The education system in the Khilafah State is composed of the totality of the Shari’ah rules and administrative canons related to the education curriculum. The Shari’ah rules related to education emanate from the Islamic ‘aqeedah and they have Shari’ah evidences, such as the subjects of study and separating between male and female students. As for the administrative canons related to education, they are the permitted means and styles which the ruler in authority considers beneficial in implementing the system and achieving its goals. They are worldly matters susceptible to development and change according to what appears most suitable to implement the Shari’ah rules related to education and the Ummah’s basic needs. Likewise they can be adopted from the experiments, expertise and permitted research of other nations.

This system of Shari’ah rules and adminstrative canons requires an alternative apparatus with the competence to achieve the basic objectives of education in the Khilafah State, namely building the Islamic personality. This apparatus oversees the supervision, organisation and accounting of all aspects of education with respect to setting the curriculum, selecting qualified teachers, tracking the advancement and progress of students’ learning, and supplying schools, institutes and universities with the required laboratories and necessary educational tools.

We now present most of the articles of the “Education Policy” from “The Introduction of the Constitution” (Muqaddimat Ad-Dustoor) which is the draft constitution of the Islamic State.

Article 170

The Islamic creed constitutes the basis upon which the education policy is built. The curriculum and methods of teaching are all designed to prevent a departure from this basis.

Article 171

The purpose of education is to form the Islamic personality in thought and behaviour. Therefore all subjects in the curriculum must be chosen on this basis.

Article 172

The goal of education is to produce the Islamic personality and to provide people with the science and knowledge related to life’s affairs. Teaching methods are established to achieve this goal; any method that leads to other than this goal is prevented.

Article 174

A distinction must be drawn in education between the empirical sciences on the one hand and all that is related to them such as mathematics, and the cultural sciences on the other. The empirical sciences, and all that is related to them, are taught according to need and are not restricted to any stage of education. As for the cultural sciences, they are taught at the primary level before the secondary level according to a specific policy that does not contradict Islamic thoughts and rules. In higher education, these cultural sciences are studied like other sciences provided they do not lead to a departure from the stated policy and goal of education.

Article 175

The Islamic culture must be taught at all levels of education. In higher education, departments should be assigned to the various Islamic disciplines as will be done with medicine, engineering, physics etc.

Article 176

Arts and crafts may be related to science, such as commerce, navigation and agriculture arts and crafts. In such cases, they are studied without restriction or conditions. Sometimes, however, arts and crafts are connected to culture when influenced by a particular viewpoint of life, such as photography or sculpture. If this viewpoint of life contradicts the Islamic viewpoint of life, such arts and crafts are not adopted.

Article 177

The State’s curriculum is one. No curriculum other than that of the State is allowed to be taught. Private schools are allowed as long as they adopt the State’s curriculum and establish themselves on the State’s educational policy and accomplish the goal of education set by the State. Teaching in such schools should not be mixed between males and females, whether for students or teachers; and they should not be specific for a certain deen, madhab, race or colour.

Article 178

It is an obligation upon the State to teach every individual, male or female, those things that are necessary for the mainstream of life. This should be obligatory and provided freely in the primary and secondary levels of education. The State should, to the best of its ability, provide the opportunity for everyone to continue higher education free of charge.

Article 179

The State provides libraries and laboratories and all means of knowledge outside schools and universities, to enable those who want to continue their research in the various fields of knowledge, like fiqh, Hadith and tafseer of Qur’an, thought (fikr), medicine, engineering and chemistry, inventions, discoveries, etc. This is done to create in the Ummah an abundance of mujtahideen, outstanding scientists and inventors.