THE CONCEPT OF EDUCATION IN ISLAM-Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas

THE CONCEPT OF EDUCATION IN ISLAM

The meaning of education and of what it involves is of 

utmost importance in the formulation of a system of 

education and its implementation. Supposing I am 

asked: What is education?, and I answer: Education is a process of

instilling something into human beings. In this answer ‘a process of 

instilling’ refers to the method and the system by which what is 

called ‘education’ is gradually imparted; ‘something’ refers to the 

content of what is instilled; and ‘human beings’ refers to the 

recipient of both the process and the content. Now the answer 

given above already encompasses the three fundamental 

elements that constitute education: the process, the content, the 

recipient; but it is not yet a definition because those elements are 

deliberately left vague. Furthermore, the way of formulating the 

sentence meant to be developed into a definition as given above 

gives the impression that what is emphasized is the process.

Supposing I reformulate the answer: Education is something

progressively instilled into man. Now here we still encompass the 

three fundamental elements inherent in education, but the order 

of precedence as to the important clement that constitutes 

education is now the content and not the process. Let us consider 

this last formulation and proceed in analyzing the inherent 

concepts.

 I shall begin with man, since the definition of man is already 

generally well known, and that is, that he is a ‘rational animal’. 

Since rationality defines man, we must at least have some idea as 

to what ‘rational’ means, and we all agree that it refers to 

‘reason’. However, in Western intellectual history, the concept of 

ratio has undergone much controversy, and has become—at least of secularization of ideas that coursed through the history of 

Western thought since the periods of the ancient Greeks and 

Romans. Muslim thinkers did not conceive of what is understood 

as ratio as something separate from what is understood as 

intellectus; they conceived the caql (عقل) as an organic unity of both 

ratio and intellectus. Bearing this in mind, the Muslims defined 

man as al-ÌaywÂn al-nÂtiq,1

 where the term nÂtiq signifies 

‘rational’. Man is possessed of an inner faculty that formulates 

meaning (i.e. dhÄ nutq طـقÿذو)

2

 and this formulation of meaning, 

which involves judgment and discrimination and clarification, is 

what constitutes his ‘rationality’. The terms nÂtiq and nutq are 

derived from a root that conveys the basic meaning of ‘speech’, 

from the Muslim point of view—problematic, for it has gradually 

become separated from the ‘intellect’ or intellectus in the process.