Worldview, Motivation and Education

Worldview motivates to act in a certain way. The problems relating to the outcome of graduates of Islamic education may be linked with the lack of achievement motivation, as it is a prerequisite for success[1]. Motivation is the process of stimulating and arousing one’s behavior, giving direction to behavior and sustaining the reinforced behavior. “It has been hypothesized as one of the driving forces for the development of the nation and considered as a mental ‘virus’ which causes individuals to be competitive, hardworking and have more persistence”[2].

In addition, achievement motivation is linked to personal epistemology belief[3]. Epistemology is concerned with the origin, limits, nature, and validation of human knowledge. In recent studies, we have found the recognition that individuals develop a personal epistemology and that affect the degree of motivation to initiate in worldly affairs[4]. While epistemological belief causes less motivation, actually Muslims as the Khalifa (representative) of Allah should not be less motivated in worldly affairs and nation building. As Allah says in the Quran:

 “So lose not heart, nor fall into despair: for ye must gain mastery if ye are true In Faith” (Surah Ale-Imran, 3:139).

The recent Muslim scholars have tried to find the problems behind the phenomenon. They discovered disintegrated education in Muslim countries. Therefore, recent Muslim educationists have provided a framework to motivate Muslim learners and students towards better condition by the names of Islamization of Knowledge[5], Islamization of education [6], eclectic model [7], disciplining mind and soul etc[8].  

In these methods of integration, the basic efforts have been put in the point that knowledge comes from the Almighty Allah, and this constitutes the epistemology of Muslim education and knowledge. Despite the constant efforts on epistemological integration, still there are many things to do to improve the learners. We justified in the following sections that the statement “Almighty Allah is the source of knowledge” this cannot direct the learners to be motivated to serve the world. Beside this approach, the emancipatory approach needs to be included in education as an epistemological base. Regarding the problem among the Muslim learners, it originated from the lack of clear worldviews and this lacking generates many other problems. The problems transcended the learners themselves and affected the institution’s goal, practice, and contents. For example, firstly, in some of the Islamic education institutions memorization is practiced and more emphasized[9]. It has been observed that the learners of the Quran i.e. students of Islamic education systems and institutions cannot show their action in line with the teaching and essence of the Quran. Secondly, nowadays the education institution is emphasizing more on marketization of education. As a result of that, education became value free and merely worldly oriented[10]. As a consequence, the educated people do not lead the ethical life, and they ignore religious belief, moral attitude etc. Thirdly, now Muslims are concentrating more on knowledge on how to manage religious-personal affairs such as knowledge of Aqidah, Ibadah, Akhlaq etc. They focus less on knowledge how to serve the world. As a result, they have become the consumer of others’ products. They do not possess any technology to manage natural resources gifted by Allah, such as oil, underground water, uranium, gas etc. but lacking human capital and resources Muslims cannot manage those resources.