The Need For an Islamic Pedagogy

CONCLUSION

I will end this discussion on Islamic pedagogy with an ideal case study that represents the concept of Ihsaan in Islam. If teachers and the students they teach can begin to live life according to the acknowledgement that whatever social contributions they are putting forth are an act of worship, and they live with the sincere intention that their efforts are solely for Allah’s pleasure, they can begin to develop Ihsaan-worshipping Allah as if they see Him, and even though they don’t see Him, they live according to the acknowledgement that He sees them. The following is known as “hadeeth Jibreel” (the hadeeth of angel Gabriel); Umar ibn Al-Khattab, the companion, narrates:

“While we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah one day, a man [Jibreel in human form] came to our gathering whose clothes were extremely white, whose hair was extremely black, upon whom traces of travelling could not be seen, and whom none of us knew, until he sat down close to the Prophet, may Allah bless with him and grant him peace, so that he rested his knees upon his knees and placed his two hands upon his thighs and said, 'Muhammad, tell me about Islam?' The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, 'Islam is that you witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and you establish the prayer, and you give the Zakat [obligatory charity on assets], and you fast Ramadan [a month of the Islamic lunar calendar], and you perform the hajj [pilgrimage] of the House if you are physically and financially able to.' He said, 'You have told the truth,' and we were amazed at him asking the prophet and [then] telling him that he told the truth. The man said, 'Tell me about iman.' He said, 'That you affirm Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day, and that you affirm the Decree, the good of it and the bad of it.' He said, 'You have told the truth.' He said, 'Tell me about ihsaan.' He said, 'That you worship Allah as if you see Him, for if you don't see Him then truly He sees you.' … the prophet asked, 'Umar, do you know who the questioner was?' I said, 'Allah and His Messenger know best.' He said, 'He was Jibreel who came to you to teach you your deen37 '." (Al-Bukhari, vol. 1, 1997, pgs.80-81)).

There are entire books dedicated to this hadeeth, so we will focus specifically on the concepts dedicated to Ihsaan and the demeanor/appearance of an educator. Ibn Rajab Al-Hanbalee, a Medieval alim, highlighted how, by stating that angel Jibreel had just taught them their “deen”, then this hadeeth is essentially inclusive of all the individual obligatory acts a Muslim must do, citing that Islam is more directly defined as the physical “submission” of a person, Iman (faith/belief) is more directly defined as the articles of faith with the 7 conditions mentioned previously, and Ihsaan is the highest level of worship of a person consistently always behaving under the acknowledgement that Allah sees them, even though they don’t see Him-this last level is impossible for regular humans to maintain indefinitely, but they are supposed to try their best to reach this high standard (Ibn Rajab, 2007, p. 41-69). Ihsaan is actually mentioned even as the first chapter in ‘raising children’ encyclopedias like the one mentioned above (Mutawalee, 2005, p.11) and it is one of the behaviors that

needs to be modeled the most. Ihsaan linguistically means “to make something better”; one way it is used in the Qur’an for example is to return bad behavior from someone with a ‘better’ response (Qur’an, 13:22) or to even make someone ‘better’ by for example feeding them or doing some other beneficial service for them (Mutawalee, 2005, p.11). These points recall the image of the humble educator that was highlighted before in the Rubbaan. In short, the ulamaa described Ihsaan as sublime manners, increasing in importance as one goes from a broad social network that goes all the way from the likes of plants and animals to the poor, wayfarers, orphans, visitors, and neighbors, to one’s most inner circle of spouses, children, parents, and then of course one’s relationship to Allah38 (Mutawalee 2005, pgs. 13-20). If we can raise students to live according to such a set of priorities, then we will certainly as educators have taught them a practical application of how to manage one’s life, which is essentially the key to success: time management. How humans use their time and prioritize is what differentiates between the leaders and the followers, the active and the passive, those who transform their society or are transformed by it.

Moral education is a timeless, necessary aspect of any educational system that values social justice and coherence. By living our values, not only do we change society individually, but as teachers we also prove to our students that we believe in what we are teaching. In regards to how we do that from an Islamic perspective, as has been shown here, the vehicle for Islamic pedagogy (whether one is teaching morals or positivistic sciences) has been the caring apprenticeship relationship between teacher and student which presupposes the former as a role-model figure. Islamic character, or moral education, is the focus of Islamic pedagogy upon which the student-teacher relationship is built. Moral character and the caring relationships that stem from it are pivotal in teaching any type of knowledge. Teachers are who they are inside and outside of school, because experiences change people and they do not shed these experiences, for good or bad, when they come to school. Only from these understandings can any specific teaching methods be productive.

Through case-based learning-cases being defined as stories, analogies, or any other ‘clips’ of material-students are scaffolded through the construction of live application opportunities (for example through group debate/dialogue) in the classroom. But as has been highlighted, for holistic education, the teacher as a role model is pivotal. If we don’t live by what we say, then who will care? Through such an interactive pedagogy, any form of content knowledge being taught, theological or otherwise, can be a transformative experience. Such a pedagogy is in dire need in the Muslim world given the passive rote memorization methods left over from colonization. For the Muslim world, looking far back enough in the past, past oppressive colonial systems of education, can reveal dynamic teaching methods that change people.

In conclusion, we have highlighted the importance of empirical and theological knowledge in Islam and their potential for motivating educators and students to work towards social justice. In order for teachers in Muslim countries (like Egypt) to scaffold their students to such concepts as they

teach them a curriculum, they should teach through a culturally relevant pedagogy. The one outlined above hopes to not only use existing analytical frameworks to improve the quality of education, but to also employ Islamic frames of reference to motivate an active approach to education. In this exemplar of Islamic pedagogy, Islamic pedagogy has been shown to stress the importance of an apprenticeship style relationship between teacher and student. Through such a relationship, teachers can utilize Case-Based learning to scaffold their students to higher concepts using methods such as stories, analogies, and live application in the classroom to construct transformative learning experiences. This concept of Islamic pedagogy has also been found to have analogues in Western literature as well known as Ethical Caring.

By using socio-culturally relevant frameworks in the field to apply this concept, some form of “Ethical Caring” pedagogy could be promoted globally to teach teachers how to develop pragmatic caring relationships with their students that help both parties to grow--morally and intellectually. Opportunities for further research within Islamic pedagogy might include a comparison between prophet Muhammad’s teaching techniques with men as opposed to women or delving more into detail in any of the concepts that have been discussed in this paper.

The way students learn affects how they view their position in effecting change in the world. If education becomes a mere intellectual exercise with no pragmatic connection to real world problems, then such is a fruitless venture. Education all over the world has massive potential to create raw social change in society, but first we must realize it is not just what we teach, but how it is taught.