ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyze the content of the curricula of Shariah Colleges and Islamic Studies in Jordan. First, it introduces the curricula of Shariah and Islamic Studies programs, and focuses on the presence or absence of the social sciences in these curricula in four government universities: the University of Jordan, Yarmouk University, the University of Islamic Sciences, and the University of Al al-Bayt. Second, it discusses the knowledge production and master’s and doctoral dissertations produced in some of the Shariah departments in Jordanian universities. The chapter will point out that religious education is a complicated case due to the conflict and competition within the formal authorities who supervise religious education. These colleges succeeded in their aim in Islamic moral inculcation but did not succeed sufficiently in religious teaching, as shown in many of the critical points among the interviewees, which can be summarized in four points: the hegemony of religious (traditionalist) orthodoxy, the educational curricula’s lack of supporting academic content, the weakness of a pluralistic approach, and the students’ weak capabilities before entering university.
