Evolution and Crisis of the Education System in the Muslim World: From Classical Islamic Thought to Contemporary Pakistan

Evolution and Crisis of the Education System in the Muslim World: From Classical Islamic Thought to Contemporary Pakistan

Abstract

Education has always been the backbone of civilization. In the Islamic worldview, it is not merely a tool for literacy or employability but a sacred process of nurturing intellect and moral character. This paper traces the evolution of the Muslim education system from its early foundations in the Prophetic era to the present day structure in Pakistan. It explores how the classical unity between religious and worldly knowledge gradually fractured through historical transformations, most notably during the colonial period. Central to this evolution is Imam al-Ghazali’s profound classification of knowledge into essential and non-essential categories, which once harmonized intellectual and spiritual pursuits. The study further examines post-independence educational reform efforts in Pakistan, focusing on the 1959 Sharif Commission Report, and introduces a new conceptual direction: that reform must begin with defining the profile of a Pakistani youth, aligning education to produce morally rooted, intellectually competent, and socially responsible citizens. Finally, the paper proposes a framework for integrated educational renewal rooted in Islamic philosophy, moral development, and contemporary relevance.

1. Introduction

Education is the lifeblood of civilization. It determines not only the intellectual character of a people but also the moral and cultural trajectory of nations. The rise and fall of civilizations can often be traced to the ideas they cultivate through their educational institutions. For the Muslim world, education has historically been more than a social necessity, it has been a sacred trust, intimately linked with the Qur’anic command to “read in the name of your Lord who created” (Qur’an 96:1). Knowledge, therefore, was never divorced from faith; it was seen as a means of understanding divine order and human responsibility.

Yet, the Muslim world today stands at a crossroads. While once leading the world in sciences, philosophy, and humanities, it now grapples with educational fragmentation, low literacy, and identity confusion. The decline cannot be attributed merely to political instability or resource deficiency; it is rooted in a philosophical dislocation, a rupture between the spiritual and the rational, between revelation and reason, between faith and functionality.

The present study aims to trace this long intellectual journey, from the early Islamic educational paradigm, through Imam al-Ghazali’s synthesis of knowledge, to the colonial and post-colonial distortions that shaped the modern education system in Pakistan. The purpose is not only to recount historical evolution but also to identify the conceptual errors and institutional weaknesses that have led to the present malaise. Ultimately, this research seeks to offer guiding principles for restoring a holistic and integrated educational vision that aligns with both Islamic worldview and contemporary challenges.

Methodologically, the study employs a historical-analytical approach, examining key phases of educational development within their sociopolitical and intellectual contexts. Sources include classical Islamic texts, modern educational policy documents such as the Sharif Commission Report (1959), and contemporary analyses of Pakistan’s schooling systems.

By understanding how the unity of knowledge was once the hallmark of Islamic civilization, and how its fragmentation has shaped modern educational crises, we may rediscover the conceptual foundations upon which a just and enlightened educational order can once again be built.

2. Background: The Philosophy of Education in Islam

From its inception, Islam placed the acquisition of knowledge at the heart of faith and community life. The Qur’an repeatedly calls for reflection, learning, and understanding as means of approaching divine truth. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) described the scholar as inheritor of the prophets, affirming that “seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim.” This foundational ethos gave birth to a civilization in which education was both an act of worship and a form of social service.

2.1. The Concept of ‘Ilm in the Qur’an and Sunnah

In the Islamic worldview, knowledge (‘ilm) is comprehensive, encompassing spiritual, moral, and material dimensions. The Qur’an uses the term in reference to knowledge of God, of creation, and of human conduct. It does not divide learning into sacred and profane categories but treats all useful knowledge as part of the same divine order. The moral value of knowledge lies not in its content alone but in its purpose and application: whether it leads to justice, harmony, and the recognition of truth.

The early Muslim scholars, therefore, viewed the cultivation of intellect (‘aql) and moral conscience (qalb) as inseparable. Learning was a means of self-purification and a path to social responsibility. Education was seen not as accumulation of information but as tarbiyah, the holistic development of the human being in relation to God, society, and nature.

2.2. The Early Islamic Model of Education

The first institutions of learning in Islam emerged organically within the community. The Prophet’s mosque in Madinah served as the first madrasah, where both men and women learned faith, ethics, governance, and social duties. The Suffah, a shaded platform in the mosque, became an early prototype of residential education, where dedicated companions studied directly under the Prophet’s guidance.

As Islamic civilization expanded, mosques evolved into centers of learning, and kuttāb (elementary schools) were established for children. By the 8th and 9th centuries, formal academies such as Bayt al-Hikmah in Baghdad and Nizamiyyah in Nishapur had become beacons of scholarship. These institutions combined religious sciences with mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and astronomy, reflecting the integrated nature of Islamic epistemology.

The hallmark of this system was the unity of knowledge and morality. A scientist was expected to be as ethically refined as the jurist, and a jurist was expected to possess scientific curiosity. The transmission of knowledge carried a chain of moral authority, the sanad, ensuring that learning was not divorced from character.

3. Classical Development and Imam al-Ghazali’s Framework

3.1. The Golden Age of Islamic Learning

The formative centuries of Islam witnessed the creation of an educational civilization unmatched in intellectual diversity and moral depth. From Baghdad to Córdoba, from Cairo to Samarqand, Muslims established institutions that embodied the unity of revelation and reason. The Bayt al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom) in Baghdad became the nucleus of translation, science, and philosophy, while the Nizamiyyah schools founded by Nizam al-Mulk in the eleventh century offered an organized model of higher education. These institutions taught jurisprudence, theology, logic, medicine, mathematics, and literature side by side, affirming that all branches of knowledge emanated from a single divine source.

The intellectuals of this era, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Al-Kindi, and others, worked under a framework in which faith and intellect were not oppositional but complementary. The Qur’an’s invitation to ponder creation (tadabbur) and seek understanding (tafakkur) inspired a spirit of inquiry that made scientific investigation a form of devotion. The scholars believed that discovering natural laws was part of understanding God’s creative wisdom.

Yet, this integration of sacred and rational knowledge was not unchallenged. By the eleventh century, the proliferation of speculative philosophy and sectarian debates created confusion regarding the rightful scope of human reason in religious matters. It was in this context that Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) emerged as one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Islamic education.

3.2. Imam al-Ghazali’s Classification of Knowledge

Imam al-Ghazali sought to restore equilibrium between reason and revelation. In his seminal works, Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din and al-Munqidh min al-Dalal, he argued that the purpose of education was not intellectual exhibition but the purification of the soul and preparation for eternal life. He introduced a taxonomy of knowledge that distinguished between obligatory individual knowledge (fard ‘ayn) and obligatory collective knowledge (fard kifayah).

According to al-Ghazali, the first category encompassed knowledge essential for personal salvation, the understanding of faith, worship, and moral conduct. The second included all knowledge required for the well-being of society, medicine, mathematics, administration, agriculture, and warfare. In this way, he sacralized both religious and worldly sciences, declaring that every discipline which served humanity was, in essence, a religious duty. “The crafts and professions,” he wrote, “are fard kifayah because society cannot do without them.” ¹

This classification became the philosophical backbone of Islamic education for centuries. It integrated the spiritual and material needs of humanity, affirming that a just civilization required both ethical guidance and practical skill.

However, later generations often misunderstood al-Ghazali’s synthesis. His critique of Greek philosophy was misread as opposition to rational inquiry itself. Over time, this misinterpretation contributed to an educational narrowing, a shift from creative intellectual synthesis to defensive scholasticism. The dynamism that once characterized Islamic learning began to fade, replaced by rote memorization and formalism. The unity of knowledge, once the hallmark of Islamic civilization, began to fracture.

4. Decline and Disruption: The Colonial Encounter

4.1. Causes of Educational Decline in Late Muslim Empires

By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many Muslim societies had entered a phase of intellectual stagnation. While religious institutions continued to produce scholars, they largely confined themselves to jurisprudence, grammar, and theological disputation. The creative sciences that had once propelled civilization, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, and social theory, receded into obscurity.

This decline was not merely the result of external pressures but of internal rigidity. Education lost its transformative spirit and became an instrument of preservation rather than innovation. The formal madrasah curriculum, once dynamic, became ossified under layers of commentary and tradition. The ethical purpose of knowledge, to serve humanity and perfect character, was overshadowed by scholastic pride and sectarian polemics.

The result was a widening gap between knowledge and life, between scholar and society. When the colonial powers advanced upon Muslim lands, they found institutions rich in heritage but weak in adaptability. The intellectual paralysis of the late Muslim empires made them vulnerable not only militarily but also epistemologically.

4.2. Colonial Intervention and the Birth of the Dual System

The nineteenth century brought the most devastating rupture in the history of Muslim education. British colonial rule in India, French domination in North Africa, and other imperial enterprises across the Muslim world sought not only political control but cultural re-engineering. The most striking example of this transformation occurred in British India under Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education (1835).

Macaulay declared that the purpose of colonial education was to create a class of persons “Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” ² His policy effectively replaced the centuries-old Arabic–Persian educational system with English-medium secular schooling, designed to produce clerks and intermediaries loyal to the Empire. The result was the bifurcation of education into two alien systems:

• The madrasa, preserving traditional religious learning but isolated from modern sciences and administration;
• The Anglo-vernacular school, producing a new elite versed in Western thought but detached from their cultural and spiritual roots.

This duality became the defining feature of Muslim education under colonial rule. The moral dimension of knowledge was stripped away, replaced by utilitarian goals of employment and governance. The educated Muslim class found itself torn between two worlds, one that spoke of faith without progress, and another that promised progress without faith.

The psychological consequences were profound. Colonial education subtly reshaped the Muslim worldview, promoting an inferiority complex toward Western civilization and a crisis of confidence in Islamic epistemology. ³ The rupture between sacred and secular knowledge, initiated under imperial policy, has persisted long after the end of formal colonialism.

4.3. The Long-Term Impact on Muslim Identity

The colonial encounter did not merely transform institutions; it altered the Muslim understanding of self. The unity between ‘ilm (knowledge), iman (faith), and ‘amal (action), which once defined Islamic civilization, was fragmented. The new educational elite, trained in European models, often became alienated from their cultural heritage, while traditional scholars remained confined within narrow theological frameworks.

This split created what Malik Bennabi called the “colonizability of the Muslim mind”, a condition in which intellectual subservience replaced creativity. ⁴ Education ceased to be an instrument of liberation and became a means of imitation.

By the time independence movements began in the twentieth century, most Muslim societies inherited educational systems deeply shaped by colonial dualism. Pakistan, created in 1947 as a state with an explicitly Islamic identity, thus faced a monumental challenge: how to reconstruct an education system capable of reconciling faith, modernity, and nationhood.

5. Educational Reorientation in Post-Colonial Pakistan

When Pakistan emerged in 1947, its founders viewed education as central to national reconstruction. The goal was not merely literacy but the creation of a moral and intellectual order reflective of Islamic civilization. Early debates centered on whether education should adopt Western secular models or draw from the integrated heritage of Muslim learning.

5.1 The 1959 Sharif Commission Report

The 1959 Sharif Commission Report recognized this dilemma and attempted to chart a middle path. It emphasized moral education, scientific advancement, and national integration. Yet, implementation faltered, and education remained a patchwork of colonial legacies and ideological aspirations.

5.2. The policy Shifts

The decades that followed saw repeated policy shifts,1972, 1979, 1998, 2009, each reiterating noble objectives but failing to address the deeper philosophical disconnection between faith, identity, and knowledge. Bureaucratic reforms replaced moral purpose with procedural adjustments, leaving Pakistan’s youth uncertain of what their education was meant to achieve.

5.3 Defining the Pakistani Youth Profile: A Basis for Education Reform

A nation’s education system must be designed upon a clear vision of the kind of human being it seeks to nurture. In other words, education must evolve from a profile of the ideal citizen. Pakistan has never formally articulated such a profile; consequently, its policies oscillate between borrowed paradigms and fragmented objectives.

Defining the Profile of a Pakistani Youth should therefore be the first and most critical step in reform. Drawing from the Islamic concept of insān kāmil (the complete human) and contemporary human-capital philosophy, the profile should reflect the total development of the person     spiritual, moral, intellectual, and physical.

According to this proposed framework, a Pakistani youth should be:

• Spiritually aware and morally grounded, conscious of divine accountability, guided by integrity and compassion.
• Intellectually curious and creative, capable of critical reasoning, scientific inquiry, and innovation rooted in ethical values.
• Civically responsible and socially engaged, aware of duties toward community, state, and humanity, embodying justice and cooperation.
• Professionally competent and economically productive, equipped with modern knowledge and skills to contribute to national prosperity.
• Culturally rooted and globally literate, confident in Pakistani and Islamic heritage while engaging constructively with global civilization.
• Physically and psychologically balanced, embodying discipline, resilience, and service ethos.

This conception aligns directly with the author’s complementary study, “Redefining Human Resource Development for Pakistan” (MRPO, 2024), which argues that true national development must begin with cultivating morally and intellectually complete individuals. Education, therefore, is not merely an economic instrument but a human-building enterprise, the first stage of Human Capital formation.

Once this youth profile is defined, curriculum, pedagogy, and institutional structures can be redesigned to nurture these attributes systematically. Such clarity of purpose would transform education from a reactive process into a nation-building mission.

6. The Contemporary Education System in Pakistan

6.1 Structure and Fragmentation

The current education system of Pakistan stands at a crossroads, torn between inherited colonial legacies, post-independence aspirations, and the competing demands of globalization and technological advancement. Despite successive reforms and policy initiatives, the system continues to exhibit fragmentation, inequality, and a lack of coherent philosophical direction. ⁵

Pakistan’s education structure is officially divided into five tiers: pre-primary, primary, secondary, tertiary, and higher education. Yet the divisions between public and private, urban and rural, and religious and secular institutions are more defining than these formal stages.⁶ This dualism has perpetuated an educational apartheid, producing multiple social classes rather than a unified national character.

6.2 Public, Private, and Madrasa Streams

The public system, serving the majority, suffers from chronic underfunding, teacher absenteeism, outdated curricula, and weak administrative accountability. In contrast, the private sector, though expanding rapidly, has largely commercialized education and contributed to widening socioeconomic gaps.⁷ The madrasa sector, historically a source of moral and intellectual formation, remains disconnected from mainstream education policy, creating further polarization.⁸

6.3 Policy Discontinuity and Ideological Ambiguity

While successive National Education Policies have sought to address these divides, most reforms have been reactive rather than visionary. The Sharif Commission (1959) first recognized the need for value-based education grounded in Islamic principles and national identity, a vision reiterated in the Education Policy of 1972 and later in the National Education Policy 2009. However, the absence of sustained implementation and ideological clarity has prevented these policies from realizing their objectives.⁹

6.4 The Missing Profile of the Pakistani Citizen

A crucial gap lies in the failure to articulate a profile of the Pakistani citizen that education should aim to cultivate. Without defining what constitutes the intellectual, moral, civic, and professional identity of a Pakistani youth, policies remain abstract and fragmented. As the author has argued elsewhere, particularly in the framework of Human Resource Development (HRD), national education must begin with a comprehensive youth profile, one that integrates moral-spiritual formation, intellectual rigor, social responsibility, and global competence.¹⁰

Once such a profile is established, curricular design, teacher training, and institutional organization can be systematically aligned to produce the envisioned citizen. This approach ensures that Pakistan’s education system moves beyond piecemeal reform and becomes a deliberate instrument of nation-building and human transformation.

 

7. Analysis: Root Causes of Educational Crisis

The crisis of education in Pakistan, and more broadly in the Muslim world, is not a mere administrative or technical failure; it is fundamentally philosophical and ideological. The fragmentation of the educational vision has produced generations uncertain about their identity, disconnected from their intellectual heritage, and poorly equipped for the moral and material challenges of the modern world.

7.1. Dualism and the Loss of Epistemic Unity

The most enduring legacy of colonialism has been the dualistic structure of education. The system that emerged juxtaposes religious learning and modern education as two parallel but disconnected streams. This dichotomy, rooted in colonial policy, continues to define Pakistani schooling today.

The religious schools (madāris) preserve traditional Islamic sciences but remain largely insulated from modern disciplines, while public and private institutions promote a secular curriculum detached from spiritual and ethical orientation. The result is an epistemic split between faith and reason, producing citizens who are either pious but economically disempowered, or professionally successful yet ethically disoriented.

The Qur’an, however, envisions a unified order of knowledge where faith serves as the foundation of understanding, and reason acts as its instrument. The failure to restore this unity lies at the heart of Pakistan’s intellectual paralysis.

7.2. Policy Discontinuity and Weak Implementation

Since independence, Pakistan has produced numerous education policies,1959, 1972, 1979, 1998, 2009, 2017, each promising reform but seldom achieving structural transformation. Every new policy tends to reinvent objectives without resolving foundational contradictions. The absence of continuity, political interference, and lack of institutional accountability have turned education planning into a cycle of rhetoric and regression. The absence of a clearly defined ideal of citizenship, the ‘profile of a Pakistani youth’, has left education without moral direction or developmental focus.

The Sharif Commission (1959) had rightly identified the need for moral education and national integration, but subsequent decades witnessed erosion of both. The bureaucratic approach replaced the moral and philosophical foundation of education with a technocratic one, reducing education to mere credentialism rather than character formation.

7.3. Inequality and Marketization

The privatization of education in Pakistan has created a hierarchical learning economy. A small elite has access to world-class schooling, while the majority are left with underfunded public schools or madrasa networks. The commercialization of education treats learning as a commodity, producing alienation instead of enlightenment.

This has deepened class divisions and undermined the notion of education as a public good. The moral ideal of equal opportunity, central to the Islamic concept of justice (‘adl), has been replaced by market-driven exclusivity. In such an environment, knowledge loses its ethical and societal purpose.

7.4. Moral and Cultural Dislocation

At its core, the crisis is also moral. When education ceases to cultivate ethical consciousness and civic responsibility, it becomes a machinery for material advancement devoid of soul. Contemporary curricula emphasize employability over wisdom, competition over cooperation, and individual gain over collective welfare.

The dislocation from moral and cultural roots has produced a youth identity crisis absence of a youth profile represents a key missing conceptual foundation. Many students find themselves intellectually colonized, alien to both their faith and history. Without a moral compass, knowledge becomes power without responsibility, a phenomenon Imam al-Ghazali warned against centuries ago.

8. Recommendations: Toward an Integrated Educational Vision

Reform must begin not with syllabi or institutions but with the redefinition of purpose. Pakistan must first establish a national youth profile, as discussed in Section 5.3, and align the education system to cultivate those characteristics.

8.1 Philosophical Reorientation

Reclaiming the Islamic philosophy of knowledge as the basis of learning will restore the unity of faith and reason. Every discipline should consciously contribute to moral and civic development. A National Council on Educational Philosophy could guide this reorientation, integrating Islamic epistemology with global academic excellence.

8.2 Curriculum Integration

Education must bridge the artificial divide between religious and worldly sciences. Integration should ensure that a student’s intellectual growth complements his or her moral and civic formation, defined in terms of the national youth profile. Madrasas and mainstream institutions should share a unified vision of human development.

8.3 Teacher Development and Intellectual Renewal

Teachers should be prepared as moral mentors and intellectual guides, not merely instructors. Training programs must include philosophical and ethical orientation consistent with the defined youth profile, ensuring teachers model the values they teach.

8.4 Equitable Access and Educational Justice

Educational justice is essential for building the inclusive citizenry envisioned in the youth profile. Public education must be revitalized and funded to ensure equal opportunity, treating education as a collective right and duty.

8.5 Moral and Civic Education

Revive moral education as the centerpiece of curricula, nurturing empathy, honesty, and service. This will produce the type of citizen envisioned in the Profile of a Pakistani Youth, ethical, confident, and competent.

9. Conclusion

The story of Muslim education, from the Prophet’s mosque to Pakistan’s universities, is one of unity lost and rediscovery awaited. The modern crisis stems not only from policy failure but from the absence of a clearly defined ideal of the educated person. The proposal to fix a Profile of the Pakistani Youth provides a long-missing compass.

If Pakistan reforms its education system around that profile, drawing inspiration from al-Ghazali’s unity of knowledge and modern principles of human-capital development, it can transform its youth into builders of a balanced, just, and confident civilization. Education must again become what it once was in the Islamic tradition: the art of forming complete human beings.

Notes

1. Al-Ghazali, Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din, Book 1, “Kitab al-‘Ilm.”
2. T. B. Macaulay, “Minute on Indian Education,” 2 February 1835, British Parliamentary Papers.
3. Syed Hussein Alatas, The Myth of the Lazy Native (London: Frank Cass, 1977).
4. Malik Bennabi, The Question of Ideas in the Muslim World (Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, 1989).

 

5. Ali, Syed Asad. 2012. “Private Schooling and Inequality in Pakistan.” Journal of Education and Development 6 (1): 101–120.
6. Government of Pakistan. 2009. National Education Policy 2009. Islamabad: Ministry of Education.
7. Hoodbhoy, Pervez. 2009. Education and the State: Fifty Years of Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
8. International Crisis Group (ICG). 2014. Education Reform in Pakistan: Breaking the Status Quo. Asia Report No. 257. Islamabad: ICG.
9. Mughees, Ehsan. 2024. “Redefining Human Resource Development for Pakistan.” Modern Revival and Policy Observatory (MRPO). https://mrpo.pk/redefining-hrd-for-pakistan/.
10. Rahman, Tariq. 2004. Language, Ideology and Power: Language-Learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India. Karachi: Oxford University Press.

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