The Centrality of Spiritual Education in Islamic Reformist Thought: A Study of Abu al-Hasan al-Nadwi’s Project

Abstract

Observing the condition of humanity today clearly reveals the collapse affecting the system of educational and spiritual values. This is reflected in the dominance of the material dimension over the innate spiritual tendency, producing unprecedented moral and social deterioration. Modern humanity has moved away from the expected path of spiritual elevation, and this educational decline has also extended to how religion and its spiritual foundations are viewed, often being treated as obstacles to participation in modern knowledge-based society.
Therefore, clarifying the foundations of spiritual education should not be considered a secondary concern. Rather, it is a necessary and urgent demand. The spiritual distress, educational disorder, and intellectual and moral imbalance affecting modern human beings are the result of turning away from its requirements. The Qur’anic discourse does not present spiritual education as an isolated mystical experience, but as an integrated human system that combines the innate element shared by all people with the acquired element through which a person rises according to their response to God’s command and fulfillment of servitude.
Islamic reformist thought is one of the methodological contributions that sought to address this problem in its various dimensions. Although its educational paths differ according to its epistemic approaches, it gave spiritual education a central and active role because it is rooted in the foundational sources of Islamic sciences, foremost among them the Qur’an and the Prophetic Sunnah.