Child Rights to Education in Islam: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Abstract

Even though there is an immense focus on acquisition of knowledge (ilm) and moral growth in Islam, and the right to education has become an important part of the rights-based approach in the contemporary international law, which is expressed through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), there are still serious gaps in the articulation of the right of the child to education in the rights based approach to Islam. The Research Objectives are: To study the conceptualization of the right to education of children in the sources of Islamic and classical scholarship. In order to examine how educational activities in early Islamic cultures developed in relation to children. The aim of the study is to find out how the application of Islamic principles by contemporary Muslim-majority nations focusing on advancing the educational rights of children occurs. To determine the consistency of the Islamic idea of education and international standards like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This chapter provides an overview of the methodological processes that were involved in studying the right of children to education in the Islamic context both in the historical and modern context. The research design is qualitative, exploratory where the researcher will utilize the Islamic primary sources, classical scholarship, and modern policy documents to analyze the data. The interpretation of meanings that are contained in religious texts and socio-legal structures is appropriate to qualitative design. The theoretical framework incorporates the human rights theory and Islamic educational philosophy. The conceptual framework determines the Islamic primary sources, modern interpretations of Shari'ah, socioeconomic situation and state policies as independent variables that affect the right to education of children. Operationalization is the conversion of abstract ideas, like Islamic educational principles, and educational rights of children, into measurable variables. The qualitative research methodology is used, which focuses on the analysis of documents and content of Quranic verses, the literature of Hadith, classic texts, and modern policy documents. The methods of qualitative research are effective in the consideration of the socio-religious phenomena and normative structures. The data is gathered in a systematic analysis of the religious texts, academic literature, international conventions and national education policies. There are also secondary data sources of global education reports and academic publications. It has been well known that document analysis is a very useful technique of policy and textual research. Having conducted thematic and content analysis, the study has come up with common themes in terms of education, rights, and Islamic principles. The interpretation of meanings of text in primary and secondary sources is done through textual coding. Thematic analysis enables pattern in qualitative data to be identified systematically.