Reclaiming Islamic Ethical and Epistemic Traditions: Online Calligraphy Education through the Deen Arts Foundation in South Africa

Abstract

This article examines how online Islamic calligraphy education, as offered by the Deen Arts Foundation South Africa (DAFSA), functions as a pluriversal and ethically grounded practice of epistemic recovery and self-formation in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that by integrating Islamic pedagogical traditions, centred on adab, ikhlāṣ, and iḥsān, with contemporary digital platforms, DAFSA enables students to reconnect with their Islamic heritage, recover marginalised knowledge traditions, and cultivate moral and spiritual dispositions. Conceptually, the article draws on the notion of field, is guided by a normative ethics of beauty and excellence and applies the Community of Inquiry framework, with attention to its theory of educational presences. It situates DAFSA’s calligraphy courses within a broader historical context marked by colonial epistemic disruption, arguing that the recovery of Islamic calligraphy traditions represents a form of resistance to hegemonic knowledge structures. Drawing on student perspectives and an analysis of the courses’ pedagogical design, the article demonstrates how Islamic calligraphy serves as a transformative educational experience that engenders ethical self-formation, sustains cultural continuity, and cultivates transregional community in a digitally mediated age.