an islamic consideration of western

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An Islamic consideration of westernmoral education: an exploration of the

individual

Khuram Hussain*

Syracuse University, USA

This paper offers a theoretical comparison of the concept of the individual presumed in modern

Islamic educational theory and western moral educational theory, revealing a distinct Islamic point

of view on the western educational premise that a moral universe is derived dialectically between

individual and society. From an Islamic perspective, socially derived moral truths cannot

supersede the moral ideal of nurturing and awakening a spiritual self into a unity of being. Muslim

scholars fear that two inter-related things are lost in western approaches: inwardly fostered

personal discovery and timeless sacred principles. The modern Muslim educational approach

presents possible talking points regarding how moral education is valued and understood

differently and raises questions regarding the universal applicability of western moral education

models. Western and Islamic perspectives are considered and areas of contention and

commonality are explored. Scholars under consideration include Durkheim, Dewey, Kohlberg,

Iqbal, Nasr, al-Attas and Wan Daud.

Introduction

Western moral education asks the crucial question What does it mean to be a good

person? Embedded in this question is an equally significant presumption about

what it means to be a person. The foundational western theories of Durkheim, Deweyand Kohlberg argue that moral meaning is dialectically derived between the

individual and society. Islamic consideration of western moral education offers a

remarkably divergent perspective on the nature of moral education and the very

meaning of the individual. From an Islamic perspective, socially derived moral truths

cannot replace the authority of divine revelation and inner experience as sources for

moral understanding; the moral ideal is constituted by the nurturing and awakening

of the spiritual self into a unity of being. What is in critical distinction between

Islamic and western thought is how we define the good, and who we actually are.

*School of Education, Cultural Foundations of Education, 350 Huntington Hall, Syracuse

i i S k S il kih i@ d

Journal of Moral Education

Vol. 36, No. 3, September 2007, pp. 297308


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With respect to the multiplicity of plausible Islamic approaches, this discussion

will focus on the writings in English of Iqbal, Nasr, al-Attas, Wan Daud and

Hashim, each of whom aims to converse with Muslim and western audiences. These

scholars consider moral education to be an essentially internal development of the

individual as a citizen within his own kingdom of spirit (al-Attas, 1993, p. 142).The good person possesses an integrated and ordered internal unity of physical,

emotional and intellectual aspects, governed by the soul as God governs the

universe.

In turn, western moral education is understood by Islamic theorists to be limited

or misdirected by: (1) failing to offer due recognition to an ever present continuity

amidst changing conditions; (2) rejecting revelation, faith or metaphysical insight as

legitimate sources of moral reasoning (and thus implicitly refusing the notion of

moral absolutes), which can lead to moral reasoning without wholly unifying

principles; and furthermore (3) advancing an empirical notion of reality, therebylimiting an appreciation of a person or object to the thing itself and offering little

creative space to explore deeper interconnections or essences within and between

people and things.

Islamic scholars can also respond constructively to particular formulations of

western moral education for their openness to ways of understanding personal

development in relation to Islamic values. For instance, Kohlberg hypothesises that

inner and transcendental experiences can be unique and informative sources of

understanding (Kohlberg, 1981, pp. 357, 369, 371). Additionally, despite the

critical reluctance of either Dewey or Kohlberg to see any unified sense of a person

as more than an imagined ideal, they serve as examples of western theorists who are

open to dialogue regarding moral ideals, even those derived from metaphysical or

religious sources (Dewey, 1934, pp. 5455; Kohlberg, 1981, p. 338).

The Islamic approach described in this article does not present a complete critique

of western moral education, nor a fully developed Islamic theory of education. This

is due in part to a general absence, in modern times, of a clear and detailed

articulation of Islamic principles of education (Halstead, 2004, p. 519). Much of the

work that has been done grew out of the First World Conference on Muslim

Education in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 1977, which marked the most comprehensive

series of theoretical and practical recommendations for modern Muslim educationto date (Kinsey, 1982, p. 297; Cook, 1999, p. 342). Nevertheless, modern Muslim

theorists have devised an educational approach adapted to Muslim students. In

doing this, they present possible talking points regarding how moral education is

valued and understood differently and this brings into question the universal

applicability of western moral education models.

Western conceptions of the individual

The question of whether morality is primarily a group experience or an individualphenomenon has deep philosophical roots in western thought. Since Plato,

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individually realised values best represent a moral education (Frankena, 1973,

p. 25). The modern conceptualisation of this question arises from Emile Durkheims

theoretical work. For Durkheim, moral education is inextricably tied to societal

existence, with no recognition of essential morality derived from an individual:

It is not a simple juxtaposition of individuals who bring an intrinsic morality with them,

but rather man is a moral being only because he lives in society, since morality consists

in being with a group and varying with this solidarity. Let all social life disappear, and

moral life will disappear with it, since it would no longer have any objective (Durkheim,

1933, p. 399).

Durkheim conceptualised social life as the very object of morality without which

there is no moral world. Moral truth is hence socially constructed, qualified and

formed through immersion in the social body and has meaning as it relates to

society. There is no need to distinguish between individual and social morality as the

former is meaningless without the latter. Durkheims conception of the individual isat once circumstantial and highly abstracted. While acknowledging a personal life

where sentiments, thoughts and activities are enacted, he imagines personalities are

more or less alike and may, so to speak, be substituted for one another (Durkheim,

1961, p. 58). What is comprehensible about the self is only available through social

interaction.

He epitomises this position in his conception of the social self. The social self is

characterised by a supra-individual impersonal state that is commonly accessible to

all (Durkheim, 1961, p. 59). In contrast to a personal egoistic state (composed of the

particular thoughts and conditions of ones life), the supra-individual staterepresents the thoughts, feelings and practices of group affiliations. Social

interactions at this level constitute the only source of morality. Consequently, there

are no pre-existing moral truths within persons prior to social interactions, nor are

moral truths accessible through transcendent sources. This approach represents a

critical shift in western attitudes towards moral claims.

Durkheims social morality has had far-reaching influence. Even later theoretical

models that counter Durkheim do so in relation to his initial premises. Along with

being considered a foundational figure in modern moral education, his concept of

the social self is recognised for its wide cultural impact on notions of the self and of

society:

The concept of the social self, which Durkheim helped introduce into modern thought

has largely supplanted, in the course of the twentieth century, the rational self of the

Enlightenment and the economic self of the early nineteenth centurysociological

man now clearly vies with Freuds psychological man and Kierkegaards existential

self as the dominant moral type of contemporary western culture. (Wallwork, 1972,

p.1)

Despite the differences between three of the most influential western theorists of

moral education (Durkheim, Dewey and Kohlberg), Durkheims conception of

social morality and the social self has played a key role in the developmentof the moral theories of the latter two theorists. Dewey consistently draws upon the

f h i l lf i di i h i i i i b h

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individual and society as necessary conditions for a morally educated person to

develop:

The individual and society are neither opposed to each other nor separated from each

other. Society is a society of individuals and the individual is always a social individual.

He has no existence by himself. He lives in, for and by society. Just as society has noexistence except in and through the individuals who constitute it. But we can state one

and the same process (as, for example, telling the truth) either from the standpoint of

what it effects in society as a whole, or with reference to the particular individual

concerned. (Dewey, 1972, p. 55)

Deweys early philosophy of education rests on the conviction that moral conduct is

social and that an individuals behaviour cannot be properly understood in isolation

from his or her environment (Dewey, 1969, pp. 387388; 1971, pp. 232233).

In turn, Kohlbergs theory of moral development is drawn from Deweys

understanding of moral education as a dialectical process. Kohlberg argues that

moral development represents the interaction of the childs structuring tendencies

and the structural features of the environment (Kohlberg, 1981, p. 134). His

cognitive approach to moral development rejects theories that unevenly attribute

moral realities to innate sources as well as theories that attribute everything to

environmental factors:

We have contrasted the maturationist assumption that basic mental structure results

from an innate patterning with the learning theory assumption that basic mental

structure is the result of a patterning or association of events in the outside world. The

cognitive-development theory assumes that basic mental structure results from an

interaction between organismic structuring tendencies and the structure of the outsideworld, not reflecting either one directly. (Kohlberg, 1968, p. 1020)

With a notable degree of nuance and sophistication Kohlberg goes beyond most

western theorists in integrating views of the individual and the social. In spite of this,

he shares several fundamental positions with both Durkheim and Dewey that are at

odds with Islamic approaches to the individual. Most salient is Kohlbergs assertion

that a crucial religious objective is to create a moral ideal of the individual as a

harmonious unified self, which he determines to be a rigid concept that does not

recognise the shifting moral structures that arise out of dialectical interactions:

as moral structures or principles change and develop so do the images of the ideal

self, society and deity. These ideal images are speculative and imaginative; they

go beyond the certainties of our moral structures themselves (Kohlberg, 1981,

p. 338).

Islamic conceptions of the individual

From the modern Islamic viewpoint, the quintessential goal of moral education is

the awakening and proper situating of the inner being within a person. The

nurturing of an inner world through the establishment of an Islamic environment has

become the ordering principle of curriculum and theory for many scholars who haveconsidered the issue of Islamic education, such as Wan Daud, al-Attas, Nasr and

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the Quran is most essential to educationmanners (adab) for Wan Daud (1998,

p. 175), al-Attas (1995, p. 18) and Hashim (1996, p.87); oneness (tawhd) for al-

Faruqi (1985, p. 18); educational development (tarbiyya) for al-Taftazani (1986,

p. 67); or faith (iman) for othersthe belief that education is the principled

awakening of an inner self is widely shared. It is epitomised in Iqbals Bal-i-Jibril:

Everything is preoccupied with self-expression,

Every atom a candidate for greatness!

Life without this impulse spells death.

By the perfecting of this individuality man becomes like God!

(Iqbal, 1966, pp. 7374)

The modern Islamic re-orientation of the self in such a manner is not unique, in that

many posit that they are continuing or reviving a traditional approach to education.

Modern scholarship is profoundly influenced by the classical Sufi philosophies,which describe the ultimate reality of existence to be only partially discernable

through discursive thought and rational analysis. A certainty regarding the meaning

and character of reality is fully available only with the inclusion of direct intuitive

experiences. The science of the self plays an important role in the classical treatises

of Sunni scholars such as Ibn Khaldun, al-Brun, Ibn al-Jawzi, Ibn al-Qayyim and

al-Ghazali, the latter devoting much of his writing on moral education to the

purification of the self (Giladi, 1987, p. 7). For the classical scholars, all real

education was transformative by nature, reforming the heart and soul of the person

and thereby changing his or her character and disposition (al-Taftazani, 1986,

p. 74).

Islamic literature from the classical period is rich with nuance, elaborating on the

various components of the human body and mind and the corresponding spiritual

components that are signified by human features, characteristics and behaviour.

Drawing on this, modern Islamic scholars discern a spectrum of physical, spiritual

and psychological elements present in the student:

When the human soul is involved in intellection and apprehension it is called intellect;

when it governs the body it is call soul; when it is engaged in receiving intuitive

illumination it is called heart; and when it reverts to its own world of abstract entities it

is called spirit. Indeed, it is in reality always engaged in manifesting itself in all thesestates. (al-Attas, 1998, p. 50)

It is important to note that while a modern western reading of soul tends to

emphasise the concepts esoteric or transcendental nature, the term soul in practice

in Islamic education is understood in relation to a material world. It signifies unseen

realities that are understood through the physical existence of reality: essentially the

soul and the body are one. The material and spiritual world are intertwined in

meaning and quality beyond dualism or dichotomy (i.e. soul versus body). This

precludes an overemphasis on non-empirical or transcendent understandings of

Islamic education, which detract from an appreciation of the material transforma-tions to which Islamic education aspires, through its simultaneous treatment of a

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Islamic scholars recognise a good person as possessing an integrated and ordered

internal unity, wherein the soul governs the body, just as God governs the universe.

A moral education is one in which the physical, spiritual and psychological elements

are stimulated and guided towards good and right action. Take for instance the tenth

century Sufi moral fable The animals lawsuit against humanity in which conflictingpersonal characteristics, such as pride, malice, compassion and wisdom, are

personified as human characters. Pride and malice dominate the community and

are cruel and abusive towards the animals on the island. It is not until the Spirit King

becomes involved in the situation that compassion and wisdom take their right place

and put an end to cruelty to the animals (al-Saffa, 2005). The Spirit King is none

other than the higher consciousness of the inner self, which, when awoken properly,

keeps the contending personal characteristics in order.

Al-Bruns classic analogy of man and the world as microcosm and macrocosm is

employed by al-Attas and Wan Daud to conceptualise the students relationship tothemselves. How should a man wonder at this, marvels al-Brun, it being

undeniable that God has the power to combine the whole world in one individual!

(Nasr, 1978, p. 150). The physical person is composed of diverse and contradictory

elements, which are held together and reconciled in unity by the intellect. The

possession of intellect is the crowning recognition of humanitys role as Gods

vicegerent (khalifat Allah) within oneself and upon the earth (Nasr, 1978, p. 150).

Therefore the highest form of education is that which awakens oneself to the truth

within oneself and from the world. This is reflected in the Quranic verse: In time

We shall make them fully understand Our messages [through what they perceive] in

the utmost horizons [of the universe] and within themselves (Quran 41: 53,

Muhammad Asads translation, 1980).

The real constituents of moral education are not parents, communities or the

state, but the person and the soul within the person. The Islamic emphasis on the

individual self has roots in interpretations of the Quran, which present human

nature as capable of a polarity of tendencies, all rooted within the individual:

Consider the human self and how it is formed in accordance with what is meant to

be, and how it is imbued with moral failings as well as with consciousness of God!

(Quran 91: 78). Self (nafs) in this verse denotes the human personality as a

whole, including both the physical body and the soul (ruh) (Asad, 1980, p. 954). TheQuran mentions different levels of moral consciousness of the nafs, which include a

negatively inclined state (Quran 12: 53), a self-reproaching state (Quran 75: 2) and

a state of inner peace (Quran 89: 27). The Islamic goal is to purify the self of

disjointed and conflicting states through practices, intentions and beliefs, thereby

attaining and experiencing a unified self: To a happy state shall indeed attain he

who causes this [self] to grow in purity (Quran 91: 910). The purification process

leads to an inner unfolding of something God-like in man reflected in the highest

qualities that a person possesses (Nasr, 2000, p. 4).

Quranic teaching serves the role of moral guidepost by which well-directedspiritual development (i.e. purification) can occur. It follows therefore that fidelity to

the moral precepts of the Quran and its criteria for intelligence knowledge and

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virtue will support the purification of the self (al-Attas, 1999, p. 26). A morally

educated Muslim understands that goodness comes from within, while criteria for

judgement comes from the divine (Rahman, 1982, p. 155). Ideally the student will

participate in social conditions among good people who have learned about

themselves and God. Those Quranic injunctions put forward by Islamic educatorsinvariably include a social aim in addition to a personal aim. For example, the

performance of five daily prayers is encouraged to be done in congregation rather

than individually, yet the ultimate significance lies in ones personal experience and

meaning (Hashim, 1996, p. 89). Ideal social morality in an Islamic sense aims to

develop an Islamic character in each Muslim, manifested in a harmonious

community of inwardly guided individuals who will interact in just and noble ways.

Critical contrast

In stark contrast, western discussion of moral education has pivoted around whether

or not education is a society-centred or individual-centred project: socialisation

versus personal liberation (Chazan, 1985, p. 2). What has developed out of this

dialectic is that social-existence is now the pivotal issue moving the debate between

the two points of tension (individual and social). In the context of morality, the

society-centred approach has won out for much of the modern era.

The aforementioned Islamic scholars aspire towards a worldview that does not

accept the tension between man and society to be the driving force behind personal

and social meaning. The Islamic goal is to develop an Islamic personality that

fosters personal success, growth and happiness in the child while forging it into a

social being. Unlike the social self, the social being does not confer primary

legitimacy to social meaning over spiritual meaning (Wan Daud, 1998, pp. 122

133).

Contemporary Islamic scholars promote personal self-realisation as essential to

individual development and strive to do so in the context of an Islamic environment,

without fostering an identity formation that is constructed solely from social

conditions. What Muslim scholars fear is lost in the western approach is the

possibility of personal discovery which awaits willing participants in practices that

are at once inwardly fostered and accessible to socially reasoned understandings.In contrast to Durkheimian morality, Islamic morality is the manifestation of that

which begins from an internally operating reality and is then understood through

Quranic injunctions: It is essential to realize that we cannot reach the inner

meaning of the Quran until we ourselves have penetrated into the deeper

dimensions of our being (Nasr, 2000, pp. 4748). It is from this place that

moral ideals take shapenot from society but from spirit. From the Islamic vantage

point, western moral theories lose some sense of the individual within larger social

relationships. While the needs and interests of individual students are certainly

addressed, they are defined in relation to adult social values. Western curriculumand practice do not treat the child as a whole and complete person, whose various

characteristics attributes and aspects are to be integrated into a unified sense of



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self. Instead, the child must be integrated into society to create a unified social

body.

Consequently, western moral education is generally regarded by Islamic scholars

to be without timeless tenants or absolute principles to unify it. While this may

sound like a strong indictment, it reflects a general Islamic concern with aneverlasting continuity within the self and material existence. Islamic scholars have

devised a doctrine which discriminates between the Absolute and the finite and a

method of attaching the relatively real to the absolutely Real. The method is deeply

set within divine revelation, without which no religion is possible and man cannot

attach himself to God without God havingprovided the means to do so (Nasr,

2000, pp. 23).

Herein lies a key point of mutual resistance between Islamic and Deweyian

considerations of the Absolute. By making social context the agent of morality, Dewey

disparages ascribing absolute meaning to individual morality and thereby limits theworth of any timeless principles of human character or an inherent hierarchy of ethical

values. All aspects of a persons character are completely social in constitution;

honesty and malice are primarily adaptations to ones environment. Dewey contends

that notions of an absolute self impose a teleological end in order to forge a

metaphysical connection between humanity and God. He is wary of dependence on an

unseen animating presence as it distracts from the power of human experience as it

occurs every day; human experience in the physical world would be imperfect in

contrast to a perfect metaphysical world. Coupled with this is his concern that such an

arrangement would prefer authoritative agents in moral discourse: the notion of

absolute rules or precepts cannot be made workable except through certain superior

authorities who declare and enforce them (Dewey, 1934, p. 308).

Regarding Deweys first point, modern Islamic scholars argue that accepting

metaphysical reality does not undermine an appreciation of the material world, but it

is in factthroughnot againstactions made in the physical realm that metaphysical

transformations occur. The realities of the external world are types and facets of an

all-encompassing Reality, which become discernible on multiple levels through right

intentions and actions (Wan Daud, 1998, pp. 61, 225). In the absence of such a

belief, Islamic scholars claim, a student merely experiences surface knowledge

through activity in social settings. Without a guided exploration of the sacred in theiractions they have lost the possibility of discerning or experiencing a timeless, infinite

essence through interrelation with things. The consequence of a solely relational

understanding of the world leads to an ephemeral sense of the meaning and purpose

of life. Such an overemphasis on ordinary sense perceptions and rational experience

has led modern people to preoccupy themselves with things at the expense of

existence itself, thereby making the study of people and nature an end in itself. The

Sufi aspiration to apprehend the true essence of life, Existence (wujud), is

vanquished and what remains are mental posits of reality.

Deweys second concern is with authoritative agency in moral discourse. Here it isworthwhile to reflect upon the relationship between the student (murd) and guide

( hid) of the major S fi orders The g ide offers set initiations r les and lit rgies

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to lead the student through intricate inner experiences (Netton, 2000, p. 73). Such

rites are capable of producing original visions and insight that carry their own moral

authority. While the initial insights have empirical qualities as they arise out of direct

experience, what occurs precedes language, therefore requiring guidance from the

murshid. Such a process and experience could not be possible without the acceptanceof certain timeless principles in concert with openness to how these principles

manifest themselves in a single experience and a single life; both student and teacher

share agency.

Intersections of value and meaning

Kohlberg departs from Dewey with respect to the meaning of spiritual experiences.

Kohlberg (1981, p. 357) asserts that mystical experience does have a unique

religious meaning and that it both depends on, and leads to, philosophical reflectionsor theories that agree in several fundamental ways. Such an experience occurs

beyond the highest stage of Kohlbergs six stages of moral development. This Stage

Seven of moral development, added after the original stage theory, presents an

exceptional intersection between Islamic and western thought on moral ascendance.

The Stage Seven hypothesis is revealing when compared to Islamic metaphysics.

At Kohlbergs final developmental stage an individual is said to construct a natural

theology based on reason. Three elements which signify the religious nature of the

experience include a union with the whole of reality, the oneness of being is

disclosed and subject-object duality is overcome (Kohlberg, 1981, p. 369). Such

experiences are comparable to the perishing-everlasting (fana-baqa) structure

within Islamic metaphysics. The first stage offana- baqainvolves the experience of

passing away of subjective consciousness wherein one can witness the passing away

of the world of multiplicity and its gathering together ( jam) into a single unified

Reality (Wan Daud, 1998, pp. 4344).

Equally revealing are the different foundations of Kohlbergs moral stages and

Islamic metaphysics. As noted, Kohlbergs moral reasoning pivots around rational

interaction between individual and society. In consequence, his conception of

religious moral development is preceded by his stages of moral reasoning: it takes

additional time after the attainment of a moral stage to construct an organizedpattern of religious belief and feeling to a parallel religious stage (Kohlberg, 1981,

p. 343). This premise informs Kohlbergs study of religious moral reasoning at each

stage of development. What distinguishes Islamic conceptions is not that they

necessarily disagree regarding the kinds of actions and beliefs that occur at respective

developmental stages, but that Islamic scholars presume an infinite and pre-existing

good within each person and within revelation. The Quran is the Divine word

which pre-exists its manifested form (Shafi, 2004, p. 29), as does the human soul.

Thus Islamic scholars assert that it is reasonable to guide an individual to first access

an Islamic framework when reasoning morally. Stages of Faith (Fowler, 1981) alsodiffers here from Stage Seven theory, taking faith as the starting point of moral

reasoning and claiming that moral principles can not be arrived at prior to faith



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Although Islamic and Kohlbergian differences appear irreconcilable, it is

significant that common ground exists. Kohlbergs affirmation of religious insights

as not meaningless metaphysicsas positivism holds, but constructions essential for

understanding human development presents a common value across epistemolo-

gical and existential divides which may serve to bridge ideas and beliefs in ourdialogue regarding moral education (Kohlberg, 1981, p. 372).

Conclusion

The mutual resistance between western notions of the individual and Islamic notions

must also be considered in historical context. As modern western moral education

developed, it began to define itself in response to moral truths derived from the

authority of intuitive understanding, spiritual/esoteric experience or religious

scripture and doctrine. As the development of sociology, philosophy and psychologybegan to make moral meaning out of societal processes of interaction, Jewish and

Christian sources of morality were the earliest objects of criticism.

Todays burgeoning Islamic conceptions of the moral self were born out of post-

colonial frustration with western institutions present in Muslim countries, which

have not offered Muslim students a coherent and ultimate meaning to bind together

their subjects of study. Twentieth century Muslim educational reformers such as

Muhammad Abduh and Hassan al-Banna of Egypt or Muhammad Iqbal of India

were motivated to respond to the disenfranchised sense of self and alienated

relationship with knowledge that Muslims world-wide felt during the facilitation

period of western educational systems. Iqbals poem Falsafa-zada Syed Zade Ke

Nam is particularly direct in expressing frustration with an education system that is

at once driven by social needs and is not rooted in spirit:

Of what use the sky-measuring intellect,

Which revolves round the stars and planets;

And floats aimlessly in the boundlessness of the atmosphere?

(Iqbal, 1973, p. 66)

For Iqbal and other reformers the soul of education is within the human spirit;

western moral educations emphasis on social relationships and empirical notions of

reality have come to represent learning dislodged from an all-pervading spirit of

continuity. In addition, while the focus here is on western moral education, the

Islamic consideration of western education in general has considerable overlap.

Islamic discussions of western education are significant for educators from a range

of ideological backgrounds. Islamic educational theory is in a nascent phase and with

the progressive rise of Islamic universities world-wide (Haque, 2002, p. 68) there will

be greater ideological friction and misunderstanding if educators do not take

seriously the deeply experienced perceptions of the good in Islamic terms.

This is especially significant given western educations historical relationship withMuslim societies who were subjected to ethnocentric sentiments regarding the

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knowledge systems. Even progressive reformers like Dewey reflected this western

disposition. Consider his visit to Turkey in 1924 and his expressed relief in seeing

that the ignorance, backwardness and fatalism of Turkish peasants and their

dogmatic religious inculcations were being supplanted by a free, independent

and modernised western educational system (Bilgi & Ozsoy, 2005, p. 162). Currentabsolutist liberal discourse, disparaging the absence of freedom of thought and

personal autonomy in Islamic education, carries faint echoes of past attitudes.

A more nuanced and informed programme will encourage the inclusion of Islamic

thinkers in global discourse on schooling and may enrich the conversation. Islamic

scholars can offer a fresh entry point into questioning the universal applicability of

western concepts of personal autonomy as well as notions of personal development.

By bringing more Islamic thinkers into the discussion about the role of education in

human life, we add new dimensions to inquiries into the purpose of education.

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