Quranet: a Bridge between Islam and the West (www.quranet.net)
Quranet enables any person in the world to find a Quranic answer to his/her educational queries, accompanied by an illustrative stories and psychological explanations. Suppose you have a dispute with your neighbor or your daughter is reluctant to study. By selecting this issue from the table of contents, you can find the relevant Quran verse, and then read a brief description of an everyday event, illustrating how the verse can be utilized to convey a message. The session concludes with a brief educational-psychological explanation of the event.The material was developed by a group of Bedouin students for education and their lecturer, Dr. Ofer Grosbard. It all started when the students told him that the psychology course he was teaching would not help them in their future work as teachers because modern Western psychology did not have the same impact for them as the Holy Quran has. Dr. Grosbard and his students then decided to extract relevant educational-therapeutic verses from the Holy Quran. The students then wrote brief stories illustrating the use of these verses in everyday situations and Dr. Grosbard added short and simple educational-psychological explanations. For example, if a wife and a husband quarrel, a counselor might quote to them "Do not forget liberality between yourselves. For Allah sees well all that ye do. (Surah 2, Verse 237) and add an illustrative anecdote and a psychological explanation. With an introduction by three distinguished sheikhs, the project was recently published in book form by Ben-Gurion University. Its internet version "Quranet" was chosen to represent Israel at the President's Conference in Jerusalem, 2008. (http://quranet.haifa.ac.il).What problem or issue does this idea address? 1. It provides access to the Quran.Quranet transforms the Quran into a modern and useful educational tool and thereby renders the beneficial power of the Quran widely accessible. 2. Building a bridge between Islam and the West.Quranet interweaves the Quran, in unprecedented fashion, with modern educational approaches, thereby helping the Islamic world and the West to better understand each other. The Muslim user gains acquaintance with modern educational approaches in addition to the Quranic approach while the Western user can employ knowledge of the Holy Quran to enhance his/her relations with Muslims.3. Refuting various prejudices against Islam and combating terrorist propaganda. Quranet celebrates and reveals the beauty of the Quran and its respect for human dignity. Thus, it both refutes various prejudices against Islam, and provides a resounding response to warped exploitation of the Quran for the justification of terror.
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