The Thought of Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas on Ta’dib and Ta’lim in Contemporary Islamic Education

Abstract

This study is motivated by an epistemological crisis in modern Islamic education, characterized by the dominance of secular paradigms and the emergence of a dichotomy between religious and general sciences. This condition calls for a reconstruction of educational concepts rooted in the Islamic intellectual tradition. This research aims to analyze the concept of ta’dib in the thought of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas and its implications for contemporary Islamic education systems. The method employed is qualitative research based on library research, using a content analysis approach on Al-Attas’ major works. The findings indicate that the concept of ta’dib is the most comprehensive educational framework, as it integrates the dimensions of knowledge, faith, and adab into a unified whole. In contrast to ta’lim and tarbiyah, which tend to be partial, ta’dib emphasizes the formation of a civilized human being (insan adabi) as the primary goal of education. Furthermore, Al-Attas criticizes secularism as the main cause of the educational crisis and proposes the Islamization of knowledge as a solution. The implications of this study suggest that the Islamic education system needs to be reconstructed by positioning adab as the fundamental foundation in both curriculum design and the learning process.