Fundamentals of Qur'anic Education Concept: A Critical Conceptualization with Special Reference to Al-Kilȃni’s Thought

Abstract

There is a firm correlation between the decline of Muslims in the stage of history and Islamic education system’s lack of productivity in generating excellent outputs. This fact originates from Islamic education’s weakness in avoiding the paradox of “historical determinism” tendency and “practical realism”. This fact also has its roots in the dearth of critical Islamic education studies due to intellectual elites paying little attention to eminent investigations. Such problems had troubled al-Kîlânî, as a thinker and a practitioner of Islamic education, and prompted him to critically reflect how he could contribute and participate in solving crucial problems of Islamic education based on Quranic exegesis. Unfortunately, his critical reflection is still less appreciated by readers of Islamic education because his thoughts have yet to be broadly recognized. In his criticism, al-Kîlânî introduced the “triadic concept”. He had painstakingly carried out an endeavor to link up a spiritual-transcendental vision with an anthropo-cosmological consciousness, which has in most part been dismissed from the viewpoint of modern science.