Islamic Education Reform

Abstract

The earliest ijtihad, in the face of societal changes, can be traced back to the period of Khalifah Umar bin al-Khattab. The methodology of juristic preference (istihsan) was developed later as one way of instituting Islamic reform. It emerged as a response to the inadequacy of the method of mere deduction. Other forms of intellectual reform can be seen in the works of Al-Ghazali in Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din and Tahafat al- Falsifah, and in Ibn Rushd’s response, Tahafat al-Tahafat. Many of these early efforts toward intellectual reform were individual and accidental in nature and did not reflect any methodological school or institution. Reformers and creative thinkers seemed as flashes in the history of Islamic thought. As the European challenge to the Ummah mounted, and the cultural and scientific imitation failed, many Muslim reformers surrendered themselves to culturally copying Europe while continuing to praise the heritage of the Ummah and the sublime values and concepts embedded in its legacy. The movement for Islamization of knowledge tried to dig deep into Islamic intellectual tradition in order to provide Muslim thinkers with the capabilities and potential for the reform of contemporary Islamic thought and methodology. The genesis of the movement can be traced to the birth of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists in the United States and - Canada (AMSS) in 1972, the establishment of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in 1981, and the development of the Islamization of Knowledge program of the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) in 1989. As a result of these efforts, the ideas of Islamization of knowledge and Islamic methodological reform have become central themes in the works of Muslim scholars, who find that these concepts give direction and purpose to their work. If we use the metaphor of a seed to describe the role of intellectual and methodological reform in developing and reforming societies, then political, economic, technological and all other contributions and reforms can be seen as the fruits of civilization. The question that presents itself is, if the seed is there-meaning proper thinking ...