This commentary develops a reciprocal pedagogy of attention for Islamic religious education (IRE) by bringing the account of mindfulness and religiosity offered by Henning et al. (2025) into dialogue with Aldbyani’s theological account of Islamic mindfulness and the mapping of Islamic mindfulness by Aldbyani and Al-Harbi. It argues that mindfulness-related practices prepare attentional availability and offer accessible tools for pausing, noticing, and interrupting automatic reactions, while IRE strengthens, interprets, and directs that awareness through theological vocabulary, ritual continuity, relational ethics, and divine telos. Rather than treating Islamic mindfulness as a separate psychological construct or as a rival to mindfulness, the article reframes their relationship as an intentionally asymmetrical but pedagogically reciprocal classroom sequence. It develops four integrated reframings—pedagogical translation, relational responsibility, ritual-pedagogical continuity, and existential specificity. The article extends tradition-responsive mindfulness pedagogy by arguing that religious and contemplative concepts become educationally formative when they are also connected to learners’ lived conditions, capacities, and needs.
