The Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE) invites scholars and researchers to submit proposals for a research seminar on moral education and the teaching of ethics in modern schooling systems, with particular attention to Muslim societies.
Contemporary ethical scholarship has devoted considerable attention to questions such as What is the good? and What makes an action moral? Yet an equally important question concerns how young people are educated for the good.
Moral formation has long occupied a central place in philosophical and Islamic intellectual traditions, from discussions of virtue and character to concepts such as adab, tarbiya, and taʾdīb. Modern schooling, however, has significantly changed the context in which moral formation takes place. Compulsory education, centralized curricula, the role of the nation-state, religious and civic education, globalization, and increasingly diverse societies all raise important questions about what values schools should teach, how they should teach them, and toward what ends.
The seminar seeks to advance scholarly discussion on moral education in modern schooling systems, with particular attention to Muslim societies, consistent with CILE's mission. It aims to examine the religious, philosophical, ethical, pedagogical, psychological, and curricular dimensions of teaching ethics, while exploring how Islamic intellectual and educational traditions can contribute to contemporary debates on character formation, moral reasoning, citizenship, and human flourishing. By bringing together scholars and practitioners, the seminar aims to develop an interdisciplinary theoretical and practical understanding of moral education and its role in addressing the challenges facing contemporary societies.
Themes
Prospective papers may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
1. Moral Education in Islamic Civilization (Pre-Modern Period)
- Ethical frameworks and approaches to moral education derived from the Qurʾān and the Prophetic tradition
- Practices and modes of teaching ethics in pre-modern Islamic societies
- Classical texts used in moral instruction and character formation
- The history of teaching ethics in major institutions of learning such as al-Azhar, al-Zaytuna, al-Qarawiyyīn, and the Islamic seminaries (ḥawzas)
- Continuities and discontinuities between pre-modern ethical pedagogy and modern educational systems
2. Teaching Ethics in Reformist (Nahḍa) Discourse
- The relationship between moral education, ʿumrān (civilization), and progress in Nahḍa thought
- The place of ethics instruction within early educational reform projects in the Arab-Islamic world
- Analysis of moral content in school textbooks used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
- Ethical education between religious reform, nationalism, and modernization
3. Teaching Ethics in Post-Independence States in the Arab and Islamic World
- Moral education in the post-independence nation-state, historical and curricular developments
- Ethics instruction and the ideology/morality of the modern state
- The place of moral education in national educational plans
- Moral education within the school subject of “Islamic education”
- Teaching ethics between cultivating religious consciousness and fostering national belonging
- Moral education in traditional educational systems that persisted into the contemporary period (e.g., traditional/ʿatīq education in Morocco)
4. Teaching Ethics in Light of Ethical Theory and Moral Research
- Moral education and religious education: cooperation, overlap, or competition
- Teaching ethics as the moralization of religious teachings
- Which ethics should be taught? Explicit and implicit ethical paradigms underlying school curricula
- The teachability of ethics: philosophical and empirical perspectives
- Teaching ethics between Islamic and Western ethical reference frameworks
- Moral education and critical thinking
- Interaction between academic moral philosophy and school-based ethics education
- Engagement between ethics education and contemporary Arab-Islamic ethical thought (e.g. ʿAbd Allāh Drāz, al-Jābirī, Ṭāhā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān)
- Implicit moral philosophies embedded in educational curricula
5. Moral Education and Contemporary Ethical Challenges
- The contribution of moral education to raising awareness of contemporary ethical challenges, including racism and cultural diversity, environmental responsibility, misinformation, rumors, and epistemic responsibility, privacy in personal and digital life
- Moral education and ethics of school life (merit, integrity, competition, cooperation)
- Moral education and the professional ethics of teachers and educators
6. Pedagogical Dimensions of Teaching Ethics in Modern schooling Systems
- Comparative international models of ethics education
- Models of teaching ethics in Muslim-majority countries
- Pedagogical approaches employed in ethics education
- Teaching ethics in light of educational theory and developmental psychology
- Ethics education within “value-bearing subjects” such as Islamic education, civic education, philosophy, history, and literature
- Ethics education between school, family, and society
Submission Guidelines
Applicants are requested to submit:
- An abstract of approximately 500 words, clearly outlining the research question, research gap, methodology or approach, and anticipated contribution.
- A short biography of no more than 200 words, including academic affiliation, research interests, and relevant publications.
- Submissions must be original and unpublished.
- Authors whose abstracts are accepted will be invited to submit a full paper of 7,000–10,000 words.
- Submissions are accepted in Arabic and English.
For referencing, authors are requested to follow the citation style used by the Journal of Islamic Ethics (JIE) and the Studies in Islamic Ethics (SIE) book series.
Important Dates
- November 15, 2026: Deadline for submitting abstracts and short bios.
- November 30, 2026: Notification of accepted abstracts and invitation to submit full papers.
- February 15, 2027: Deadline for submitting full papers.
- March 1, 2027: Notification of accepted full papers. Accepted papers will be sent for Arabic/English translation.
- April 20–22, 2027: Research seminar at CILE, Doha, Qatar.
- May 20, 2027: Deadline for submitting revised papers for peer review and editorial consideration by the Journal of Islamic Ethics or Studies in Islamic Ethics.
Financial Support
CILE will provide authors of accepted papers with:
- Travel and accommodation during the seminar;
- Open-access publication costs for papers selected for publication, where applicable.
Publication
Following the seminar, selected papers will be considered for publication, subject to peer review and editorial approval, in the Journal of Islamic Ethics or the Studies in Islamic Ethics book series.
Submission and Contact
Abstracts and short biographies should be submitted by email to:
For inquiries related to this Call for Papers, please contact:
- Dr. Chafik Graiguer at chafik.graiguer@Vanderbilt.Edu
For inquiries related to the Journal of Islamic Ethics and Studies in Islamic Ethics, please contact: