From Text to Action: Contextualizing Qur’anic Learning for Environmental Character in Aceh

Abstract

Love of the environment is increasingly framed as a religious obligation within Muslim education, yet the mechanism by which Qur’anic instruction becomes ecological conduct remains poorly evidenced. This study examines how Qur’anic learning is contextualized at SMP Negeri 1 Blangpegayon, Gayo Lues, Aceh, and why the environmental values it carries have not translated into consistent student behavior. A descriptive qualitative case study was conducted between May and October 2025 with twelve participants comprising the principal, the vice-principal for student affairs, two Islamic Religious Education teachers and eight students from grades VII to IX, drawing on participant observation, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis of lesson plans, timetables, budget documents and the school organizational chart. Data were analyzed through reduction, display and verification, and were tested through source and method triangulation together with member checking. The findings show that Qur’anic instruction remains dominated by recitation and memorization, with ecological verses inserted incidentally and rarely followed by inquiry, project work or structured reflection. Students’ understanding is verbalistic: they recall general moral rules but cannot ground them in specific scriptural evidence. Pro-environmental behavior, where it appears, is driven by school regulations and peer expectation rather than by spiritual conviction, and memorization achievement bears no observable relation to environmental care. The constraints are systemic rather than individual, operating simultaneously at classroom, inter-program, institutional and cultural levels. The study proposes a Qur’anic-Ecological School model that binds text, context and action into a single assessed learning cycle.