Educational curricula are utilized by Ministries of Education to modify student behavior, develop their skills and positive attitudes, and instill social habits and values that align with societal norms. These curricula also work towards refining ethics and nurturing inclinations.

The curricula, with their knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values, serve as the nourishment upon which student education is built. They are the central element in the educational process. Therefore, countries have focused on developing curricula in all their elements to keep pace with societal development and the accompanying challenges, enabling society to progress in line with global advancements.

Islamic Education Contributes to Developing Students' Minds, Improving Their Morals, and Utilizing Their Abilities for Constructing the World

Experts in the educational field recognize that education in Islamic countries has derived its goals and methods from the theories of John Dewey and his followers. These theorists view education as a social function, essential for any human community seeking to maintain its existence and advance on the ladder of progress. Education, in their view, should be carried out in light of a social philosophy and in social contexts, aiming to create citizens who perform social functions such as preserving, improving, and refining culture.

From this perspective, the goal of education is to create a good citizen who plays their role in maintaining and refining the culture of society. It is a society that defines the philosophy it wishes to cultivate, the values and ideals it wants its members to adhere to, and the skills they should master.

However, if we look at the goals of education within the Islamic framework, we find that Islamic education transcends the narrow regional concept of citizenship to a higher level of objectives, represented in “nurturing a good human being.” This refers to the human being in the comprehensive human sense, inherently and universally, not merely as a citizen of a specific region. This broader meaning is undoubtedly more inclusive than any educational concept in non-Islamic contexts.

Islamic Educational Curricula

Islamic education is a powerful tool in developing students' minds, improving their morals, guiding their energies, and nurturing their abilities for the construction of the world. Islamic education is characterized by a comprehensive approach to nurturing all aspects of a person's character. It aims to achieve many educational goals, such as equipping students with the skills necessary for the construction of the earth, developing their intellectual and moral abilities, and guiding their energies towards positive interaction with their community according to accepted standards derived from Islamic Sharia and societal customs. Religion is both knowledge and practice, a comprehensive methodology encompassing all aspects of life. Allah says, “Say, 'Indeed, my prayer, my rites of sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, Lord of the worlds. No partner has He. And this I have been commanded, and I am the first [among you] of the Muslims.'” (Al-An'am: 162-163)

Neglecting Islamic Education Curricula Has Negative Effects in Terms of Civilizational Backwardness, Loss of Identity, and Societal DecayTop of Form

The Reality of Religious Education Curricula in Islamic Countries

The reality of religious education curricula in Islamic countries confirms the existence of significant shortcomings across these nations. In a study conducted by researcher Ruqayya As'ad Saleh Arar at An-Najah National University for her master's degree, she concluded the following results after analyzing the content she collected:

• The low representation of contemporary issues in the curriculum content, with only a few social and economic issues being addressed.
• The absence of contemporary jurisprudential issues needed by students at this stage.
• The study praised Kuwait’s experience in developing Islamic education curricula and adopting modern approaches, which included, trending towards a separate experience method between the branches of the subject, integrating knowledge in subject topics, and trending towards concepts and activities.

The study also discussed modern trends in teaching Islamic education, which included the trends towards mastery, cooperation, teaching thinking, and enrichment.

The reality indicates that when a student finishes secondary education in most Arab and Islamic countries, their formal connection with Islamic education ends completely, as if university students do not need to learn about their religion, Islamic values, and morals!

Instilling Correct Belief in Students’ Hearts Through Persuasion and Evidence, Not Imitation That Builds Shaky Faith

Islamic education is no less important than foreign languages, which are almost present in all educational stages now in most Arab and Islamic countries, from nursery to the final stages of formal education and beyond. Islamic education does not need the large space allocated to foreign languages in educational curricula. If curriculum developers have found the time and space to include foreign language learning across various university specializations, allocating time and space for Islamic education should not pose a problem. On the contrary, incorporating Islamic education into university education will solve many serious and numerous problems faced by societies.

Neglecting Islamic education curricula in schools and universities has serious negative effects, such as civilizational backwardness, loss of identity, weakening strength, societal decay, and exposure to corrupt and extremist currents. This neglect leads to generations disconnected from their religion, with no sense of belonging or identity, ready to absorb false ideas, misguided ideologies, and deviant morals.

What’s expected from Islamic Education Curriculum Developers

Given the current state of Islamic education curricula in most Arab and Islamic countries, the hope is for curriculum developers to respond to the inclusion of modern technological advancements in education, adopting goals, content, and activities that align with these advancements. They should also respond to societal aspirations and the requirements of the modern age, without neglecting the needs of students in this era.

We hope curriculum developers in our countries will focus on nurturing students in:

• Faith: By instilling the correct belief in students’ hearts through persuasion and evidence, not imitation that builds shaky faith in the face of intellectual and cultural challenges.
• Critical Thinking Skills: By incorporating what is mentioned in the Quran and the Sunnah, which call for contemplation, reflection, and employing evidence for persuasion.
• The Ability to Dialogue and Coexist with Others: Dialogue is a fundamental value in the Quran. People are different, and integration among them can only be achieved through dialogue, knowing that the criterion for superiority among people is the piety of Allah.
• Utilizing Technology for Self-Learning: Technology is the tool of contemporary society, an effective means of communication, and a means of opening up to knowledge.

In light of the above, we recommend curriculum developers to:

• Enrich Islamic education curricula with activities that enhance the orientation towards e-learning and the utilization of technology in education.
• Analyze Islamic education curricula in light of contemporary developments and issues quantitatively, then enrich them with contemporary issues accumulatively as students progress through their grades according to the sequence for jurisprudence units.
• Increase the number of Islamic education classes to enable teachers to focus on presenting contemporary jurisprudential issues during lessons in an engaging manner that stimulates students' thinking and sharpens their interests by presenting them in additional enrichment activities.
• Conduct periodic evaluative studies of the content of Islamic education books in light of contemporary jurisprudential issues to keep pace with societal progress and represent emerging contemporary issues.

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1. Taken from: Islamic Educational Curricula: Reality and Expectations, Ruqayya As'ad Saleh Arar, An-Najah National University, with modifications.

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One of the problems of contemporary history is that it is forced to address major events whose dimensions are not yet clear. Therefore, the final vision of events takes time to reveal their details, motives, and outcomes, and to reveal their documents and secrets. These are documents that the parties that made the event try to control and keep for a while, and some countries withhold what they see of their documents for 10, 20, 30 years, and perhaps more.

A huge event

The "Al-Aqsa Flood" was a huge event that shook many established convictions and imposed a new reality whose dimensions are still being revealed. It leaves its effects on the regional and international environments, which prompted researchers to study it through monitoring and analysis without waiting for its results and goals to be revealed.

The people who are most deserving of looking into it and benefiting from it are Muslims in general, Arabs close to the axis of its occurrence in particular, and Islamists who are primarily concerned with advocacy, education, and movement, as its events and echoes represent an enticement to look and study, and even push towards that as they are a bright light in the darkness of the bleak Arab reality, and an energy of hope and pride after decades of frustration and despair, exacerbated by the deterioration of conditions after the results of the “Arab Spring.”

Common Denominators that Unite People

The perspectives on that great event will certainly differ, as history is multifaceted. Historians have various tendencies and different schools, and it is difficult for the visions of Islamists, secularists, and Arab nationalists, or the starting points of revolutionaries and advocates of change, to agree with advocates of normalization and surrender to the bitter reality in assessing the “Al-Aqsa Flood” about a year after its floods.

Perhaps it is more appropriate for us - when we decide to present the major event in education and upbringing - to search for common denominators that unite us. It is of the utmost importance that we liberate ourselves from political domination over educational institutions in our countries, and the imposition of the governing political vision on them, especially in the general issues that unite the nation, and among its priorities are the Palestinian cause and the liberation of “Al-Aqsa”, and that the will to build the psychological structure of the nation and its future generations in a manner consistent with its identity becomes an undisputed educational requirement, for which the goals of education and its governing values are in agreement.

Constructive Values

From the perspective of constructive values, we find abundant contributions from “Al-Aqsa Flood”. It demonstrated the ability of this nation to rise and awaken, no matter how long its negligence, and to arrange its priorities and impose its correctness despite the pile of foam and dung, for how far the state of the broad masses of the nation before the start of the battle is from its state and concerns after it. The certainty has emerged that liberating the land, restoring Al-Aqsa, defeating the enemy, ending the occupation, and eliminating its state... all of this is not an impossible matter - as depicted in the literature of the era of Arab defeat and humiliation - if the complicit fronts and complicit forces open up around it, and the peoples yearning for the honor of liberation and jihad are liberated.

Ideological Education

The role of ideological education in shaping the Muslim person in Palestine and choosing the path of resistance and jihad has become prominent, which is a path of great cost and dangerous consequences, given the rottenness and stagnation of the Arab reality, the spread of the infection of normalization with the enemy, withdrawal into the narrow national self, and the farewell of the major issues of the nation, and the collapse of ambitions, goals and aims that global colonialism has succeeded in occupying us with and marketing to us.

Dazzling the world with eagerness to be martyred

We have seen the convoys of Mujahideen led by the memorizers of the Holy Quran, and the sons of mosques, remembrance circles, and science lessons, so they dazzled the world with their eagerness to be martyred in the way of Allah, despite the weakness of equipment, the small number, severe hunger, and the scarcity of support, and the leaders advanced the ranks of the martyrs, and they offered precious sacrifices of themselves, their children, and their families, so those searching for a role model no longer prolong the period of history to tell them about the heroes of the Companions and the Followers, and Khalid, Amr, Salah al-Din, and Baybars, while they see before them the role models and examples; God Almighty said (Among the believers are men true to what they promised God. Among them is he who has fulfilled his vow, and among them is he who awaits [his chance], and they have not changed [their commitment] in the least) (Al-Ahzab: 23).

Immortal examples of patience

The harvest of education and knowledge was not limited to the leading elite, or the struggling force, but rather the general people of Gaza set tremendous, immortal examples of patience and support for the resistance, and embracing its sons. The popular incubator in Gaza and the West Bank resisted attempts at subjugation and intimidation and obediently presented tens of thousands of martyrs, satisfied, and the slogan of each one of them was "We are all martyrdom projects."

The models of values that our scientific and educational institutes need have continued, at the forefront of which is the value of self-reliance in building civilization. The Mujahideen have amazed the world with their steadfastness with weapons that they manufactured and developed in their tunnels, in the shadow of a stifling siege for decades. Onlookers have seen the “Qassam” missile, the “Jabari” missile, the “Yassin 101” shell, the “Ghoul” rifle, and others, over which the Mujahid recites the words of God Almighty: (So you did not kill them, but it was God who killed them. And you did not throw when you threw, but it was God who threw, that He might test the believers with a good test. Indeed, God is Hearing and Knowing) (Al-Anfal: 17), so they penetrate the “Merkavah.” Armored personnel carriers and bulldozers, and the manufacturing and steadfastness continued for nearly a year now, towering over the Arab weapons stores in the cowardly armies that are eaten away by rust!

Surprising the World

That miracle is no less glorious than the success of the resistance in surprising the enemy with all its technology, weapons and fortifications on October 7th in a strategic surprise that has dazzled the world so far, and this and that is no less than a miraculous success in preventing the enemy throughout the year from reaching its prisoners held by the resistance, outperforming the treachery of the enemy's intelligence services and the world that supports it, with its great powers, and its hordes of forces, which do not leave the skies of Gaza searching for a loophole through which they can penetrate and save their face.

Qualitative superiority

The qualitative superiority achieved by the Islamic resistance extends to harnessing the unfavorable geography for the jihad march, by engineering tunnels, and the amazing patience in digging them, distributing them and obscuring their traces, and using them as starting points for invasion, training centers, and points for command, control and combat management.

The lessons that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” provided that our generations need in their institutes and universities were not limited to the military and societal aspects, but rather the political management of the conflict is one of the most important things that needs contemplation and study. Its leaders were keen to continue communicating with their Arab and Islamic surroundings, despite the ingratitude and sorrow, and the betrayal and inaction they encountered.

They impressively managed their difficult political negotiations, and employed military, political and negotiating work in an integrated system that is still steadfast, in the face of an enemy experienced in obstinacy, hostility, argument and setting traps. The battle of “Al-Aqsa Flood” has not yet reached its end, and its repercussions are still occupying the world and interacting with open possibilities. However, successes have been achieved, with great sacrifices and severe hardship. The issue of liberating the usurped land and the captive mosque has returned to impose itself on the agenda of global politics, and the evils of the occupation and the countries supporting it have been exposed. The cloak of democracy and human rights that the Zionist state and the West have mastered covering up with has been torn apart.

The peoples of the earth have witnessed on television screens the massacres against defenseless civilians, the massacres against children and women, and the transformation of Gaza into rubble and debris, with a despicable global moral bankruptcy. People of conscience in the peoples of Europe and America - who demonstrated anger at the brutality of the occupation and its supporters - have been subjected to all kinds of brutality and aggression against their freedoms. The ideological and civilizational dimension of the conflict has become clear to onlookers, which the West and global Zionism have worked hard to hide throughout the past decades.

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For 14 centuries, armies have failed to defeat the ummah. Whenever our ummah faced military invasion, it would rise up, its embers glowing, even if the invaders controlled it for ages. These embers remained burning until liberation.

Our enemies understood this truth and learned the lesson, so they directed their efforts towards a different kind of war: a war on identity. This involves stripping away and erasing its features through cultural and intellectual invasion and tampering with educational curricula, making it easier to conquer and militarily control an ummah devoid of its protective shield.

Identity is how one defines oneself by answering the question: Who am I? It is far from the content of personal identity cards issued by states to their citizens. It is about essence and truth. The identity of an ummah consists of its unique qualities that distinguish it from other ummahs and express its civilizational personality.

Identity always comprises three elements: the creed that provides a worldview, the language used for expression, and the long-standing cultural heritage. ⁽¹⁾

Since educational institutions like schools, universities, and scientific institutes are nurturing environments encountered by most people at some point in their lives, they form the primary foundation for shaping an individual's character and instilling an identity rooted in the society's native culture.

Removing Palestine and Its Related Issues or Marginalizing Them in Curricula Will Erase the Identity of Future Generations

Scientific curricula are the tools that enable societies to build the characters of their individuals according to the culture, beliefs, and philosophy of the society. They comprise the set of educational materials taught to students. ⁽²⁾

Based on this, educational curricula have always been the primary target in the process of erasing identity, through which an ummah can be directed without its awareness.

Palestine and Educational Curricula

The Palestinian issue is the mother of all issues, mapping the conflict because it is tied to an Islamic Arab land that was usurped, and to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the first Qibla and the site of the Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) night journey. Throughout history, the ummah has paid a heavy price to maintain and reclaim it from its enemies.

The Zionists and their supporters failed to trivialize the Palestinian issue and the Palestinian right in the Islamic and Arab consciousness. Hence, this issue received significant attempts to marginalize it through educational curricula, which have consistently instilled love for Palestine, highlighted its struggle for freedom, and exposed Zionist conspiracies to swallow it. The Zionists pressured all means to delete references to Palestine in educational curricula, both in Palestine and in Arab countries.

In August 1981, former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin visited Egypt and expressed his deep dissatisfaction with the continued study of history books that discuss the Israeli usurpation of Palestine, as well as Islamic education books containing Quranic verses condemning Jews. ⁽³⁾

Inside Palestine

Since the 1967 naksa and the occupation of Jerusalem, along with the tightening Israeli control over Palestinian territories, the Israeli government has worked on "Israelizing" Palestinian educational curricula. They removed Palestine from educational books and promoted the Zionist narrative about the land of "Israel" and Jewish history, propagating the idea that Arabs are a minority embraced by democratic "Israel". This effort aimed to erase the Palestinian identity from students' minds by reinforcing their allegiance to the Israeli state.

After protests from school principals in Jerusalem regarding these curricula, the occupation authorities conceded to allowing Palestinian schools to teach Jordanian curricula until the Palestinian curricula emerged in 2000. Schools in East Jerusalem and those under the municipality of the occupation began teaching it. However, in 2011, the occupation distorted Palestinian curricula and pressured schools to teach it in this altered form while attempting to impose the Israeli curriculum in Jerusalem schools.

We Must Preserve Our Identity by Keeping the Palestinian Cause as a Central Issue for the Ummah

Efforts to "Israelize" education in Jerusalem intensified after the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there in 2018. The occupation allocated a large budget to entice schools to teach the Israeli curriculum, which portrays the establishment of Israel from a Zionist perspective. This curriculum emphasizes the importance of the Knesset, the preservation of the Israeli anthem, and deletes Palestinian elements such as intifada poetry and the Palestinian national anthem. Historical lessons like the Battle of Hattin are removed, while Jewish cultural values are promoted. The curriculum also includes a distorted history that negates Palestinian rights in Palestine, erasing Palestinians or categorizing them as non-Jews, minorities, or groups alongside Jews.

In the Arab Region

The Israeli government, supported by its major ally and official sponsor, the United States, pressured Arab governments to alter their educational curricula to omit the Palestinian issue. This aims to create generations unaware and disconnected from Palestinian identity.

While attempts to remove Palestine from Arab educational curricula began earlier, gaining response since the Camp David Accords and later the Wadi Araba Agreement, the events of September 11 provided a stronger opportunity for the US and Israeli entities to push this agenda. The rhetoric of terrorism became a charge used against countries to align with American and Israeli directions, bolstered by normalization efforts. Many Arab countries responded by changing their educational curricula to align with Zionist desires.

Books and lessons critical of Jews, their animosity, betrayal, and violations of agreements were eliminated. Also removed were verses and historical events critical of Jews, including opposition to Israeli settlements and lessons on Jewish occupation of the Holy Land. Instead, new textbooks were introduced focusing on the economic, cultural, and political benefits of peace with Israel. Some countries went as far as completely removing Palestine from their educational curricula, leaving it absent from their teachings.

Our Identity is at Risk

The deletion or marginalization of Palestine and related Palestinian issues in educational curricula threatens to obscure the identity of future generations, exposing them to ignorance about the Palestinian cause and the struggle against the occupying entity.

These trends will erode the markers of loyalty and dissent in young minds, shaping their view of the Palestinian issue as simply a land shared by two peoples who should coexist peacefully, blurring distinctions between enemy and friend.

Such trends will diminish the love for sacred sites in the hearts of future generations, neglecting their historical context which is integral to their identity, including the history of defense and sacrifice for Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.

These generations will lose their identity if they accept imperialist influence willingly under this plan. The danger lies in the fact that even under prolonged occupation, ummahs under occupation maintain their identity as long as they are aware of their right to the land and the necessity of expelling their foreign adversary. However, these teachings, v with normalization, may take away their compass and liberation.

These misguided trends can permeate the generations subjected to these teachings with all facets of normalization, affecting their beliefs, culture, and values.

We are obligated to preserve our identity by ensuring that the Palestinian cause remains central to the ummah. As we may not be able to pressure for curriculum reform, we must take a counteracting approach. Through defining and educating across all platforms available, we emphasize the importance of the Palestinian cause and the struggle against the Zionists.

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(1) Globalization and a World without Identity, Samir Mahmoud Al-Munir, p. 146.

(2) Study titled "Modified Palestinian Curricula in History and Its Impact on National Identity in East Jerusalem Schools," Mervat Abu Asab, Scientific Journal of the Faculty of Education, Assiut University, Volume 38, Issue 8, August 2022.

(3) Derived from: Normalization, Adel Al-Rajhi, p. 9.

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