Who is This Education For?

Our intention is nothing less than to envision and develop a system of education for the mind, heart, and soul, emphasizing the "vertical dimension," the development of the essential virtuous attributes of our human nature.

The content of the curriculum being developed by the Book Foundation will be applicable at different levels of education. Our original intention was to create educational materials appropriate to the high school years (age 14-18), a time when young minds need to be exposed to and trained in essential spiritual knowledge and values. The same content, however, could also be adapted to adults desiring an Islamic education capable of answering the kinds of needs and that arise in the postmodern world. At the current time, we foresee offering some of this material in a format suitable for universities and adult continuing education. In due course, our intention is to adapt the materials still further for wider use in the earlier grades.

Our intention is nothing less than to envision and develop a system of education for the mind, heart, and soul. We will place special emphasis on what we call the "vertical dimension" of education, by which we mean the development of the essential positive attributes of our human nature. These dormant attributes of our fitra include capacities such as: attention, intention, self-awareness, humility, contentment, will, presence, altruism, and remembrance of God.

At the same time, we plan to introduce proven methods, including those validated by the latest research, and up-to-date content in the "horizontal dimension" of knowledge and skills.

It will be necessary to identify pressing issues and prominent trends in contemporary life and to give extensive opportunities within the various programs for exploring, discussing and reflecting upon these issues and trends in relation to the personal life and experience of each student and the development of his or her full humanness.