1.0 INTRODUCTION
In order to discuss further about the stated project title, literature from the journals and articles that related to this project will be considered. This chapter focuses on the detail and comprehensive understanding of this project.
1.1 TAXONOMY
A taxonomy has been developed that defines the component that involved in a learning activity(Conole and Fill 20025; Bailey et al.2006). The taxonomy is attempts to conseder all aspects and factor involved in developing a learning activity, from the taxonomy context in which the activity occurs through to the nature and types of tasks undertaken by the learner.
Whatis.com was explains the meaning of taxonomy by giving the meaning of the word from its root word, ‘taxis’ and ‘nomos’ where taxis in Greek means arrangement or division and nomos means law. In theory, the development of good taxonomy takes into account the importance of separating of a group(taxon) into subgroup(taxa). The goal of the taxonomy for e-seerah in this thesis is to develope a useful list of top-level categories where the emphasis more on providing a structure that help in generating a larger sets of seerah than creating a smaller set of top-level mutually exclusive taxonomy. In practice, a good taxonomy should be simple, easy to remember and easy to use.
Taxonomy is similar to that developed by Laurillard(1993) and the task type was classified into six area which is :
· Assimilative task (essentially passive in nature such as reading, viewing or listening).
· Information handling(such as getting students to gather and classify resources from the web or manipulate data in a spreadsheet).
· Adaptive(where students are engaged in using modelling or simulation software).
· Communicative(in term of engaging in a range of dialogic activities, suach as pair dialogue group-based duscussion).
· Productive(where the students actively construct an artefact such as a written essay, production of a new chemical compound or creation of a sculpture).
· Experiential(suach as practising skills in a particular context or undertaking an investigation).
1.2 BLOOM TAXONOMY
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a familiar tool of educators. Although named after Benjamin Bloom, the taxonomy was actually the work of the many individuals hired to help manage the entry of veterans into the education system following World War II. Bloom’s Taxonomy contains three overlapping domains which is the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective also known as knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA). The taxonomy was a means to express qualitatively the different kinds of intellectual skills and abilities. The cognitive and affective domains provided a way to organize thinking skills into six levels, from the most basic to levels that are more complex. It was a one-dimensional cumulative hierarchy, with achievement at each lower level considered necessary to move up to the next level (Anderson, 2006). The original development committee produced the hierarchical levels for the cognitive and affective domains, but not for the psychomotor domain.
1.3 KNOWLEDGE DIMENSION
1.4 USABILITY PROBLEM TAXONOMY
Usability problem taxonomy contains an artifact component and a task component
(Keenan, 1996). The two components are divided hierarchically into five primary categories of which the artifact component contains three(visualness, laguange, manipulation) and the task component contains two(task-mapping, task-facilitation).
Figure 2
The usability problem taxonomy
1.5 SEERAH
Seerah mean “biography of the prophet(saw)” in Arabic is “Seerat Al-Nabee”. In linguistic definition seerah is “a path”.
According to the Hans Wehr Dictionary “Seerah ” means conduct, component, demeanor, way of life, behaviour, attitude, position, reaction, way of acting and biography.
According to Abul-Mundir ibn Shaker aal Is’haaq from the article “The Important of Learning Seerah”,seerah refer to the biography of an individual, mentioning the various aspect of his or her life, including the individual’s family and history, or pforound events of that individual’s life. It comes in the arabic language from “sayyara”, meaning to speak of events of the past. In Islam,it is commonly but not necessarily restricted to the life and events of the final Messenger of Allah, Muhammad ibn ‘Abdillah(s.a.w).
Biography means an authentic record of lives (incidents and events, attitudes and manners) of persons (including religious leaders) offering wonderful services in any walk of life. It is based on facts and free from exaggeration. The research standard of copying incidents is in accordance with logical principles. Historical consistency is present. The character, wisdom and fame of narrator should be acceptable. The narrated events should be in harmony with research and logic. The narrator should be unbiased. These are agreed principles of seerah writing.( “Comparative Study of Seerah Writing With the Biographies Of The Founders Of World Religions”, December 2010).
The study of Seerah meaning that understanding the Sunnah, then it should be understood to giving victory and aid to the Prophet(s.a.w). From the significance of Seerah,that is a science or study of Islam, from amongst the many of Islam.It should be known, may Allah give success, that this knowledge gather all the other sciences of Islam together. And the reward for seeking Islamic knowledge is as mentioned in the hadeeth,
Seerah is between the theoritical aspects of knowledge and the applicable aspect. The ideologies, islamic principles and lew that are learned in various Islamic sciences are all seen together through the perspective of seerah. From seerah, we can learn how the actions and speechof the Prophet meet and carry out the principles of Islam. That is a unique feature of the study of Seerah that we cannot seen in othe Islamic studies.
From the learning that we have, seerah also the solution for everyday life, communication and international problem. Also from seerah a person begin to build and strengthen his relationship with his Lord. The most important aspects of this is that a person will come to know the meaning of the Shahadat(La ilaaha illa Allah, Muhammadun rasool Allah).
1.6 CLASSIFICATION OF SEERAH
Although there are various opinion in seerah, it can classify the various ways.
| Clasification | Explanation |
| Language and poetry | Many writers of seerah concentrated on the linguistic style of seerah writings. Ibn Ishaq are rich in Arabic. Many of those who specialise in Arabic literature draw heavily from seerah literature because it is a rich sources of classical Aranic style. Eg: Ibn Qayyims Zad al Ma’aad. |
| Scholar and Jurist | This group of individuals, scolar of hadeeth and jurisprudence(fuqaha) documented about seerah with the purpose of deriving legal rulings as well as issues pertaining to creed. Eg: Imam Bukharee and Imam Bayhaqi |
| Dawa | Individuals engaged in the field of dawa also from seerah and have written about seerah, reflecting on issues pertaining to the cultivating and nurturing of an Islamic community. |
| Storytellers | This group of seerah writers concentrated on reporting and narrating the events concerning seerah, sometimes elaborating about events in the form of narrative or story. |
1.7 IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING THE SEERAH
} First,
The life of Muhammad (saw) is the history of Islam—the concise history of Islam)
His life contains:
1) Incidents that will help us in everything that we would need to know in our life of Dawah.
2) The history of our religion.
} Second
To develop proper love for Rasool Allah (saw). Loving Muhammad is Ibadah [worship]. It is part of our faith.
He said, “One of you does not attain true faith until I am more beloved to you than your parents and your children and the whole world.”
} Third
To follow the way of the Prophet (saw)-- Ibn Hazm says, “ Whoever seeks the preeminence of the Hereafter, the wisdom of this life, the just purpose, and the embodiment of morality and character, let him follow Muhammad the prophet of Allah.”
He is the best character—and by studying his Seerah we will be better equipped to follow his way. His Khuluq was that of the Qur’an.
} Fourth
Understanding Qur’an:
1) Some ayat are independent of circumstances of their revelation—such as Al Raqayeq, and Al Akhira.
2) But some are dependent on the event that they were revealed—prior, concurrent, and after.
Seerah gives us explanation. Like Surat Al Ahzab =battle of Al Ahzab, in Surat Al Imran= major section based on dialog with Christians of delegation from Najran.
} Fifth
The Seerah illustrates the methodological steps of the Islamic Movt. The Dawah and Establishment of Islam went thru stages:
1) Secret Dawah
2) Public Dawah
3) Jihad (struggles)
Muneer Ghadhban says, “We believe that this methodological progression of the Prophet's life is divinely directed. For Allah guided his steps and it was not a result of reaction to emerging circumstances.”
Life of Muhammad before the Prophethood
| From family ‘Hashim’ |
| Abdullah (father) |
| Orphaned at early age raised by grandfather and then his Uncle Abu Talib |
| Meets Bahira the monk who foretells signs of Prophethood |
| Muhammad born in Mekkah,571 AD |
Life of as a prophet
- The Makkan Phase (~13 years)
· The stage of the secret Call: three years
· The stage of the proclamation of the Call in Makkah: from the beginning of the fourth year of Prophethood to almost the end
of the tenth year
of the tenth year
· The stage of the call to Islam and propagating it beyond Makkah lasted from the end of the tenth year of the Prophethood until Muhammad's emigration to Madinah
2. The Madinan Phase (~10 Years)
· First Islamic Society established
· Engagement in ‘Jihad’ (1)
· Islam spreads beyond the peninsula
· Liberation of Mecca
