Deliberating over the aims of Religious belief Education

This article seeks to study the goal of religious belief education on the basis of religious doctrines. The research method used in this article is inferential and analytical in the sense that first the concepts of belief, faith and their relationship have been investigated and then the nature of faith and its components according Islamic doctrines have been explained, and also Muslim intellectual's views concerning those doctrines have been analyzed and expatiated upon. The degrees of faith and its levels have been ascertained and the results have been inferred and explained to explain upon the objective of religious belief education.This research showed that faith (Emān) is the synonym of belief (aqidah) in one sense. The nature of faith in a synonymous sense with belief is nothing but confirmation and acceptance by the heart. This very confirmation and acceptance by the heart has three constituents: cognition, acceptance by the heart and love. Faith has different degrees which arise from the intensity and weakness of its constituents. The degrees of faith are unlimited. Hence, the goal of religious belief education also has three constituents: nurturing of cognition, nurturing of heartily acceptance and nurturing of love. In ideological education, attention should be paid to all these constituents together because a unilateral approach will entail harmful effects. Of course, it is possible that one of the aforementioned constituents may receive lesser attention but the stages of education require that due attention be paid to all of the constituents. Likewise, the goal of ideological education is of various gradations. Thus, in ideological education, a degree of faith should always be set as the target, and plans should be worked out towards reaching it. In addition, it should be noted that ideological education does not come to an end with the implementation of an educational program.