Islam has, from its inception,
placed a high premium on education and has enjoyed a long and rich intellectual
tradition. Knowledge ('ilm) occupies a significant position within Islam, as
evidenced by the more than 800 references to it in Islam's most revered book,
the Koran. The importance of education is repeatedly emphasized in the Koran
with frequent injunctions, such as "God will exalt those of you who believe and
those who have knowledge to high degrees" (58:11), "O my Lord! Increase me in
knowledge" (20:114), and "As God has taught him, so let him write" (2:282). Such
verses provide a forceful stimulus for the Islamic community to strive for
education and learning.
Islamic education is uniquely different from other types of educational theory
and practice largely because of the all-encompassing influence of the Koran. The
Koran serves as a primary source of knowledge for both the individual and
society. The advent of the Koran in the seventh century was quite revolutionary
for the predominantly illiterate Arabian society. Arab society had enjoyed a
rich oral tradition, but the Koran was considered the word of God and needed to
be organically interacted with by means of reading and reciting its words.
Hence, reading and writing for the purpose of accessing the full blessings of
the Koran was an aspiration for most Muslims. Thus, education in Islam
unequivocally derived its origins from a symbiotic relationship with religious
instruction.
Thus, in this way, Islamic education began. Pious and learned Muslims (mu' allim
or mudarris), dedicated to making the teachings of the Koran more accessible to
the Islamic community, taught the faithful in what came to be known as the
kuttāb (plural, katātīb). The kuttāb could be located in a variety of venues:
mosques, private homes, shops, tents, or even out in the open. Historians are
uncertain as to when the katātīb were first established, but with the widespread
desire of the faithful to study the Koran, katātīb could be found in virtually
every part of the Islamic empire by the middle of the eighth century. The kuttāb
served a vital social function as the only vehicle for formal public instruction
for primary-age children and continued so until Western models of education were
introduced in the modern period. Even at present, it has exhibited remarkable
durability and continues to be an important means of religious instruction in
many Islamic countries.
The curriculum of the kuttāb was primarily directed to young male children,
beginning as early as age four, and was centered on Koranic studies and on
religious obligations such as ritual ablutions, fasting, and prayer. The focus
during the early history of Islam on the education of youth reflected the belief
that raising children with correct principles was a holy obligation for parents
and society. As Abdul Tibawi wrote in 1972, the mind of the child was believed
to be "like a white clean paper, once anything is written on it, right or wrong,
it will be difficult to erase it or superimpose new writing upon it" (p. 38).
During the golden age of the Islamic empire (usually defined as a period between
the tenth and thirteenth centuries), when western Europe was intellectually
backward and stagnant, Islamic scholarship flourished with an impressive
openness to the rational sciences, art, and even literature. It was during this
period that the Islamic world made most of its contributions to the scientific
and artistic world. Ironically, Islamic scholars preserved much of the knowledge
of the Greeks that had been prohibited by the Christian world. Other outstanding
contributions were made in areas of chemistry, botany, physics, mineralogy,
mathematics, and astronomy, as many Muslim thinkers regarded scientific truths
as tools for accessing religious truth.
Despite its glorious legacy of earlier periods, the Islamic world seemed unable
to respond either culturally or educationally to the onslaught of Western
advancement by the eighteenth century. One of the most damaging aspects of
European colonialism was the deterioration of indigenous cultural norms through
secularism. At the same time, Western institutions of education, with their
pronounced secular/religious dichotomy, were infused into Islamic countries in
order to produce functionaries to feed the bureaucratic and administrative needs
of the state. The early modernizers did not fully realize the extent to which
secularized education fundamentally conflicted with Islamic thought and
traditional lifestyle. Religious education was to remain a separate and personal
responsibility, having no place in public education. If Muslim students desired
religious training, they could supplement their existing education with moral
instruction in traditional religious schools–the kuttāb. As a consequence, the
two differing education systems evolved independently with little or no official
interface.