Examining Religion And Belief: Muslims

This book is the first in our new series of practical and
ready-to-use resources for the secondary RE classroom.
Its focus is on providing original source material and
contemporary voices, while recognising and identifying
diversity of views, controversies and complexity. The series
intends to put lively, relevant, authoritative, insightful
information about religions and beliefs into the hands
of teachers and students, alongside thoughtful and
imaginative ways of using the material in the classroom.

The title indicates something of the approach:
we are examining religion and belief by focusing on
Muslims rather than on the religion of Islam. The
emphasis is on lived faith and practice, with an eye on
requirements for examination RS but not solely driven
by them. We include case studies and interviews,
use artwork and text, and explore data on Muslim living
and believing in today’s world.

Of course, we cannot hope to capture the full range
of Muslim diversity but we have tried to indicate
representative examples of Muslim ways of living,
recognising that there are dissenting voices within and
outside Islam. In general, we present ways of exploring
Muslim insider views rather than outsider descriptions.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t encourage students
to raise difficult or critical questions; activities enable
students to think for themselves, developing their
knowledge and understanding as well as their abilities
to analyse, appraise and evaluate ideas. Through
engaging with and encountering Muslim voices,
students can deepen their understanding of the world
and reflect on how they make sense of their own place
within it. This kind of RE aims to enable personal thinking
as well as develop religious literacy