Societies are getting more diverse, with social issues increasing, necessitating the need to intensify efforts to promote tolerance and respect for diversity. In this study, we report the approach employed to redesign and evaluate a general education course to enhance students’ knowledge of tolerance and respect for diversity, drawing on Islamic values in the United Arab Emirates. In collecting and analyzing data for the study, we adopted a qualitative approach to explore students’ nuanced and reflective understanding and application of the key concepts taught in the course. We retrieved and thematically analyzed 40 transcripts from sixty-nine students’ reflective assignments. Our results indicate that students see the education process based on Islamic principles as a socialization means for shaping human life, caring for others, demonstrating compassion, and sharing knowledge, as essential to fostering tolerance. Drawing on our findings, we recommend carefully redesigning courses to strengthen students’ knowledge of tolerance and respect for diversity using the authentic learning approach. This includes engaging them in activities to link class tasks to real-life contexts, providing them with safe learning spaces, and encouraging them to learn with peers from different backgrounds.

Based on archival materials left by the Ottomans, it has become incumbent upon the Ottoman or Balkan historian to investigate and analyze as objectively as possible the history of Ottoman rule in this region. Among all the documents contained in the Ottoman archives those of the judicial records (Shari’ah or Qadi Sijils) are considered to be the most important. In them we have both a reliable objective source and a chronology of history with regard to the Balkans and other regions. These records were not merely compilations of bureaucratic, administrative and verbose data relating only to judicial, social, architectural, economic, and agricultural undertones. These facts are already explicitly stated in the Sijils themselves. It is, however, implicit facts which are of great importance and which are of enormous historical significance. Demographic structure is among the most complicated and disputed issue among the historians of religion and social sciences. Taking into consideration the objective data found in the Shari’ah Sijils, particularly to those pertaining to the most important district of the Ottomans in the Balkans namely Manastir (today Bitola), the subject of demography will be analyzed as objectively as possible. In addition, in this article, both explicit and implicit facts will be studied.

Regulatory bodies between the rulers and the ruled have always existed and probably the case will be the same in the future. In this context the religions as faith and the related institutions are referred. Present day Macedonia has been part of this venture, where all the faiths and ultimately religions have gone through certain recognized agencies of the state. Beginning with the Ottoman rule in the region followed by the aftermath of the Ottomans until the dissolution of the Communist rule of Yugoslavia, the religion of Islam in Macedonia and its followers have always been represented by a state organ. Since 1990s the institution that has played the catalyst role between the Government of Macedonia and the followers of the religion of Islam in the country has been distinguishably recognized to be the Islamic Religious Community. Therefore, this work is going to analytically describe the role of this institution as a synergy between the government of Macedonia and the believers of Islam as well as its relations with various other Muslim institutions. After having a brief illustration on the history of Muslim religious representative institution in Macedonia, the focus of the discussion will be on the core issues of the highest Muslim religious institution of the country namely the Islamic Religious Community. As a case study, it will deal with its active role presumably in protecting the rights of Muslims at all levels.

The current article aimed at presenting an overview of types, requirements and procedures of certification in Islam education for the students who have passed the examination in order for countries outside United Arab Emirates. Core materials on the subject were compiled from various resources to guarantee the validity of the information. It turned out that there were a number of concepts of certification pertinent to etymology and practices. One distinctive issue of certification was that, in Islam education, certification was attached to the authority of professor or sheikh, not the institution, and the government has no right whatsoever with respect to certification. This, in fact, differentiates certification in Islam World from that practiced in the West.Keywords: Certificate, Certification, Etymological Concept, Islam Education System

The discussions concerning the religion in Islam have a long history in Muslim intellectual tradition, particularly in the Arabic language. However, with the rise and development of Islamic oriental studies in the Western world in the last two centuries and particularly after the second half of the 20th century onwards, a “return” to semantic studies began re-emerging. Realizing the necessity, Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas began to focus and develop the definitions that had been altered, and clarified misunderstood and misleading concepts in relation to the religion of Islam in both the Muslim world and the West. Beginning from the 1970s, al-Attas began explicating his thoughts for the English speaking milieu (later in other languages). Al-Attas’s profound knowledge in various disciplines, traditions, cultures, and languages allowed him to begin to contribute scholarly input as he contributed his beliefs as well as ideas in the academic environment. In this article, al-Attas’s comprehensive understanding will be discussed briefly, but in some detail, including is own specific intellectual contributions.