Historic 2-Year Part-Time Diploma Program

By Dr Mohammad Akram Nadwi

Registration Deadline 1: November 30, 2016

Registration Deadline 2: January 30, 2017

Cambridge Islamic College is offering a two-year foundational/intermediate level course in Arabic and Islamic studies. It is designed to qualify participants for admission into the College’s ‘Alimiyyah Degree program, as well as for those who wish to achieve general competency in Arabic and Islamic studies. It is intended for those who can only devote part of their time to these subjects. The course has four components: Arabic language, hadith, fiqh and general Islamic studies.

In Arabic language, the course will develop skills in reading, speaking and writing Standard Arabic. It will include a wide range of literary and non-literary reading matter to improve essential comprehension skills. Students will be trained to write good prose in Standard Arabic, i.e. prose that is clear and correct in its expression of thought and argument. The course will cover the rules of grammar and syntax (nahw and sarf). By the end of the course, students should be able to understand how sentences are constructed in Arabic, how the different elements relate to each other, and how their relations affect meaning. They should be able, also, to apply this understanding to analyze passages of classical Arabic prose.

In the hadith, the students will mainly study the important hadiths on which legal rulings are based – i.e. not the hadiths that are concerned with worship, moral virtues, events in the life of the Prophet and his companions, explanations of the Qur’an, etc. The principal text will be Bulugh al-maram. They will learn the meanings of those hadiths and the detailed discussions in the interpretation of them for law. Time will be set aside for studying those hadiths which explain the fundamentals of iman and islam and how they help Muslims to develop piety, humility and good manners.

In the fiqh students will learn how to do the acts of worship (prayer, fasting, zakah, hajj, etc.) properly and with understanding. They will study the main rules of family law, contract law, and lawful and unlawful in Islam. The principal text used will be a mukhtasar (concise or compact) compendium of laws, such as the Hanafi Mukhtasar al-Quduri. This course is too short to discuss the sources, evidences and arguments adduced in the reasoning of jurists.

In general Islamic studies students will learn the lives of the Major Prophets, sirah of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon them all, and some elementary aspects of the history of Islam and Islamic society.

Our hope is for this course to meet the basic needs of Muslims living in the West. By doing this course, alongside doing the national curriculum, they will get a secure foundation on which they can build intelligent, informed practice of their religion, and from which they can proceed to further and deeper study of Arabic and of the Islamic sciences.

For more course details, see the course brochure.

Source: Cambridge Islamic College