Rekonstruksi Pemikiran Al-Ghazali Tentang Ilmu dan Pendidikan: Integrasi Epistemologi, Akhlak, dan Spiritualitas dalam Pendidikan Islam Kontemporer

Abstract

Contemporary Islamic education faces a growing fragmentation between the mastery of knowledge, moral formation, and spiritual development; consequently, intellectual advancement is not always accompanied by moral maturity in the use of knowledge. This study aims to reconstruct Al-Ghazali’s thought on knowledge and education and to analyze its relevance to the development of an integrative Islamic education paradigm. This qualitative library study employs philosophical and interpretive approaches. The primary data were drawn from Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din and Ayyuha al-Walad, while the secondary data consisted of relevant books and scholarly articles. Data were collected through documentation and close reading and analyzed using content analysis involving reduction, categorization, interpretation, and conceptual synthesis. The findings demonstrate that Al-Ghazali’s educational epistemology integrates intellectual, moral, and spiritual dimensions through a continuous relationship among knowledge, understanding, awareness, action, character, and public benefit. Knowledge is not positioned as an end in itself, but as a means of personal transformation that must be manifested in action, moral formation, and purification of the soul. This reconstruction produces a conceptual model of integrative Islamic education that places spirituality as its orientation, knowledge as the basis of understanding, character as the guide for applying knowledge, and action as its actualization. These findings imply the need to develop curricula, instruction, teacher roles, and educational assessment that not only measure cognitive competence but also cultivate students’ moral integrity, wisdom, and social responsibility