Sociological Analysis of the Concept of Child and Childhood in the Thought of Imam Mohammad Ghazali

Attention to child and childhood has existed throughout history as pre-sociological paradigms. The present study tries to retrospectively examine Ghazali’s views on child and childhood, and measure the importance he gave to this issue. Al-Ghazali is one of the well-known thinkers of the fifth century AH, whose views on education and divine-human thought have greatly influenced the future. This study is conducted using the documentary method. The studied documents included primary and secondary sources. The results show that Ghazali, while paying attention to child and childhood, considers the nature of children to be pure and innocent. These children are understood under the banner of two institutions of family and "high school" (school), both of which are responsible for raising and educating children. The child has characteristics such as weakness of intellect, imitation and imperfection, which are placed in the process of socialization on the one hand by adults with the power of education and discipline. Al-Ghazali considers the beginning of childhood from the time of sperm formation to the end of puberty for girls and the age of sixteen for boys, from which they can enter into married life, in other words, the world of adulthood. The findings led the researcher to conclude that al-Ghazali, despite his use of the concept of "child," focused on children-boys rather than children-girls.