Journal of Moral Education

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

An Islamic consideration of western

moral 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, Dewey
and 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

University, Syracuse, New York, 13244, US. Email: kihussai@syr.edu
ISSN 0305-7240 (print)/ISSN 1465-3877 (online)/07/030297-12
# 2007 Journal of Moral Education Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/03057240701552802

298 K. Hussain
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, thereby
limiting 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 education
to 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 individual
phenomenon has deep philosophical roots in western thought. Since Plato,
philosophers of education have questioned whether socially constructed values or

An Islamic consideration of western moral education 299

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 is
at 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 state
represents 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 development
of the moral theories of the latter two theorists. Dewey consistently draws upon the
concept of the social self in discussing the reciprocating interactions between the

300 K. Hussain
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 no
existence 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 outside
world, 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 have
considered the issue of Islamic education, such as Wan Daud, al-Attas, Nasr and
Iqbal. While there is disagreement among scholars about which value derived from

An Islamic consideration of western moral education 301

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 alFaruqi (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 these
states. (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 transformations to which Islamic education aspires, through its simultaneous treatment of a
range of internal/personal elements between body and soul.

302 K. Hussain
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 conflicting
personal 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 to
themselves. 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). The
Quran 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-directed
spiritual 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

An Islamic consideration of western moral education 303

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 educators
invariably 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 curriculum
and 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

304 K. Hussain
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 an
everlasting 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 the
worth 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 fact throughnot 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 their
actions 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 is
worthwhile to reflect upon the relationship between the student (murd) and guide
(murshid) of the major Sufi orders. The guide offers set initiations, rules and liturgies

An Islamic consideration of western moral education 305

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 acceptance
of 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 reflections
or 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 of fana- baqa involves 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 organized
pattern 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) also
differs 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.

306 K. Hussain
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 epistemological and existential divides which may serve to bridge ideas and beliefs in our
dialogue 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 psychology
began 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 postcolonial 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 with
Muslim societies who were subjected to ethnocentric sentiments regarding the
universal applicability of western values and a dismissal of regional Muslim

An Islamic consideration of western moral education 307

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). Current
absolutist 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.
References
al-Attas, S. (1993) Islam and secularism (Kuala Lumpur, International Institute of Islamic Thought
and Civilization).
al-Attas, S. (1995) Prolegomena to the metaphysics of Islam: an exposition of the fundamental elements of
the worldview of Islam (Kuala Lumpur, International Institute of Islamic Thought and
Civilization).
al-Attas, S. (1999) The concept of education in Islam (Kuala Lumpur, International Institute of
Islamic Thought and Civilization).
al-Faruqi, I. (1985) Tawhid: its implications for thought and life (Herndon, International Institute of
Islamic Thought).
al-Saffa, I. (2005) The animals lawsuit against humanity: an illustrated 10th century Iraqi ecological
fable (R. Kalonymus, D. Bridge & A. Laytner, Trans.) (New York, Fons Vitae).
al-Taftazani, A. (1986) Islamic education, its principles and aims, Muslim Education Quarterly,
4(1), 6674.
Asad, M. (1980) The message of the Quran: translated and explained by Muhammad Asad (Gibraltar,
Dar al-Andalus).
Bilgi, S. & Ozsoy, S. (2005) Deweys travels into the project of modernity, in: T. Popkewitz (Ed.)
Inventing the modern self and John Dewey: modernities and the traveling of pragmatism in
education (New York, Palgrave Macmillan), 153179.
Chazan, B. (1985) Contemporary approaches to moral education: analyzing alternative theories (New
York, Teachers College Press).
Cook, B. (1999) Egypts national education debate, Comparative Education, 36(4), 477490.
Dewey, J. (1934) A common faith (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press).
Dewey, J. (1969) Realized morality or the virtues, in: J. Boydston (Ed.) The early works of John
Dewey, 18891892 (Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois University Press), 382388.
Dewey, J. (1971) The factors of moral conduct: the agent and his sphere of action, in: J. Boydston
(Ed.) The early works of John Dewey, 18931894 (Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois
University Press), 228246.
Dewey, J. (1972) Teaching ethics in the high school, in: J. Boydston (Ed.) The early works of John
Dewey, 18951898 (Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois University Press), 5461.
Durkheim, E. (1933) The division of labor in society (New York, Macmillan Press).
Durkheim, E. (1961) Moral education: a study in the theory and application of the sociology of education
(New York, The Free Press).
Fowler, J. (1981) Stages of faith: the psychology of human development and the quest for meaning (New
York, Harper & Row).

308 K. Hussain
Frankena, W. (1973) Morality and moral philosophy, in: B. Chazan & J. Soltis (Eds) Moral
education (New York, Teachers College Press), 149158.
Giladi, A. (1987) Islamic educational theories in the Middle Ages: some methodological notes
with special reference to al-Ghazali, British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, 14(1), 310.
Halstead, J. M. (2004) An Islamic concept of education, Comparative Education, 40(4), 517530.
Haque, M. (2002) Review of the progress of Islamic education, Muslim Education Quarterly, 19(4),
6873.
Hashim, R. (1996) Educational dualism in Malaysia: implications for theory and practice (New York,
Oxford University Press).
Iqbal, M. (1966) Bal-i-Jibril [Gabriels wing], in: M. Husain (Ed.) Iqbal and education (Karachi,
Jamia Institute of Education).
Iqbal, M. (1973) Falsafa-zada Syed Zade Ke Nam [To a philosophy-stricken son of Syed], in:
S. Nadwi (Ed.) Glory of Iqbal (M. Kidwai, Trans.) (Lucknow, Islamic Research and
Publications).
Kinsey, D. C. (1982) Toward a reformulation of Islamic education, Comparative Education Review,
26(2), 297301.
Kohlberg, L. (1968) Early education: a cognitive-developmental view, Society for Research in Child
Development, 39(4), 10131062.
Kohlberg, L. (1981) The philosophy of moral development (San Francisco, CA, Harper & Row).
Nasr, S. (1978) An introduction to Islamic cosmological doctrines: conceptions of nature and methods used
for its study by the Ikhwan Al-Safa, Al-Brun, and Ibn Sna (Boulder, CO, Random House).
Nasr, S. (2000) The ideals and realities of Islam (Chicago, IL, Kazi Publications).
Netton, I. (2000) Sufi ritual: the parallel universe (Richmond, Curzon Press).
Rahman, F. (1982) Islam and modernity: transformation of an intellectual tradition (Chicago, IL,
University of Chicago Press).
Shafi, M. (2004) Maariful Quran (Karachi, Maktaba Darul-Uloom).
Wallwork, E. (1972) Durkheim: morality and milieu (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press).
Wan Daud, W. M. N. (1998) The educational philosophy and practice of Syed Muhammad Naquib AlAttas: an exposition of the original concept of Islamicization (Kuala Lumpur, International
Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization).