ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS CURRICULUM IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES : THE EXPERIENCES OF INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA
by Prof. Dr. Hasan Langgulung
Dr. Che Noraini Hashim
Institute of Education (INSTED), IIUM

Introduction
Education is one of the most important aspects in human development and perhaps the most influential social institution in any societies. In general, education is to transmit a common set of beliefs, values, norms, understanding from the adult generation to its youths. Islam looks at education as a form of worship (ibadah) where Muslims share a common set of values based on the Quran (the fundamental and most reliable source for many fields of knowledge) and Sunnah. M.Kamal Hassan (1989) describes education from Islamic perspective, as a long life process of preparing an individual to actualize his role as a vicegerent (Khalifah) of Allah on earth and thereby contribute fully to the reconstruction and development of his society in order to achive well-being in this world and hereafter. The writers strongly believe that the function of Islamic schools should endeavor to teach and help students acquire different aspects of knowledge within the parameters of Islam through the use of a well designed curriculum.

This paper is an attempt to investigate the development of curriculum of religious education in Muslim countries with emphasis on South-East Asia especially Indonesia. and Malaysia.

Islamic religious curricular has gone through four distinct periods in Islamic history. The followimg explainations will highlight educational focuses in these four periods.

a) The first period is the period of development which started with the resurgence of the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) in Makkah until the end of Umayyad period. The main characteristics of this period are :

i. Purely Arabic in nature
ii. Strengthening the basis of Islamic religion and spreading its teaching
iii. The entire curriculum is based on religious sciences and Arabic
iv. The study of Hadith
v. The study of jurisprudence
vi. The study of the Arabic grammar
vii. The study of Arabic literature
viii. The initial study of foreign languages
ix. The mosque is the centre of activities of the Islamic society and education is the important part of those activities

b) The second period is the flourishing period of education starting in the East with the emergence of Abbasid dynasty until the downfall by Tartar in 659H/1258 M in which the important centre of the Western part of Islamic Empire especially under the rules of Umayyad Khaliphate is Andalusia. The curriculum was expanded to include the non -religious sciences. The centre also expanded to include Makkah, AlMadinah in Hijaz; Basrah and Kufah in Iraq; Damascus in Sham; Cairo in Eygpt and Granada and Seville in Andalusia.

c) The third period is a period of weaknesses and decadence which started in the East and North Africa with the resurgence of Ottoman Empire which lasted until the independence of Muslim countries.

The most important characteristics of this period are:
i. The entire curriculum was based on the transmitted knowledge
ii. The decline of the Arabic language
iii. The method was based on memorization
iv. The deterioration of scientific research and thinking process
v. The spread of the method summarization and repetition of what was made by early scholars.

d) The fourth period is a period of revival, awakening and rebuilding education in Muslim countries which started after these countries obtained their independence. The process is still going up to the present time.

The most important characteristics in education are as follows :
i. Adoption of Western educational system
ii. Increasing concern on natural as well as human sciences
iii. Penetration of Western culture
iv. An attempt toward eliminating dualism between modern education and religious education.

Educational reforms in Arab Countries and their impacts on Southeast Asian Education particularly on Islamic Religious Education

There are many reasons contributing to the awakening and realizing their backwardness which in turn urging them to rebuild their societies and particularly their educational system. The following are some reasons :

A. The movement toward reform and rehabilitation

The movement toward reform and rehabilitation is led by a group of reformists to rebuild their country. Because Muslim countries in the Arab World were many we will only concentrate on one of them namely Egypt which is the earliest country in the Muslim world to adopt Western Education. After that we will discuss reforms in religious education in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia.

B. Contemporary awakening in Eygpt and its impact on education

i. French invasion of Egypt in 1798 opened the Egyptian eyes on the superiority of the French weaponary and equipment that contributed to the successful campaign in their swift war against the Egyptian. This defeat urges them to review the reasons for their weaknesses and suggest reform for their education. Among the prominent reformers were Rifaah Al Tahtawi and Ali Mubarak who were the first batch of students sent to France to study French educational system. They came back and made several reforms in Egyptian educational system such as to establish Darul Ulum in 1872, to be the first school for teacher preparation or teacher education. Later their influence on the reforms of Al Azhar became significant.

After this period, there were other reformers in Egyptian education. The most prominent one was Muhammad Abduh (1849-1904) who was one way or the other, influenced by Al Tahtawi and Ali Mubarak. He had very close contact with Jamaluddin Al Afghani (d.1897) who was campaigning against totalitarianism, ignorance and stagnancy.

Muhammad Abduh made a comprehensive reforms in Al Azhar in which he taught after coming back from France , where he limited the duration of the study, vacation and holidays, teaching methods and examination. He demanded the cancellation of ineffective books, commentaries and footnotes and replaced them with one which were more relevant to the problems of contemporary society.

ii. The grand sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Mustafa Al Maraghy, also has devoted considerable effort to reform Al azhar which will enable it to go along with the need of time, where he legislated the well known law no.29 in 1930 which included many reforms and changes related to curriculum, teaching staff, students and so on.

iii. In 1936, another law to review the system in Al azhar which was no longer had opposition as did the reforms introduced by Muhammad Abduh.

iv. 1961 law is probably, the most important one to organize and run Al Azhar, by which modern faculties such as faculties of Medicine, faculty of dentistry, faculty of agriculture, faculty of economics, and faculty for girls where natural sciences beside the religious and linguistic sciences was established. Faculty of education was later on established.