How to Evaluate an Islamic Curriculum for Your School

Every year, Muslim school directors and mosque education coordinators face the same question: Is what we are teaching our students actually working? Most have no framework for answering it. This guide provides one.

By Abdulahi M. Gesey · The Foundations Press · Cairo

The Five Questions Every Administrator Must Ask

Before purchasing any curriculum, before signing any licensing agreement, and before assigning any teacher, a Muslim school administrator should be able to answer five questions about the material they are considering. These are not bureaucratic checkboxes. They are the questions that determine whether students will graduate able to articulate and live their dīn, or whether they will graduate with a vague, sentimental attachment to Islam that dissolves under pressure.

The five questions are: Does it have a sequence? Does it have theological governance? Does it train the teachers? Does it assess the students? And does it complete something — does it have an end point that a student can reach?

1. Does It Have a Sequence?

Classical Islamic education was never random. The scholars of Samarqand, Cairo, and Timbuktu did not assemble a curriculum by picking their favorite topics. They built a sequence — a deliberate order of disciplines, each one creating the conditions for the next. Aqidah first, because you cannot study Fiqh without knowing what you are performing. Sirah next, because the Prophet ﷺ is the living embodiment of the Aqidah. Fiqh in the middle years, because the student now has the theological and biographical foundation to understand law. Mantiq last in the classical schools, because logic sharpens judgment — but only in a student whose beliefs are already sound.

When you evaluate a curriculum, ask: Can the author explain why topic A comes before topic B? If the answer is "because we always did it this way" or "because it fit the unit plan," you do not have a curriculum. You have a collection of worksheets.

2. Does It Have Theological Governance?

Islamic education in North America has a credibility problem. Parents have watched Islamic schools teach contradictory fiqh rulings in the same semester, watched aqidah materials that represent one madhhab as the only valid one, and watched "Islamic studies" classes that are indistinguishable from secular ethics classes with Quranic verses attached.

A serious curriculum has a scholarly board — scholars who have reviewed the content, who can be named, whose credentials can be verified, and who stand behind the material publicly. Ask the curriculum vendor: Who reviewed this? Who can you call if a parent questions a ruling? Who updated the material when a scholarly dispute was settled? If there is no answer, there is no governance.

3. Does It Train the Teachers?

No curriculum survives contact with an unprepared teacher. This is true in secular education and it is catastrophically true in Islamic education, where the teacher is not merely an instructor but a model — someone the student associates with the dīn itself. A teacher who cannot explain Ash'ari theology should not be teaching aqidah. A teacher who does not practice the fiqh they teach creates cognitive dissonance in every student who knows them.

A rigorous curriculum includes a teacher certification pathway — a structured process by which educators are evaluated on their content knowledge, their pedagogical skill, and their personal practice. The FISLI Teacher Certification Standard defines three tiers: Tier 1 Authorization for competent classroom delivery, Tier 2 Certified Instructor for teachers who can train other teachers, and Tier 3 Master Instructor for those who contribute to the scholarly development of the curriculum itself.

4. Does It Assess the Students?

Assessment in Islamic education is not a test at the end of a unit. It is an ongoing diagnostic that asks: Where is this student in their formation? What do they know? What are they missing? What have they integrated into practice, and what remains only in their head?

The FISLI Formation Assessment Kit provides exactly this — a diagnostic instrument that schools can use at enrollment to place students correctly, and annually to measure growth across all five disciplines. A school that cannot tell you where each student stands in their Islamic formation is not educating them. It is babysitting them with Islamic content.

5. Does It Complete Something?

Every education system should be able to describe its graduate. Who is the student who has completed this curriculum? What do they know? What can they do? What questions can they answer that they could not answer before?

The FISLI curriculum produces a graduate who understands their Aqidah at a level that can engage secular philosophical challenges, who has a comprehensive knowledge of the Sīrah from primary sources, who can apply Fiqh rulings across the four major madhāhib, who can construct and evaluate logical arguments in the Mantiq tradition, and who has an understanding of the Tazkiyah framework of spiritual development. That is a graduate description. It is specific. It is achievable. And a school can measure whether its students have reached it.

The FISLI Evaluation Standard

The FISLI curriculum was built against exactly this five-question framework. It is the only North American Islamic curriculum that answers all five questions with documentation: a published scope-and-sequence, a named scholarly governance board including Al-Azhar reviewed materials and Princeton PhD consultation, a three-tier teacher certification program, a published assessment kit, and a defined graduate profile.

If you are evaluating Islamic curricula for your school or mosque program, use these five questions. Any vendor who cannot answer them in writing, with supporting documentation, does not have a curriculum to sell you.