Ghazali's personality theory: A study on the importance of humility in early childhood

Abstract

The raising of children has always been understood to be central to ensuring the preservation of human society, culture, and ultimately civilization. Children are the carriers of our collective knowledge, our history, and our traditions—they are the carriers of our way of being. For centuries, social theorists have accepted child-rearing within the context of a family as an irreplaceable factor in the successful socialization, stable personality development, and identity formation of the individual. However, today’s children are born into a world that challenges and at times alienates them from what were once considered essential and traditional markers of the ‘self’ including links to personal, generational, and cultural histories as well as communal, tribal, and most significantly, familial relationships. To analyze this crisis of self, this study will analyze the work of 11th century Muslim thinker, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in order to distill a discernible theory of personality1 with specific reference to the significance of humility in early childhood as a way to counter the challenges posed by Modernity in developing personality and a stable selfhood.