Tom Head: Open University of Pakistan

Tom,

Any idea about this University (AIOU). Some of the links for the school work, some don't. I know it is GAAP. It claims to offer undergraduate through Ph.D.

Do you know anyone who has done a degree through them or was it just a school you received info about (Masters in Islamic Studies).

Thanks.

North

 

AIOU

Hello,

Do you mean, Allama Iqbal Open University of Islamabad?

Kenneth K. A.

 

Re: AIOU

Yep, that's the one. I did not want to bother going back to look at the first two parts of the name.

It appears to be a quite respectable university. Tom had listed that they offered a Masters in Islamic University. Which might be interesting to do after I complete my doctoral studies depending on cost, etc and language requirements (I do not know if I am up for learning Arabic).

North

 

RE AIOU

North,

I am sure that they offer studies in relative to Islamic civilization, etc. Also, I am sure cost would not be prohibitive at all. In fact, it would be cheaper than doing a degree in South Africa. As to learning Arabic, while a tremendous thing to do, probably you'd do better to learn Urdu, the main (national) language of Pakistan. Arabic in Pakistan is the equivalent to Latin in Europe--a language of religion and civilization, but not the vernacular of the street.

If I were to study Arabic in hopes of doing a degree in Islamic studies/civilization, etc., I would not choose AIOU. Instead, I would choose al-Azhar University, the oldest established university in the world. (Yes, the European univeristies were founded on the model of al-Azhar of Cairo, Egypt).

Al-Azhar has a website, but, they don't seem to use it. It is just there and neglected. I guess they are not into cyber technology. I think partly it is the Egyptian government's fault for taking it over and making it into a state university, and sometimes publicly-run things in the third world are not the most efficient.

 

Re: RE AIOU

Does al-Azhar have distance learning degrees?

North

 

Re: al-Azhar

North, I have been told that al-Azhar has distance education section, offering undergraduate degree, and that the best way to communicate with the University is via telephone, and better still vial old fashioned snail mail. It seems this is a tradition of the second millenium that the University still keeps.

 

Another Option

North, how about checking out Hadard University. I would advise looking into it. They are developing a distance education model. Here is a quote from their chancellor's message:

"The university has more than 5000 full-time enrolled students. This figure is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years when our "Distance Learning" program will be fully functional. In this respect, we will, not only, be the pioneer in the country, but also, among a very few universities in the world, having also their students at remote locations. To carry out this notion, we have already established our own ISP, equipped with the advanced high-speed servers, with the connectivity through conventional and radio modems for our remote location.

"Besides having such progressive programmes, we have provided the modern facilities to our students. Our computer laboratories carry all the modern tools to carry out simulation and modeling, backed by Internet and Intranet support. Our syllabi are also equally balanced, complying with all the present and anticipated future needs, supporting the theme of globalization in its true sprit."

http://www.hamdard.edu/

 

Re: RE AIOU

This may come close to being a universal truth.
Jack

 

If you're interested in Islamic studies, then it might be worth checking out the Universiti Sains Malaysia (Malaysia Science University).

I posted a link to this place on another thread: here it is again
http://www.geocities.com/liu_jonathan/distance.html

Their web site certainly says they run a DE department with degrees up to PhD's in many subject areas, including one in "Islamic Civilisation".

Pros so far:

- It is a fair dinkum university. Universiti Sains Malaysia is a school recognised by Australian Authorities as offering degrees equivalent to Australian degrees.

- Cheap - From my reading of their web site, a 3 year PhD appears to cost a total of not much more than US$1,000 or AUS$2,000. The cheapest GAAP PhD around??

- For me, a degree gained in an Asian country may be an advantage. I am interested in comparing aspects of Asian politics to Australian politics.

Cons so far:

- USM appears to have a language requirement for the Malay official language, Bahasa Malaysia. But maybe there's some flexibility?

- 15 days residence a year. I have no problems with that (actually, I think it essential for the type of degree I am looking at) but there would need to be some felxibility over time, duration, etc. in any one year.


I emailed their Dean for more info (not about Islamic studies; for me comparative politics) several days ago, but have yet to receive a reply.

If and when I do, I'll share the outcome here.

Kind regards,

 

Ah, a slight boo boo...

In the message above, I meant to post the link to the Universiti Sains Malaysia but inadvertantly posted Jonnie's Distance Page.

I know Jonnie won't mind, and you can find USM from Jonnie's site (which is what I did originally).

The link to the USM DE site is
http://www.usm.my/ppjj/main.html

Kind regards

 

Re: Re: RE AIOU

Sounds like one for Hannity & Colmes to debate.

North

 

Certainly took me long enough to get to the thread, didn't it? Sorry, dude:

I can't remember where I first heard about AIOU, but when I phoned them in 2000 I was unable to reach anyone who spoke English; I had a very interesting non-conversation with someone who spoke Urdu and, in my attempts to converse with him via cereal-box knowledge of Hindi, I told him (as I later discovered) something extremely incoherent, roughly to the effect of either "I don't eat Hindu children" or "I'm not speaking Hindi" (the intended phrase, "I can't speak Hindi," was obviously not what I'd actually said). Whatever I said, I think it annoyed him a bit and I finally gave up, told him "Sorry, sorry, goodbye" (which probably made no more or less sense to him than anything else I said), and hung up. To this day there's probably someone at AIOU who occasionally tells the story of a strange-talking psychopath who kept repeating, in Hindi, that he doesn't speak Hindi (or, worse, repeatedly insisted--with no provocation--that he doesn't eat Hindu children). This is assuming I didn't dial the wrong number.

I can't remember where I got my information about AIOU, but whatever my source was, I'm pretty sure it indicated that knowledge of Arabic was required for the Islamic studies program.

Beyond that, I haven't really had any contact with AIOU. Given that they do have an English web page, I'd imagine that attempts to contact them in English now would probably be much more fruitful, and I'd love to hear about any DL programs in Islamic studies. It's a question I get quite often, and I never have a good answer for it. (UNISA has something at the bachelor's level, but I think that's pretty much it.)

Good luck!


Cheers,

 

Re: Re: RE AIOU

Questions and comments:

1. Islamic studies is often very legalistic in nature. It is jurisprudence, and commentarial traditions on jurisprudence. What would attract a non-Muslim to want to study it?

2. Would they even be welcome? Christian theology schools often require declarations of faith, after all.

3. Could one begin the study of such technical material at the masters level, or would the student need a bachelors degree (or its local equivalent) first? I don't think that you can treat a masters as a first degree in this stuff, can you?

4. There will be language issues. If the university's medium of instruction is a local language, you will need to know that. And since Islamic studies is very textual and exegetical in nature, you will need a strong working knowledge of Arabic just as a Christian biblical scholar would need Greek and/or Hebrew.

5. If one's intention is to get instruction *about* Islam, rather than instruction *in* Islam, perhaps a program with an interdisciplinary or comparative perspective would be more appropriate than the kinds of thing that exist to train prospective Islamic clerics.

I don't think that graduate study in Islam is something to be undertaken lightly.

 

Re: Re: Re: RE AIOU

The same thing that attracted this non-Jew to rabbinics: It's a fascinating and worthwhile field of study, with vastly useful implications for the fields of psychology, ethics, religious studies, sociology, comparative literature, etc. etc. etc. The University of London's LL.B. program includes a component in Islamic law designed to give both Muslims and non-Muslims an introduction to the literature of the field.

My limited experience as someone who has dealt very marginally in Islamic circles is that, unless you're dealing with the ultraconservatives, you will be welcome; the Qur'an explicitly states that Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans, along with others who believe in Allah and the Day of Judgment, have a place in the world to come (Surah al-Baqara verse 62). Recent history aside, Islam has a very rich tradition of allowing religious diversity; why else do you think Moses Maimonides wrote in Arabic, or Chaucer began his astronomical writings "In the name of God, the beneficent, the merciful"?

I think knowledge of Arabic would definitely be a minimum requirement ("translations" of the Qur'an are non-authoritative), along with the equivalent of survey coursework in the field.

Agreed, though it may be possible to find a more lightweight program that does not require Arabic; for example, most people need extensive knowledge of Hebrew to earn a doctorate in Jewish studies. But at Spertus College, you can do a Doctor of Science in Jewish Studies with fairly little required knowledge of Hebrew.

Depends on what you're after. When I thought of applying to the Union Institute in 1999 to do a doctorate in comparative religious literature, my idea was to learn the primary languages and deal with clergy and leaders of each tradition--not to stand on an island and survey the sea, so to speak. Of course I later learned that I didn't have the mental hardware to pull this off in any reasonable amount of time (learning seven languages is no easy trick), but it was the original idea.

Agreed, but some programs are heavier than others.



Cheers,

 

North --

I've been mulling on this for a little while, and have two suggestions:

1. You could do a second Th.M. (or research M.A. in Religious Studies) focusing on issues in Christian-Muslim dialogue, with joint supervision from a broad-minded Christian theologian who understands Islam and a broad-minded Islamic theologian who understands Christianity. This would minimize the Arabic issue; you'd still have to learn basic Arabic terminology, but you wouldn't have to pick up the language (though if you already know Hebrew, you may find Arabic remarkably easy to learn).

2. You could do a non-honors (course-based) master's in Islamic studies by distance learning from an Aussie school, which would probably be designed for people without a prior background in the field; this would mean you wouldn't have to know Arabic in advance, though learning Arabic may be part of the program.

Good luck.


Cheers,

 

Doont study in AIOU

First, please see this link to see if you can avail the courses.

http://www.aiou.edu.pk/students_overseas_.htm

I am also living in Pakistan. I must say that Distance Learning Programs are not the most efficient. I would highly recommend to study at Al-Azhar University, Egypt by going and living there.

Allama Iqbal university isn't from the best options available. I would honestly say that foreigners wont appreciate pakistani universities that are offering islamic studies courses. the quality isnt just there.

While talking about other subjects, Pakistan has some great universities like:

NED,LUMS, NCA, FAST, KU(BBA MBA and BS only), CBM, SZABIST, Mehran, Nahria, Sir Syed etc. etc.

all the above universities provide great facilities and education.

 

Exactly what is it that you don't like about this particular program at AIOU?

 

Codebox,
The only universities that I think are worthwhile looking at, are LUMS, KU (Karachi University), GIK (still a bit iffy), UET Lahore, AIOU (for DL obviously) and to a certain extent, NED University. Other than that, Sir Syed is too new and the instructors are a not as experienced as one would have hoped... I have talked with graduates of Sir Syed University, and I feel there is room for improvement. Beyond these, other degree schools especially the new ones (e.g KIT etc) are highly suspecious in my view.

 

dis.funk.sh.null,

this is offtopic.. you can PM me if you want.

you have a BEng from McMaster.. I wonder what field do you currently work in ? are you a working Engineer ?

 

Hi Hypnotix nice to meet ya

Hi Hypnotix, i am quite a fan of yourz for quite a long time now . Why? Bcoz i know your UPAC site and and i visit it often.

BTW, answering your post, i think you are right in your opinion about Sir Syed Uni as i also know that the faculty of sir syed is not good/experienced or maybe not good/experienced enough.

But i wanted to include Sir Syed Uni for its facilities to the students and affordability.

Cheers,
Kami.