The Necessity of Explaining Islamic Education

The arrival in Iran of the modern education and the emergence of social and economical contexts appropriate for modern education to offer criticisms of traditional education, especially that of Islamic education, raised some doubts about the necessity, possibility and efficiency of Islamic education, which in turn motivated some debates on Islamic education as an independent cultural-political issue in religious circles. With the victorious Islamic Revolution in Iran, scientific circles paid close attention to the issue in question out of which challenges and doubts raised as to the efficiency of Islamic education. These are deeply rooted in the fact that they ignored the conflict between the foundations (principles) of Islamic education and technological education, fundamental poverty in theorizing on Islamic education, inadequate attention to the theoretical - philosophical investigations as well as the groundless steps taken in this regard. Nevertheless, it can be claimed that the most significant issue, which underlies other issues, is the ûconceptual explanation of Islamic education‎ which has been ignored so far. The necessity of setting forth this issue becomes more evident only when we know that education is of normative nature and is open to various interpretations or readings so long as it is characterized by the attribute ûIslamic‎ which is of various senses (connotations); Muslim thinker's approaches and inscriptions regarding other realms of human life would be open to various challenges, too.