Renowned Islamic scholar and founder of the Islamic Online University (IOU), Professor Bilal Phillips, said over 12, 000 Nigerians are currently studying various courses in the university.
Professor Phillips made the disclosure on Monday in Kano when he paid a visit to the former Governor of Kano state, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau.
Phillips said the university which was founded in 2007 had over 300,000 students at present and that 294 students were studying free of charge.
“We started with Shari’ah courses but now we are running courses in education, banking & finance and psychology among others. We are planning to introduce new courses including Agriculture,” he said.
Professor Phillips said the main objective of the university is to teach western education from the Islamic perfectives, saying so far the mission of the institution has started yielding positive results.
He said education is a foundation of building better society, therefore, Muslims should be taught western education from the Islamic perspective so that when it comes to implementation, they could do so within the dictates of Islam.
Responding, the former Kano state governor, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, said there was no better service than impacting knowledge on others.
Shekarau, who commended Phillips commitment towards impacting knowledge on others, expressed optimism that his visit to Nigeria would ginger Nigerian government to introduce policies that would pave way for online studies in the country.
“The better we introduce online studies in Nigeria, the better for us. It will help many Nigerians to acquire knowledge because admission into the conventional universities is highly competitive,” he said.
