Shared Religious Foundations of Education: Islam & Christianity

Conclusion

In religious education, the universe consists of material and immaterial things. God has created the world. The universe is a goal – centered collection. Human being is much respected and has a very high esteem; he has been created for perfection, elevation, nearness, and servitude and surrendering to God.

Man has some authority and freewill and so he is responsible. In religious education, all the potentials of the man’s nature are actualized harmoniously for reaching divine goals. The ultimate aim of education is the same as man’s creation, i.e. man’s perfection, elevation, etc. Paying attention to the personality and views of the student and the teacher is very important.

Man’s cognition is not considered as a material process. Sense, intellect and heart are considered as the tools of cognition, and self, nature, history and books can carry human beings to knowledge and cognition thus they are knowledge resources.

Informal education plays a very important role in one’s education; the students and teachers should not confine themselves only to one resource of knowledge, i.e. books; rather they should pay attention to all knowledge and cognition resources. The teacher should use all teaching methods according to the situation and subject matter he teaches.

Different educational contents, which are useful for students and society, to be taught. Knowledge is considered as a very significant matter, but those persons can reach the truth of the knowledge and cognition that have purified themselves from all sorts of knowledge and cognition obstacles, i.e. sins and evils.

This is why morality, spirituality, values, and virtues are very crucial facts in the religious foundation philosophy. The individuals and students should have a good knowledge and a good attitude towards the values so that these values may be observed in their behaviors.

Therefore, we can design a comprehensive model for religious foundation philosophy, and use it as a basis and foundation in our educational activities. The future researches can compare the religious foundations of philosophy with scholastic and other educational philosophies to illustrate its strengths and precedence as compared with them.

It can also be concluded from this book that Islam and Christianity, when considered as a religious educational – philosophical school, have many similarities regarding foundation of education, and these similarities can overshadow their differences and therefore can unify and bring the Muslim and Christian societies close together.

According to this result of the research it is suggested that Muslim and Christian scholars, and the Muslims and the Christians in general, despite logical and rational expression of the differences, do try not to exacerbate these differences, rather they should try to discover and interpret the similarities so that these two societies may come to the highest understanding and unity forming a God – centered school with the intention of the real and true propagation of religiosity, spirituality, morality, values, virtues and education.