Journal of Islamic Studies and Education

Indigenous Pedagogy and Cultural Continuity

Hassan Shareef — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study primarily aims to investigate Pallidars, the traditional Islamic higher education system of Malabar, India, focusing on its role in preserving Islamic heritage and shaping regional Muslim identity. The research framework is based on an indigenous theoretical perspective followed by a qualitative research design. The methods of data collection included the participant observation of Pallidars education practices, textual analysis of Arabic and Arabi-Malayalam manuscripts and interviews with stakeholders. The results reveal that the system effectively preserved and transmitted essential Islamic knowledge in the region, creating a unique regional Islamic culture connected to the wider Muslim world and the system provided accessible and affordable education to all sections of society. These findings demonstrate the Pallidars system’s adaptability and enduring influence in preserving Islamic heritage and shaping Malabari Muslim identity.

From Normative Objectives to Moral Agency

Engkos Kosasih — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Although maqasid al-Shariah scholarship has increasingly addressed human welfare and institutional performance, the behavioral mechanisms through which normative objectives are translated into sustained individual and institutional practices remain under-theorized. This study conceptualizes moral values as behavioral mediators between maqasid objectives and preservation outcomes. Using qualitative normative-conceptual research, it integrates Qur’anic and Prophetic ethical foundations, classical maqasid scholarship, and contemporary studies of Islamic ethics, maslahah, institutional performance, and education through a hybrid deductive–inductive analysis. The findings show that moral values operate through two complementary pathways: constructive cultivation of protected goods and preventive restraint of harmful practices. Justice, honesty, mercy, wisdom, and self-restraint emerge as cross-cutting virtues operating across intrapersonal, interpersonal/institutional, and maqasid-preservation levels. The study proposes a behavioral-mediation framework in which maqasid objectives shape moral dispositions, which guide individual and institutional practices and ultimately contribute to multidimensional preservation outcomes. The framework extends classical and systems-oriented maqasid theory by explaining the behavioral link between normative purposes and lived practice and provides a conceptual basis for moral formation and subsequent empirical research.

Ecofeminist Qur’anic Hermeneutics

Muhammad Imala Bima Chairussagha — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The escalating global ecological crisis is deeply rooted in anthropocentric paradigms and exploitative patriarchal hierarchies, in which domination over nature often intersects with the marginalization of vulnerable groups, particularly women. Yet contemporary Qur’anic interpretation frequently addresses gender injustice and environmental degradation as separate concerns, limiting its capacity to confront their shared structural foundations. This article develops an ecofeminist Qur’anic hermeneutical framework as an alternative theological response to anthropocentric crisis in Asian Muslim societies, focusing on the Qur’anic concepts of khalīfah, amānah, and mīzān. Employing a qualitative library-based study and a hermeneutic-synthetic approach, the article integrates Amina Wadud’s feminist hermeneutics with Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s spiritual ecotheology. The methodological tension between Wadud’s emancipatory critique of patriarchal interpretation and Nasr’s perennialist cosmology is mediated through an adapted Ricoeurian dialectic, combining egalitarian critique with a de-anthropocentrized understanding of cosmic sacredness. The analysis demonstrates that this synthesis produces an “egalitarian-theocentric” paradigm of Qur’anic interpretation. Wadud’s tawhidic hermeneutics destabilizes hierarchical relations among human beings, while Nasr’s conception of nature as a manifestation of divine signs challenges assumptions of human supremacy over the non-human world. Their integration reconstructs khalīfah not as a mandate of domination, but as a form of entrusted responsibility grounded in care, restraint, and accountability toward both human and ecological communities. The article argues that women’s liberation and ecological preservation should be understood as interconnected expressions of tawḥīd. It contributes to contemporary Qur’anic studies by proposing a holistic interpretive framework in which gender justice and ecological justice constitute mutually reinforcing dimensions of ethical and social transformation.