Understanding Shakhsiyah Education: A Step by Step Guide

Since the 20th century, Muslim communities have been looking for an educational model that is drawn in Islamic educational thought and meets the needs of today’s children and young people.

Shakhsiyah Education has developed a full educational model for children aged 3-14 years, through which we can support your school to adapt Shakhsiyah Education to your needs.

The Shakhsiyah Education model has been developed through trial and practice over 22 years of work in Shakhsiyah Schools, UK and through Dr Farah Ahmed’s philosophical and empirical research at the University of Cambridge. Our model has several layers that move in meaningful steps from Qur’an and Sunnah through to classroom practice:

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How was the Shakhsiyah Education Model developed?

Step 1: We begin by studying Qur’an and Sunnah for example, Understanding Educational Encounter through Hadith Jibrīl

Ḥadīth Jibrīl lays the foundation of our understanding in relation to the purpose, mode and practice of education. It provides us with a robust framework of understanding the key educational concepts of tarbiyah, ta’līm, and ta’dīb and the characterisation of education that we find in terms of imān, Islam and ihsān. These concepts directly relate to the outcome of education: the fulfilment of human potentiality and the process of education

At Shakhsiyah Education Consultancy, we support you in actualising this framework and creating a school model that nurtures the shakhsiyah of your learners.

Step 2: We harness the Prophet’s method of teaching by developing Halaqah as an oral dialogic pedagogy.

Halaqah is the heart of our curriculum, in which learners and the educator sit in a circle and learn from each other through dialogue, following the sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (saw). Halaqah acts as a starting point for all thematic learning and facilitates learners to connect their Islamic worldview with their subject areas. Halaqah thus draws together all the different subject-specific learning within a ‘theme’.

Book a consultation on Bringing Dialogic Halaqah into your school.

Step 3: We revive the Islamic aim of Educationby educating for Shakhsiyah Islamiyah - the unique individual personaility of each child.  

Step 4: We use principles to allow us to translate theory into educational practice

The seven Principles of Shakhsiyah Education are derived from the understanding of the dīn as Imān, Islam and Iḥsān. We connect this understanding to traditional Islamic educational concepts, such as tarbiyah, ta’līm and ta’dib. From this foundation we have developed Seven Principles of Shakhsiyah Education These principles shape every aspect of our work in our schools and educational projects. They bind us together as a community of learning and hold us to Islamic educational thinking.

Book a Professional Development Session on the Principles of Shakhsiyah Education

Purchase the book: Principles of Shakhsiyah Education

Step 5: We develop a Tawhīdī Shimali Curriculum (Holistic, thematic, infused with Islam)

Our approach to learning is interdisciplinary and thematic.

Our schemes of work consist of six-week long ‘themes’ that guide subject-specific inquiry-based learning centred through halaqah.

 

For example, in Year 4, learners would explore the water cycle in Science, and cyclical theories of the rise and fall of civilisations in History. This gives learners a holistic, connected, comprehensive worldview.

Step 6: We develop meaningful Taqdīr: creating unique individual learning journeys, not standardised assessment