Early Childhood Education and Islam

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in professional preschool education in Muslim countries. This creates a previously unknown challenge for Muslims: how can they establish the education of their children with modern pedagogical insights on one hand and Quranic-Prophetic interpretations of education on the other. Islamic preschool establishments tend to make a special effort in maintaining the traditional religious upbringing, but also, from the outset, try to appear to be no different from other mainstream preschool establishments. There seems to be an increasing paradoxical phenomenon in Islamic preschools as attempts are made to achieve the Islamic concepts of education within the framework of Western pedagogy. This creates unexpected theological issues, which Muslims are unfamiliar with their own history of educating children. The theology of early childhood education is pushed into a corner by modern pedagogy, which increasingly limits the playing field of Islamic traditions. This then leads to the creation of establishments that try to either protect and defend the traditions with radical ideas, or establishments that are open to new insights and also critically question their own traditions. In an attempt to illustrate the current debate in early childhood education, this contribution presents examples from Turkey, Palestine and Austria to give an insight into educational concepts and theological positions.