Curriculum for Cohesion
SOAS

Why do we exist?

Ideas create the unseen environment of all our lives. We believe that the Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority worlds have arrived at a moment when a fundamental shift in ideas about the relationship of Islam and Muslims with the rest of the world is required in order for Muslims to interact peacefully and productively with multi-faith, globalised societies.

All around the world today we see terrible things happening because of the presence of bad, false ideas about religion and because of the absence of good, true ones:

  • The presence of false, bad ideas about religion is causing religious sects to slaughter each other in the Middle East;
  • The presence of false, bad ideas about religion is causing some nation-states to deny basic human rights to minorities and women;
  • The absence of good, true ideas about religion is paralysing western governments from catering for the legal and political needs of the religious minorities in their own countries and abroad;
  • The absence of good, true ideas about religion is leaving the educational and personal potential of millions of young people under-fulfilled.

We exist to identify and remove bad, destructive and false ideas about religion from the world and how to discover and introduce good, productive and true ones with a case focus on the traditions of Islam and Muslims.

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