Inquiry-Oriented Learning in Classical Islamic Educational Thought: A Conceptual Model of Three Learning Orientations

Abstract

This article analyzes the orientations of learning experience in classical Islamic educational thought through the ideas of Ibn Khaldun, Al-Ghazali, and Ibn Sina. It examines their conceptual affinity with inquiry-oriented learning. It employs a qualitative library-based approach using conceptual analysis of classical Islamic educational texts and relevant contemporary educational literature. The analysis was conducted through three stages: identifying each thinker’s core concepts of learning, classifying them into major dimensions of learning experience, and synthesizing their conceptual relationship with the principles of inquiry-oriented learning. The findings show that Ibn Khaldun emphasizes social experience, action, and life context as media for the formation of intellectual habits; Al-Ghazali places reflective experience, internalization of meaning, and self-formation at the center of learning; while Ibn Sina highlights observation, reasoning, and empirical experience as the basis for knowledge formation. These findings indicate that although the three thinkers do not explicitly use the term inquiry-oriented learning, their educational thought has a strong conceptual affinity with its core principles, particularly regarding active learner engagement, meaningful experience, self-reflection, and the search for knowledge through observation and reason. Theoretically, this study redefines inquiry-oriented learning in Islamic education as an integrative framework that combines social-practical, reflective-transformative, and empirical-rational dimensions. This article concludes that classical Islamic educational thought should not be viewed merely as a normative-historical legacy; rather, it can be reinterpreted as a productive epistemological and pedagogical source for formulating a more active, reflective, and meaningful contemporary Islamic inquiry learning framework.