The Prevalent Approaches to Cherishing Religious Values Compared with the Islamic Approach

Using a descriptive-analytical method, the present paper tries to make a critical study of the approaches to cherishing values prevailing in the world and compare them with the principles of Islamic education to develop a comprehensive approach to establish "an Islamic model to cherish religious values". The prevalent virtue-based religious and philosophical approaches are based on meritorious life style and making up ideal character, but prevalent non-religion approaches insist on self-realization and self-explanation of values.The key difference between the Islamic approach to cherishing values and the prevalent religious approaches is represented in the integrative approach to simultaneous cherishing of rational and religious values adopted by Islam and the possibility and achievement of harmony between religious education and rational education, which originates from the complete interaction between intellect and religion in cognitive geometry of Islam. According to Islamic approach, religious values include all human values, whether personal or social, while the main concern of prevalent religious and virtue-based models is cherishing moral values and promoting good character, and their domain of cherishing values is limited to personal and individual aspects.