Curriculum Coverage: Lessons from B.Economics at IIUM
In order to meaningfully develop genuine Islamic Economics, banking and finance, a major rethinking of curriculum content may be needed. The International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) was established by the Malaysian government in 1983 as a direct influence of the intellectual movements of the time and conferences promoting Islamic education in the 1970s. The central thrust of these conferences was that to create a new breed of Muslims who not only new their heritage, but were also well versed in modern disciplines. Hence there was a need to critically evaluate modern knowledge from Islamic perpectives. The Kulliyyah of Economics (now Kulliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences) was established together with the inception of the IIUM in 1983. The ‘Islamic perspective’ and Islamic heritage was to be conveyed to students in three different ways:
University level courses giving students general exposure to Islam and its different dimensions
Kulliyyah and Department level Islamic Economics/Banking, fiqh and usul al-fiqh courses
Kulliyyah and Department level economics/finance courses presented in a comparative/critical manner from Islamic perspectives
The B.Economics programme had very ambitious goals as stated in its 1983 programme book.
1-
Every course is presented from an Islamic perspective. Western economic theories will be presented and then critically analyzed from an Islamic viewpoint.
2-
The program generally adopts a comparative approach.
3-
The program hopes to “devalue” economic concepts from all alien values (and to infuse Islamic values where possible).
4-
The program has certain core subjects in
aqidah
,
shariah
and
akhlaq
.
5-
The Arabic language is very central to the objectives of the program.
6-
After a strong foundation in the Islamic perspective in economics, the fourth-year courses are of more conventional in nature.
7-
To ensure correct understanding, a limited number of options are offered.
The author would argue that the initial mission and vision of the B.Economics programme had a genuine Islamization of Knowledge agenda in mind. ‘Comparative, critical, devalue (dewesternization), holistic Islamic heritage, build Islamic orientation, followed by conventional economics’ are all part of genuine Islamization, although this term was not used in 1983.
However as time passed, the above goals gave way to a diluted form of Islamization. In a paper presented in 2005
, the following 6 categories of courses were identified and the emphasis seen clearly indicates changes that occured :
1-
Conventional economics courses (Conv.)-----------------------------------34%
2-
Courses with some Islamic input/Comparative courses (SI/Comp.)-----30%
3-
Islamic economics courses (IE)-----------------------------------------------14%
4-
Fiqh
courses (F)-------------------------------------------------------------------7%
5-
Usul al-Fiqh
courses (UF)-------------------------------------------------------7 %
6-
Other Islamic courses (OI)-------------------------------------------------------9%