Assembling a Conceptual Framework for Education in Muslim Contexts Based on an Islamic Worldview

• In Event: Toward Fuller Expressions of Knowledge, Being, and Truth in Rethinking Islamic Education

Abstract

Further to the dichotomy of ‘Islamic’ and ‘secular’, and the ongoing fragmentation of contemporary culture, there is also a dichotomy within Muslim education of fragmentation versus integration—across culture, interpretation, generations (Memon, 2016). This paper explores a starting point for a new effort at integration, that is: integration at an onto-epistemic level. It aims to map an Islamic worldview and demonstrates that its tawhidi (holistic) core offers a decolonial way forward, away from the dichotomies plague postcolonial Muslim education, towards plurality in unity.
Conceptual Framework
The paper situates itself in the difficult but necessary tension between Modernism and Postmodernism, Scientism, Enlightenment Rationalism, Secularism, Liberalism, and Islam. The lengthy list of ‘isms’ illustrates the weight of a Eurocentric worldview on colonised peoples. An increasing feeling of alienation and confusion—a sense of drifting, aimlessness, lack of knowing who we are, our role and place in the world—is exacerbated by educational practices that perpetuate such confusion. This is a primary rationale for the coming together of the Cambridge Dialogues, and a first step in worldview construction. Worldviews are total ways of looking at humans, life, and the world; a coherent collection of concepts and theorems that allow us to construct a complete understanding the world, “Lebenswelt” (Husserl, as cited in Føllesdal, 2009); to understand as many elements of our experiences as possible. Like geographic maps, worldviews help us find our way and act coherently in this world. Restoring a sense of worldview may help Muslim learners anchor and make deeper meanings of the worlds they inhabit.
Methods
To map a holistic conceptual framework for education in Muslim contexts based on an Islamic worldview, we begin with a comprehensive literature review of key works on worldviews (e.g. see Apostel in Batens and Christiaens 1999 and Koltko-Rivera 2004) and assess the theoretical and conceptual merits of the notion as related to an Islamic worldview. We draw upon Muslim intellectual literature and analyse its relevance not as only a repository of critical views but a body of literature relevant for worldview expositing and framing. The methodological parameters of this paper are defined by theoretical inquiry and analysis, rather than direct accumulation empirical data, of literature on various educational settings of Muslim learners.
1. Results
Initial results of our analysis indicate a number of significant points:
1. A worldview enables learners to coordinate different aspects of their worlds in a meaningful way; to piece together a coherent picture; overcome fragmentary identities.
2. In mapping a conceptual framework for Islamic education, Muslim learners’ (re)acquaintance with their worldviews may engender development of more holistic cognitive frameworks, relevant to specific learning contexts.
3. A socially shared view of the whole gives a culture, a people, a nation, a community or learners a sense of direction, confidence, and self-esteem.
2. Significance
This is one of the first interdisciplinary attempts at construction of a conceptual framework for Islamic Education and contributes to both the Islamic Education and Islamic Studies literature. Practical contributions offered to Muslim educational communities include dissemination through the Cambridge Dialogue network, inviting elaboration through ongoing teacher research.

Author

• Safaruk Chowdhury Project Researcher Beyond Found Chowdhury, Cambridge Muslim College
  Presenting Author