ii)To help students get rid of their intellectual blockade with the aid of their self-exploration. This blockade is the big hurdle in the way of the clarity of their concepts and thus quality education and better academic and professional performance.
This Proposed Program has a methodological significance of its own. It wants Islamic studies to be acquired and learned for the sake of practice and thus understanding its practical value. The present methodology of teaching Islamic studies is based on the memorization of the ideas and concepts of Islam. Imparting Islamic knowledge even by means of memorization is equally desirable and useful since it serves the different purposes of society. But this isn’t enough. There is a dire need to go beyond that, if we want Islam to be the part of everyday discourse of our collective life. If we want Islam to be the source of moral and social transformation, we need to make it the part of the heart, brain and mind of our students. Islam never wants its teachings to be learned for the purposes of mere bread and butter—for the sake of degrees and job only. Therefore, the present methodology of teaching Islamic studies is mere reductionist, if it doesn’t turn to permit students go through their intellectual and spiritual transformation as a result of their Islamic knowledge. So alongside the traditional departments of teaching Islamic studies, there is an equal urgency to set up departments/ centers meant for equipping our students with the type of knowledge/ skills by which they can realize the practical value of Islam—how can they resolve their everyday problems both in their collective and individual life with the help of Islamic beliefs, concepts and knowledge?
Toughness of competitive life and increasing financial difficulties have made the character building of our students even more complicated. Actually, the defective self-exploration and, thereby the lack of character-building are important factors responsible for increasingly tough, callous and financially dependent society. Pouring more money cannot quench the hunger for money, which we become unable to make our youth realize in the course of career-building. Taking the right direction, we need to induce Islamic character-building to the crops of our future professionals. This is how, we can also ensure better social cohesion and solidarity to our society, disillusioned with its norms and values as a result of its growing financial burdens as well as the dominant influence of the present dominant global western discourse.