I have always covered history informally with the boys. I have not followed topics in any particular order, but I think they have a reasonable general knowledge of the kind of history topics children of their age may have heard about. Maybe the exception to this is Roman Britain.
Recently for history study they have been doing a little regular reading of Usborne's History of Britain. I think this is a very good book to have as a reference. Its chronological arrangement, covering all the periods up to the present makes it easy for a primary aged child to get an overview of the whole picture before looking in more detail at the periods which interest them most. The material is also published in a series of smaller books covering different periods, andwe've had these from the library in the past.
Anyway, since getting the Muslim history book I blogged about previously I thought we'd take a break from the Usborne and make use of the early chapters of the Muslim history book on the pre-Islamic period and on the nature and meaning of history itself. I'm doing this through reading aloud and discussion. Today we read about what makes a civilization, the rise and fall of civilizations, the pre-historic (pre-written records) era and then the early civilizations which grew up near major rivers. I really like the broad approach here, and I really liked the discussion of how early peoples organized themselves. The writer really relates the behaviours of early people to the behaviours of people of all times (arguing over small matters, needing a leader to get anything done). It makes for interesting discussion, maashAllah!
3 comments:
Happy reading!!! But I've very little interest in Britain or Christian's history, it's so much torn and deformed...
As salaam alaikum, Maashaa Allah, we have also been study history recently. My husband reads and shares at this point. I have given up on ALL the history books that they were using b/c it is all huge lie. We are all relearning from the beginning. Insha Allah, I pray I get the courage to share the new materials we have been blessed to find.
When studying history it is important to maintain a critical mindset. Recorded history is generally written by the "winners", those who siezed domination, from their point of view.
For a person living in Britain knowing some British history is useful as it helps to understand the mindset and views of the rest of the population. Also, everything is interlinked,and it is especially interesting to compare the ways in which the European and Islamic perspectives describe the same eras. This can tell us a lot. It is a bit similar to the idea that nowadays you can watch news reports from different countries and hear the same story discussed in totally different ways.
It cannot be denied that interactions between the Christian and Muslims worlds have had huge repercussions over the years. To understand why this happened I think it is necessary to know something about the background of both sides. For example were the Crusaders motivated by religious reasons only? I don't think so. I think that England's King Richard found domestic policy boring, and he knew he'd make an unpopular mess out of it, so he decided to be more "popular" doing something else he found more exciting.
Anything written by people should not be assumed to be true. And where people have written deformed accounts we have to ask, why did they do that? That is history too.
UmmTafari, if you have given up using certain books, would you feel ready to share that information? I do think that some homeedders do use unsound books without realising, and they should be warned before purchasing, inshAllah.
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