Degree

BS (Social Sciences & Liberal Arts)

Faculty / School

School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Date of Award

Summer 2022

Date of Submission

2022-08-28

Advisor

Dr. Moiz Hasan, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences

Project Type

SSLA Culminating Experience

Access Type

Restricted Access

Abstract

At the core of all academic endeavors, lurks a philosophy of education. It guides the pedagogical practices and the methodologies employed by the teacher, both of which shape the student’s perceptions. The current secular university favors certain perspectives on education over others. This project, by using an inter-disciplinary approach, shows how the exclusion of religious perspectives in the academy can hinder intellectual pursuit. It then explores an alternative conceptualization of education – one of the Islamic tradition of tasawwuf.

This study focuses on one text of a prominent scholar of tasawwuf – Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. The object of study of this project is Ayyuha’l-walad – a letter written by Ghazali to one of his students. In not imposing any categories and approaches that Ghazali might object to as distinct from his own, it employs the theoretical approach upheld by Quentin Skinner, to look at Ghazali’s concept of education and knowledge, and the teaching methodologies employed by him in the letter.

This project adds to the understanding of pedagogy in tasawwuf, as well as the general conception of education in Islam. Perhaps more scholarship and research on religious pedagogical perspectives can pave the way for a more inclusive education system.

Pages

73

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