Developing the Moral Codes of Teachers in Islam: Synthesis Research Based on the Roberts’s Model

Background: In Islam, expectations are very high in respect to a desirable teacher, especially because the teacher is a model for the next generation, so the purpose of this study is to identify the moral codes of teachers according to the Islamic perspective. Method: The approach of the present study is qualitative and its method is synthesis research. The research population is all articles (63 articles) that have been presented from 2010 to 2020 in the field of moral components of educators from the perspective of the Holy Quran and the educational life of Imams (A) and the Prophet Mohammad (S). The research sample includes 26 articles, which have been purposefully selected based on thematic monitoring and theoretical data saturation. Research data were collected from qualitative analysis of the studied documents. Results: The results showed that the moral codes of teachers from the perspective of Islam can be organized in two main dimensions including: contextual dimension (including personality components, insight, religious commitment, socio-political factors and neatness) and professional dimension (including components of professional commitment, knowledge enhancement, professional principles, interactions, content management, teaching and evaluation). Conclusion: According to the principles of Islam, the components of teachers' professional ethics were organized in two contextual and professional dimensions, so the managers of educational organizations can provide in-service courses for teachers to teach the components of ethics and also design a moral code of ethics taking into account the moral components of teachers in Islam.


Introduction
In all divine religions, attention to education has been of paramount importance. Islam has always paid special attention to education and the essentiality of education and training methods has been referred to in the Holy Quran and the narrations of Prophet Mohammad and the Imams (a) of Shi'a (1). Education, which results in the ultimate growth and development of human beings, is the principal aim of the consigning the prophets and the holy books (2). Prophet Mohammad declared teaching as his prophethood purpose (3). Also, in many verses of the Qur'an, God has introduced himself as a teacher. For example, God asserts in Surah Ar-Rahman: "God, the Merciful, has taught the Qur'an." Meantime, the divine religions, through their prophets and divine books, have paid attention to the institutionalization of morality in the early societies more than any educational program. Educational programs, in an aim to nurture human beings, are based on moral considerations more than anything else (4). The morality acts as a wardsoff for the humanity deeds against any desire and inclination toward perversion (5). Education is regarded as a sacred duty in society, and its sanctity compels teachers to take morality values into considerations (6). Teaching is a moral profession (7) and the teacher is known as a moral person (8). Teachers' implicit beliefs and their teaching ethics affect students (9). However, the consequences of teachers' moral behavior are of no certainty to themselves (10). Adherence of professors and teachers to the principles of professional ethics is of utmost importance in respect to different perspectives, such as development of an organizational culture based on ethics; passing on distinctive traits and outstanding human characteristics to learners and, consequently, its dissemination in society (11). Professional ethics in educational systems defines the limits of appropriate or inappropriate behaviors and helps to guide the teacher in fulfilling professional responsibilities (12). Teachers are the most important actors in wellknown educational systems (13) and are a key element in the process of implementing educational curricula (14). Improving teacher quality is a key element in improving education (15). In other words, no educational system can develop to an advanced level beyond the professional capacity of its teachers (16). Various studies in the field of professional ethics of teachers displays teachers' performance weakness in this field (17). Professional Ethics is a branch of Ethics and it brings about stability and agreement between the two material and immaterial aspects of humanity (18). Each collection has its moral codes appropriate for its professional structure that are named professional ethics (19). The main purpose of these moral codes is self-criticization and the nurturance that it entails (20). The study of business ethics attracted the attention of the humanities from the 1950s onward (21). Professional ethics are behavioral principles set by individuals in a particular profession (20). Professional ethics deals with issues, principles and moral values governing a professional system (22) as well as the politeness of an individual and the action s/he takes when doing professional work (23).
Today, the behavior of teachers is of utmost importance to people (24). Parents and educational policymakers expect teachers to take note of ethical principles (25). The professional ethics of teachers have been focused on in most countries of the world during the recent decades (26). Teachers are human resources whose hands form public opinion and whose eyes see the perspective of cultural and scientific development of society. Also, to perform moral norms of a society, they have a duty beyond others (27). Strenuous efforts are needed to improve education, develop professional ethics and increase teachers' knowledge in this field (24). In the divine religions, the characteristics and ethics of teachers are also of considerate importance (28). A simple reading of the verses of the Qur'an can show why and to what extent teachers are of dignity; teaching is the role of God and also as the reason behind coming of the prophets, and God states in the Qur'an that the prophets are the other teachers of man who teach man the Holy Book and Wisdom and prepare them for social and legal life. On Available at: www.ijethics.com the other hand, the practical behaviors of the Infallible Imams, according to the Verse of Purification and other Islamic narrations, is among the richest sources for an elicitation of the educational components and factors that have not been researched yet (29). According to Unio, knowledge of the principles and components of professional ethics provides the context for the teachers to follow them (6). According to what referred to hitherto, in recent research, there have been developed numerous and disparate codes and ethical components in the field of professional ethics of teachers and instructors, however, less attention has been paid to the ethical components in the view of Islam. Therefore, in this research, we have an aim to summarize the results of research conducted in respect to teachers' moral characteristics from the perspective of the Holy Quran and the Imams (a) of Shi'a, utilizing a research synthesis approach.

Material and Methods
The present research method is research synthesis, which deals with a combination of specific features and factors of the research literature. In some cases, research synthesis is known as qualitative metaanalysis and tries to analyze the research it covers and resolve the contradictions in them. Meanwhile, as it integrates the results, it identifies the main topics for future research (30). Therefore, the field of research includes all valid scientific articles in the field of professional ethics of teachers from the perspective of the Holy Quran and the practical behaviour of the Imams (a) of Shi'a. To provide the required information, the worksheet form designed by the researcher was used to report and record the information of the initial research. In order to analyze the existing scientific documents in this field, we employed content analysis, which uses categorization. The data obtained from this study were analyzed based on three coding principles: open, axial and selective. In this way, first through open coding, the categories were extracted from the documents, and then by grouping the same open codes in one category, the axial codes of the research were extracted. Finally, the identified axial codes were placed together in their appropriate dimensions and the selection codes were extracted. In the present study, in order to analyze the data, we employed the six-step research synthesis model of Roberts', the steps include: 1. Identify need/request, conduct preliminary search, clarify request, 2. Conduct the search for and retrieval of studies. 3. Selecting, screening, and organizing studies, 4. Determining the conceptual framework and fitting it to the information from the analysis, 5. Developing the synthesis and interpretation into a material product, 6. Delivering the results of synthesis. MAXQDa10 software was also used to encode the data. To ensure that the coding process is done correctly, four evaluators were employed to re-encode the findings. They utilized the Scott method (31), and came to an agreement of 86 percent in regard to the coding.

Results
In this section, according to Roberts' six stage model, each of the stages is analyzed:

Identify need/request, conduct preliminary search, clarify request
Following the ethics in educational organizations is considered an indispensable principle (26). Teachers, on the other hand, are the most noticeable actors in educational systems (13). Improving teachers' work quality is a key element in improving education (17). Various religions pay attention to teachers and their characteristics. Accordingly, Islam has paid special attention to teachers and their moral characteristics. The holy book of Qur'an, practical behaviour of the Prophet Muhammad and also of Imams (A) are considered as the main source for understanding Islamic educational perspectives. Considering these, recognizing the moral Available at: www.ijethics.com codes of teachers according to the Holy Quran and the narratives of Imams is of utmost importance.

Conduct the search for retrieval of studies
This stage deals with searching for those kinds of sources that are related to the main need of research (32). Therefore, firstly, all valid scientific articles are selected through searching with keywords such as: the moral characteristics of the teacher from the perspective of the Holy Quran, the practical behaviors of the Imams and their view on the teachers' morality, the moral characteristics of the teacher in view of the Prophet of Islam in databases such as; Sid, Normagas, Magiram, Comprehensive Portal of Human Sciences, Iran Institute of Information Science and Technology and Elmnet Persian Scientific Search Engine, as well as other databases such as Scopus, Emerald, Sage, Scientific Information Database, Science Direct, ProQuest, Springlink, Worldscientific, Taylor & Francis, Google Scholar, Eric, and Wiley. Afterwards, the relevant sources were preserved and unrelated ones were removed according to the purpose of the research. In order to improve the quality of the work, the articles were searched separately by two people who were fully acquainted with search methods and information resources. This research is conducted based on published scientific-research articles and the selection of this category of sources is due to the fact that scientific-research articles undergo a specialized peer-reviewed process by the supervision of specialized reviewers, which points to the validity of their results.

Selecting, screening, and organizing studies
This stage is dedicated to judging which studies are relevant to the knowledge requirements. This judging phase needs a development of a criteria for selecting and classifying studies (33). The inclusion criteria for this research are as follows: 1-Articles published in the field of teachers' professional ethics from the perspective of the Quran and the practical behaviour of Imams (a) and the Prophet of Islam. 2. Research should report sufficient data and information regarding research objectives.
3. Research that conducts the specialized review process under the supervision of qualified judges and are in the form of a published article either online or in paper. In respect to the body of research, 63 studies were conducted in line with the criteria so as to be considered for this research, and some of them were not suitable for the final analysis and were excluded accordingly. The criteria for their exclusion include as follows: 1-Research that did not report sufficient information about the objectives of this research. 2. Research that lacked the necessary scientific quality and was published in predatory journals and conferences. Accordingly, the process of reviewing research obtained these results: A selection of a body of research with a total sum of 63 studies chosen in regard to the keywords; omission of 21 unrelated research after reviewing their titles; omission of 8 unrelated research after reviewing their abstracts; omission of 8 unrelated research after reviewing their body of research; finally a total sum of 26 research which were considered relevant and were selected in this study.

Determining the conceptual framework and fitting it to the information from the analysis.
This stage is a linking framework around which the obtained information is synthesized (33), consequently, the conceptual framework formed in this research revolves around two main concepts: 1-The practical behaviour of Imams (a): this includes any kind of behavior of Imams (a) and the Prophet of Islam with an intention to influence the knowledge, attitude, ethics and behavior of others, including Muslims and non-Muslims, companions, children, adults, their families children and others; no matter in their houses, mosques, alleys and bazaars or anywhere else (34). 2-The Holy Quran: It is the Holy Book of Islam, which was revealed from God to the Prophet Muhammad. 3. Professional ethics: Professional ethics refers to issues, principles and moral values governing a professional system (22). Available at: www.ijethics.com

Developing the synthesis and interpretation into a material product.
Based on the findings of the body of research related to the purpose of this research, first all the components are extracted through the open coding process; Therefore, according to the process of encoding in the first stage, in this section, we tried first to identify the components of teachers' professional ethics from the perspective of Islam according to the code of each article, and ordered them in Table 1.
Being mindful, religious jurisprudence, a continuous tendency to acquire knowledge and experience, avoiding negligence, admitting to the unbeknown, avoiding concealment of science, avoiding nepotism and discrimination, pioneering in practice, compensating for mistakes, purity in intention, beginning to speak in the name of God, seeking help from God, deep emotional connection, love and kindness, generosity and openness, empathy and brotherhood, kindness and intimacy with learners, respect for inclusiveness, humility, good morals, patience, repentance, fidelity, benevolence, neatness, getting to know their audience, having an understanding of age requirements, paying attention to individual differences, timely training, holistic, cultivating reasoning, knowledge and science, cultivating religiously, nurturing learners' morals, paying attention to the need for entertainment, choosing appropriate content for education, providing useful content for a better life, providing new and interesting content, encouraging, facilitating and tolerating, avoiding conflict, forgiveness, avoidance of too much blame, avoidance of physical violence, seriousness when it is necessary, motivation and appropriate expression.
(36) comprehensive attention attraction, a change in expression, attention to summaries and results, and guiding human beings in various ways (37) Following the principle of moderation in education, paying attention to the principle of practicing science, and of freedom, having a scientific spirit and assigning tasks that commensurate with ability (38) Kindness toward the trainee, apparent charm and neatness, encouraging trainees to take moral actions, encouraging thinking in respect to the moral issues, enjoining virtues and forbidding vices, continuous supervision and care, getting to know the trainee's spirit, forgiveness and overlooking faults, being firm with the trainee in case it is necessary.
Love, determination and dignity in educating trainee, providing a model of education and having a practical pedagogy, encouraging and preaching, dealing with religious pedagogy and proper interaction with the child (40) Providing liberty and being responsible (41) Provide a model, paying attention to the rational and emotional aspect of the trainee, honesty, benevolence, humility and flexibility of the trainer, preacher, adapting the training process with the needs and moods of the trainee Repeating lessons and their content, good mood, having a communication with the learner, accurate expression, and creativity in practice, individual self-awareness and attention to social awareness, attracting audiences and stimulating thought and thinking. (43) No discriminatory behavior, respecting children personality, attention to emotions, understanding the child's situation, rational education, love, lack of humiliation and ridicule, and no blaming (44) Moral example (45) Paying attention to science in action (practical and not just verbal promotion), asking students accurate questions and answering them, kindness and humility, neatness, non-discrimination in attitudes and paying attention to appropriate way of finding friends.
Finding one to be responsible toward those who seek knowledge, respecting the intrinsic values of the trainee, paying attention to the pervasive power, testing the student appropriately, warning before disciplining and stating the reason behind doing something 29 Available at: www.ijethics.com (47) Respect for the learner, tolerating them, kindness toward the trainee, comprehensive attention to the details of a task, moderation with the learner, providing a model for a learner, encouragement and disciplining, empathy and practical training. (48) Using easy-to-grasp teaching methods, emphasizing important topics, attracting the audience's attention, and appropriate disciplining and avoiding discrimination. (49) Tolerance, patience, logical reasoning, no discrimination toward trainee's attitudes, fairness, getting to know trainee, freedom of thought and having an inclusive expression. (50) Fair and proportionate disciplining, love and kindness (51) Good morals, having an eloquent and noble speech, promoters of goodness, being cooperative (52) Providing liberty and employing no force towards the trainee, fulfillment of promises forgiveness, providing criteria for evaluation (evaluation based on criteria), and paying attention to the hereafter and a rejection of materialism and worldliness.
Providing liberty and giving responsibility, paying attention to rational education, self-awareness, kindness, paying attention to the spiritual and physical dimensions, paying attention to the social dimensions of man, paying attention to natural dimensions, cooperation and collaboration (54) Kindness and affection toward the audience, respect for the personality of the audience, getting to know audience, attention to individual differences and their capacity, opportunism in education, providing behavioral model, self-knowledge, attracting the audience attention to the resolution of affairs (55) Guidance, reasoning, positive interaction, promoting individual and group responsibility (56) Insightfulness, passion for science, prompting, gaining experience and learning, acting on time and not neglecting, convincing and firm in their decision, acting according to wisdom (57) Needs assessment, assessment with ease, paying attention to wisdom, assessment during teaching, and ease in respect to the teaching method (58) Tolerance and kind behavior, seriousness, caring and respectful behavior, encouragement, continuous monitoring during the process of teaching, paying attention to the growth of all aspects of an inclusive existence, and strengthening the spirit of learners and their self-reliance (590 Self-awareness, inclusive cognition, continuous monitoring during the process of learning, empathy, seeking attention, and timely encouragement and disciplining.
Timely and proportionate disciplining, kindness and affection, no discrimination in dealing with children, respect for children's personality, proper encouragement, continuous monitoring during the process teaching, paying attention to children's independence and self-reliance.

Delivering the results of synthesis
In this section, the ethical codes of teachers are examined from the perspective of Islam according to the process of research synthesis. First, in the research synthesis process, teachers' ethical codes are extracted in such a way that the descriptions of all components are identified through the open coding process. Then, since the purpose of the research synthesis during developing the synthesis into a material product is to combine all scientific findings in one specific subject, and achieving coherence, in the presentation of the combination results, first the qualitative analysis of open codes is put together, and through re-encoding, overlap and semantic similarity are combined and the components (axial codes) are extracted. In order to categorize all the components of teachers' professional ethics based on a common concept, axial coding has been employed, which leads to the identification of 2 dimensions of the selective code. The results of the axial and selective coding are presented in Table 2.   (24). Teachers' adherence to the principles and values of professional ethics is important, both in terms of developing an ethic-based organizational culture and of transmitting distinctive human traits and characteristics to learners and, consequently, its dissemination in society (11). In this section, according to the principles of Islam, the components of teachers' professional ethics were organized in the fields of: professional commitment, professional principles, knowledge-building, interactions, content management, teaching and evaluation. With a holistic view of findings in this field we can grasp the idea that Islam, besides paying attention to professional dimensions of teaching profession, has paid special attention to the moral characteristics of teachers in each of their job duties. This notable fact is also evident in other divine religions. Judaism has placed special emphasis on the professional ethics of teachers, so Available at: www.ijethics.com that in the laws of the Torah it is stated that no one can absolve himself of the responsibility of not realizing educational potentialities and abilities, and if a person has the characteristics of a teacher, then teaching is an obligation for him/her (28). In terms of teachers' code of ethics, other research have also mentioned some of these cases: being interested in the teaching profession (63), respecting the dignity of learners and adjusting content with their needs (66), appropriate interactions (67), using appropriate teaching methods (68), impartiality in times of evaluation (69), standard evaluation (70) and attention to individual differences (71).

Conclusion
Observance of ethics and ethical roles in educational organizations is one of the organizational requirements. This is of increasing importance due to the role that teachers have as models and their effects on learners. Many moral codes have been stated for teachers. Among them, the divine religions have paid special attention to professional ethics in teaching. The religion of Islam, due to its great educational foundations, has considered many moral components for educators, and stated that paying attention to them will improve the educational process of learners. Findings of the present study classify the moral dimensions of teachers of Islam in two general categories of contextual dimensions (factors related to the personality traits of educators) and professional dimensions (factors related to the professional duties of educators). According to the findings of this study, the following suggestions are provided to improve the professional ethics of teachers. 1 -In-service courses should be held in educational organizations to explain the view of Islam towards the moral codes of teachers. 2-The moral codes of ethic of teachers should be designed according to the moral codes considered in Islam.

: Ethical Consideration
Ethical issues (including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and/or falsification, double publication and/or submission, redundancy, etc.) have been completely observed by the authors.