Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

and practices within Islamic education. The Aims and Methods of Education The purpose of education, according to al-Ghazali, is to instill good morals, which have the potential outcome of salvation and happiness in the life to come. 59 The notion of a divide between secular and religious education would be unthinkable to al-Ghazali. Education is intrinsically moral. In accordance with this purpose, al-Ghazali routinely calls for protecting young children from immoral influences. 60 Any educational endeavour that did not contribute to morality and salvation would fail the criterion of being beneficial knowledge. Education ought to lead to cognition of God and choosing to act in specific ways that please Him. 61 Both in the transmission and acquisition of knowledge, education is understood as an act of worship. In this way, the aims of education, according to al-Ghazali, are thoroughly salvific and eschatological. In Nakosteen's seminal work on the Islamic contributions to western education, he offers an extended quotation from al-Ghazali that demonstrates the salvific value of education. In this passage, al-Ghazali supports his exhortation to learn by pointing to learning’s eschatological significance: My child, knowledge without action is insanity, but action without knowledge is not action. Know that all knowledge cannot save you from sin and will not make you obedient, and will not free you from the fire of hell, unless you really act according to your knowledge.. , 62 The acquisition of knowledge is needed for salvation, with the caveat that it must be knowledge put into action. The practical nature of knowledge underpins al-Ghazali's assertion that right practice ought to be the primary 58 Alavi, ‘Al-Ghazali on Moral Education’, p. 309. 59 Nofal, p. 524. 60 J. Mark Halstead, ‘Islamic Values: A Distinctive Framework for Moral Education?’, Journal of Moral Education, 36.3 (2007), 283-96 (p. 291); Mehdi Nakosteen, History of Islamic Origins of Western Education A.D. 800-1350, with an Introduction to Medieval Muslim Education (Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1964), p. 90. 61 Hamid Reza Alavi, ‘Nearness to God: A Perspective on Islamic Education’, Religious Education, 103 (2008), 5-21 (p. 7). 62 Nakosteen, pp. 91-92; quoting from al-Ghazali, Ayyuha al-Walad [Letter to a Disciple ], trans. by G. H. Scherer (Beirut: Catholic Press, 1951). Hutcherson, The Relationship between Faith and Reason 67 focus of the elementary stages of education. 63 If discipline in right habits of action and thought according to taqlid (tradition) were the emphasis in early stages, the result in later stages would be the ability to understand and reason. 64 Thus, the early stages of education required tools like memorisation and habituation, whereas reflective inquiry belonged to more mature stages of learning past the age of 40. 65 The underlying idea is that right practice would lead to right under