ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the aim of education within the Islamic worldview, rooted in tawhid, in the affirmation of God's Oneness which facilitates the process of reaching for God's attributes and striving for perfection. Islamic conceptualizations of education cannot be understood in isolation from the wider religious ideology. Realization of the self is striven for through a learning process where ilm and amal act together through extremely rigorous discipline, which is also referred to as tazkia or tazkiyah. The importance of learning has been emphasized repeatedly in the Quran, but it has been left open to determine the content and acts of learning and the manner or processes of education, which has resulted in a range of interpretations. The chapter also explains three terms, tarbiyah, talim and tadib, which have been most commonly used to define education in Islamic thought, and convey the meaning and scope of education in Islam, both formal and non-formal.
