Islamic tradition promotes a holistic approach of personality development in which, we argue, three educational concepts take the centre stage: tarbiyah, ta’leem and ta’deeb. Looking through the lens of these concepts, we analyse two Islamic religious education (IRE) curricula: the 2001 and 2012 curricula for Flemish public secondary education provided by the Representative Body for IRE. We conduct a systematic thematic document analysis of the 2001 and 2012 curricula to map curricula elements that potentially contribute to Islamic personality development through IRE classes. Crucially, this article seeks to investigate whether the 2001 and 2012 curricula for Flemish public secondary education are in line with these central IRE concepts. We observe that the 2012 curriculum does contain relevant anchor points to work on tarbiyah, ta’leem and ta’deeb and to strengthen an Islamic personality in Muslim pupils. Hence, we argue that there is an urgent need for a new, adequate and sufficiently comprehensive IRE curriculum for Flemish public secondary education, developed by an expert committee—which should include Belgian-educated educational experts—in order to meet the expectations of all the stakeholders. Since in our view, this is the first step for a qualitative update of Flemish IRE. Further reflections on both curricula and recommendations for a new IRE curriculum are outlined in the discussion and conclusion sections.

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The attacks in Paris (2015) and Brussels (2016) led to the development of an Action Plan against radicalisation wherein Islamic religious teachers are expected to contribute actively to de-radicalisation processes and counter-discourse. To this end, Flemish teacher training university colleges have rapidly established new ‘Islamic religious education’ (IRE) teacher training programs. Additionally, the Minister of Education made interconvictional dialogue lessons mandatory in compulsory education. These lessons aim to stimulate, strengthen and reinforce the dialogue between pupils of different belief system backgrounds. Thus, the interconvictional competences are seen as a means to prevent radicalisation and polarisation. This article draws an overview of IRE development since 2015 until now regarding the policy incentives concerning the Flemish IRE, taking into account the concept of separation of Church and State. Furthermore, we scrutinise the existing IRE teacher training curricula with regard to the formulated interconvictional competence elements, as these are seen as one of the remedies for radicalisation and polarisation. We observe a clear relationship between the dramatic events and the implementation of new Islamic religious education programs and partnerships. An increasing number of ‘interconvictional’ references are observed in the Islam-related courses that are included in IRE teacher training programs. Further in-depth field research is needed to map the IRE teaching practices and experiences regarding the expectations formulated by policy makers.

De bundel Islamic Religious Education in Europe, samengesteld door de Vlaamse filosofe en godsdienstwetenschapper Leni Franken en de Britse onderwijskundige Bill Gent ( †) bevat een overzicht van West-Europese onderzoeken aangaande islamitisch onderwijs in veertien Europese landen: België,

Much attention has been given to interreligious dialogue in recent decades. However, less attention has been devoted to models that support citizenship through Islamic religious education in secondary education. Based on Lipman's Philosophy for Children, Hashim developed the Hikmah model. This model contributes to cognitive, social, and affective skills of Muslim pupils. A theoretical framework regarding interreligious education and the Hikmah model exploring the didactic opportunities is given. The explorative qualitative research aims to explore the potential of the Hikmah model for Islamic religious education (IRE) in Francophone secondary education.