Secular Individualism as an Antithesis to Authentic Learning: Critiquing Individualism in Education Through Islamic Frameworks for Wellbeing

Understanding the underpinnings of the systems that define mainstream education in the West and how they compare with their concurrent and marginalized traditions is necessary for the Muslim educator who seeks to construct an approach to wellbeing that is authentic to their tradition. As such, this chapter’s purpose is to critique individualism and its prevalence in modern Western education as an antithesis to wellbeing. In doing so, it positions an Islamic epistemology as a framework that inherently accounts for learning as an integrated part of questions surrounding the purpose of existence, which naturally entails holistic human development as wellbeing. This is dichotomized with secular individualist frameworks, which delegitimize the identity of the human by stripping it of its context, community, and ontological reality. As such, this chapter deconstructs the epistemological foundations of the ideology of individualism and its associated theories, along with their prevalence in modern Western education. It then assesses critiques that have already been made about individualism in the West and where they fall short. Here, the chapter juxtaposes these Eurocentric theories with Islamic understandings of education that are inherently conducive to holistic wellbeing, as well as possible benefits and challenges to implementing Islamic frameworks for education in the modern world. This chapter thus functions as an ultimate analysis of how Islamic notions of wellbeing, rooted in prioritizations of sacralities, differ from mainstream definitions that prioritize the individual. Offering such an understanding to the Muslim educator and school leader may promote a systemic analysis of educational priorities. It would provide a criterion under which Islamic schools may thus assess their definitions of success and wellbeing and whether their associated decisions align with secular priorities or with sacred goals that inherently transcend the functionalist, materialistic objectives of secular individualism.