06/05/2022
What is the point of this class?
Fundamentally, this is a combination of answering three basic questions that sit at the foundation of our religious experience.
1. What Is Islam?
2. How Does Islam Work?
3. Why is Islam True?
Many Muslims may feel they can answer these, but they would likely find it difficult to do clearly, convincingly, and systematically while referencing the Islamic tradition.
We know our faith from the pieces weโve been taught over time by parents, teachers, and others - but do we have a systematic, clear, and presentable understanding that allows us to view the world, the community, and the faith itself from a lens that is consistent and accurate?
Do we understand the principles that underlie the meeting points between Science, Reason, History, and Faith?
Do we understand clearly how Islam was revealed, preserved, and transmitted to us over time and how it is uniquely designed to grapple with questions while bringing humanity together as one community?
In answering the three fundamental questions, we will explore a number of major topics:
1. What is Deen and why do we need it?
2. How is Deen preserved and transmitted?
3. Who is God and how do we know He Is? What are His qualities?
4. Why is the Islamic concept of God unique?
5. What is the need for Prophethood at all and who is the Prophet (s)?
6. Besides an example to follow in actions - what is the Sunnah itself as a worldview?
7. What is the Community that the Prophet (s) built and what is role in that community?
8. Understanding the Seen and Unseen worlds.
9. What is the eventual end of all things and the nature of the Hereafter?
10. How do we obtain knowledge, judge between truth claims, and understand what is false?
Many of us have seen these topics at a Sunday school or Islamic school level, but our hope is to expose students to a higher level of literacy more akin to a college class that will ask us to think further about these questions and prepare us to understand our faith at a deeper level while representing it to others as well.
Register now - https://tinyurl.com/icnatheology
