Lesson two Islam Literacy Instruction

The key to Muslin renaissance is to revive each Muslim’s intellect and awareness of the value of the message Allah entrusted his nation with.

This, in turn, implies spreading the message of Islam all over the world, as well as observing its comprehensive way of life for the individual, family, community and the whole nation.

This mandate can be achieved only by serious, persistent and organized work; to make-up for the inadequacy of many of the Islamic teaching curriculums in most of the Muslim countries.

Moreover, in many countries, teaching Islam for the public is faced with constraints and difficulties, and is limited to scholars and preachers.

Islamic education institutes, courses and textbooks are mostly directed to instruct specialists such as judges, mosque imams, preachers and teachers; while common Muslims are deprived of any adequate program or courses to provide them with basic Islamic education.

As to the rich classical literature of Islamic works, most of these are too hard to grasp, due to the difficulty of language, unfamiliar styles, the depth and details therein, apart from the lack of organization and modern book formatting styles.

Therefore, it is agreed that this magnificent classical Islamic literature would be the cynosure of researchers and specialized scholars equipped with advanced Muslim education.

Consequently, for reviving the spirit of Islam in the minds and hearts of Muslims, it is not acceptable to leave them with classical or specialized books before providing them with basic knowledge, until they can gradually acquire enough background to step up to more advanced knowledge.

For this reason, it was indispensable to prepare and present such a simplified, yet comprehensive, curriculum for non- specialized Muslims, to gradually acquire and quench their thirst of basic Islamic education.

We hope it would meet the needs of educated Muslims, male and female, all over the world and in all living languages; either for individuals’ free studies (self-instruction), or group instruction (i.e. for mosques, community centers, cultural clubs … etc).

Goals and Objectives (1) Establishing the Muslim's faith on sound intellectual basis, not on blind imitation.

(2) Filtering the Muslim concepts and way of thinking from fallacies, superstition, and backward habits that contradict the spirit and teachings of Islam.

(3) Moderating the ignorance-induced blind fanaticism towards certain schools of thought, sects, groups or historic as well as contemporary scholars.

(4) Guiding every Muslim to follow and hold fast to the Muslim way of life, including correct worship, proper conduct and virtuous relations with his family, neighbors and the community at large.

(5) Bridging the wide educational gap between the Muslim masses and their preachers and scholars.

(6) Bringing together the whole nation around pure monotheism, enforcing Allah's doctrines and spreading His guiding message to all humankind.

(7) Providing the Muslim with answers to fallacies and misconceptions propagated by the media; as such fallacies and misconceptions can find their way only to those ignorant intellects deprived of the basics of Islam.