Suffa Model in Sustainable Lifelong Education

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_9How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Islamic History; Sirah; Adult Education; Suffa; Mosque

Abstract

One of the first tasks Prophet Muhammad undertook after his migration to Medina was the construction of a mosque. This mosque was a multifunctional structure. Besides daily worship, educational activities were also conducted here. A shaded area behind the prayer section was used for this purpose. In the architectural tradition of today’s mosques, this space is referred to as the “last congregation area.” In the early years of Islam, this area was a multipurpose space used during the day for education and at night to house homeless Muslims and guests arriving for various reasons. This shaded area, known as “Suffa,” sheltered people of different ages. Those who received education or stayed here were called “Ashab al-Suffa.” Most of these were homeless and lonely individuals who had come from outside the city. Essentially, the education conducted at Suffa was predominantly adult education. Those who received education here were later assigned to educate and serve others. The most important characteristic of Suffa, which served as an inspiration for both formal and non-formal education in enlightening individuals and society, was that it was based on voluntary participation. In this study, the document analysis technique, which is among qualitative research methods, was used. Classical Islamic historical sources were selected as documents. The primary goal of this study is to identify the Suffa model, which constitutes the core of all educational institutions in Islamic history, and to contribute to today’s educational activities in light of these sources.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Hüseyin Güneş
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/04/28
TI  - Suffa Model in Sustainable Lifelong Education
BT  - Proceeding of the 10th International Conference on Lifelong Education and Leadership for ALL (ICLEL 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 100
EP  - 107
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_9
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-686-4_9
ID  - Güneş2025
ER  -