Abstract
In what ways can teaching Islam through controversial issues be useful in religious education? Can it serve to counter problems of representation of Islam, and what are the benefits and possible pitfalls of adopting such an approach? In this article, I will explore the use of Muslim internal feminist critique of conservative and patriarchal interpretations of women’s religious leadership in Islam as a controversial issues approach to teaching Islam in non-confessional religious education. The approach can be relevant for students in upper-secondary religious education, but also in teacher education. Building on secondary research documenting the problems of teaching Islam in non-confessional religious education in the Nordic countries as well as research on Muslim feminism spanning over a decade, this article investigates the didactic potentials and challenges that adopting the controversial issues approach may hold for teaching Islam. The main argument of this article is that the internal feminist debate on Islam provides an alternative entry to teaching Islam. It provides didactic resources and tools for understanding the discursive aspects of Islam, i.e., how Islam is conceived, interpreted, debated and practiced by Muslims, which in turn highlight power aspects and authority that are central to the production of religious knowledge. Consequently, the controversial issues approach may serve to counter certain “grand narratives” that seem to permeate current representations of Islam in religious education.
Highlights
Recent research has documented comprehensive problems of representation connected to teaching Islam in religious education in the Nordic countries
In contrast to the Council of Europe (COE) report, this article does not primarily set out to deal with the practical implementation of how to teach controversial issues in religious education on a general basis. It will provide a specific example of what can be addressed as a controversial issue in teaching Islam in religious education and elaborate on the challenges and benefits that this approach entails
Wadud is author of the book Quran and Woman (Wadud 1992); the first feminist interpretation of the Quran in modern times. She has training in Islamic studies and Arabic and has focused on what she refers to as “gender jihad”, a progressive fight for including radical gender justice within Islam (Wadud 2006). By doing so she has sparked debate on whether a woman has leadership authority in Islam and promoted a radical form of Muslim feminism that opens for the full equality between men and women, inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons and women as imams
Summary
Recent research has documented comprehensive problems of representation connected to teaching Islam in religious education in the Nordic countries. The focus will be on the biased representations that it suffers from, the marginal interest for internal diversity and gendered perspectives on the religion Considering such challenges, I continue to discuss the didactic potentials and pitfalls that adopting the controversial issues approach, i.e., internal feminist debates on women’s religious leadership in Islam, may hold for the representation of internal diversities in Islam, focused on the concept of “binary teaching” (Toft 2019) on the one hand, and on the need to convey critical teachings (Alberts 2008) on the other. In contrast to the COE report, this article does not primarily set out to deal with the practical implementation of how to teach controversial issues in religious education on a general basis It will provide a specific example of what can be addressed as a controversial issue in teaching Islam in religious education and elaborate on the challenges and benefits that this approach entails. There are great variations on how Muslims view gender issues, that span from a spectrum of conservative and patriarchal interpretations, to variations of more progressive and feminist readings of the religion
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