Elementary Education and Motivation in Islam: Perspectives of Med ...

uncommon in targhb and tarhb. These topics include, for instance, the merits of various actions, purification of the soul, and the spiritual aspects of perfecting worship. A unique feature of al-Ghazzl's work lies in its psychospiritual⁷ commentary, which is lacking in many targhb and tarhb works.⁸

The number of medieval Muslim sources focusing on motivation, as a branch of ‘ilmu-l-nafs (knowledge of the soul or psychology) and education, is quite small. Jall clarified that it is only in contemporary times that educationists and psychologists have paid more attention to concepts such as motivation and reinforcement and conducted fieldwork to confirm the importance of such methods in education.⁹ As for the classical sources of Muslim education and psychology, most of these tend to address education in Islam more generally.¹⁰ Some of the most notable reasons for these are the following:

1) The early scholars of Islam were occupied with studies in the areas of jurisprudence and the Arabic language and did not focus on the educational aspects of the Qur'an and Sunna;¹¹

2) Education and psychology did not emerge as independent ‘Islamic’ disciplines until recently;¹²

3) At its peak, people embraced Islam in droves. The primary need was to teach these new Muslims Islamic rules and regulations and the Arabic language.¹³

Like Jall, Samak also noted how Muslim scholars of the past and present have written extensively on many of the religious sciences, but very few have written on educational methods and psychology.¹⁴

Ideas About Motivation

Motivation in many forms of medieval Arabo-Islamic literature is commonly associated with the term targhb and is closely linked to seeking God's pleasure, hoping for His reward, and fearing His punishment.¹⁵ Targhb is the verbal noun (madar) of raghghaba, which means ‘to