Global citizenship from an Islamic educational perspective

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate the Islamic educational outlook of global citizen-ship through explaining its concept, rules, needs, values and behavioral principles. This is done by extrapolating the texts of Qur'an and Sunnah; studying the educational scientists' opinions; and the global experiences in this field. This article's findings show that there is a need to strengthen the values and behaviors of global citizenship in the Islamic education curriculum of, while, at the same time, adhering to the contractual, legal and ethical rules. The findings show that, in general terms, the principles of global citizenship, are in line with the texts of Qur'an and Sunnah and the views of the educational scholars. Based on these princi-ples, this article suggests topics to be included in the outputs of the Islamic education courses. From an Islamic perspective, the practical areas of global citizenship education begin with the philosophy of education and its general objectives and, then, they outline the curricula. These goals turn into knowledge, practices and trends that learners acquire through textbooks, events and activities in the school environment. Summary: The term "Global Citizenship" is one of the new terms that has emerged to empha-size common elements of the universal human identity and, in particular, the rights and duties of migrant and asylum communities. Due to a range of changes, which have contributed to the increased communication of individuals and communities and increased problems relating to multicultural societies and, more especially, in the migrant and asylum communities, trends have emerged to apply the values and behaviors of global citizenship. These trends focus on the individuals' values and behaviors and promote cooperation, empathy, mutual respect and global knowledge. Many global education institutions are involved in incorporating global cit-izenship into their curricula. Islamic religious education is one of the basic lessons that are supposed to address the issues of global citizenship. Hence, there is an urgent need to consol-idate global citizenship, through the statement of its concept, characteristics, standards and principles from the perspective of Islamic education, and to show their cognitive and behav-ioral applications to areas within the curricula. Therefore, this paper aims to identify a gen-eral and comprehensive perception of education on global citizenship from an Islamic educa-tional perspective. This is done by clarifying its basic principles in the Qur'an and Sunnah and, from the point of view of Muslim scholars, by clarifying their applied areas in the educational philosophies and outlining the educational outputs from the curricula. Islamic education promotes values and behaviors of respect and acceptance of religious dif-ferences. However, this does not mean the acceptance of all aspects of religions and other legislation. This shows, on the other hand, the religious privacy of the learner and, on the other hand, that educational institutions of other faiths are not required to learn Islamic doc-trine and legislation if they do not wish to do so. Thus, there is no contradiction between em-phasizing the specificity of the learner's contractual and legislative aspect and his/her view of other religions and their followers by respecting them and accepting their existence. This article deals with ethnic and sectarian differences between Muslims so that education policy makers in the Muslim world can build educational goals and design curricula with standards that ensure international knowledge and interest while respecting the specificities, values of respect, cooperation and coexistence. There is, also, a need to educate people about global citizenship in the Islamic world and, more especially, since they all face many cultural and developmental challenges. The most important are the challenges of originality versus West-ernization, justice versus tyranny, development in the face of underdevelopment and cooper-ation in the face of conflict. There are a number of books and articles dealing with global citizenship. While these differ in their analysis of the issues of global citizenship, they are in general agreement about the basic subjects. These studies' findings conclude that the main subjects of global citizenship are: namely, world peace; global cooperation; moral responsibility; human rights issues; mul-ticulturalism; conservation of the environment; and universality of thought and knowledge. Islamic religious texts emphasize the above mentioned principles of global citizenship and where Islamic culture has a distinctive and proactive role. These principles can be included in Islamic education curricula in the form of its outputs. The Islamic legislative, religious and moral systems contain important directives for individuals and groups so that they establish positive relationships with each other in the local, national and global environments. These guidelines are supposed to form part of the culture of Muslims who profess Islamic beliefs. However, of course, both at the internal and external levels, the forms of application of this culture differ from one society to another. These differences are due to the way, in which these understandings are interpreted, and to the nature of the national, ideological or national tendencies adopted by these societies. In any case, both within Islamic countries and in coun-tries of migration and alienation, Islamic culture continue generally to be an essential deter-minant of the social behavior of Islamic societies. Education is the best way to impart global values and behaviors. The topics, presented by the Islamic education courses, are fundamental topics and are in addition to the subjects offered by the lessons of national education, moral education and other similar lessons. With the emerging era of globalization and the convergence of individuals and groups through either direct or electronic communication, it is necessary to identify the values and behavioral frameworks that determine the nature of the relationships of Islamic societies at both the internal and external levels. Hence, the cultural environment, in which the individual lives, is no longer confined to the geographical area. Global cultural institutions are turning to global citizenship instead of traditional citizenship. The most important characteristic of the Islamic view of global citizenship is its emphasis on both the participatory and the integrative aspects. The characteristic of communism relates to the orientation of Islamic culture to others at both individual and collective levels through addressing the common human elements in the global, cognitive and moral fields. The com-plementary feature emphasizes the need to link the participatory aspects to the learner's specificity of the contractual, legislative and ethical aspects so that the balanced identity is achieved through belonging in a harmonious manner to the global citizenship and Islamic culture. The areas of application for education on global citizenship in educational institutions begin with the education philosophy and its general objectives. This is followed by the outlines of the curricula before turning to the acquired knowledge, practices and trends through text-books, events and activities in the school environment and the external community. Finally, this article recommends that educational policy makers, supervisors and teachers in-clude the principles of global citizenship in Islamic education curricula and transform them into applied behaviors. This article recommends, also, that further studies be conducted to analyze the content of textbooks in order to determine the extent to which they guarantee the principles of global citizenship from an Islamic educational perspective.