An Islamic Theory of Learning (Summary)

While studying education at university, we were loaded up with plenty of seemingly useless theories of learning such as constructivism, rationalism, associationism and behaviourism, just to name a few.

All this junk floating around in my head surprisingly lead me to do some thinking about what I, as a Muslim, believe in regards to how we learn. I started thinking about theories of learning from an Islamic perspective because for me, that is what really matters, so I met up with some learned members of my community with a wealth of Islamic knowledge to find out what Islam says about how we learn and gain knowledge.

Here is a summary of what was discussed.

There are some similarities between Islamic theories and secular theories, however there is one very important difference in that the non-Islamic theories do not consider aspects pertaining to the soul, which in the Islamic theory is the main building block.

According to Islam, every human being is born with fitrah which could be described as the blueprint or the instinctive natural impulses (Natural impulses that are particular to humans, rather than all animals). Every human is also born with nafs which would best be translated as desires or inclinations which are generally self fulfilling, evil or misguided. There are three elements to one’s nafs.

The first is the nafsu amara which proclaims all people have a natural inclination to do wrong until the gaining of knowledge or a code of ethics gives them direction and a conscience. This direction giving knowledge does not have to be Islamic, it could be any ideology which gives clear direction and way of living. This knowledge leads to the second type of nafs - nafsu lawama.

This is the realisation that we have evil or misguided inclinations and we develop a conscience concerning our shortcomings. This realisation could be likened to the rationalist view that we are born with instincts and knowledge is realised, however this particular knowledge of nafs is particular to desires of which the natural reaction is to hide it from others. Most people only get as far as this in the development of their self.

The third type of nafs – nafsu mutmaina is when someone’s knowledge corresponds with their heart and they are tranquil. In reality, very few people reach this level. The following verse of Qur’an speaks specifically of the people who have developed nafsu mutmaina.

“Their reward with their Lord is paradise underneath which rivers flow. They will abide therein forever, Allah will be pleased with them, and they with Him, that is for him who fears his Lord.”
Surah al-Bayyinah 98:8

Being born with fitrah and nafs suggests that we are not born with nothing thus supporting the rationalist theory over associationism. However, although we are born with all three elements of nafs, the further development of nafsu amara into nafsu lawama as a result of one’s environment could be seen to support the constructivist view that learning comes through interaction in the world and the mental ability to construct knowledge from interactions.

The following hadith from the Sunnah is used as evidence that a person learns from their environment. Narrated Abu Hurairah (raa), the Prophet (sas) said,

“Every child is born on Al-Fitrah, but his parents convert him...” Another hadith indicating the effect of a person’s environment upon them has been reported that the Prophet (sas) said that “man is upon the religion of his friend. Therefore all of you be careful with whom you keep company.” (Sahih al-Bukhari).

Delving into the topic of nafs further than what has been revealed about it in the scriptures is not recommended. Basically, anything that has not been revealed to us by Allah swt on this issue does not really need to be known, as expressed in the following verse of Qur’an;

“And they ask you (Muhammad) concerning the spirit, say, ‘the ruh’ is one of the things the knowledge of which is only with my Lord.’ And of knowledge, you (mankind) have been given little. (17:85)

It is interesting to learn about the philosophy of learning, and the basic concepts of these three theories have some similarities with the Islamic philosophy, which suggests to me that there are some truths in those philosophies, but for me, in the end the Qur’an and Sunnah are the ultimate truth and in my mind no man-made theory will ever override an Islamic theory.

Moving on now to the teaching of knowledge and higher level thinking skills, Islam states that Allah (swt) chooses when to bestow knowledge and wisdom upon someone.

Narrated Mu’awiya (raa): I heard the Prophet (sas) saying, “If Allah wants to do good to a person, he gives him understanding of the religion. I am just a distributor, but the grant is from Allah (swt). Sahih
al-Bukhari.

I want to be clear that in Islam, knowledge alone is not enough, knowledge must be applied in one’s life in conjunction with hikmah (wisdom). For the purpose of this paper we could compare hikmah to higher level thinking skills, however, it is also dependant to some extent on life experiences.

Teachers these days are under pressure to design their teaching in order to develop a student’s cognitive skills to higher levels to prepare them for the knowledge society (Hargreaves, 2003). This is a positive step to promote a population with knowledge that can be applied in life – to be prepared for the knowledge society.

Islamically, this idea is sound, however, a student’s ability to understand is controlled by the mind and intelligence bestowed upon an individual by God. We cannot make people understand knowledge, but we can only design learning in a way so not to waste the abilities of the students who have been given intellectual ability, to engage those students in their learning, making learning fun and interesting so to encourage and motivate them to go further. I believe that as a teacher, that is all we can really do, the rest is up to Allah.