Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education »

Robert W. Hefner is Director of the Program on Islam and Civil Society at the Institute on Culture and Religious Affairs at Boston University. Muhammad Qasim Zaman is Robert H. Niehaus '77 Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Religion at Princeton University.

"This is a major contribution to the field. Over the past twenty years there has been growing public concern about Islamic education in general and Muslim madrasas in particular. The latter have come to be seen as nurturers of Islamic radicalism, indeed, as training centers for jihadi militants and terrorists. This book makes the enormously important point to those who would wish to essentialize Islam or madrasas that Islamic education is profoundly shaped by local contexts as Muslims seek the best possible ways to grasp, live, and communicate a Muslim life."--Francis Robinson, Royal Holloway, University of London

"This book is outstanding in the breadth and maturity of scholarship it assembles on a subject of surpassing importance at once academically and in the wider world of public policy. The editors and contributors lay out a thought-provoking set of studies of educational practices, institutions, intellectual content, and debates about the past, present, and likely futures of Islamic education. The richness of these accounts should put paid to scholarly as well as political stereotyping of Islamic education--from the shibboleths of 'rote learning' to the association of madrasa with terrorism. This book is a must read for all scholars and researchers on Islam."--Jon W. Anderson, Catholic University of America

Mohammed M. Aman, Ph.D. - Digest of Middle East Studies

Hefner provides the reader with an excellent historical background which can help in appreciating the scale of the change now taking place in Islamic education, and their implications for public culture and politics. . . . This book is highly recommended for American and European media pundits and politicians to read and be honest with themselves and their constituents about the positive nature of mainstream madrasas throughout the Muslim world, and stop demonizing them, and the education they provide.

Acknowledgments     vii
A Note on Transliteration and Spelling     ix
Contributors     xi
Introduction: The Culture, Politics, and Future of Muslim Education   Robert W. Hefner     1
Madrasas Medieval and Modern: Politics, Education, and the Problem of Muslim Identity   Jonathan P. Berkey     40
Tradition and Authority in Deobandi Madrasas of South Asia   Muhammad Qasim Zaman     61
Madrasas and Minorities in Secular India   Barbara Metcalf     87
The "Recentering" of Religious Knowledge and Discourse: The Case of al-Azhar in Twentieth-Century Egypt   Malika Zeghal     107
Madrasas in Morocco: Their Vanishing Public Role   Dale F. Eickelman     131
Islam and Education in Secular Turkey: State Policies and the Emergence of the Fethullah Gulen Group   Bekim Agai     149
Pesantren and Madrasa: Muslim Schools and National Ideals in Indonesia   Azyumardi Azra   Dina Afrianty   Robert W. Hefner     172
The Transformation of Muslim Schooling in Mali: The Madrasa as an Institution of Social and Religious Mediation   Louis Brenner     199
Islamic Education in Britain: Approaches to Religious Knowledge in a Pluralistic Society   Peter Mandaville     224
Epilogue:Competing Conceptions of Religious Education   Muhammad Qasim Zaman     242
Index     269