Reorienting the Islamic Religious Education Curriculum through the Lens of Eco-Theology in Response to the Environmental Crisis

Abstract

The environmental crisis demands that Islamic Religious Education (IRE) play a role in fostering students’ spiritual awareness and ecological responsibility. This study aims to analyze the foundations of eco-theology and the forms of its integration into the IRE curriculum to address the environmental crisis. The study employed a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method. The literature search was conducted using Harzing’s Publish or Perish with Google Scholar as the source, yielding 50 articles. A total of 21 articles passed the initial screening stage and were further selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, resulting in seven articles as the primary sources for analysis. Data were analyzed using thematic synthesis. The results revealed two main themes: the foundations for integrating eco-theological values into the PAI curriculum and environmental action-based learning strategies. The first theme encompasses the integration of the values of tawhid, khalifah, amanah, mizan, and rahmah into learning objectives and content. The second theme includes contextual, interdisciplinary, and project-based learning, as well as modeling and the cultivation of ecological behaviors. The novelty of this study lies in the synthesis that connects theological foundations, curriculum components, and pedagogical practices within a single framework for the reorientation of Islamic Religious Education (PAI). These findings serve as the basis for the development of an ecological curriculum that needs to be tested through empirical research.