Authority, autonomy and selfhood in Islamic education – Theorising Shakhsiyah Islamiyah as a dialogical Muslim-self

Abstract

This paper investigates the philosophical tensions between secular-liberalism and Islam, and reviews Islamic conceptualisations of knowledge, personhood and education, in order to conceptualise shakhsiyah Islamiyah as an authentic and credible form of personal agency within an Islamic worldview. It begins by examining the liberal critique of Islamic education and explores notions of authority and autonomy in Islamic educational theory. It proposes that these tensions exist to varying degrees in all educational practice. Some theoretical work to develop an Islamic understanding of personal autonomy as selfhood is presented and translated into a concept of shakhsiyah Islamiyah. Finally, the possibility of understanding shakhsiyah Islamiyah as a dialogical Muslim-self is explored.

Keywords:

• Autonomy
• self
• dialogic
• personhood
• Islam
• liberalism
• religion
• secularism

Acknowledgements

This article in earlier form was presented as a Cambridge Branch Seminar

https://www.philosophy-of-education.org/events/cambridge-branch-seminar-1 and as a AERA conference presentation https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/aera/aera20/index.php?cmd=online_program_direct_link&program_focus=view_paper&selected_paper_id=1587500&sub_action=online_program

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This is a compound term and there is no short definition. Details of how the term has been put together, it’s history and purposes are found in the section below called Shakhsiyah Islamiyah as Muslim Selfhood

2 This quotation is from the back cover of the book.

3 Gender is not a characteristic of Allah, Who ‘nothing is comparable to’. (Quran 114:4). However, Arabic is a gendered language and accepted practice is to use the male pronoun.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Farah Ahmed

Farah Ahmed is Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She co-convenes the ‘Cultural, religious and philosophical traditions in educational dialogue’ strand of the Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research group. Her current project is: Rethinking Islamic education for British Muslim children: a philosophical investigation of dialogue in Islamic educational theory and an empirical study trialling dialogic pedagogy in UK Islamic supplementary schools. Farah has published widely on holistic Islamic educational approaches and is founder and Director of Education at Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation; where she works on developing research informed curricular resources and teacher professional development. She is also Founding Fellow and Council Member of the Chartered College of Teaching.