The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

education

Islamic education should be viewed historically against the background of pre-Islamic times, which Muslims call the jāhiliyya, or “age of ignorance.” Muslims equate the polytheistic state of affairs in Arabia before the mission of the Prophet Muhammad with paganism, savagery, and barbarism—the antithesis of civilization. In contrast, Islam means to understand and acknowledge that there is no god but God and to submit to His will. For Muslims, the Islamic religion and way of life thus perfectly represent the wholeness and holiness of education and are synonymous with enlightenment, culture, and civilization.

Islamic education builds on two major principles: acquiring knowledge is both a lifelong pursuit and a religious duty. A correlation exists between knowledge and action for the welfare of the Muslim community—and humanity in general. Hence, Islamic learning aspires to develop persons who acquired a solid general education and are well-grounded in, and shaped by, the virtues of Islam so that they can become productive members of society.

This inclusiveness of Islamic learning is evident in the Qur’an and the hadith; it is also expressed in proverbs, aphorisms, and wisdom sayings. Scholarly discussions of educational theories and practices are offered in a wide variety of medieval Arabic and Persian writings, particularly in classical Islamic philosophical, ethical, and didactic works. The transformations and challenges in contemporary Islamic societies resulting from postcolonial developments, interaction with the West, globalization, migration, and the reality of Muslim life in non-Islamic countries constitute the basis for discourses on education within an Islamic framework.

The Qur’an expressly prioritizes learning and education. God is humankind’s undisputed supreme teacher, for God “taught humankind that which they knew not” (Q. 96:5). In the first revelation to the Prophet Muhammad, he was given the divine command to “read” or “recite” words of revelation and thus to proclaim and teach the Word of God to his people and to the world (Q. 96:1–5). Numerous other Qur’anic passages deal with the instruction of believers in the faith and their spiritual growth as individuals and members of the community. Some passages also demand the application of reason and understanding in matters of faith. Similarly, the Qur’an determines the ideal political and religious leaders as those whom God “endowed abundantly with knowledge and bodily perfection”; they will be the leaders on Earth, even if they have “not been given amplitude of wealth” (Q. 2:247).

The imperative to seek knowledge is clearly expressed in many well-known sayings and traditions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. The command “Seek knowledge, even unto China” sanctifies the idea that the search for knowledge (ṭalab al-‘ilm) has no geographic or cultural boundaries. The Prophet’s insistence that “the pursuit of knowledge is incumbent on every Muslim, male or female” highlights that learning is a religious duty, irrespective of gender. Another prophetic statement calls for well-educated leadership, as “the person with the best knowledge of the Book of God and most experience in reading [it] should lead the people [in prayer].”

In early Islam, instruction took place in teaching sessions and study circles in mosques or privately in the homes of scholars. Oral instruction was a predominant feature of learning, and personal contact between the teacher and students was considered the best guarantee for the authenticity of the transmitted knowledge. This idea of authoritative transmission has remained crucial to Islamic learning throughout history, especially in the religious disciplines. Nonetheless, as early as the seventh century, lectures and seminars regularly were based on written collections of notes used by scholars and students as memory aids. In the ninth century, “the book” emerged in Muslim society and was soon recognized as a powerful medium of education.

By the tenth century, the Muslim world extended from Spain to China. This religiopolitical development significantly stimulated Islamic learning, causing the Arabic-Islamic civilization to become a “knowledge society” characterized by a considerable degree of religious tolerance and intellectual open-mindedness. Baghdad (founded in 762), the capital of the Abbasid caliphate, was the vibrant commercial, cultural, and intellectual metropolis of the Muslim world. It witnessed dynamic activities in the humanities and great advancements in the natural sciences. Significant achievements in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry and alchemy, medicine, pharmacology, optics, physics, engineering, architecture, irrigation, and agriculture attest to the industriousness of medieval Muslim scholarship and education. It is also evident in history and geography, in the codification of law, and in the development of philology and grammar. Classical Islamic philosophy demonstrates originality and brilliance in abstract thinking, while Islamic mysticism (Sufism) played a significant role in the transmission of knowledge (‘ilm), as it was generally considered a prerequisite for gnosis (ma‘rifa). Influential scholarly families played a decisive role in recruiting, funding, and controlling the intellectual elite of medieval Muslim society.

Academies remarkably free of cultural, ethnic, or confessional constraints were established. For example, Baghdad’s famous translation academy and research center—Bayt al-Hikma, or House of Wisdom—was officially sponsored by the caliph Ma’mun (r. 813–33) and employed numerous Christian, Syriac-speaking scholars to prepare Arabic translations of philosophical and scientific works, particularly those in Greek. In Cairo, the Shi‘i Fatimids (969–1171 in Egypt) founded academies to study Shi‘i theological tenets, as well as much of the intellectual heritage of the Greeks, Iranians, and Indians. The Dar al-‘Ilm, or House of Learning, founded in Baghdad in 993 by a Buyid vizier, was administered by two Shi‘i notables and a judge; its director of studies, however, was a Sunni (Hanafi) professor.

Azhar (“the Radiant”), the famous mosque and university, was founded in 970 as a Shi‘i institution. When the Sunni Ayyubids took power in Egypt (1171–1250), Azhar became a Sunni place of learning and eventually the principal religious university of the Islamic world. Major centers of Islamic learning also developed in cities such as Damascus, Aleppo, Basra, Kufa, Qum, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Farghana in the East; Qayrawan, Tunis (Zaytuna mosque-university from the eighth century), and Fez (the Qarawiyyin mosque and college was founded in 859) emerged in the West; and Córdoba, Toledo, and Granada represented Andalus (Islamic Spain). Famous medical schools existed in Gondeshapur (Iran), Alexandria (Egypt), and Harran (Iraq).

Colleges specializing in Sunni religious and legal instruction were established to meet the growing need for skilled personnel. In addition to mosque- and shrine-colleges, the most important type of college—the madrasa (lit. “a place to study”)—flourished from the 11th to 14th centuries. Its most notable example, the Nizamiyya in Baghdad, was founded in 1057 by the vizier Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092) in response to the Fatimid “threat” of spreading Shi‘i doctrine and learning, best exemplified by the great Azhar mosque-university in Egypt. In the 13th century, many Shi‘i madrasas were established in Iraq and Persia, especially in Hilla, Qum, Rayy, and Kashan. The madrasa—both Sunni and Shi‘i—became a tangible feature of Islam’s culture and civilization, often financed by a pious endowment (waqf) supporting both faculty and students. The madrasa combined living and teaching accommodations. It was usually built close to a large mosque and led by an imam-professor. The madrasa was largely concerned with Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), Qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr), theology (kalām and ‘aqīda), tradition (the hadith), Arabic language, and logic (the latter two disciplines being considered essential for accurate expression and sound thinking).

Although this issue has been viewed controversially, some modern scholars suggest that with the rise of an extensive network of (predominantly Sunni) madrasas in the Eastern Islamic world, and given the constraints in the various subjects taught, the religious scholars (‘ulama’)—by then thoroughly professionalized under state patronage—came to influence the cohesiveness and unity of Islamic thought. To be sure, this decisive institutional victory of dogmatic thought over discursive scholarship resulted in conservatism and, among certain scholars, an opposition to “secular” learning. Traditional Islamic learning (both Sunni and Twelver Shi‘i) became increasingly deductive and textually centripetal, particularly regarding the text of revelation itself. Inductive reasoning, required to deal scientifically with matters not yet fully established, was nearly excluded from the curriculum of the madrasa, although it was practiced to some extent in legal reasoning, philosophy, and the physical sciences as such.

Key appointments at madrasas were regularly made by the donor, who designated a prominent scholar for the chair he established. These appointments were monitored by the ruler, but imam-professors of the important “cathedral mosques” were appointed by the caliph himself. Through this web of indirect and direct governmental “patronage” and supervision, the military and political elites in medieval Muslim societies exercised a significant degree of control over the ‘ulama’ and ensured that scholars would provide the political regime with the religious legitimization it needed. However, despite the fact that madrasas in medieval times had a political dimension, the ‘ulama’ were free to supervise and regulate the transmission of knowledge without interference from the political elite.

In view of this complex situation, from the 8th through the 16th centuries, there was a continuous tradition of Islamic scholarship dealing with pedagogy and didactics. Farabi (d. 950), probably the most important Islamic political philosopher, made significant contributions to Islamic learning in the context of political and ethical thought, expressed in his books The Perfect State, The Political Regime, and The Attainment of Happiness. Living in Baghdad, Farabi insisted that virtuous societies must be based on a political order whose guiding principle is the realization of human excellence through virtue. Therefore, both rulers and citizens need a certain degree of education, and human societies attain perfection to the extent that their rulers organize their citizens’ duties according to their knowledge and specialization, give them laws, and provide leadership in other aspects of communal life. Rulers must become philosopher-kings, perfect in their intellectual faculties and divinely inspired. Farabi claimed that philosophy was indispensable for the founding and survival of the “virtuous state,” while prophecy was indispensable for the founding of a virtuous state but not for its survival.

Khatib al-Baghdadi (d. 1071), an intellectual historian from Baghdad, emphasized that the teacher must ensure equal learning opportunities for all his students, regardless of whether they are Muslims, Jews, or Christians—a statement clearly suggesting that the true spirit of learning does not know religious boundaries. Ghazali (d. 1111), one of the great architects of Islamic learning, affirmed in his monumental work The Revival of Religious Studies that orthodox belief, spirituality, and reason were the foundations of traditional Islamic learning. He shaped the theory and practice of Islamic education in a way that is still evident today.

The Tunisian historian and social philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) determined in his famous Muqaddima (Prolegomena) three types of theoretical and practical knowledge. First, there is the knowledge of essences, which leads to understanding the realities behind phenomena. Second, there is the knowledge of the natural world and human culture, which enables humans to arrange their lives and control the world they live in. Such “knowledge of civilization” includes technology as well as social and political relationships. Third, there is moral knowledge, which refers to the human ability to think and gradually acquire experience so that ordinary citizens will deal reasonably with each other, rulers will govern in the best interest of society, and thus human life in general will improve. In this context, Ibn Khaldun stresses the role of experience, social skills, and the ability to cooperate. However, human intellect should not be overestimated in learning and human growth, for Ibn Khaldun states that religious knowledge, based on Muhammad’s prophecy, was to be preferred and overrides reason and philosophical thought whenever it contradicts divine law (shari‘a); this was particularly true in politics. Therefore, prophecy must be accepted as the unquestionable foundation of a sound political society in which humans, as naturally social and political beings, would actively build their existence.

Mulla Sadra Shirazi (d. 1641), a Twelver Shi‘i thinker and important educator in Shiraz, insisted that scientific knowledge must be balanced with intuitive knowledge. He severely criticized the worldliness of the ‘ulama’ of his age and stressed the otherworldly aspect of learning—a view that significantly influenced the theory and practice of religious learning in later times. In contrast, other Shi‘i clerics, like the Lebanese ‘Ali al-Karaki (d. 1534) and the Iranian Muhammad Sabzavari (d. 1679), suggested that scholars take a more world-embracing attitude. They expressly encouraged religious scholars to become socially active and even to associate with the powerful in order to educate and guide them.

European colonial powers in the Middle East and Southeast Asia had a dramatic impact on Islamic society. They provided Muslim intellectuals and enlightened rulers with the grounds for educational reform in their attempt to raise the standard and widen the scope of learning. Muhammad ‘Ali (d. 1849) in Egypt, Sultan ‘Abdulmajid I (d. 1861) in Turkey, and Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) in India are just a few examples.

In the Arab world, the intellectual reform movement of the Nahda (Awakening) made important steps in reconciling traditional and modern (Western) areas of knowledge in a spirit of openness while retaining the values of Islam and a Muslim identity. In Egypt, Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905) called for the reformulation of Islamic doctrine in the light of modern thought, while Qasim Amin (d. 1908) campaigned for the liberation of women. Educational reforms were carried out by Muhammad Bayram (d. 1889) in Tunisia, the Alusi family in Iraq, and by ‘Abd al-Hamid b. Badis (d. 1940) in Algeria. In Turkey, Atatürk (d. 1938), founder and first president of the Turkish Republic, implemented the idea of secular nationhood in an Islamic country and secularized the country’s educational system.

Throughout much of the 20th century, Islamic education was transformed not only by the struggle between secular and Islamic ideologies but also by a new politicization of Islam in large parts of the Muslim world. In Egypt, the situation of the ‘ulama’ changed radically in 1952 when the Nasserist regime nationalized the waqfs, thus depriving Azhar University of its financial basis. A 1961 reform aimed to integrate Azhar and their ‘ulama’ into what was considered “modern society.” This reform successfully introduced secular fields of study into the traditionally religious Azhar curriculum. These changes had long-term effects on the ‘ulama’’s social and political identity: by creating a state-controlled religious monopoly, the regime forced the ‘ulama’ into complete political submission, but it also provided religious scholars with the space and instruments for their political emergence in the 1970s and 1980s.

In addition to reputable secular universities in the Muslim world, and the robust efforts of the Arab Gulf states to modernize their educational systems, institutionalized Islamic learning in the early 21st century was associated with the highly respected centers of religious scholarship in Cairo, Mecca, Medina, Najaf, and Qum, as well as Hyderabad, Lucknow, and Saharanpur in India, and Dar al-Ulum of Deoband (founded in 1867)—the most renowned Indian madrasa and the largest in Asia. New international Islamic universities were established in Islamabad, Pakistan (1980), and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1983); both admitted women as well as men. Muslim intellectuals and politicians demonstrated a growing awareness of the need to reform the madrasa program of study to enable students to deal with the challenges of modern society and to come to a more relevant understanding of their faith while upholding the identity and the industriousness of 1,400 years of Islamic learning.