Iqra International School 3.99

Islamic society is founded on the principles of belief and righteous conduct.
This connection between values and practice lies at the very heart of the Islamic way of life. To be a Muslim requires that one’s faith be reflected in one’s practice and daily moral conduct with other people. We have the beautiful teachings of the Holy Qur’an and Prophetic Sunnah, and we have many mosques, Islamic schools and organizations. Yet many Muslims today do not live in accord with the principles and values of their faith. What is amiss?

Islamic religious instruction, in the recent centuries, has been taught primarily as a body of information, rather than as a body of experiences. For many muslim children today, Islam does not inspire, and seems meaningless and irrelevant to their personal lives and experiences.

The Islamic values education curriculum called for at Iqra International School focuses on personality and character development of children, close attention to the real needs and concerns of students, and preparation of students with the critical thinking and problemsolving skills needed to function successfully as Muslims in society.If we hope to succeed in our goal to raise our children Islamically, Muslim educators and parents must develop a better understanding of how children grow and learn; we must understand the processes of moral development and the methods of effective teaching and learning. Our children will not become moral individuals simply because we want or tell them to do so.

They will become moral individuals by cultivating their minds and hearts, and by having opportunities to actually see and apply Islamic values in practice.
The pervasive influence of secular materialism and its value system seriously challenges religious-minded individuals and communities. To a large extent, the future will depend on how well we educate our children today and to what extent we are successful in transferring to them the sacred vision of life we have as Muslims. What is at stake is nothing less than the moral and spiritual survival of our children and our communities as Muslims.

Without a proper understanding of the Islamic value system, there is little hope that the true goals, or maqasid, of Islamic education can be achieved. Islamic schools have a crucial role to play in providing concrete solutions and programs that will foster this understanding among students and in promoting the role and responsibility of the family in the process of Islamic tarbiyah.

Fortunately, a sense of renewal is in the air today and enlightened Muslims are eager to find real solutions to the problems and challenges facing the Muslim, including re-examination of both how and what we teach our children about Islam.
At Iqra International School, we restructure the Islamic Studies curriculum—both what is taught and how it is taught— for our children to develop the spiritual survival skills needed to survive as Muslims in the twenty-first century. We began with a new vision of Islamic education which is capable of producing Muslim youth with a level of understanding, commitment and social responsibility that will both motivate and enable them to serve Islam and humanity effectively, Insha-Allah.Islamic education must be able to produce Muslim youth who are able to identify, understand and then work cooperatively to solve the problems that face their community and the world in which they live and for which they are responsible. This, we believe, is the most effective form of Islamic da’wah.

In the lifetime of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and give him peace, Islamic education was both practical and relevant. The Prophetic model of Islamic education drew its substance from the everyday experiences and day-today problems of the early Muslim community. Although Islamic education will undoubtedly draw much of its content from the foundational disciplines
of Islamic Studies (such as Aqidah, Tafseer, Fiqh, etc.), it must be done in a way that links this content to the natural concerns of students as well as the
larger issues facing the world in which they live. We at Iqra have taken on this challenge of modern-day Islamic education