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Name : Husien Al-Ashour
ID# 201102587
Assignment 4: An Islamic Philosophy of Education
Dr. Anil Belvadi, PMU
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Develop the learner’s interest and understanding of Islam and Muslims.
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Develop curriculum and plans that meet the developmental needs of students.
Acquire deeper knowledge of Muslim cultures, societies, and civilizations and the
changes.
Draw attention to Islam and its role in the world in terms of politics, economics,
social structure etc.
Provide a program that meets the strategic objectives of UAS.
Encourage the implementation of knowledge into the daily lives of students in
and out of school.
Enhance the Islamic perspective of students and their critical thinking, problem
solving and creativity skills.
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There are some factors which are essential for effective teaching and learning to occur.
They are meaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging and active.
 Effective Islamic teaching and learning must be meaningful. Students should feel that
the content of their curriculum is worth learning, because it is meaningful and
relevant to their lives. When learning is meaningful and relevant, students are
intrinsically motivated to learn. Furthermore, students must be led to discover the
larger connections between the knowledge and skills they are learning—rather than
memorizing isolated bits of information. As Muslims, students must be trained to
always keep their eye on the whole picture, or macro-view, when studying.
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Most important of all, effective Islamic teaching and learning must be value-based. By
focusing on values and by considering the ethical dimensions of topics, Islamic education
becomes a powerful vehicle for character and moral development, thus achieving its
real purpose.
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Finally, effective Islamic teaching and learning must be active. Islamic Education should
demand a great deal from both the teacher and students. The teacher must be actively
and genuinely engaged in the teaching process—making plans, choices and curriculum
adjustments as needed. The effective teacher of Islamic education must be prepared to
continuously update his or her knowledge base, adjust goals and content to students’
needs, take advantage of unfolding events and teachable moments, and to develop
examples that relate directly to students.
Epistemology in Islamic philosophy:
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Muslim philosophers agree that knowledge is possible. Knowledge is the intellect's
grasp of the immaterial forms, the pure essences or universals that constitute the
natures of things, and human happiness is achieved only through the intellect's grasp of
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Name : Husien Al-Ashour
ID# 201102587
Assignment 4: An Islamic Philosophy of Education
Dr. Anil Belvadi, PMU
such universals. They stress that for knowledge of the immaterial forms, the human
intellect generally relies on the senses. Some philosophers, such as Ibn Rushd and
occasionally Ibn Sina, assert that it is the material forms themselves, which the senses
provide.
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Epistemology concerns itself primarily with the possibility, nature and sources of
knowledge. Taking the possibility of knowledge for granted, Muslim philosophers
focused their epistemological effort on the study of the nature and sources of
knowledge. Their intellectual inquiries, beginning with logic and ending with
metaphysics and in some cases mysticism.
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Muslim philosophers consider knowledge to be the grasping of the immaterial forms,
natures, essences or realities of things. They are agreed that the forms of things are
either material (that is, existing in matter) or immaterial (existing in themselves). Thus
Muslim philosophers, like Aristotle before them, divided knowledge in the human mind
into conception (tasawwur), apprehension of an object with no judgment, and assent
(tasdiq), apprehension of an object with a judgment, the latter being, according to
them, a mental relation of correspondence between the concept and the object for
which it stands. One must keep in mind, however, that when assent is said to be a form
of knowledge, the word is then used, not in the broad sense to mean true or false
judgment, but in the narrow sense to mean true judgment.
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In Islamic philosophy there are two theories about the manner in which the number of
unknown objects is reduced. One theory stresses that this reduction is brought about
by moving from known objects to unknown ones, the other that it is merely the result
of direct illumination given by the divine world. The former is the upward or
philosophical way, the second the downward or prophetic one.
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I would like to cite here a tradition of the Prophet (S) narrated by Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali
ibn Abi Talib: Once Gabriel came to Adam. He brought with him faith, morality (haya')
and 'aql (reason) and asked him to choose one of the three. When he chose 'aql, the
others were told by Gabriel to return to heaven, They said that they were ordered by
Allah to accompany 'aql wherever it remained. This indicates how comprehensive are
the notions of intellect and knowledge in Islam, and how deeply related they are to faith
and the moral faculty.
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Teachers in Islam are given a number of different titles such as shaykh, or ‘alim in
Arabic and mullah or hoja in Persian and Turkish. A teacher is often also a legal
scholar (faqih), a specialist in prophetic traditions (muhaddith), a jurisconsult (mufti),
a judge (qadi), or mystic (sufi). Many teachers are polymaths who excel in more
than one of these positions.
The status and role of teachers in Islam is rooted in the Qur’anic concept of
knowledge and its importance. The first verses said to have been revealed to the
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Name : Husien Al-Ashour
ID# 201102587
Assignment 4: An Islamic Philosophy of Education
Dr. Anil Belvadi, PMU
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Prophet Muhammad contain the command “Read!” (Qur’an 96:1) and also delcare
that God teaches humanity “by the pen” (96:4). Studying and promulgating
knowledge, especially religious knowledge, is portrayed as a community
responsibility that is an important part of mobilizing for the cause of God (9:122).
The Prophetic traditions (ha-dith) also emphasize the importance of knowledge.
Prophet Muhammad tells Muslims that seeking knowledge is an obligation for
believing men and women even if that means traveling to China. These ideals have
led Muslims to travel in search of knowledge to study with various teachers
throughout the world.
Students would study in public or private madrasas, institutions of advanced
religious learning, or in private seminars. In both madrasas and private study circles,
learning was always very personalized. Throughout the early and medieval periods,
students read to (qar’a ‘ala) and heard material from (sama’a) their teachers.
Teachers would formally certify students who had mastered their subjects. The
certification (ijaza) was personally inscribed by the teacher on the topic a student
had mastered, and it granted the student permission to teach the material.
The importance of the student/teacher relationship is evident in Islamic biographical
dictionaries that contain sketches of Muslims spanning centuries and covering much
of the Muslim world. An important element in such biographies is the list of an
individual’s teachers and students. The teacher’s role—as described by the
thirteenth-century mystic Nasir al-Din al-Qunawi—is to offer glimmers of
illumination in a dark world (Renard 201). The ideal of a student’s respect for and
devotion to his teacher is perhaps best illustrated by the eleventh-century Persian
teacher, jurist, and mystic, ‘Ayn-al-Qudat Hamadani, who admonished students to
“attend the sandals of teachers;” he considered such devotion to teachers more
important than service to the ruler (Safi 187).
1. Akhtar, D. S. (n.d.). The Islamic Concept of Knowledge . Retrieved from Al-Tawhid:
http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/islam-know-conc.ht
2. Ashraf, S. A. (n.d.). The Aims of Education. Retrieved from The Aims of Education:
http://www.cambridgemuslimcollege.org/Papers/CMC%20Papers%202%20%20Education%20by%20SAAshraf.pd
3. Teachers in Islam. (n.d.). Retrieved from what-when-how : http://what-whenhow.com/love-in-world-religions/teachers-in-islam/