the role of theology
to counter the jihadist version of Islam and the
public role of Muslim women. Those of us who
study Muslims in Britain were drawn into the
maelstrom of this political gaze upon our area of
study. As intensely as we want to nd out about
the reality of Muslim experience in Britain as
scholars, so too do intelligence services, police
ofcers and Government departments. A panel
organised at the 2007 European Association for the
Study of Religions conference in Bremen clearly
demonstrated this transformation as scholars of
Islam in Europe from several European nations toldhow they were now in demand from intelligence
agencies, Government bodies, policy makers and
the media.
The involvement of academics in political
concerns has always been open to controversy
and I am not positing answers here but posing
some of the issues that I see unfolding for us as
scholars when we are asked to engage with both
communities and policy makers. The dangers here
are several. They include the use of academic
experts in a new form of McCarthyism; the use of
polemical or even distorted information for policy-
making bodies and courts; and, perhaps moreworryingly, the labelling process involved with
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highly charged emotive terms such as terrorist,
radical, fundamentalist, or jihad. The previous
Governments Prevent programme raised issues
in that it generated considerable suspicion among
British Muslims who regarded it as an intelligence-
gathering operation. It also created disquiet around
who represented the Muslim communities in Britain
when certain players were in receipt of large sums
of Government money. For the scholar asked to act
an adviser it raised a number of concerns around
academic independence and the maintenance of
condence in the communities that we research.
In parallel with these issues, I began to search
for an alternative to the world religion tokenism
that so often marks the terrain of the teaching
of other religions in departments of Theology
and Religious Studies, but an alternative that is
also freed from the orientalist history of Islamic
Studies so often critiqued by British Muslims. That
prompted me to say in 2007 that the Religious
Studies scholar should be considering whether
the issues that we deal with and study do not
allow us to sit on the fence of neutral objectivity,and that we need to squarely address the issue
of advocacy (Geaves 2007). Religion has not
disappeared as some secularisation theorists
would have had us believe at one time but is now
highly visible in the realm of crisis management,
conict resolution and violence. For me then,
it is the idea of engaged religious studies that
beckons but I am only too aware of the pitfalls that
were highlighted by the highly publicised events
that were to overtake the climate scientists of the
University of East Anglia. It was around this time
that I discovered the work of the anthropologist
Rowena Robinson and began to consider her
statement that:
We may surmise that everyday life can become
the terrain for the acting out of an activist
politics by individuals who believe in something
beyond the mundane and in the possibility
of transformation and who opt to initiate the
work of change in their own environments,
neighbourhoods or communities.
Robinson 2005, 202
Robinsons emphasis on those who believe
in something beyond the mundane and in thepossibility of transformation is highly relevant to the
study of religion. It is here that the phenomenological
approach that has so inuenced the academic
study of religion can lead the way for those
struggling to engage with new realities in the study
of Islam. James Cox (2006), rightly identifying
phenomenology as a method of studying religion
that utilises empathy (seeing the world from the
believers viewpoint) and epoch (no judgement
is expressed through a process of bracketing out
the truth claims of a religion), refers to the fact
that scholars of religion are increasingly being
asked to advise government and state ofcials or
to engage in applied research activities that may
involve partnerships with religious professionals and
organisations. Cox argues that scholars of religion
who acknowledge the signicance of something
beyond the mundane may nd themselves natural
partners with activists and links this idea of engaged
religious studies to the empathetic position of the
early phenomenologists. Cox is uneasy with the
idea of being drawn into such alliances as it may
compromise the critical scholarship involved in
pure research. I would disagree. First, the issuesinvolved in religious violence, for example, are too
important for scholars of religion to remain remote.
Anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists
already have a track record of engagement
with policy makers, religious organisations and
governments that has not always been beyond
reproach; for example, the history of academic
involvement in the Vietnam War, Iraq and the War
on Terror. It would seem to me that this complicity
with the more questionable areas of state activity
would alone warrant the involvement of those to
whom empathy is a natural part of their personal
world view and scholarly approach. Engagement
does not necessarily involve the suspension or
jeopardisation of critical thinking. In stating so
categorically that it does, Cox returns us to an earlier
paradigm where the etic and the emic are clearly
demarcated, a position I believe to be negated
by our human condition of subjectivity. The shift
from phenomenology to engagement will require
considerable reexive skills, but the relationship of
allies can also be that of critical friend.
As scholars engaged in eldwork we often talk
about empowering communities that we study.
We are indebted to them for much of our livelihood.
If they were unwilling to co-operate with the
academics who study them, our knowledge wouldbe signicantly poorer and so would our career
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proles. As researchers, we gain prestige and indeed
our livelihood from our study of them. Many of the
communities we study undertake to speak to our
students, enable them to undertake eldwork, and
act as unpaid providers of information for student
assignments. However, all the time we need to be
aware of community sensitivities and the dangers of
essentialising and objectifying. It is also appropriate
that scholars and students of religion should put
something back into these communities and offer
some reciprocal benet. One minimal expectation
is that we should not remain in a universitys ivory
towers, but disseminate our knowledge to improve
peoples understanding and to inform public debate.
As a scholar studying a western Muslim minority
in a post-colonial context, I need to think about
academic freedom, responsibility and what Gayatri
Spivak describes as the impersonal economy of
responsibility (Spivak 1992, 7). I agree with her that
when we consider academic freedom we need to
rethink freedom as the freedom to acknowledge
insertion into responsibility (ibid.). Spivak argues
that it is intrinsically impossible to choose not to beresponsible (ibid., 24). However, we need to go further.
Spivak appears to argue for a responsibility that is
more or less based on a shared notion of common
ethnic, national or community origins. Rowena
Robinson does go this step further and suggests
a frame of responsibility that transcends such
commonalities and moves beyond an impersonal
responsibility with its acknowledgment of distance:
In the sphere of equal intimacy, the intimacy
of love and friendship, responsibility may be
a privilege more than an obligation; one is
permitted responsibility, one does not merely
assume it.
Robinson 2005, 15
There are interesting and challenging implications
resulting from these recent developments, as many
second- and third-generation Muslims in Britain in
the present post-9/11 and 7/7 climate feel a degree
of suspicion towards the state and its motives. The
British model of multiculturalism is under threat
and many Muslims are not convinced that the
dominant narrative of integration does not actually
signify assimilation. I am often asked why a British
university would involve itself in programmes thatappear to be aiding the Muslim communities. I am
even asked to identify my own faith position: Am I
a Christian? Am I a Muslim? Why do I not convert?
Recently I was identied as a Muslim choosing
to maintain taqyyah, the dispensation allowing
believers to conceal their faith when under threat,
compulsion or persecution.
This labelling process is signicant as it reveals
much about the prevailing zeitgeist among British
Muslims. If I am helping the Muslim community
and my motives are beyond reproach then I must
be a closet Muslim. If labels are essential I would
prefer a friend of Muslims, with the acceptance
that sometimes I will operate as a critical friend.
Orientalism need not always be perceived with
suspicion. It can be a quest for a deeper personal
knowledge of the other, and it may take a path where
the other disappears to reveal a kindred world.
However, since that time two years ago I have
further reected on the situation that has arisen
and will continue to arise as religion shifts from the
periphery of public life to a more central concern.
All too frequently academic research in the study
of religion has focused purely on the creation of anacademic text, useful only to debates within the
subject, focusing on the analytical. Such research
lauds the analytical but avoids the critical, where
there is an opportunity for creating change (Zahir
2003, 203). Yet the challenge of moving from the
analytical to the critical raises a crucial dilemma
for us posited in the Nietzschean dichotomy of
truth values and life values. Nietzsche raises
the problem of the value of truth, and asks why
do we not preferuntruth? Why insist on the
truth? (Nietzsche 1998, 5, 13). Nietzsche believed
that what he called the will to truth that is, the
unquestioning faith that truth is the highest value,
and the pursuit of truth at all costs drains the value
out of life. This challenge lies before us as scholars.
It is raised by Sophie Gilliat-Ray in her essay on
deconstructing the myth of the rst mosque in
Cardiff (Gilliat-Ray 2010). Here we have a classic
case of the collision between truth values and
life values. Her research teams discovery that the
Cardiff mosque was not the rst in Britain added to
academic truth but undermined the life value of
such a truth to the Cardiff Muslim community.
Muslim partners may attempt to categorise
academics working alongside them in ways that pit
their common ethnic, national or community origins
against those of the academic. The relationship ofotherness is thus perpetuated and suspicion remains.
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10 Perspectives
Or they may seek ways to bridge the divide and
include the academic partner in a shared economy of
responsibility. Christians may be included as fellow
monotheists; Jews as a fellow religious minority.
Others may be included as part of a shared economy
of pain. I am enough anthropologist to recognise that
as a rst-world, white, middle-class male it is not
critical reection or empathy, or even responsibility
that separates me from the communities that I study,
but security. As stated by Beatriz Manz:
the inconsistency between the experience
of a researcher in the eld and life in the
academy, the disconnection as far as security
not just personal safety but material security
is so great for so many anthropologists.
Manz 1995, 269
I would go one step further and include
psychological security. In joining with Muslim
partners, forming collaborative links, helping
to establish training programmes and toprofessionalise their various institutions and bodies,
working as equals in a spirit of friendship I also enter
into a partnership where I share such insecurity.
References
Ballard, R. and Ballard, C. (1977) The Sikhs: the
development of South Asian settlements in Britain.
In: Watson, J. (ed.) Between Two Cultures: Migrants
and Minorities in Britain. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cox, J. (2006)A Guide to the Phenomenology of
Religion. London: Continuum.
Geaves, R.A. (2007) Twenty years of eldwork:
reections on reexivity in the study of British
Muslims. Inaugural Lecture. Chester: Chester
Academic Press.
Gilliat-Ray, S. (2010) The rst registered mosque in
the UK, Cardiff, 1860: the evolution of a myth.
Contemporary Islam. 4 (2), 179193.
Lewis, P. (1985) Pirs, Shrines and Pakistani Islam.
Rawalpindi: Christian Study Centre.
Lodge, D. (1978) How Far Can You Go.
Harmondsworth: Penguin
Manz, B. (1995) Reections on anantropologia
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A. (eds.) Fieldwork under Fire: Contemporary
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Metcalf, B.D. (1982) Islamic Revival in British India:
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Nietzsche, F. (1998) (orig. 1885) Beyond Good and Evil.
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Robinson, F. (1988) Varieties of South Asian Islam.
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Robinson, R. (2005) Tremors of Violence. New
Delhi: Sage Publications.
Shaw, A. (1988)A Pakistani Community in Britain.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Siddiqui, A. (2007) Islam at Universities in England.
Report submitted to the Minister of State for
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Available from: www.bis.gov.uk/assets/
biscore/corporate/migratedd/publications/d/
drsiddiquireport.pdf [18 August 2010].
Spivak, G. (1992) Thinking academic freedom in
gendered post-coloniality: T.B Davie academic
freedom lecture. Capetown: University of Capetown.
Zahir, S. (2003) Changing views: theory andpractice in a participatory community arts project.
In: Puwar, N. and Raghuram, P. (eds.) South Asian
Women in the Diaspora. Oxford: Berg.
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Beacon Press.
El-Awaisi, A. and Nye, M. (2006) Time for Change:
The Future of the Study of Islam and Muslims in
Universities and College in Multicultural Britain.
Dundee: Al-Maktoum Institute.
HEFCE (2007) Islamic Studies: current status and
future prospects. Bristol: HEFCE. Available from:
www.hefce.ac.uk/AboutUs/sis/islamic [18 August
2010].
Heller, A. (1984) Everyday Life. London: Routledge.
Heller, A. (1990) Can Modernity Survive?
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Malik, I. (2007) Islamic Studies and South Asian
Studies: stalemated disciplines. In: Islamic
Studies: Current Status and Future Prospects.
Bristol: HEFCE. Available from: www.hefce.ac.uk/
AboutUs/sis/islamic [18 August 2010].
Mason, H. (1982) Foreword to the English edition.
In: Massignon, L. The Passion of Al-Hallaj Vol. 1.nceton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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11 heacademy.ac.uk/islamicstudies
Alastair Dunning
Digitisation Programme Manager, Joint
Information Systems Committee (JISC)
www.jisc.ac.uk/islamdigi
Although much excellent work has been done in the
UK to digitise medieval manuscripts like psalters,
books of hours and bestiaries, Middle Eastern
manuscript culture has received less attention.
Such material is often hard to transliterate and
study, yet UK organisations hold rich and valuable
collections and there is increasing demand for
access to them.
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
has supported a number of projects to try and
address this, with several UK institutions utilising
JISC funding to digitise catalogue and manuscript
materials relevant to Islamic Studies.
As part of its Virtual Manuscript Room the
University of Birmingham has made available
online 71 manuscripts from its Mingana Collection,
including Islamic Arabic, Syriac, Persian and
Christian Arabic manuscripts. The website,which will also host materials related to the New
Testament and medieval vernacular texts, is
available at: www.vmr.bham.ac.uk.
Three other projects are ongoing, the fruits of which
should be available in early Spring 2011.
The Wellcome Trust is working with the Bibliotheca
Alexandrina to digitise over 500 of the Wellcomes
Islamic manuscripts, chiey related to medicine.
Kings College London are providing additional
input, developing a digital catalogue tool that will be
usable by similar projects in the future. The material
dates from the 14th to the 20th century and comes
from all over the Islamic world, stretching from Syria
to South-east Asia.
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/arabicproject.html
Many of the 10,000 or so Islamic texts held by
the libraries of the universities of Cambridge and
Oxford only have cursory descriptions on card
catalogues. JISC funding is allowing the creation of
fuller descriptions of their Islamic manuscripts and
also ensuring they are easily searchable via their
online systems. The project team is also developing
a standard, using the Text Encoding Initiative, forthe fuller description of Islamic manuscripts, and it
is anticipated this will be adopted by other projects
internationally.
www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bodley/library/
specialcollections/projects/ocimco
Finally, the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS) has built up a partnership with Yale
University Library to digitise over 20,000 pages of
Islamic manuscripts drawn from the collections
of the two libraries. The digitised manuscripts will
also be accompanied by the catalogues, language
dictionaries and research apparatus that scholars
will need to work on this often complex and
demanding material.
www.soas.ac.uk/ysimg
JISC digital resources for
Islamic Studies
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12 Perspectives
Dr Carool Kersten
Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Kings
College London
The present examination of curriculum development
in Islamic Studies is informed by my research
on the study of Islam as a eld of scholarly
investigation and my initial experiences as a lecturer
in Islamic Studies in the Department of Theology
and Religious Studies at Kings College London,
where I am responsible for offering undergraduate
course modules for existing programmes and the
conceptualisation, design and implementation of
new modules and courses at postgraduate level1.
Since the undergraduate modules are intended
for non-specialists, i.e. students with little or no prior
knowledge of Islam as a religious tradition and not
majoring in Islamic Studies, the teaching is designed
to provide a survey of key aspects of Islam as a
religion and the Muslim world as a civilisation, so as
to provide a holistic and multifaceted introduction tothe Islamic tradition. Key considerations regarding
the future development of postgraduate modules are
to enrich existing programmes by offering additional
elective ones, while the main incentive for the new
taught MA is identifying an appropriate niche
market. Consequently, the focus of the curriculum
is very much content-driven. Geared towards
imparting information with data as a product to be
delivered, the onus for its development rests mainly
on the pertaining faculty member.
A complicating factor is that Islamic Studies,
as a scholarly eld, has been the subject of both
outside scrutiny and introspection by practitioners.
This has raised some generic concerns regarding
the status of the eld. In relation to curriculum
development this raises the question whether
Islamic Studies must be considered an academic
discipline in its own right or a specialist eld
open to interdisciplinary treatment. This article is
intended as a reection on the crucial issue of a
well-informed approach to curriculum development.
After establishing what we mean by curriculum
1 Kings College London, Department of Theology
and Religious Studies, Undergraduate Degrees:www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/trs/ug/.
development and briey sketching the current
state of affairs in the teaching of Islamic Studies
as a subject of scholarly specialisation, I will relate
these ndings to some earlier contributions towards
conceptualising curriculum development and the
exploratory accounts of academic practice by fellow
Islamicists. My expansion of the consequences for
curriculum development is guided by Becher and
Trowlers (2001) seminal study on academic cultures.
Curriculum: understanding,
conceptualisations, denitions
When discussing the issues of curriculum design,
development and change in a generic sense, Barnett
et al. (2001, 435436) and Fraser and Bosanquet
(2006, 269270) have noted that academics tend to
be rather cavalier in the use of the term curriculum.
Drawing on their common understanding, curriculum
is actually used quite randomly to refer to three levels
on which teaching and learning can be considered:
1. course/module/teaching unit;2. concrete study programmes or degree courses;
3. the generic fashioning of transmitting
knowledge in a given academic specialisation,
which also accounts for underlying questions
of epistemology and power structures.
Such understanding from the perspective of the
academic providing the teaching is entirely content-
driven. In their phenomenographical examination of
curriculum understandings Fraser and Bosanquet
expand the research so as to also include the other
stakeholder the student. This gives them four
slightly different categories of curriculum (2006, 272):
A. the structure and content of a unit (subject);
B. the structure and content of a programme of
study;
C. the students experience of learning;
D. a dynamic and interactive process of teaching
and learning.
In the context of an examination of the relationship
between a content-driven approach to the teaching
of Islam and the state of affairs in the eld of Islamic
Studies, I suggest that here curriculum is understood
on a generic level (level 3), with an emphasis on safe-
guarding the integrity of structure and content on boththe programme and unit level (categories A and B).
Islamic Studies: discipline or specialist eld?
Implications for curriculum development
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13 heacademy.ac.uk/islamicstudies
Islamic Studies: a eld in ux
With the current intense media scrutiny of Islam and
Muslims, the concern with Islamic Studies as an
academic specialisation within British universities
has intensied, claiming the attention of specialists
working in the eld and those involved in higher
education administration. Since 2005 no less than
seven conferences and workshops have addressed
Islamic Studies as a subject in tertiary education,
including two consultations initiated by the Higher
Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE),
the main funding body of this eld in England 2.
However, scholars of Islam have reected for
much longer on the state of affairs in their eld. This
occurred especially in the wake of Edward Saids
1978 bombshell publication, Orientalism, a scathing
critique of the political agenda underlying classical
orientalist scholarship and its propensity to
essentialise Islam through its historical-philological
approach. On closer inspection, however, it
becomes evident that self-critical reections by
Islamicists on their eld of specialisation actuallypre-date this ideologically charged critique (Abdel
Malek 1963, Adams 1967, Irwin 2006, Varisco 2005).
As part of my own postgraduate research,
I examined Islamic Studies in relation to other
relevant specialisations such as the (generic)
study of religions and area studies programmes,
characterising these liaisons as awkward a
reference to the troublesomemnage trois
between Islamic Studies, area studies programmes
and the generic eld of religious studies (Kersten
2009, 244). My research concluded that in order
2 Islam in Higher Education conference (Subject
Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies
and Association of Muslim Social Scientists,
2005); The State of Arabic and Islamic Studies
in Western Universities conference (School of
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 2006); Islam
on Campus conference (University of Edinburgh,
2006); Roundtable meeting at Oxford Centre for
Islamic Studies (2007); Islamic studies: current
status and future prospects seminar (HEFCE,
2007); Islamic studies: the way forward in the UK
seminar, (HEFCE, 2008); Perspectives on Islamic
Studies in Higher Education conference (IslamicStudies Network, 2010).
to adapt its approaches to both research and
teaching in a rapidly changing environment, Islamic
Studies must become more promiscuous to
extend the conjugal metaphor a bit further as
it can no longer stay faithful to the centuries-old
marriage with its historical-philological partner.
This means opening itself up to interdisciplinary
approaches developed in other elds of religious
studies as well as to a more global approach,
transcending the area studies framework in which
Islamic Studies is often conned to and labelled as
Middle Eastern Studies.
Positioning Islamic Studies in the context of
cultures of academic disciplines
The now classic study ofAcademic Tribes and
Territories by Becher and Trowler (2001) provides
some helpful guidance in translating developments
in Islamic Studies in relation to curriculum
development. The books concern with disciplinary
epistemology and the phenomenology of knowledge
resonates with my own research, and its contentionthat academic engagement and narratives with
specic topics constitute important structural
factors in the formulation of disciplinary cultures,
has direct implications for curriculum development
and change (Becher and Trowler 2001, 23).
The expansion of scholarly knowledge into an
increasing number of disciplines is reected in
three interconnected processes: subject parturition
(new elds evolving from older ones and gradually
gaining independence); subject dispersion (growth
of disciplinary areas to cover more ground); and
subject decline (Becher and Trowler 2001, 1415). In
spite of these forces of specialisation, Becher and
Trowler nevertheless see a meshing of specialisms
leading towards a collective comprehensiveness of
interlocking cultural communities (ibid., 1617).
Consequently disciplines in higher education
acquire a borderless character (ibid., 3). To my
mind, Islamic Studies is also affected by such
trends, refashioning academic elds in ways that
must be taken into account when rethinking the
curriculum. This shifting of borders evinces that
the concept of an academic discipline is not
altogether straightforward (ibid., 42). Although
mutable and at times engaging in friendly relations
with others, disciplines exhibit a degree of
continuity through recognizable identities andparticular cultural attributes (ibid., 44).
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14 Perspectives
Elaborating the complexity of such developments
in a chapter called Overlaps, Boundaries and
Specialisms, Becher and Trowler show that even
if disciplinary classications are not cast in stone,
some borders are so strongly defended as to be
virtually impenetrable; others are weakly guarded
and open to incoming and outgoing trafc (ibid.,
59). Demarcations of one disciplinary perspective
from another can be governed by distinctions in
style or emphasis, for example History versus
Philosophy; a mutually agreed division of spoils
such as between Physics and Chemistry; or the
distinctive conceptual frameworks of sociologists
and anthropologists respectively. Given that
generally a considerable amount of poaching
goes on across all disciplines (ibid., 59), such
sharing of the ground can also lead to a
convergence rather than a separation of interests
(ibid., 60). Here we can think of scholars of
modern languages as an example of academics
who are hospitable to itinerant theories from
psychology, sociology or structural anthropology
or an anthropologist of religion such as the lateClifford Geertz, who identied a shift in culture
and reconguration of social thought bringing
humanities and social sciences closer together in
their intellectual kinship (ibid., 62).
Rather than merely recognising such
developments, other educationists have pointed to
active interventions to resolve counterproductive
differences (Barry 1981) or to close the large gaps
between disciplines (Wax 1969). For example,
in an attempt to do away with disciplinary-
and departmentally based structures rife with
tribalism, centrifugal attitudes and articial
alienation and distance that can mar knowledge
production and transmission in academia,
Donald T. Campbell introduced the notion of
a comprehensive, integrated multiscience or
omniscience, arguing with Wax that the
true basic unit of intellectual organization is the
specialist eld, where the closest contact is
achieved between human understanding and
the realm of epistemological reality it seeks to
explore (Becher and Trowler 2001, 64). Along with
Campbells (2005) introduction of a sh-scale
model of omniscience, other characterisations for
this specialism-oriented approach are Polanyis
networks of overlapping neighbourhoods (1962),
and Cranes honeycomb structure of interlockingelds (1972).
Islamic Studies or study of Islam? Discipline
or specialism?
The realisation of interdisciplinarity as the hallmark
of what, I suggest, is best regarded as a eld of
specialisation rather than a distinct discipline, did
not take hold in Islamic Studies until the 1960s.
Until then, Islamicists were scholars of oriental
languages with a solid grounding in historical
philology. There was little interest or expertise in
what was then variously called history of religions,
comparative religion or phenomenology of
religion, but which has since developed into the
generic eld of religious studies or the study of
religions. This was due to mutual misconceptions
regarding each others eld: Islamicists regarded
the religionists as students of small tribal or
archaic religions whose theoretical models had
nothing to offer to Islamicists, whereas religionists
often felt intimidated by the linguistic aptitude
and preoccupations of Islamicists, which left little
time for theorising (Waardenburg 1995). In spite of
the interventions of Adams (1967), Martin (1985) orWaardenburg (1995), a quick glance at the studies
of Suleiman and Shihadeh (2007), Izzi Dien (2007) or
Bernasek and Canning (2009) evinces the persistence
of the orientalist approach, as Islamic Studies
remains grounded in a rm knowledge of Arabic.
This particular linguistic focus has also resulted
in a geographical concentration on Middle
Eastern and North African countries. Aside from
the question of whether Islamic Studies should
remain an orientalist eld or be better integrated
into the study of religions/religious studies, this
also raises the issue of the relationship between
Islamic Studies and area studies programmes.
Due to this linguistic focus, Islamicists tend to be
predominantly associated with Middle Eastern
Studies and to a much lesser extent with South and
South-east Asian Studies, notwithstanding the fact
that one in ve Muslims resides in Indonesia and
that more than a quarter of a billion live in the Indian
subcontinent. While area studies programmes
as non-disciplinary specialist elds usually place
a high value on interdisciplinarity, concerns
have been raised that Middle East specialists
are in danger of falling through the cracks; not
recognised as full peers by either orientalists or
scholars from established disciplines such as
Political Science, Anthropology, Sociology, orHistory (Binder 1976).
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15 heacademy.ac.uk/islamicstudies
Aside from all these differences of opinion
among specialists working in the eld, the issue
of nding satisfactory ways of teaching Islam
within the framework of meshing multidisciplinary
approaches is exacerbated by an endemic lack
of faculty. Here the US provides some telling
gures3. In Teaching Islam, Wheeler (2003a) noted
that there are an estimated 1,000 undergraduate
departments and programmes in Religious
Studies, many of which offer courses on Islam.
However there are only roughly 100 scholars
with joint specialisations in Islamic Studies and
Religious Studies. In fact, specialist positions in
Islamic Studies in 2003 did not nearly approximate
the positions in Jewish Studies and in most
Religious Studies departments there is only one
token Islamicist (Wheeler 2003a, vvi).
Implications for curriculum development in
Islamic Studies
Distinguishing between hard natural sciences
and soft humanities and social sciencesspecialisms, Islamic Studies ts with Becher
and Trowlers characterisation of the latter as
reiterative; holistic (organic/river-like); value-laden
and personal; concerned with particularities and
complications; subject to dispute over criteria
for knowledge verication and geared towards
interpretation rather than explanation (Becher and
Trowler 2001, 36).
As for the knowledge it produces, Islamic
Studies can be conceived as producing both pure
and applied knowledge (the latter not only by
social science projects but also by the publication
of critical text editions or translations of primary
material). While the orientalist approach to Islamic
Studies rendered it a convergent discipline with its
own methodological history grounded in philology,
advocates of interdisciplinarity would qualify it as
a divergent specialist eld. Moreover, the study
of Islam also shares with history a catholicity
of coverage and relative absence of theoretical
divisions (Becher and Trowler 2001, 190).
3 A discussion documentIslamic Studies: current
status and future prospectsissued by HEFCE
contains details on student numbers but not onfaculty (HEFCE 2007, 1622).
Shifting to the conceptual approach to curriculum
change inspired by the postmodernist theoretician
Lyotards idea of performativity, Barnett et al. have
suggested that a properly designed curriculum
balances three interlocking domains: knowledge,
action and self. As a specialism located in the
eld of the human sciences the study of Islam
will privilege discipline-specic competence
categorised under the rubric knowledge, while
there will be only limited integration with the action
domain (Barnett et al. 2001, 438). A much more
contentious issue in the case of a specialism dealing
with religious subjects is the impact of learning on
the self. If we take Paul Tillichs denition of religion
as dealing with matters of ultimate concern, it
becomes understandable that the teaching of
religion can potentially impact on perceptions of self
and identity. Not surprisingly then, issues such as
the insider/outsider perspective (McCutcheon 1999)
or the place of faith in the classroom (Barbour 2009)
are recurring themes in reective writings on the
teaching of religion.
On a more concrete level, even when the ideaof elds of academic specialisation is recognised
as a more suitable taxonomy than disciplines,
when it comes to curriculum design there is still
the inherent multi-dimensionality of subject-based,
method-based, and theory-based specialisms
to be reckoned with. Here Mark C. Taylor, a
theorist of religion with a generic interest in higher
education, provides some useful pointers. His
advocacy of deregulating and restructuring goes
even a step further than re-coining academic
disciplines into specialist elds. Based on
the premise that responsible teaching and
scholarship must become cross-disciplinary and
cross-cultural, he declares separate departments
obsolete and proposes instead a curriculum
structured like a web or complex adaptive
network (Taylor 2009).
While appreciative of Fraser and Bosanquets
(2006) stress on the interaction between instructor
and student, Barnett et al.s (2001) use of the
concept of performativity, and Taylors (2009)
signalling of the interfaces between acquiring
knowledge, attaining capabilities, and personal
development, for the type of introductory survey
courses on offer in Theology and Religious Studies
programmes, the focus in the curriculum is almost
unavoidably on the product, putting the onus forits development predominantly on faculty.
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16 Perspectives
The ndings of Teaching Islam also support
such an orientation. While using explanations
developed in the study of religion to contribute to
our understanding of Islam, Wheeler identies
four different institutions that must be included
in introductory courses on Islam: prophethood,
canon and law, ritual, and society and culture
(Wheeler 2003b, 34). His colleague Reinharts
matrix of the Quran, the gure of Muhammad,
and a historical narrative combating phenomenal
and geographical essentialism has a similar point
of departure and direction (2003, 2335)4. This
approach does not go unchallenged; because of
the transience of our technological age, Tazim
Kassam has observed that what is old, ancient,
and in the past has lost its cultural cach [sic]
and hold over the imagination and teachers have
to work harder at restoring a sense and love of
history (Kassam 2003, 197).
However, that does not mean a total disregard
for the student perspective. On the contrary,
curriculum change in the form of ne-tuning
the modules on offer is very much driven bythe structured student end of course feedback
exercises in all Theology and Religious Studies
modules. Tutorials and feedback on completed
coursework can also help improve the generic
objectives of modules regarding transferable skills
and in imparting applied knowledge. Wheeler also
argues for a pedagogical awareness in designing
module content:
To make the content of my course dependent
upon my objective in teaching the course is to
make the content justied not from a historical
or factual but rather from a pedagogical
perspective. This means that I want to know
rst not what I am teaching but why: not
what facts I need to impart but what skills I
am helping students develop as part of their
liberal arts education.
Wheeler 2003b, 14
4 The course must be carried, I think, by some kind
of narrative, and in the effort to de-essentialize
the teaching of Islam, I have found a historicalnarrative to work best (Reinhart 2003, 26).
Conclusion
In view of both the above considerations and the
teaching brief I have received from my institution
(providing undergraduate modules on Islam as
electives in existing degree courses offered by the
Department of Theology and Religious Studies), I
have developed my own adapted understanding
of curriculum, using it as a reference to: a set of
modules on Islam introducing students to Islam
as a religious tradition, surveying aspects of its
history, doctrines and wider cultural heritage from
its inception until the present day. Together with
the conceptualisations derived from the literature
discussed above, it constitutes the foundation in
which my own approach to curriculum design,
development and change is grounded.
References
Abdel-Malek, A. (1963) Lorientalisme en crise.
Diogne. 44, 109142.
Adams, C.J. (1967) The history of religions and thestudy of Islam. In: Kitagawa, J. and Eliade, M.
(eds.) The History of Religions: Essays on the
Problems of Understanding. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, pp. 177193.
Barbour, J.D. (2009) The place of personal faith in the
classroom. Religious Studies News. March 2009, 21.
Barnett, R. et al. (2001) Conceptualising curriculum
change. Teaching in Higher Education. 6 (4),
435449.
Barry, B. (1981) Do neighbours make good fences?:
political theory and the territorial imperative.
Political Theory. 9 (3), 293301.
Becher, T. and Trowler, P.R. (2001)Academic
Tribes and Territories: Intellectual Inquiry and
the Culture of Disciplines. 2nd ed. Buckingham:
SRHE/Open University Press.
Bernasek, L. and Canning, J. (2009) Inuences on
the teaching of Arabic and Islamic Studies in UK
higher education. Arts and Humanities in Higher
Education. 8 (3), 259275.
Binder, L. (1976) The Study of the Middle East:
Research and Scholarship in the Humanities and
Social Sciences. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Campbell, D.T. (2005) Ethnocentrism of disciplines
and the sh-scale model of omniscience.
In: Derry, S.J. et al. (eds.) Interdisciplinary
Collaboration: An Emerging Cognitive Science.Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbraum, pp. 321.
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Crane, D. (1972) Invisible Colleges: Diffusion of
Knowledge in Scientic Communities. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Fraser, S.P. and Bosanquet, A. (2006) The
curriculum? Thats just a unit outline, isnt it?
Studies in Higher Education. 31 (3), 269284.
HEFCE (2007) Islamic Studies: current status and future
prospects. Bristol: HEFCE. Available from: www.
hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/sis/islamic/ [18 August 2010].
Irwin, R. (2006) Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism
and its Discontents. New York: Overlook Press.
Izzi Dien, M. (2007) Islamic Studies or the study
of Islam?: from Parker to Rammell.Journal of
Beliefs & Values. 28 (3), 243255.
Kassam, T. (2003) Teaching religion in the twenty-
rst century. In: Wheeler, B.M. (ed.) Teaching
Islam. New York and London: Oxford University
Press, pp. 191215.
Kersten, K.P.L.G. (2009) Occupants of the Third
Space: New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study
of Islam (Nurcholish Madjid, Hasan Hana,
Mohammed Arkoun). Ph.D. Thesis, School of
Oriental and African Studies.Martin, R.C. (ed.) (1985)Approaches to Islam in
Religious Studies. Tucson, AZ: University of
Arizona Press.
McCutcheon, R.T. (ed.) (1999) The Insider/Outsider
Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader.
London and New York: Cassell.
Polanyi, M. (1962) The republic of science. Minerva.
1 (1), 5473.
Reinhart, A.K. (2003) On The Introduction of Islam.
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and London: Oxford University Press, pp. 2245.
Said, E.W. (1995 [1978]) Orientalism: Western
Conceptions of the Orient. 2nd ed. London: Penguin.
Suleiman, Y. and Shihadeh, A. (2007) Islam on Campus:
teaching Islamic Studies at Higher Education
Institutions in the UK, Report of a conference held
at the University of Edinburgh, 4 December 2006.
Journal of Beliefs & Values. 28 (3), 309329.
Taylor, M.C. (2009) End the university as we
know it. The New York Times. 27 April, p. A23.
Available from: www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/
opinion/27taylor.html [25 August 2010].
Varisco, D.M. (2005) Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric
of Anthropological Representation. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Waardenburg, J. (ed.) (1995) Scholarly Approaches
to Religion, Interreligious Perceptions, and Islam.Bern: Peter Lang.
Wax, M.L. (1969) Myth and interrelationship in
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Interdisciplinary Relationships in the Social
Sciences. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Wheeler, B.M. (ed.) (2003a) Teaching Islam. New
York and London: Oxford University Press.
Wheeler, B.M. (2003b) What cant be left out: the
essentials of teaching Islam as a religion. In:
Wheeler, B.M. (ed.) Teaching Islam. New York
and London: Oxford University Press, pp. 321.
Bibliography
Nanji, A. (ed.) (1997) Mapping Islamic Studies:
Genealogy, Continuity and Change. Berlin and
New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Saeed, A. (1999) Towards religious tolerance through
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State Institute for Islamic Studies in Indonesia.
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Siddiqui, A. (2007) Islam at Universities in England.
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18 Perspectives
Dr Lisa Bernasek
Academic Co-ordinator, Islamic Studies Network
Dr Gary Bunt
Subject Co-ordinator, Subject Centre for
Philosophical and Religious Studies and Senior
Lecturer in Islamic Studies, University of Wales
Trinity Saint David
With contributions from the Islamic Studies
Network project team
The Islamic Studies Network held its inaugural
event, Perspectives on Islamic Studies in higher
education, on 2526 May 2010. During the event
participants attended two workshop sessions to
discuss their personal perspectives on issues in
teaching Islamic Studies in higher education. The
rst set of workshops were organised around a
disciplinary theme, with participants choosing
to attend groups based on their departmental or
disciplinary interests. Six workshops ran in parallel,
each chaired by an academic who opened thesession with some reections on teaching Islamic
Studies from a particular disciplinary perspective.
Participants then shared their own experiences,
discussing matters ranging from textbooks to
student expectations to the inuence of lecturers
experience on their teaching.
As full reports on all the discussions would run
to several thousand words, this article presents
key themes discussed in each workshop. Areas
of interest identied for further discussion and
development within the Network can be found
in boxes on the following pages. All points are
anonymous, and are not placed in any specic
order of preference. Full subject-specic reports
may be published by individual subject centres in
due course.
Parallel session 1:
Theology and Religious Studies
Chair: Professor Hugh Goddard (University of
Edinburgh)
Many Theology and Religious Studies departments
have solo Islamic Studies lecturers, with the
majority of their students aiming to progress into
teaching in the primary and secondary sectors.
Academics in these departments often lack the
support of language studies and are required to
teach across the discipline rather than specialising
in one topic within Islamic Studies.
The cohort of students has changed over the
years, and it can be problematic balancing the
expectations of increasingly diverse students. The
differences within student constituencies (including
diverse cultural and belief perspectives) mean that
there are issues in the ways in which students are
assessed and benchmarks set. For example, pre-
existing understandings of Islam may vary from very
detailed and within a particular faith perspective,
through to no knowledge.Questions relating to the difculties of teaching
introductions to Islam were also raised. How
can the subject be taught compatibly with the
standards and expectations of UK higher education
and without becoming orientalist? How can
stereotypes be broken while conveying the idea that
Islam is different from Christian theology? Can we
challenge the type of Islam that is being taught?
How can Islam be introduced to students without
using well-known paradigms and familiar narrative
histories? Can academics provide students with
an interrogative framework and encourage them to
be inquisitive in their approach Islam? Can this be
achieved through university lectures and seminars?
Perspectives on Islamic Studies
in higher education
It was all just
degrees of excellence
a thoroughly
stimulating event.
The breadth of
participant interests
was both surprising
and interesting.
The discussions
and workshops and
exchanges of views
were the best aspectsof the event.
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Parallel session 2:
Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
Chair: Dr Barbara Zollner (Birkbeck College)
There is an overall domination of Middle Eastern
Studies in Area Studies programmes related to
Islam. This means that other areas of the Muslim
world (e.g. South Asia) or issues related to Muslims
in Europe or North America are marginalised.
Although Area Studies departments should
provide a space for interdisciplinary work and
reection, Islamic Studies specialists in these
departments often tend to identify with their
individual disciplines (e.g. Religious Studies,
History, Politics) rather than Area Studies more
generally. This situation is exacerbated by the
distinction between the social sciences and
the humanities, as specialists in Islam are often
separated by this structural division. In some social
science contexts there is an attempt to avoid
questions of religion and to frame discussions
around culture.
The study of Islam in language-oriented degreecourses (e.g. Arabic or Arabic and Islamic Studies)
presents a tendency to focus on Arabic when
studying Islam, resulting in the marginalisation
of other relevant languages. Because the
study of languages is not facilitated in the UK
educational system, students pursuing these
degrees may be faced with difculties as starting
language programmes ab initio implies devoting
a signicant amount of time to language training.
In consequence of this it can be difcult to nd
the balance between teaching content (including
coverage of Islam) and language.
Parallel session 3:
History
Chair: Dr Anna Akasoy (University of Oxford)
As with many disciplines related to Islamic Studies,
historians may be located in a History department
or within an Area Studies context. These contexts
will entail different expectations in relation to
modules delivered and student backgrounds.
Issues in teaching Islamic history to students
without a background in Islam were raised. This
type of module can easily centre on teaching facts
and events rather than using thematic approaches
or exploring current research in the eld.
Participants discussed approaches to teaching
Islam within History as well as the development of
bibliographical resources, including the upcoming
publication of a section of the Oxford Bibliographies
Online (OBO) devoted to Islamic Studies1.
1 Reisz, M. (2010) Research intelligence: Thats your
reading sorted. Times Higher Education,27 May.
Available from: www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/
story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=411727
&c=2 [25 August 2010].
Oxford Bibliographies Online:www.oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/
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Parallel session 4:
Sociology, Anthropology and Politics
Chairs: Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray (Cardiff University), Dr
Sen McLoughlin (University of Leeds)
Those present working in Religious Studies
departments approach their research and teaching
using sociological or anthropological methods,
but have found these departments less likely to be
interested in the sociology/anthropology of religion.
According to the group, sociology of religion is not
generally valued within Sociology departments; it
also has little contact with the sociology of race.
There was some discussion in the workshop of
whether there is a sociology of Islam, and what this
might look like.
Within Politics, there was some discussion of the
limitation of traditional teaching methods in relation
to Islam. In a module on Political Islam, for example,
it is often necessary to provide students with an
introduction to Islam, but a cursory overview may
actually reinforce their stereotypes. Participants
also noted that Politics modules related to Islam arepopular options within degree courses.
One challenge common to all these disciplines
is that students need to develop methodological
skills (qualitative research, research design, etc.)
and need to understand the history, diversity, and
institutions related to Muslim communities in the UK
and elsewhere.
Students are driven by contemporary social
issues, so discussion of Islam in context, related
to other aspects of society, works well. However, it
was also noted that lecturers often have to dispel
students myths about Islam or parts of the Muslim
world when teaching.
There was some discussion of the need for
further interdisciplinary work, and the need to
adjust university structures so that this type of
work can take place. There was also discussion of
the term Islamic Studies what does this entail in
relation to the social sciences?
Parallel session 5:
Business, Management and Finance
Chair: Mr Osama Khan (University of Surrey)
Islamic banking, nance and economics were
found to be the main focus of teaching in these
disciplinary areas, although one case study of
supply chain management in relation to Islamic
Studies was discussed. There was a general
interest in investigating further provision in
this area, and in other areas like management,
marketing, and human resources.
In general Islamic nance, banking and
management are being taught as an alternative to
models discussed in the core Business curriculum.
The aim is to expose students to the wide range
of ideas related to these topics, not to question
particular ideas or rulings. These topics may be
offered as modules in their own right or through
sub-modular provision.
It was pointed out that often lecturers are
the sole person working on Islamic nance
at their universities. This raises the need forfurther collaboration between people at different
universities. In addition, research work is taking
place in Business schools but also in other
departments, so there is a need for dissemination
of research across disciplines, and for the
development of learning and teaching materials
related to this research.
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Parallel session 6:
Law
Chair: Professor Shaheen Sirdar Ali (University of
Warwick)
Teaching Islamic Law is generally done from a
comparative perspective, with the idea of the
Western legal system as the benchmark against
which scholars compare elements of Islamic law.
Islamic legal methodology can cause dilemmas
as the diversity and complexity of the different
schools of legal thought (madhhabs) can be
confusing for students. There is great diversity
not only in the opinions of different schools but
also between Sunni and Shiite approaches, and
between classical and modern scholars. There are
challenges in explaining how the same sources can
be interpreted very differently.
In addition, legal terminology is often
challenging to understand. This is related to
questions of translation; the translation of
documents was generally agreed to be useful;
however, it must be borne in mind that there canbe different interpretations of the same word
that may not be reected in a translation. It was
agreed that certain terms and concepts carry
cultural baggage. Therefore the syllabus needs to
be practical and diverse in order to help students
understand the terminology.
There was also an interest in understanding the
application of Islamic law in contemporary society,
and looking at Islamic law scholarship in the UK
and beyond. There was some discussion of the
development of Islamic law in mainland Europe in
comparison to the UK. It was also suggested that
investigating how Islamic Law courses are being
taught in Muslim institutions both here and outside
the UK would be useful for the cross-fertilisation
of ideas.
Parallel workshops: cross-disciplinary issues
In the second set of workshops, participants attended
three parallel sessions to discuss cross-disciplinary
issues that may arise in teaching Islamic Studies.
Members of the Islamic Studies Network project team
introduced the network and the Higher Education
Academys previous work related to Islamic Studies.
Participants were given an overview of the networks
upcoming activity and how they could get involved2.
Participants were then asked to discuss a
selection of cross-disciplinary issues in small
groups. These topics included:
teaching introductory courses;
resource sharing and curriculum development,
including online resources;
student recruitment and employability;
teaching in relation to political issues and
current events;
collaboration (between disciplines or
institutions) in teaching;
diversity of Islamic Studies programmes andacademic expectations;
dialogue with Muslim communities and
institutions.
In the discussion groups a number of general
issues arose, as well as suggestions for future work
the network could help to facilitate. Some of the
main issues are presented below.
Dening Islamic Studies
The denition of Islamic Studies was discussed in
the workshops and over the course of the event. In
one workshop participants discussed whether the
Islamic Studies Network was engaging in the creation
or construction of Islamic Studies as a discipline,
and if the network was in danger of becoming a self-
selecting shaper of that discipline. There was some
concern at the possibly exclusionary implications
of this, and the potential for creating a core and
periphery of knowledge and practices.
2 See PowerPoint presentation available at:
www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2010/
academyevents/25-26_May_2010_Islamic_Studies_Network_Event.
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This point was raised in the nal summing-up
session of the conference as well, with participants
wondering exactly who was or should be included in
the denition of an Islamic Studies academic. It was
emphasised that the network was meant to be as
inclusive as possible, and that a special effort should
be made to draw in participants who are teaching
only a small amount of content related to Islam. This
could be done through training events and resources
specically for those who do not see themselves as
specialists in Islam, but who are involved in teaching
subjects related to Islam and Muslims.
Student backgrounds and expectations
Issues related to student backgrounds and
expectations, as well as employability issues, arose in
all three parallel sessions. There was discussion of the
varieties of student knowledge, and how introductory
courses might relate to this knowledge as well as to
different disciplinary frameworks. Although many
students come into Islamic Studies with an interest in
academia or teaching, there are other career paths aswell, including in Islamic nance, chaplaincy, and as
family law solicitors or expert witnesses.
Regarding student expectations, there was some
discussion of the dangers of student disappointment
with academic study. Institutions expect that
Islamic Studies be treated in the same way as any
other subject (in relation to quality assurance, etc.),
and students must take an academic approach.
It was suggested that this approach might cause
disappointment by bringing uncertainty to some
Muslim students understanding of Islam. However,
it was also suggested that this process was not
limited to the Islamic faith but might be confronted
by students of many faiths, and that researching and
learning new approaches was part of the experience
of higher education.
Interaction and dialogue with Muslim
communities and institutions
The issue of interaction and dialogue with Muslim
communities and institutions was raised in all three
parallel sessions, emphasising the importance of
future work in this area. Various models of interaction
were discussed. For example, universities may offer
evening and extension courses to local communities.
This can be a positive way to create dialogue,but participants had had differing experiences
related to this. Universities also have a role to play
in accreditation and validation of programmes
at Muslim institutions. It was agreed that an
investigation of practice and educational techniques
in faith-based institutions compared with universities
would be fruitful for both sides.
Participants also discussed what the place
of such institutions is in relation to the network.
Are such institutions properly able to be part
of the network? Are they potential partners or
stakeholders? To what extent is it the networks role
to build dialogue and encourage practice-sharing?
It was acknowledged that this dialogue can be
difcult for funding bodies to sponsor or carry out.
Resources and methods
There was discussion of resource sharing in all the
workshops, with participants mentioning current
projects that can be used and discussing the potential
for future resource sharing through the Islamic Studies
Network. HumBox, an open educational resources
project developed by the humanities subject centres,is one possibility for sharing teaching resources, e.g.
PowerPoint slides, lecture notes, handouts, lm clips,
etc. used in teaching. Users can also create proles
with teaching and research interests3.
Another project that has already developed
extensive teaching resources is the UKCLE Islamic
law curriculum project. Teaching manuals, a
bibliography and a glossary have been developed
and are available online4.
Concluding comment
The workshops generated a great deal of discussion,
some of which continued outside of the conference
rooms, and demonstrated that those working in
the elds associated with the study of Islam have
a dynamic and passionate interest in how their
subject is taught across a variety of institutions. It
is anticipated that the points presented above from
the sessions will inform wider debates on Islamic
Studies, as well as the future activities of the network.
3 HumBox: www.humbox.ac.uk
4 UKCLE, Developing an Islamic law curriculum:
Resources: www.ukcle.ac.ukresources/teaching-and-learning-strategies/islamiclaw.
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The following points highlight the aspirations of
workshop attendees in developing an Islamic
Studies Network that is relevant to diverse sectors
within higher education. They represent both subject
specic interests, and potentially high levels of
transferability between sectors of the network. It is
anticipated that the network and the subject centres
will integrate elements of these points within future
strategies, to develop a responsive and exible
approach to disciplinary and generic concerns.
Develop further dialogue and discussion with
practitioners teaching in non-publicly-funded
institutions, particularly Muslim institutions.
Engage with postgraduate students to discuss
issues specic to their ex