Transforming Education: Shaping Hearts and Minds Through Revelation
This course is grounded in the centrality of Revelation in shaping the philosophy of education. It revisits the foundational questions of learning: Why do we learn? What do we learn? How do we learn? For whom do we learn? Integrating Qur’anic principles with contemporary educational theories, the course presents learning as a spiritual, intellectual, and behavioral practice that leads to tazkiyah (self-purification), understanding, and sound judgment (rushd).
Transforming Education: Shaping Hearts and Minds Through Revelation
Guiding Question
“How does Revelation redefine the aims and practices of education to make it truly beneficial for individuals and communities?”
Instructor
Dina El Odessy
Dr. Dina El Odessy holds a doctorate in education from the University of Oxford and is the Board Chair of a group of private schools in Egypt. Her PhD research focused on the relationship between pedagogic practices, cultural values and educational principles espoused and enacted in community schools in Egypt. It explored the potential of critical pedagogy in empowering school stakeholders by attempting to discover their potential to become sites of praxis.
Dina holds an MA in Education from University College London (UCL) and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Alexandria University. She believes in the interconnected and multi-disciplinary nature of knowledge, and her research interests center around: empowerment, Islamic education, alternative education, decolonizing pedagogy, social and emotional learning, community schools, critical pedagogy, and holistic education.
Course Description
This course is grounded in the centrality of Revelation in shaping the philosophy of education. It revisits the foundational questions of learning: Why do we learn? What do we learn? How do we learn? For whom do we learn? Integrating Qur’anic principles with contemporary educational theories, the course presents learning as a spiritual, intellectual, and behavioral practice that leads to tazkiyah (self-purification), understanding, and sound judgment (rushd).
The course invites learners to move beyond superficial learning toward meaningful transformation, guided by the Qur’anic logic of purposeful, holistic, and communicative learning. It explores how education can become a tool for iʿmār al-arḍ (earth cultivation) when aligned with the purposes of creation. It also critiques the disconnect between knowledge and ethical goals in modern systems, proposing educational practices that enable transformative understanding and behavior.
Course Topics
- Reconstruct a Qur’an-inspired philosophy of education rooted in purpose, transformation, and ethical cultivation.
- Analyze the alignment between Qur’anic educational principles and selected transformative learning theories.
- Develop the ability to evaluate curricula and learning environments based on the integration of values and purpose.
- Equip learners with practical strategies to implement maqāṣid-based learning in classrooms and communities.
- Support learners in reimagining their educational roles as agents of conceptual reform and societal betterment.
- Explain how Revelation presents a holistic understanding of learning and its ultimate aims.
- Analyze current educational practices in contrast to Revelation-based transformative learning models.
- Distinguish between beneficial and non-beneficial knowledge using Qur’anic standards.
- Design a learning unit or educational activity that integrates values of tazkiyah, rushd, and purposeful thinking.
- Reframe their professional educational identity as a process of spiritual and conceptual formation.
- Apply Qur’anic learning tools (questioning, stories, reflection) to enhance comprehension and insight.
- Propose an educational situation where knowledge leads to behavior and social transformation.
- Produce a reflective critique showing how the course impacted their personal and professional learning journey.