philosophy for children: religious education approaches to teaching thinking

main purpose in this research is the explanation of different views of muslim philosophers on the p.f.c to establish an imperative religion education. reaching to this purpose we use the content analysis and logical deduction among the research methods. on the basis of the research findings, we can find two different approaches in the religious-intellectual education: popular and specialized. the former can be found in some works of ibn tufail, suhrawardi, ikhwan al-safa, abu rayhan al- biruni, jalal ad-din muhammad rumi, and mortaza mutahhari. in this group one can see few books or chapters on the religious education in which the topic is presented with a straightforward, figurative and even fictional language. we can name this muslim philosopher`s approach the popular rational education that is in agreement with p.f.c. the latter can be found in the works of the thinkers such as ghazali, nasir al-din al- tusi and ibn khaldun. in their presenting educational discussion, the language of this group is normally more abstract and intellectual than the first group, hence only those who have high knowledge of philosophy can be benefited from their works. because this group doesn’t prescribe philosophical education for children they don’t prescribe popular philosophical education too. so with accepting the first approach in the islamic thought and supporting it with reference to muslim philosophers` heritage in the islamic thought history, we can consider p.f.c. in muslim society from the more strong position and prepare philosophizing for every one (even children) by teaching philosophizing process, presenting philosophical topics in the form of stories and simplification of philosophical contents.