"A butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean,"
-Robert Redford's character in the movie Havana
Although a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world cannot actually cause a hurricane on the other side, the metaphor of how things are connected is a powerful one. At the core of this connectivity is history. Learning history is all about connections: connections to the past, and connections to each other. Knowing what happened in the past helps us make sense of our present. Knowing how we fit into the larger global history, helps us connect to others. Knowing our heritage gives us a place to belong. Knowledge of history even gives us a basis to determine future actions. Currently, the world has become a global community, making global history all the more pressing.
The goal of this curriculum is for students to learn the 'stories' of history, to understand in broad terms what happened and how events can be connected. We do not expect students to memorize dates, names and places at this level, but rather aim for the student to have a broad understanding of the Islamic history in a global context.
Our History Connections series spans from the Ancients to the Modern Era. Every year students will take a chunk of this history. In the first book, students will cover from Creation to about 500 C.E. In the second book, they will cover from 500 C.E. until about 1650 C.E. The third era will cover from 1650 C.E. until the Industrial Revolution, approximately 1850 C.E. The last era, the Modern Era, will cover from 1850 C.E. until our current day. All Eras have Islamic History integrated within Global history, with more attention and time spend on important topics in the history of our Ummah.
The four books in this curriculum are consecutive and follow each other up, not only in chronological information but also in building up skills. The first book is best suited for early primary students, grade 1 and 2, althought many older students would benefit from the program as well. Should you start with an older student, up to grade 4, we do recomment starting with Book 1. However, we will suggest a few adjustments.
