This paper studied a new dimension of international students, who are citizens of another country but came back to Turkey for religious education where their parents or grandparents are citizens. Did a five-year religious education process based on the main sources of Islam lead to a change in these students' religious attitudes and behaviors, and…

In this paper, I discuss the impact of a course design class on my development and use of a syllabus for a class titled Islamic Education. In Course Design the professor taught graduate students like me how to think and plan as a teacher. In my discussion, I share how student- and context-centered pedagogy, at the core of thinking and planning as…

Introducing students to the similarities and connections among the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur'an is a means to introduce students to a shared source of humanity, beauty, wisdom, and solace. This article outlines a literature class that uses comparatist strategies to introduce these three foundational religious texts as literary works.…

The article acknowledges the limits of the categories of similarity and difference in undergraduate comparative religion courses. To challenge these limitations, including the potential for dualistic or "us/them" thinking, several pedagogical attempts to increase relationality in Christian-Muslim courses are explored. Relational methods…

The Qur'an in the Islamic tradition, understood as the veritable word of God addressed directly to Muhammad, is much more than sacred text: it is the embodiment of the divine in humanity's midst. This understanding has impacted how Muslims engage with it, resulting in what I term the "multisensory engagement with the Qur'an." That is,…

This article focuses on recent changes in Rhodes College's Foundations in the Liberal Arts curriculum that were motivated by a desire to help students become competent and engaged debaters of meaning and value in the trying times of the 21st century. I focus on how my own two foundational liberal arts classes--"The Bible* and…

The need to confront issues of race and white supremacy in our teaching of religion is critically important, but through the pedagogical convention of naming, we take the first step in inviting our students to understand the hows and whys of it. I will explore the ways that Charles Long's theory of signification and counter-signification can be…

In the present manuscript, we report the findings of a study that surveyed female college students' views of revamped Islamic and Arabic Culture courses embedded in the curriculum of a secular academic program in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Of interest were students' views of and responses to recently implemented features of the curriculum and…

This article evaluates the design, delivery, and main outcomes of Cardiff University's first "Massive Open Online Course" (MOOC) entitled "Muslims in Britain: Changes and Challenges," delivered to over 20,899 international learners between 2014 and 2019. I explore the design principles underpinning the course and offer a…

This essay is part of a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). They are published together with an introduction in "Teaching Theology and Religion" 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of…

In this article we address the affective dimensions and challenges of teaching about Islam and Islamic studies in the current American political and cultural environment and make two related arguments. First, we explain how the impact of certain kinds of digital media in the past few years has heightened the association of Islam with violence in…

This article proposes strategies for teaching about sexuality in Islam through student-centered learning activities, such as self-reflection, multimedia presentations, and small group discussions. We focus on a diversity of perspectives related to veiling in Islam. The approaches we describe help students deconstruct and reevaluate common U.S.…

Traversing a rock-strewn terrain of essentialist methodologies historically employed for teaching Islam, the author espouses a non-Essentialist pedagogy that combines critical reflection, analysis of historical methods, and development of an appreciation for alternative notions about Islam and global interdependence. In this essay the author…

Educating and training Muslim men and women leaders who are capable of effectively navigating the multi-ethnic and multi-religious terrain in America--particularly in the post 9-11 milieu--requires the development of a new critical American Muslim pedagogy. This new pedagogy, centered in Islamic epistemology and ontology, should selectively…

In a brief essay originally presented as part of a panel discussion with Christian and Muslim teachers of Islam in the university setting, the author describes the distinctive characteristics of the Islamic Studies Program at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, Minnesota). While the program allows Islamic studies "majors" to earn a degree (M.A. or M.Th.)…