Islamic Education A Challenge to Conscience

Abstract

Introduction
The aim of this article and its importance is to show how the Islamic
view of education can make a timely contribution to the contemporary
world. This can be demonstrated because Islam is inclusive of the material
and spiritual dimensions of human existence and emphasizes primordial
values for the cultivation of life in this world and for the preparation
of life in the postresurrection. Although Islam acknowledges the
great strides of the human mind in the accumulation and application of
acquired knowledge, and though it recognizes certain virtues in humanism,
it does not make man “the measure of all things.” Islamic education
goes beyond secularism by making God‘s revelation in the Holy
BooWQur’an the absolute measure of all things. This is the norm by
which we must determine our intention in all our actions, as well as our
sense of duty, responsibility, and accountability to God, our fellow
human beings, and nature without compromising fundamental values.
Modem Western civilization has seen the rapid rise of science and
technology and their enormous potentials for production as well as
destruction. Two world wars, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and (in
our present day) the Gulf War have demonstrated without the shadow of
a doubt that whereas science and technology can create and produce,
they can also destroy. However, it does not follow that because we are
advanced in nuclear physics we have wars. The cause-and-effect relationship
between technology and war does not necessarily follow. There
is no such thing as scientific/technological determinism. Technology of
its own accord cannot determine a course of action. Nor is there such a
thing as the conscience of science or technology. It is only the human
being who has a conscience, and it is always the human being in the
background who determines how science and technology should be ...