Islamic Education

Abstract

Introduction The aim of this article and its importance is to show how the Islamic view of education can make a timely contribution to the contemporary world. This can be demonstrated because Islam is inclusive of the material and spiritual dimensions of human existence and emphasizes primordial values for the cultivation of life in this world and for the preparation of life in the postresurrection. Although Islam acknowledges the great strides of the human mind in the accumulation and application of acquired knowledge, and though it recognizes certain virtues in humanism, it does not make man “the measure of all things.” Islamic education goes beyond secularism by making God‘s revelation in the Holy BooWQur’an the absolute measure of all things. This is the norm by which we must determine our intention in all our actions, as well as our sense of duty, responsibility, and accountability to God, our fellow human beings, and nature without compromising fundamental values. Modem Western civilization has seen the rapid rise of science and technology and their enormous potentials for production as well as destruction. Two world wars, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and (in our present day) the Gulf War have demonstrated without the shadow of a doubt that whereas science and technology can create and produce, they can also destroy. However, it does not follow that because we are advanced in nuclear physics we have wars. The cause-and-effect relationship between technology and war does not necessarily follow. There is no such thing as scientific/technological determinism. Technology of its own accord cannot determine a course of action. Nor is there such a thing as the conscience of science or technology. It is only the human being who has a conscience, and it is always the human being in the background who determines how science and technology should be ...