Order Description
” A vision for Gifted education in Saudi Arabia from different angle”
I want to publish this paper in an educational journal,
needs update and rewrite to be:
1. 6050 words.
2. new reference 2014- 2015.
3. any additional things it is need to be accepted for publishing in a good educational journal, even changing the title of the paper.

follow the instruction attached

A vision for gifted education in Saudi Arabia from different angle
By Name

Institution of Affiliation
Abstract
This study is aimed at evaluating the gifted education programs within Australia with a focus on the suitability of using the Western definitions of knowledge as a basis for the design of the curricula to be implemented for the gifted students in Saudi Arabia. Data is collected by analyzing the definitions of knowledge by both Western and Muslim scholars. The paper then uses hermeneutical techniques to interpret texts. The key findings reveal that despite a number of scholars using the Western definition of knowledge as a basis for their conceptualization of knowledge, their ultimate definitions seem to be in great harmony with the Islamic culture. Nonetheless, the western perception of education is slowly finding roots in the Islamic culture and is feared to slowly cause moral decay among gifted students. The discussions reveal that the variation in the conceptualization of knowledge in the two cultural contexts boils down to the cultural practices of the two contexts. The study concludes by highlighting that Saudi Arabia still needs research adventures focused on evaluating the gifted education programs implemented by the Ministry of Education. It is hoped that this paper will determine the appropriate position of Islamic education as a foundation for building a bridge between the Saudi Culture and the West from the perspective of Muslim scholars who wrote on the education of gifted children. If not, it is hoped that this paper will at least would give a brief idea about the Islamic sources and most prominent Muslim figures in the field of gifted education in the Islamic and more specifically the Saudi context.
Table of Contents
Introduction 4
Statement of Purpose 8
Hypotheses 9
Significance of the Study 9
Critical Predictions 9
Materials and Methods 9
Study Population 9
Research Design 9
Data Collection 10
Data Analysis 10
Results 10
Empirical Analytic Knowing 10
Historical-hermeneutic knowing 16
Habermasian ‘ways of knowing’: 18
Discussion 19
Conclusion 22
Reference List 24
Introduction
The recent past has seen Saudi’s Ministry of Education grant heightened attention and care to gifted education. According to Alamer (2014), this trend contrasts the earlier practice by the Saudi government to disregard gifted programs after the 1969 implementation of formal education policy. Despite the government’s move to embrace gifted education, a review of a number of educational literature centered on gifted education in Australia shows that no detailed plan has been written for this program. It is on this ground that gifted education programs have attracted research endeavors focused on the evaluation of the comparatively new Saudi gifted programs.
The present day education is compelled to fulfill demands in order to scale up the quality and quantity of education in the context of value achievement and building of character. In many cases, such demands stem from the idea that moral decay would be very fatal not only to students within learning environments but also among the leaders of the affected nations. Gifted education is then perceived as workaround for this concern and is finally accepted by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education.
Variation in the global view in conceptualizing knowledge has made the Western and Islamic education basically different. In the West, the value-free secular education has led to disassociation of science and knowledge from spirituality, morality and ethics. What is more striking is that the corruption of knowledge based on materialistic educational concepts of the West has by far impacted the Islamic world which growingly embraces such concepts. Key among issues that have resulted from corrupt teachings from the west include absence of or scars heroism, fall of families, religion and the society in general. In sum, the transitions have resulted into a reign with no precise rules and regulations, no direction, no deterministic values, no precise way of growth and lacking vision of responsibility.
Gifted learners, though featuring greater degree of intelligence than their counterparts, are often disadvantaged in that they in many cases fail to get or are presented with inadequate opportunity to exploit their full capabilities. It is on this ground that Maitra & Krause (2014) describes the gifted students as educationally disadvantaged, under achievers and learners with special needs. Gifted learners are conventionally associated with above average score on intelligence quotient (IQ). Generally, a gifted child has a special need, which if disregarded, can breed dissatisfaction, diminished self-esteem, laziness, underachievement or boredom in the content that is taught. If Saudi Arabia continues using inappropriate approaches to adopting learning programs for the gifted students, the students will soon go beyond their non-gifted counterparts and get familiar with a relaxed learning method, which could lead to significant learning challenges especially if the gifted students are faced with complex and difficult materials in higher studies.
One major issue surrounding the learning process of gifted students is that their approach to learning contrasts their non-gifted counterparts. Thus they command a different treatment and teaching method by using separate and in many cases accelerated pedagogy and methodology. As Shavinina (2014) puts it, it is crucial for the involved educator to establish a secure relationship with a gifted child. Often times, attaining such relationships with the gifted learners is often more challenging than is the case with the non-gifted counterparts. Alamer (2014) adds that social relationships never suffice in the success of the gifted learners. Teachers need to reinforce the social relationships with quasi-professional academic relationships with the very students. In so doing, teachers will be acknowledging that the gifted students look up to them for provision of academic challenges that are important in their growth.
Many are the options available for gifted students to exploit social interaction with age and intellectual peers alongside getting mentors. According to Shavinina (2014), there exists a wide range of social, academic and intellectual experience that the gifted learners need are only attainable via integrated efforts from the school, family as well as supplemental (talented and gifted) programs.
Making appropriate plan for gifted learners is crucial to the growth and development of a given society. Starting 1988, Saudi Arabia has witnessed a heightened interest in supporting gifted children. Many are the programs they have set up in order to recognize the gifted children. An example of such programs is The General Administration for Gifted Students (GAGS) set up by the Ministry of Education in 2000. Despite these moves, the country has never had sufficient research focused on introducing gifted education within the country. Part of where research still lacks is the suitability of the Western approaches to handling gifted students to the gifted learners in an Islamic culture such as Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Arabian government believes in nurturing the talents and gifts of the gifted students. This is evident in the current resolution that a gifted student featuring special abilities and characteristics is eligible for the highest quality of services. Nonetheless, Smith & Abū (2015) report that there are limited programs that target gifted students under the management of the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education. They posit that the already existing programs are somewhat new and command not only evaluation but also additional development so as to offer full benefits to the gifted learners.
A number of acknowledge that the idea of giftedness alongside its recognition is highly sophisticated. Individuals all through the globe keep question of the best way to evaluate and nurture the ability of various students. Whereas numerous centers in the globe have paid attention to research and development centered on gifted education, there are scholars who have kept question the entire idea of figuring out gifted learners and recommending that all that a nation needs is to implement gifted education without identifying a specific group of learners as gifted (Nonetheless, Smith & Abū, 2015). However, other scholars like In et al. (2015) opine that experts generally agree that high ability or high achieving students form part of the most evil-served following a failure to differentiate instructions or curricula.
This prompts the need for gifted education programs within different learning contexts. A recent report related to high ability learners revealed that over 7 out of 10 teachers of these learners observed that their smartest students were neither challenged nor granted the chance to survive inside their classrooms. Further, the study revealed that gifted students often require gifted programming for the reason that the general education plan is yet to meet the requirements of the gifted learners (Shavinina, 2014). Maitra & Krause (2014) attribute this trend to the idea that general educators like relevant training skills needed for gifted education programs alongside pressure on the classroom teachers to continually raise the performance level of struggling students.
The Islamic culture originated and developed in the Arabic culture, additional cultures that have embraced the Islamic culture have adopted lifestyles that appear more Arabic. It is for this reason that Arab Muslim communities plus other Muslims have feature certain cultural passions. Some virtues of the Arab culture that formed the basis of the Islamic culture include practicing of oral tradition founded on cultural transmissions via narratives and poetry and the simple and desert-borne nature, though non-simplistic.
Islamic civilization finds roots in the value of education as stressed by the prophets and within the Quran. One area in which civilization was manifested is the involvement if a number of Muslim scholars in the study of Geometry. For instance, Al-Hassan was probably one of the superb geometricians during his reign, translating 6 books touching on geometrical elements and devoting his own effort to finish up the remaining portions of the proof. At present, the enormous practices of the Islamic culture spread in every portion of the globe and the committed Muslims try very hard to counteract challenges of the contemporary world whilst remaining faithful towards values associated with their pasts. To avoid perception as a rebellious lot, the Muslims have often operated on a principle that Islam never came to abolish nationalism. It appreciated nationalism but evaded its ill endeavors.
Statement of Purpose
It is over a decade since Saudi Arabia started implementing the gifted education projects. That said, there has never been any kind of evaluation focused on class of projects to establish the feature and efficiency of the practices that underlie these programs. At the most basic level, programs tailored to meet gifted needs ought to be founded on thorough scientific approaches encompassing evaluation, similar to what other countries employ. In situations where Saudi has borrowed implementation patterns from the Western contexts, we find that little attention is paid to the relevance of the borrowed ideas to Saudi’s unique cultural practices. Obviously, this would raise a concern on the efficiency of the borrowed implementation ideas. In response to this, Bevan-Brown (2014) urges the need to consider cultural contexts and origins when evaluating giftedness. This is a call on the Saudi researchers to tune any new gifted education program from both Islamic and Western perspectives.

Hypotheses
Saudi’s gifted education programs are yet to receive sufficient attention from the personnel in the Ministry of Education.
Significance of the Study
This study gains significance from its attempts to:
 Assess the impact of the Western culture on the perception of knowledge within Saudi.
 Establish the relationship between a cultural practice and knowledge perception
 Determine the connection between religion and science and its impact on education
Critical Predictions
 There is a definite flaw in the implementation of gifted education programs
 A number of the gifted education programs emanate from Western cultural contexts, which contrast Saudi’s cultural context.
Materials and Methods
Study Population
There is no doubt that every individual is under the influence of his traditions. Thus, this research is guided by the belief that to better, understand the present, we need to draw close to the past. In this research work, for instance, knowledge is defined based on the perception of given muslim scholars like Avicenna and Al-Razi and also from the Western scholars like Pythagoras and Plato.
Research Design
In this work, techniques of analysis commenced with acquisition of information centered on the definitions of knowledge both from the Islamic and the western perspectives. Empirical analytic method was used as the key tool to determine how the ancient Islamic and Western scholarship defined and dealt with knowledge alongside the language for which that knowledge is used. Thus, in this way, the researcher seeks for a way to extract key words from the literature.
Data Collection
Texts cited in this paper relate to how the Islamic and Western scholarships define knowledge. The information to be analyzed for this task relates to the academic publications authored by both Islamic and non-Islamic historians regarding the philosophy of Muslims.
Data Analysis
This paper uses hermeneutical techniques in interpreting texts. According to Fishbane & In (2015), this data interpretation technique pays great attention to the meanings of texts. Since the onset of the 19th century, philosophers in the Western context have increased then advanced the use of this technique (Zabala, 2015). Osborne (2014) describes this methods dynamic philosophical treatment of social understanding as a sufficient reason to treat it as an exceptional method of analysis and an underpinning philosophy. Further, this interpretation approach paves way for unraveling of hidden meanings. Ultimately, this method fits the intention of this research work mainly because of its ability to make a clear sense of the historical text. Thus, it perceives the past as an inspiration with regards to comprehending the interactions that have taken place between the Islamic scholars and the Western cultures in the context of knowledge definition.
Results
Empirical Analytic Knowing
Pythagoras reaffirms that knowledge is the result of mental accumulation obtainable in numerous ways, though primarily via observation (Marincola, 2015). Conversely, Plato (2014) described knowledge as a true and accounted for belief and empirical science as a pathway to gaining new information. Knowledge means accepting intuition. Indeed, it is intuition that forms the foundation of knowing. The variation in definition depicted here in part explains why the Greek philosophers could not agree on the appropriate definition of knowledge. As Ware (2014) puts it, the aforementioned definitions influenced the views of the Muslim scholars on knowledge. During the second century of the Islamic reign, the Muslim scholars had contrasting perceptions of knowledge because they had varied Islamic backgrounds (Afridi, 2014). A portion of them brought fresh conceptualization of knowledge into picture. Something noteworthy of these fresh conceptualizations was that they were in essence similar to the views of the Western scholars, even though they were tailored to match the Islamic environment (Jamiu, 2014).
Al-Kindi forms part of the ancient Muslim scholars who studied the Greek philosophers’ perception of knowledge- a move that impacted the definition of knowledge. Thus, he introduced a new idea to the Islamic environment (Koliji, 2014). Al-Kindi’s definition attaches more weight to determining things as a way that would direct individuals to arrive at conclusions. He reassures that knowledge entails the presence of things in their natural state. He details that the principal intention of knowledge is to unravel facts and meanings already stated within the Qur’an (Koliji, 2014). One of such facts is monotheism which involves having faith and glorifying one God, virtue plus goodness along with the practices that lead to such. Al-Kindi’s model of knowledge is founded on the Qur’an along with the Islamic philosophy, though it seems to be influenced by philosophy too. Al-KIndi deems the logics underlying the pursuit of knowledge to play a significant role in knowledge acquisition. More specifically, he underscores the idea of wisdom behind things alongside the purpose of their existence. For this reason, he perceives purpose to surpass logical thinking, albeit the Qur’an often directs beings to employ logical thinking to come to the supreme belief regarding God’s supremacy and oneness.
Al-Farabi’s approach to knowledge depicts a meaningful shift. He posits that knowledge can never be attained in the absence of evidence (In & In, 2015). Despite his adoption of some knowledge definitions associated with the Greek philosophers, he had authority and played a primary role for knowledge as established by precise and concise criteria and conditions. Further, he theorized and shed more light on how knowledge could be a means to attain certainty. Here, we see a fresh alternative-with regards to the Islamic philosophy- that is pegged on inclination towards attaining certainty. Al-Farabi normalized controlled and particular strategies to guard the attainment of truth (In & In, 2015). More specifically, he explained that knowledge is acquired by imagining, hearing or sensing about things.
Avicenna also forms part of the respected Islamic philosophers who have made significant contributions towards knowledge (Langermann, 2015). One thing that made his approach to knowledge more individualized is the use of opinions and concepts that the Greek philosophers proposed inside their writings. His perspective revealed a deviation from the conventional Islamic line of thinking to abstract ideas and concepts that were commonplace in the Greek philosophy. More specifically, his focus on metaphysical philosophy made a number of critics presume that he was targeting a specific audience rather that the general audience. Further, his preeminent definition of knowledge is attributed to his use of opinions and concepts that deeply depicted an art that was greatly influenced by the Greek philosophy.
Avicenna detailed the western perception of knowledge in the following ways. First, knowledge is realized whenever pieces of information regarding things are imprinted within the human kind (Langermann, 2015). Second, these things do imprint on the human kind as per se, but their images thus explaining how images plus paintings belong to an entity called God (Langermann, 2015). The accumulations of knowledge and information form part of God’s belongings, and knowledge gains existence and meaning because of the creator’s ownership of this knowledge. In response to this, Islamic scientist like Ibn-Taymmyah and Al-Gazali attempted to revive the customary Islamic philosophy just to safeguard the non-specialized lot against the aftereffects of these ideas.
Al-Gazali is known to have introduced a new way of classifying knowledge and science. He asserted that knowledge is an integration of eschatological, mental, religious and scientific truths. He segregated knowledge to two components: logical and religious aspect. He argued that Islamic knowledge is fully logical to anyone capable of comprehending it deeply. Equally, logic proves Islamic to anyone with a deep comprehension of it. In this case, we see Al-Gazali presenting knowledge in an Islamic sense without disregarding the initial Western implications that never contrasted the Islamic principles.
Ibn Taymiyyah is another Muslim who slacked to embrace Greek philosophies that explained knowledge while disregarding compliance accordance with the principles of the Muslims (Mittermaier, 2014). It should be noted that Taymiyyah’s conceptualization of philosophical terminology alongside the related ideas was basically intended to create an in-depth comprehension of such concepts so as to dispute them. More specifically, he employed his publications plus his debating abilities and skills to level such disputes in a desperate class of audiences. Even though scholars like Ibn Rushd and Al-Razi attempted to restore philosophical thinking and fostering its position in the society, their efforts were never powerful enough to outweigh Taymiyyah’s thoughts plus traditional Islamic perceptions. Sources reveal that his victory over the philosophers was great enough to assure traditional thinking and Salafism a good position within the minds of the Muslims even to this day.
Mohamed Abdou-charged with the duty to redirect the nation’s priorities-raised his own ideas that were primarily in harmony with the traditional school, though he also paved way for the knowledge emanating from the modern reign. He benefited from the paradigms of Taymiyyah and Ghazali among other scholars. He reaffirmed their description of knowledge, though he also deemed it as a primary incentive and means to transform the nation’s fate considering that knowledge is a tool to differentiate the good from the evil.
He revealed an Islamic sound philosophy despite pursuing studies in the Western universities. This move restored faith and rejuvenated hope in the context of Islamic literature and civilization amidst his followers. He offered extra insight into the study of contemporary philosophy while disputing a number of allegations posed by the Western philosophers that claimed the existence of a controversy between science and religion. More specifically, he posited that the idea of attributing the empirical proof of science to the controversy between science and religion was misinformed. Simply put, the variation between religion and knowledge has nothing to do with what aspect of truth is associated with realism. He describes the two to be both realistic. He however attributes the controversy to the confused view that both encompass similar principles and foundation to interpret the human encounter at a moment when religion targets a given degree of human encounter.
Generally speaking, the Islamic scholars have tackled the Western knowledge in 3 varied phases. In the first phase, they admired, received then published the entire content whilst disregarding anything that contrasted their cultural structure and faith. In the second phase, a given number of scholars objected the entire content- this can be treated as a response to the earlier attitude. In the third phase, researchers leveled criticism while refining and enhancing the imported western knowledge to create more harmony with the teachings in the Islamic context. During the final phase, sciences emanating from varied cultural set ups integrated inside the same pot. Lassner (2014) reports that numerous Muslim scholars have to this date embraced the practices highlighted in face three above.
A study aimed at determining the way the Emirati-based pre-service teachers perceived the Europeans plus their teaching implications reaffirmed the existence of a conflict between the Islamic culture and that of the West (Kostoulas-Makrakis, 2014). Attempts to impose the Western secularist styles have faced serious criticism by the modern Muslim scholars because they are causing severe damage to the ethical values and morals associated with the Islamic heritage and culture. This however, seems to be more of a contradiction given that the Arab community has embraced Western approaches to law, administration and education. The study concludes by reaffirming that Europe depicts a technologically, economically and scientifically development region save for the Europeans who harbor corrupt morals. This obviously poses challenge if Saudi Arabia is to adopt European school curricula or teaching methods in teaching the gifted students.
Another study led by Kurczewska, Kyrö & Abbas (2015) illustrates how entrepreneurial education ideas borrowed from West would prove unsuitable for an Islamic culture. The study was aimed at establishing the dynamics associated with the transformative capability of entrepreneurship education by observing the interaction between agency (students) and structure (the education system and the society at large) that happens in two varied cultural contexts- Finland and Egypt. Using the morphogenetic theory, in conjunction with the ethic-emic method, the study compared the education system in the societal norms in the aforementioned countries then analyzed the entrepreneurial views of students from the two cultural contexts. One notable finding that Kurczewska, Kyrö & Abbas (2015) report from the analysis is that the Muslim cultural context adopts teaching methods founded on recitation and memorability, which borrows from the learning traditions featured in the Quran. Considering that the Islamic culture commands seeking for real truth, there is hardly a place for pluralism and relativism. This poses challenge in teaching entrepreneurship to the gifted Saudi students, considering that the Western countries from whence they get entrepreneurial ideas based their learning on experimentation and active learning.
In sum, knowledge could be treated as an empirical science entailing sureness between two contrasting cultural interpretations or as dealing with crucial understanding and insight into variations between varied cultural interpretations. This research works commands the latter method hence Habermas’s methodology proves more appropriate to delve these variations.
Historical-hermeneutic knowing
When discussing how Western definitions of knowledge transferred and how have they affected Muslim scholars, it should not be isolated from the prevailing conditions and reasons that contributed to the process and from the way that Muslim scholars dealt with them. A big difference is noticed among the Muslim scholars’ definitions of knowledge after the Islamic renaissance age from what has been prevalent since that time.
For further clarification, we should mention that Islam appeared in Arabia in the 7th century, when the Arabs were lacking in a deep sense of civilization; rather, illiteracy, ignorance and superstitions were everywhere. The first verse of revelation came down to the prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon him, which amounted to a revolution in these circumstances. It was: “Read: In the Name of your Lord who created” 96: 1. It clearly urged the early Muslims to read, as reading is one of the main channels to knowledge.
In less than one century, Islam spread west to the Atlantic Ocean, East to the borders of China, north to the midst of Europe and Persia and south to the north of India. Many nations embraced Islam with their different cultures and knowledge; it was the first time the cultures of both the Orient and the Occident mixed together and melted in the same pot.
The Arabs rushed to convey the knowledge of those people, urged by the guidelines of their religion and their own understanding and tolerance towards others who were then citizens in their vast state. Indeed, Islam urges its followers to mix, communicate and establish dialogues with other nations. The outcome was that the Greek knowledge, the Eastern culture and the Indian Mathematical cultures gathered in one nation.
Moreover, the Abbasid caliphs especially encouraged translations and established huge public libraries that have rewarded translators abundantly. This movement of translation reached its highest point at the time of Al-Ma’mun who established baitul-hikmah, the house of wisdom. He had entrusted the job of translation to the sons of Mosa ibn Shakir who were dedicated to translation and the compilation of knowledge. Sometimes, he paid as much gold as the weight of the translated book to the translator. In this context, the heritage of Plato, Aristotle and others were translated and warmly welcomed by some Muslim scholars, such as Ibn-Rushd and Al-Farabi.
Al-Ghazali has quoted the benefits of Logic in defending the Islamic beliefs; some Muslim jurists used it as a means to extract the juristic rulings.
As a result, Aristotle’s analogy and deductive Logic became the standard scientific methodology in the medieval ages. This Logic was considered as an instrument of inference.
However, some other scholars rejected this instrument, including Ibn-Taimiah who wrote his book (naqd al-mantiq) or nullification of Logic and his book (al-radd ala al-mantiqiyyeen) or refutation of the argumentation of the logicians. He launched a bitter campaign against Aristotle’s Logic. He was driven by the fact that it distracted people away from the Islamic disciplines of knowledge.
Between these two attitudes stands another group, including Al-Ghazali, Al-birouni, and others who absorbed these Western definitions, criticised them and finally developed them into new forms that made them satisfactory to Islam. This attitude was the mainstream among the Muslim scholars and has survived to these days. This attitude helped promote knowledge among different cultures. Jabir ibn Hayyan, a great chemist scholar, was quoted as saying: it should be noted that whatever we mentioned in these volumes is refined from our erudition of the others, we have not accepted what we read or heard except after test and trials, we depended mainly on our observation to judge the right and wrong.
Habermasian ‘ways of knowing’:
As above, I have used Habermas’s methodology because it provides me with a way of understanding the different ways in which two cultural interpretations can be understood within their respective cultures and whether there is any way in which they can interact meaningfully. So, the study will use the same methodology for my thesis in studying giftedness across two different cultures. The study will do this in the following way:
1. Empirical-analytic: to know how the West and Islamic scholarship have defined and dealt with giftedness, and what language they use for it. So, in this level the study is looking for the key words that come out from the literature.
2. Historical-hermeneutic: to understand what that language means, by searching through the historical documents. So, the study is looking for what these terms mean in their respective historical contexts and what they therefore might mean today.
3. Critical/self-reflective: to understand the differences between and any ways in which interaction is possible between Western and Islamic interpretations of giftedness. So the study will make that application to my work about gifted education in Saudi Arabia.
Discussion
The findings reveal that Greek philosophers never had the same view on how to define knowledge. For instance, Pythagoras believed in knowledge acquisition through observation, Aristotle believed in knowledge acquisition through intuition whereas Plato believed in knowledge acquisition through belief. Even in the face of these sharp variations, the Islamic philosophers still relied on them as the basis for defining knowledge. Come the second century of the Islamic reign, the Muslim scholars still had diverse views on knowledge due the differences in their Islamic backgrounds. This variation would leave an Islamic community like Saudi Arabia more prone to borrow knowledge acquisition methods from the west and try implementing the same within their native lands. One arguable flaw with this approach is that it does not cater for the individualized needs of the gifted learners.
The present day youngsters are the future governors and leaders. As a consequence, their education, values and manner of thinking turn to be of great significance with regards to shaping the future of Saudi Arabia. In this paper we explored how the Western culture defined knowledge and how that definition influenced the perception of Muslims on knowledge. Historically, Muslims have often pursued education and knowledge with the intention of establishing Islamic inclinations and tendencies that jointly make up the Islamic personality. For instance, despite Al-Kindi exploring the Greek philosophers’ perception of knowledge, his ultimate definition of knowledge still bases on some aspects of the Qur’an. Through this, we get to believe that the Muslims were very conservative of their cultural practices. Thus, attempts to borrow gifted education implementation tips were less likely to see them implement the very ideas without testing their suitability to the Islamic cultural context.
Despite the steadfast motives described above, the family of Muslims still believes that some external factors have been working against the Islamic culture. In a recent press statement, AiCoBM et al. (2014) reported that the individuality associated with the Islamic belief has featured little presence in the recent past. In fact, even naming Islam as a religion has turned inaccurate given that Islam touches not only on personal worship but also on safeguarding one’s life issues within a state. Interestingly, this manner of living would pave way for teachings that are deprived of the real Islamic spirit featured among their ancestors. Further, schools are not the only avenues for education. The society also has a role to perform with regards to educating children. Rather than using classrooms, teachers and blackboards, the society leverages advertising, radio and television in endowing children with un-Islamic practices. AiCoBM et al. (2014) warns of children growingly isolated from Islam resulting from such living patterns.
Within Islamic states like Saudi Arabia, the education structure is inclined to establishing the Islamic personality within students. Hidayatullah (2014) mentions that this teaches them on how to adopt a lifestyle that is in harmony with the prohibitions and orders of Allah. More specifically, they will be taught of the need to remain acquainted with different perspectives of Islam like prayer, Islamic law and conduct. Additionally, they will be inspired to scale to greater heights in spheres such as science, art, technology and science. Muslims believe that this ought to be taught within a framework of Islam in that non-verified concepts of the West like evolution of man do not ruin their thoughts. In so doing, the education curriculum ensures that science, Islam and other perspectives of life embed into one another.
A day in the life of an Islamic learner in a Western learning context offers a better illustration into how the perception of knowledge within the Muslims would contrast the perception of the people in the West. So parents can drop off their children to school, feeling contented that they are yet to enter a secure and safe environment. Assuming that a Geography class comes first, the children would be taught about varied countries in the globe (touching on issues like cultural differences, language, population and resources) and a number of these will be unavoidably Muslim countries. This could seem harmless till such a moment when a parent acknowledges that the Islamic culture never recognizes a number of these nations as individualized identities. The Islamic religion perceives Muslims as a single unit not disjoint by national identities intended to breed disunity. This is seen is Allah’s statement that “And hold fast all of you together to the rope of Allah and do not be divided” (Hidayatullah, 2014).
Supposing the next lesson in the day-to-day routine was science. We would expect the gifted children to understand more of scientific matters intended to scale up their future career. However, one could easily forget that a number of concepts that these subjects touch on directly contrast the belief of the Muslims. After all, learners are taught a number of speculations, hypotheses and theories, with no steadfast basis and disputable among experts, as proved gospel truth. It is on this ground that Al-Farabi underscores evidence in while conceptualizing knowledge. Through Al- Farabi we see that some of the presumed facts from the Western context such as evolution of mankind from apes would definitely be rejected among Muslims deeply grounded in the Islamic teachings. Having been brought up in deep Islamic roots, gifted learners are less likely to accept theories that attempt to place human beings in the same level as animals.
The manner in which Al-Ghazali conceptualizes knowledge also reveals another challenge that the gifted learners in Saudi would face in the process of adopting the Western perception of knowledge is the limitation in the scope of the learning materials. Generally speaking, Western sources would focus on history of the west and this is what students would be taught in class. It would touch on political development, achievements, inventions and wars. The victory therein is depicted as a scene of world history that is no more. Further, the history taught that religion only oppressed the innocent. This presents the following disadvantages to the gifted learners. First, they learn more regarding battles and wars centered on Capitalism than they do about Islamic wars described by Allah. Second, their learning focusses more on Romans than on Muslims. More specifically, they would miss out teachings like the expansion of Islam to Central and South Asia, yet these are crucial to their religious growth. This compromise on religious teachings invalidates Al-Ghazali’s assertion that knowledge is an integration of mental, spiritual, religious and scientific realities.
When talking of the way Western description of knowledge found roots into then impacted the Muslim scholars, we should not isolate the prevailing reasons and conditions that aided the process along with the manner the Muslim scholars handled them. A significant difference is noteworthy in the way scholars of the Islam community defined knowledge following the Islamic renaissance age and the definition that was prevalent at an earlier time. On the whole, the definition of knowledge based on the Western origin found roots into the Muslim scholars via translation of the Western heritage that arose during the reign of Abbasid promoted the pursuit of knowledge regardless of the origin.
Conclusion
This research adds to the increasing body of literature seeking to reinforce the benefits of evaluating gifted education programs embraced by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education. As per the knowledge of researchers, there is no research adventure that has attempted to dig deep into such programs. This study evaluates the gifted education programs by focusing on the suitability of adopting Western conceptualization of knowledge in an Islamic culture. The study does this by highlighting the similarities and differences in the cultural practices of the two contexts then offers insight into the implications of those factors on gifted education.
Reference List
Afridi, M. A. (2014). Contribution of Muslim Scientists to the World: An Overview of Some Selected Fields. Revelation and Science, 3(01).
AiCoBM (Conference), In Pyeman, J., In Rashid, W. E. W., In Hanif, A., In Tan, P. L., & In Mohamad, S. J. A. N. S. (2015). Proceedings of the 1st AAGBS International Conference on Business Management 2014 (AiCoBM 2014).
Alamer, S. M. (2014). Challenges Facing Gifted Students in Saudi Arabia.Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 4(24), 107-112.
Bevan-Brown, J. (2014). Identifying and providing for gifted and talented Mäori students. APEX, 15(4), 6-20.
Fishbane, M. A., & In Tirosh-Samuelson, H. (2015). Jewish hermeneutical theology.
Hidayatullah, A. A. (2014). Feminist edges of the Qur’an.
In Neihart, M., In Pfeiffer, S. I., In Cross, T. L., & National Association for Gifted Children (U.S.). (2015). The social and emotional development of gifted children: What do we know?.
In Miller, F. D., & In Biondi, C.-A. (2015). A treatise of legal philosophy and general jurisprudence: Volume 6.
Jamiu, F. O. (2014). Contributions of Ilorin scholars to Arabic and Islamic studies in Yoruba land: Focus on Shaykh Adam Abdullah Al-Iluri. African Journal of History and Culture, 6(8), 112-118.
Koliji, H. (2014). In-between: Architectural drawing and imaginative knowledge in Islamic and Weste.
Langermann, Y. T. (2015). Avicenna and his Legacy. A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy. Turn.
Kostoulas-Makrakis, N. (2014). Emirati Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Europe and Europeans and Their Teaching Implications. International Education Journal, 6(4), 501-511.
Kurczewska, A., Kyrö, P., & Abbas, A. (2015). Comparative morphogenetic study on structure-agency interplay in entrepreneurship education in Egypt and Finland.
Lassner, J. (2014). Jews, Christians, and the abode of Islam: Modern scholarship, medieval realities. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Maitra, B., & Krause, I.-B. (2014). Culture, families and mental illness: A training resource.
Marincola, J. (2015). A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. Chicester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Mittermaier, A. (2014). Dreams that matter: Egyptian landscapes of the imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Osborne, G. R. (2014). The hermeneutical spiral: A comprehensive introduction to biblical interpretation.
Plato, . (n.d.). Theaetetus. S.l.: Trajectory, Inc.
Shavinina, L. V. (2014). International handbook on giftedness. Dordrecht: Springer.
Smith, L., & Abū, A. A.-R. M. (2015). Higher education in Saudi Arabia: Achievements, challenges and opportunities. Dordrecht: Springer.
Ware, R. T. (2014). The walking Qurʼan: Islamic education, embodied knowledge, and history in West Africa.
Zabala, S. (2015). The hermeneutic nature of analytic philosophy: A study of Ernst Tugendhat. New York: Columbia University Press.