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M.H. Chirzin: Islamization of Knowledge
Written by Dr. M. Habib Chirzin, President, Islamic Millennium Forum, Indonesia
Monday, January 2, 2006
With regard to integrating traditional Islamic education with general, modern education, there was an attempt first to make them parallel and then to integrate them. After the 1980s, there were some new ideas about “Islamization” of knowledge, meaning delving into epistemology and developing a body of knowledge based on Islamic axiology. From there, they will develop the new paradigm for so-called Islamic education.
I would like to draw your attention to this issue of educational integration. Especially as we are facing the globalization of the dominant culture, we should take into account the cultural, historical, and educational aspects of education. We have very deep and very strong values of peace. So, how do we develop the curricula and the textbooks and reform the educational institution to meet the needs of our multicultural, multi-faith, and multi-ethnic society?
Indonesia is a large country with over 17,000 islands, 350 ethnic groups, and more than 400 local dialects. We live in a very diversified and very multicultural society. So, how do we reform the educational system in this kind of situation and attempt to achieve excellence in education? The Muslim population in the world is about 1.6 billion. That’s about a quarter of the world’s population. But our contribution to the world’s GDP is only 5.4 percent. This is a good representation of the balance of human resources around the world.
Growing out of the issues of integrating religious and general education within this multicultural, multi-religious, and multiethnic society is the question of excellence in Islamic education. There have been attempts in some countries and even in Indonesia to have a center of excellence and to award dual degrees. Some countries have set up training programs in cooperation with other countries in order to achieve a state of excellence.