He revealed this during an interview with this medium at his office in Kanifing, adding that many of the thousands of IOU graduates gainfully employed in the working field today are from among those who didn’t have the chance to spend much time learning about Islam.
“Now they are able to study Bachelor’s, Master’s and even PhD degrees in Islamic Studies without having to stop their various occupations. Online education provides them with the flexibility and accessibility necessary for them to further their education.”
Speaking on what motivated him to establish the University, he pointed out that it was in his blood as he was fundamentally an educator and both of his parents were educators. He further explained that even the first Muslim school in which he taught was set up by his parents in Riyadh who were not Muslims at the time. However, after 21 years of explaining Islam to them, both of them converted to Islam in 1993.
While being an Islamic Studies teacher in Riyadh, he added, he was also engaged in propagating Islam, by giving lectures to many of the thousands of foreign workers stationed in Riyadh. Furthermore, he added that during the 1991 Gulf War, he led a team of Islamic propagators who explained Islam to some of the half-a-million American troops who had come to Saudi Arabia for the Gulf War, and over 3,000 of them converted to Islam.
He narrated that this is among his motivation to be involved in education, because Prophet Muhammad SAW said convey whatever you have learned from me even if it’s only a single verse from the Qur’an.
The Islamic Scholar said that it is a religious obligation which the Prophet put on all those who have been given the opportunity to gain knowledge of Islam to propagate it.
“I had considered setting up an online university in 2001 while I was in United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the nineties teaching at AUD. As an Islamic professor, I had become active on the internet and was connected with many people constantly asking for Islamic advice. They often asked me about the status of many Muslim websites on the internet to know whether they were okay or not to take knowledge from. However, when I checked out some of these sites, I found out that some of the information was good and some were distorted. At that time, I felt shy to tell those who wanted to study on the websites not to do so, as there were no other alternatives. So, I asked them to focus on certain areas which I believed were safe for them, and told them to avoid the areas of Aqeedah (theology). This situation caused me to think about setting up a reliable alternative.”
He explained that he tried to work on alternatives by setting up an online University. However, his son, Yousuf, who was helping him at that time, didn’t have sufficient knowledge to create a university learning management system online and purchasing one was financially impossible at the time. So, it wasn’t until seven years later, in 2007, that he was able to set up the foundation of the University online. And he joined Knowledge International University (KIU), an online Islamic university based in Riyadh and set up the Department of Sharee’ah in English and ran it for 2 years. In 2010 he finally launched his own online university.
“The name was initially Islamic Open University because we were offering only Islamic Studies and Arabic Language but by 2015, we expanded and included Education, Psychology, Information Technology, Business Administration and Islamic Banking and Finance. Then, the majority of courses were modern conventional courses and thus the university couldn’t be called an Islamic University in the traditional sense. As a result, we decided to change the name to International Open University (IOU).”
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