The Islamic Studies degree program is an Islam-focused discipline that combines Islamic theology with general humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences. The course aims to equip students with the skills to engage with religious source material on an academic level, as well as to explore religious practices and their communication, and to critically and systematically reflect on faith. Traditionally, the study of Islamic theology consists of the classical canon of Islamic scholarly disciplines: Quranic exegesis (tafsīr), Ḥadīṯ studies (ḥadīṯ), Islamic law (fiqh) and its methodology (uṣūl al-fiqh), systematic theology (kalām), the biography of the Prophet (sīra), Islamic history (tārīḫ al-islām), and the history of ideas. The Islamic Studies minor goes beyond traditional Islamic theology to examine the Islamic religion in the European and particularly the German context.
The Islamic Studies minor provides not only an internal perspective on the Islamic religion but also intercultural and interreligious competencies.
The Frankfurt Department for the Study of Culture and Religion of Islam sees itself as an institution that conducts Islamic Studies in an academic and non-denominational manner.
Practical training objectives are not the primary focus here; rather, the emphasis is on establishing a scholarly Islamic theology. Topics such as human rights, environmental protection, genetic engineering, or bioethics are just a few of the potential areas to be addressed from a theological perspective. The primary goal of Frankfurt Islamic Studies in research and teaching is therefore the acquisition, analysis, and critical examination of classical Islamic knowledge based on primary sources, alongside the application of research methods and argumentation structures established in the humanities.