The Ideas of Al-Ghazali, Maimonides, and Calvin on Education

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Two early philosopher who made contributions to the ideas present in education today were Abu Hamind ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali and Moses Maimonides. Some of the issues which they felt most strongly about were their attitudes towards students’ free time, teaching methods, and student-teacher relationships. The two philosophers presented ideas that were similar to one another, and some that differed as well.

Al-Ghazali was one of the most influential thinkers on education in Islamic history. He was known as a student eager to learn, a teacher sharing his knowledge, and a scholar finding even more knowledge in the Islamic world. Al-Ghazali was born in 1058 A.D. to a Persian family. He began his education at age 7, focusing mainly on the principles of religion, then moving onto higher education, in which he attended a madrasa. Since his father had died when Al-Ghazali was young a friend had been instructed to send him and his brother to this boarding school to learn (Al-Ghazali, 2000). Al-Ghazali learned a great deal of knowledge from his masters and took the information with him on his travels to learn even more.

At the young age of twenty-five, Al-Ghazli developed a student-teacher relationship by starting an apprenticeship with Imam al-Juwaini. After 5 years working under Imam al-Juwaini, Al-Ghazli moved into an interest in politics. “Al-Ghazali classified the prevailing doctrines of his day into four main groups: scholastic theology, based on logic and reason; Batinism or esotericism, based on initiation; philosophy, based on logic and proof; and Sufism, based on unveiling and receptiveness thereto” (Al-Ghazali, p. 3, 2000). He favored Sufism based on those around his being fans of the belief. Since it was not something to be ...

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