The Thematic Analysis of Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm al-Dīn and Developing and Investigating the Validity and Reliability of the Islamic-Iranian Moral Intelligence Scale from the Viewpoint of Imam Mohammed al-Ghazali

Moral intelligence is one of the concepts which are considered in the field of psychology, education, and philosophy nowadays. The present study seeks to develop a valid questionnaire according to Imam Ghazali’s Islamic-Iranian viewpoint. In order to do so, the method of the thematic analysis of Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm al-Dīn by Imam Ghazali was utilized and the components of moral intelligence were adapted according to the different definitions and theories based on an Islamic-Iranian view. Then, on the basis of these components, the items related to this questionnaire were developed. In order to evaluate the psychometric properties of this questionnaire, all students of Kerman universities consisted of the statistical population, 380 people were selected according to Morgan’s table through quota sampling method, and they filled in the questionnaire. The parameters such as content validity, construct validity, and reliability were evaluated by different methods. The content validity and convergent construct validity, and reliability through Cronbach’s alpha indicated the validity of this questionnaire. Furthermore, the findings of exploratory factor analysis showed that 7 factors had been obtained through the items analysis, which are trust, patience and anger control, altruism, sincerity and liberation, generosity, foresight, and humility so that the eigenvalue of these 7 factors is higher than 1 and, in total, explains 56.77 of the variance of the items. Since the developed scale is of the validity and reliability, it can be used to measure the moral intelligence in studies as well as in the education system.