Madrasah

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Madras.

"Madrasa" and "Medrese" redirect here. For the village in Azerbaijan, see Mədrəsə.

Sher-Dor Madrasa, Samarkand, Uzbekistan 2007

Ulugh Beg Madrasa, Samarkand, Uzbekistan circa 1912

Madrasah (Arabic: ‫مدرسة‬, madrasa pl. ‫مدارس‬, madāris) is the Arabic word for anytype of educational institution,

whether secular or religious (of any religion). It is

variously transliterated as madrasah, madarasaa, medresa, madrassa,madraza, madarsa,medrese etc.

 Madrasah aamah (Arabic: ‫ )مدرسة عامة‬translates as "public school".

 Madrasah khāṣah (Arabic: ‫ )مدرسة خاصة‬translates as "private school".

 Madrasah dīniyyah (Arabic: ‫ )مدرسة دينية‬translates as "religious school".

  Madrasah Islamiyyah (Arabic: ‫ )مدرسة إسلمية‬translates as "Islamic school".

 Madrasah Jami'ah translates as "university".

Contents

[hide]

• 1 Definition

• 2 Early History of Madrasahs

o 2.1 Elementary education

 2.1.1 Primary education

 2.1.2 Secondary education

o 2.2 Higher education

 2.2.1 College

 2.2.2 University

 2.2.3 Law school

 2.2.4 Medical school

o 2.3 Female education

• 3 Madrasahs by region

o 3.1 Madrasahs under the Ottoman Turks

 3.1.1 Curriculums

 3.1.2 Social life and the Medrese

o 3.2 Madrasahs in Iran

o 3.3 Madrasahs in South Asia

 3.3.1 India

 3.3.2 Pakistan

o 3.4 Madrasahs in Indonesia

• 4 Misuse of the word

• 5 See also

• 6 Notes

• 7 Further reading

• 8 External links

[edit]Definition
Young madrasah pupils in Mauritania. They learn parts of the Qur'an from wooden tablets.

The word madrasah is derived from the triconsonantal root ‫س‬-‫ر‬-‫( د‬d-r-s), which relates to learning or teaching, through

the wazn (form/stem) (‫ مفعل)ة‬mafʻal(a), meaning "a place where X is done." Therefore, madrasah literally means "a place

where learning/teaching is done". The word is also present as a loanword with the same innocuous meaning in many Arabic-

influenced languages, such as: Urdu,Bengali, Hindi, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Indonesian, Malay and Bosnian.[1] In the Arabic

language, the word ‫( مدرسة‬madrasah) simply means the same asschool does in the English language, whether that is private, public

or parochial school, as well as for any primary or secondary school whether Muslim, non-Muslim, or secular. Unlike the

understanding of the word school in British English, the word madrasah is like the term school in American English, in that it

can refer to a university-level or post-graduate school as well. For example, in theOttoman Empire during the Early Modern

Period, Madrasahs had lower schools and specialized schools where the students became known as danismends.[2]The

correct Arabic word for a university, however, is ‫( جامعة‬jāmaʿah). The Hebrew cognate midrasha also connotes the meaning

of a place of learning.

A typical Islamic school usually offers two courses of study: a hifz course; that is memorisation of the Qur'an (the person

who commits the entire Qur'an to memory is called a hafiz); and an 'alim course leading the candidate to become an

accepted scholar in the community. A regular curriculum includes courses in Arabic, Tafsir (Qur'anic

interpretation), shari'ah (Islamic law), Hadith (recorded sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad), Mantiq (logic),

and Muslim History. In the Ottoman Empire, during the Early Modern Period, the learning of the Hadith was introduced by

Suleyman I.[2] Depending on the educational demands, some madrasahs also offer additional advanced courses in Arabic

literature, English and other foreign languages, as well as science and world history. Ottoman madrasahs along with

religious teachings also taught "styles of writing, grammary, syntax, poetry, composition, natural sciences, political

sciences, and etiquette." [2]

People of all ages attend, and many often move on to becoming imams. The certificate of an ‘alim for example, requires

approximately twelve years of study. A good number of the huffaz (plural of hafiz) are the product of the madrasahs. The

madrasahs also resemble colleges, where people take evening classes and reside in dormitories. An important function of
the madrasahs is to admit orphans and poor children in order to provide them with education and training. Madrasahs may

enroll female students; however, they study separately from the men.

In South Africa, the madrasahs also play a socio-cultural role in giving after-school religious instruction to Muslim children

who attend government or private non-religious schools. However, increasing numbers of more affluent Muslim children

attend full-fledged privateIslamic Schools which combine secular and religious education. Among Muslims of Indian origin,

madrasahs also used to provide instruction in Urdu, although this is far less common today than it used to be.

[edit]Early History of Madrasahs

Second ruler Delhi Sultanate, Alauddin Khilji's Madrasa, Qutb complex, Delhi, India, built ca 1316 CE

Madrassa Osman ef. Redžović in Visoko, Bosnia was rebuilt shortly after the Bosnian war.

Madrasahs did not exist in the early beginnings of Islam. Their formation can probably be traced to the early Islamic custom

of meeting in mosques to discuss religious issues. At this early stage, people seeking religious knowledge tended to gather

around certain more knowledgeable Muslims. These informal teachers later became known as shaykhs; and these shaykhs

began to hold regular religious education sessions called majalis(Sessions).

Established in 859, Jami'at al-Qarawiyyin (located in Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque) in the city ofFas, Morocco, is considered the

oldest madrasah in the Muslim world. It was founded byFatima al-Fihri, the daughter of a wealthy merchant named

Mohammed Al-Fihri. This was later followed by what is now Al-Azhar University, established in 959 in Cairo, Egypt.

During the late Abbasid period, the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk created the first major official academic institution known in

history as the Madrasah Nizamiyyah, based on the informal majalis (sessions of the shaykhs). Al-Mulk, who would later be

murdered by theAssassins (Hashshashin), created a system of state madrasahs (in his time they were called, the

Nizamiyyahs, named after him) in various Abbasid cities at the end of the 11th century.

During the rule of the Fatimid[3] and Mamluk[4] dynasties and their successor states in the medieval Middle East, many of the

ruling elite founded madrasahs through a religious endowment known as the waq'f. Not only was the madrasah a potent

symbol of status but it was an effective means of transmitting wealth and status to their descendants. Especially during

the Mamluk period, when only former slaves could assume power, the sons of the ruling Mamluk elite were unable to inherit.

Guaranteed positions within the new madrasahs thus allowed them to maintain status. Madrasahs built in this period include

the Mosque-Madrasah of Sultan Hasan in Cairo.

The following excerpt provides a brief synopsis of the historical origins and starting points for the teachings that took place

in the Ottoman madrasahs in theEarly Modern Period:

"Taşköprülüzâde's concept of knowledge and his division of the sciences provides a starting point for a study of learning and medrese

education in the Ottoman Empire. Taşköprülüzâde recognizes four stages of knowledge—spiritual, intellectual, oral and written. Thus

all the sciences fall into one of these seven categories: calligraphic sciences, oral sciences, intellectual sciences, spiritual sciences,

theoretical rational sciences, practical rational sciences. The First Ottoman medrese was created in Iznik in 1331, when a converted

Church building was assigned as a medrese to a famous scholar, Dâvûd of Kayseri.Suleyman made an important change in the

hierarchy of Ottoman medreses. He established four general medreses and two more for specialized studies, one devoted to the

hadith and the other to medicine. He gave the highest ranking to these and thus established the hierarchy of the medreses which was

to continue until the end of the empire."[2]

During this time, the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, experienced a growth in literacy, having the highest literacy rate of

the Middle Ages, comparable to Athens' literacy in Classical Antiquity but on a larger scale.[5]

[edit]Elementary education

Main article: Maktab

In the medieval Islamic world, an elementary school was known as a maktab, which dates back to at least the 10th century.

Like madrasahs (which referred to higher education), a maktab was often attached to a mosque. In the 11th century, the

famous PersianIslamic philosopher, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the West), in one of his books, wrote a chapter dealing

with the maktab entitled "The Role of the Teacher in the Training and Upbringing of Children", as a guide to teachers

working at maktab schools. He wrote that children can learn better if taught in classes instead of individual tuition from

private tutors, and he gave a number of reasons for why this is the case, citing the value
of competition and emulation among pupils as well as the usefulness of group discussions and debates. Ibn Sina described

the curriculum of a maktab school in some detail, describing the curricula for two stages of education in a maktab school.[6]

[edit]Primary education

Ibn Sina wrote that children should be sent to a maktab school from the age of 6 and be taught primary education until they

reach the age of 14. During which time, he wrote that they should be taught the Qur'an, Islamic

metaphysics, language, literature, Islamic ethics, and manual skills (which could refer to a variety of practical skills).[6]

[edit]Secondary education

Ibn Sina refers to the secondary education stage of maktab schooling as the period of specialization, when pupils should

begin to acquire manual skills, regardless of their social status. He writes that children after the age of 14 should be given a

choice to choose and specialize in subjects they have an interest in, whether it was reading, manual skills, literature,

preaching, medicine, geometry, trade and commerce, craftsmanship, or any other subject or profession they would be

interested in pursuing for a future career. He wrote that this was a transitional stage and that there needs to be flexibility

regarding the age in which pupils graduage, as the student's emotional development and chosen subjects need to be taken

into account.[7] in secondary education they believe that the lion is a symbol of education

[edit]Higher education

See also: Ijazah

During the formative period of the madrasah, used to refer to a higher education institution, philosophy and the secular

sciences were often excluded from its curriculum, which initially only included the "religious sciences".[8] The curriculum

slowly began to diversify, with many later madrasahs teaching both the religious and the "secular sciences",

[9]
like logic, mathematics and philosophy. Some madrasahs further extended their curriculum

to history, politics, ethics, music, metaphysics, medicine, astronomy and chemistry.[10] Some Islamic schools by the 12th

century also taught early ideas related to evolution.[11] The curriculum of a madrasah was usually set by its founder, but

most generally taught both the religious sciences and the physical sciences. Madrasahs were established throughout the

Islamic world, the most famous being the 10th century Al-Azhar University and the 11th century Nizamiyya, as well as 75

madrasahs in Cairo, 51 in Damascus and up to 44 in Aleppo between 1155 and 1260. Many more were also established in

the Andalusian citites of Córdoba,Seville, Toledo, Granada, Murcia, Almería, Valencia and Cádiz during the Caliphate of

Córdoba.[12]

In the Ottoman Empire during the early modern period, "Madrasahs were divided into lower and specialized levels, which

reveals that there was a sense of elevation in school. Students who studied in the specialized schools after completing

courses in the lower levels became known as danismends."[2]

[edit]College

The origins of the college lie in the medieval Islamic world. While "madrasah" can now refer to any type of school, the term

"madrasah" was originally used to refer more specifically to a medieval Islamic college, mainly teaching Islamic
law and theology, usually affiliated with a mosque, and funded by an early charitable trust known as Waqf.[10] It has been

argued that the internal organization of the first European colleges was borrowed from the earlier madrasahs, like the

system of fellows and scholars, with the Latin term for fellow,socius, being a direct translation of the Arabic term for

fellow, sahib.[10] However, this view is not accepted by all specialists on the topic.

The funding for madrasahs came primarily from Waqf instititions, which were similar to the charitable trusts which later

funded the first European colleges. Syed Farid Alatas writes:[10]

"The madrasah was established as a charitable trust (waqf) founded by individual Muslims, which legally bounded the founder to run it

as amadrasah. It had the legal status of an institution but was not a state institution. According to Makdisi, there are two arguments in

favour of the idea of the Islamic origins of the college. One is the waqf or charitable trust and the other the internal organization of the

college."

[edit]University

If a university is defined as an institution of higher education and research which issues academic degrees at all levels

(bachelor, masterand doctorate),[13] then the first Islamic "universities" were the Jami'ah founded in the 9th century.

However, it should be noted that many medievalist specialists eschew the term "university" for the Islamic madrasas

and jami'ah because the medieval European institution of higher learning called a "university" (from Latin universitas) was

structurally very different, being a legally autonomous corporation rather than a waqf institution like the madrasah

and jami'ah.[14] Medieval specialists have coined the term "Islamic college" for madrasah andjami'ah to avoid confusion with

the legally autonomous corporations that the medieval European universities were.

While the madrasah college could also issue degrees at all levels, the Jami`ah differed in the sense that it was a larger

institution that was more universal in terms of its complete source of studies, had individual faculties for different subjects,

and could house a number of mosques, madrasahs and other institutions within it.[10] The University of Al Karaouine in Fez,

Morocco is thus recognized by theGuinness Book of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with

its founding in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri.[15]

What is now Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in 975 by Ismaili Shi`ah Fatimid dynasty, was a Jami'ah which

offered a variety of post-graduate degrees (ijazah),[10] and had individual faculties[16] for a theological seminary, Islamic

law and jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, early Islamic philosophy and logic in Islamic philosophy.[10] Abd-

el-latif also delivered lectures on Islamic medicine at Al-Azhar, while Maimonides delivered lectures on medicine and

astronomy there during the time of Saladin.[17] Another earlyjami'ah was the Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad (founded 1091), which

has been called the "largest university of the Medieval world".[18]Mustansiriya University, established by

the Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir in 1233, in addition to teaching the religious subjects, offered courses dealing with

philosophy, mathematics and the natural sciences.

[edit]Law school

See also: Sharia and Fiqh

Madrasahs were largely centered on the study of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifta' ("license to teach

and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Islamic legal education system had its origins in the 9th century after the

formation of the Madh'hab legal schools. For conventional purposes the term "doctorate" is used in some academic

literature for the ijazah, even though there were some difference between the ijaza and the European doctorate. (For

example, the former was awarded by an invidual teacher-scholar, and the latter by the collective faculty).

To obtain an ijazah , a student "had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course"

and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The "doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the

originality of the candidate's theses", and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all objections,

in disputations set up for the purpose." These were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student's "career as

a graduate student of law." After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded ijazas giving them

the status of faqih (meaning "one who does law"), mufti (meaning "professor ofFatwā") and mudarris (meaning "teacher").

The Arabic term ijazat attadris, was awarded to Islamic scholars who were qualified to teach. It has been argued that the

Latin title licentia docendi ( "license to teach") in the European university may have been a translation of the

Arabic. [13]
However, a significant difference between the ijazat attadris and the licentia docendi was that the former was

awarded by the individual scholar-teacher, while the latter was awarded by the chief official of the university, who

represented the collective faculty, rather than the individual scholar-teacher.[19]

Much of the study in the madrasa college centered on examining whether certain opinions of law were orthodox. This

scholarly process of "determining orthodoxy began with a question which the Muslim layman, called in that

capacity mustafti, presented to a jurisconsult, called mufti, soliciting from him a response, called fatwa, a legal

opinion (the religious law of Islam covers civil as well as religious matters). The mufti (professor of legal opinions) took this

question, studied it, researched it intensively in the sacred scriptures, in order to find a solution to it. This process of

scholarly research vas called ijtihad, literally, the exertion of one's efforts to the utmost limit."[13]

[edit]Medical school

See also: Bimaristan

Though Islamic medicine was most often taught at the Bimaristan teaching hospitals, there were also several

madrasah medical schoolsdedicated to the teaching of medicine. For example, from the 155 madrasah colleges in 15th

century Damascus, three of them were medical schools.[20]

In the Early Modern Period in the Ottoman Empire, "Suleyman I added new curriculums to the Ottoman medreses of which

one was medicine, which alongside studying of the Hadith was given highest rank."[2]

[edit]Female education

See also: Women in Islam and Women in Iraq

From around 750, during the Abbasid Caliphate, women “became renowned for their brains as well as their beauty”.[21] In

particular, many well known women of the time were trained from childhood in music, dancing and poetry. Mahbuba was
one of these. Another feminine figure to be remembered for her achievements was Tawaddud “a slave girl who was said to

have been bought at great cost by Harun al-Rashid because she had passed her examinations by the most

eminent scholars in astronomy, medicine, law, philosophy, music, history,Arabic grammar, literature, theology and chess”.

[22]
Moreover, among the most prominent feminine figures was Shuhda who was known as “the Scholar” or “the Pride of

Women” during the twelfth century in Baghdad. Despite the recognition of women’s aptitudes during the Abbasid dynasty,

all these came to an end in Iraq with the sack of Baghdad in 1258.[23]

Women played an important role in the foundations of many Islamic educational institutions, such as Fatima al-Fihri's

founding of theUniversity of Al Karaouine in 859. This continued through to the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th and 13th

centuries, when 160 mosques and madrasahs were established in Damascus, 26 of which were funded by women through

the Waqf (charitable trust) system. Half of all the royal patrons for these institutions were also women.[24]

According to the Sunni scholar Ibn Asakir in the 12th century, there were opportunities for female education in the medieval

Islamic world, writing that women could study, earn ijazahs (academic degrees), and qualify as scholars and teachers. This

was especially the case for learned and scholarly families, who wanted to ensure the highest possible education for both

their sons and daughters.[25] Ibn Asakir had himself studied under 80 different female teachers in his time. Female education

in the Islamic world was inspired by Muhammad's wives:Khadijah, a successful businesswoman. According to

a hadith attributed to Muhammad, he praised the women of Medina because of their desire for religious knowledge:[26]

"How splendid were the women of the ansar; shame did not prevent them from becoming learned in the faith."

While it was not common for women to enroll as students in formal classes, it was common for women to attend

informal lectures and study sessions at mosques, madrasahs and other public places. While there were no legal restrictions

on female education, some men did not approve of this practice, such as Muhammad ibn al-Hajj (d. 1336) who was appalled

at the behaviour of some women who informally audited lectures in his time:[27]

"[Consider] what some women do when people gather with a shaykh to hear [the recitation of] books. At that point women come, too,

to hear the readings; the men sit in one place, the women facing them. It even happens at such times that some of the women are

carried away by the situation; one will stand up, and sit down, and shout in a loud voice. [Moreover,] her 'awra will appear; in her

house, their exposure would be forbidden — how can it be allowed in a mosque, in the presence of men?"

The term 'awra is often translated as "that which is indecent", which usually meant the exposure of anything other than a

woman's face and hands, although scholarly interpretations of the 'awra and hijab have always tended to vary, with some

more or less strict than others.[27]

While women accounted for no more than one percent of Islamic scholars prior to the 12th century, there was a large

increase of female scholars after this. In the 15th century, Al-Sakhawi devotes an entire volume of his 12-

volume biographical dictionary Daw al-lami to female scholars, giving information on 1,075 of them.[28] More recently, the

scholar Mohammad Akram Nadwi, currently a researcher from theOxford Centre for Islamic Studies, has written 40 volumes

on the 'muhaddithat' (the women scholars of hadith), and found at least 8000 of them.[29]
[edit]Madrasahs by region

that muslim stufff

This section requires expansion.

[edit]Madrasahs under the Ottoman Turks

"The first Ottoman Medrese was created in Iznik in 1331 and most Ottoman medreses followed the traditions

of sunni Islam."[2] "When an Ottoman sultan established a new medrese, he would invite scholars from the Islamic world—for

example, Murad II brought scholars from Persia, such as Ala al-Din and Fakhr al-Din who helped enhance the reputation of

the Ottoman medrese".[2] This reveals that the Islamic world was interconnected in the early modern period as they traveled

around to other Islamic states exchanging knowledge. This sense that the Ottoman Empire was becoming modernized

through globalization is also recognized by Hamadeh who says: "Change in the eighteenth century as the beginning of a

long and unilinear march toward westernization reflects the two centuries of reformation in sovereign identity."[30] Inalcik

also mentions that while scholars from for example Persia, traveled to the Ottomans in order to share their knowledge,

Ottomans traveled as well to receive education from scholars of these Islamic lands, such as Egypt, Persia and Turkestan.

[2]
Hence, this reveals that similar to today's modern world, individuals from the early modern society traveled abroad to

receive education and share knowledge and that the world was more interconnected than it seems. Also, it reveals how the

system of "schooling" was also similar to today's modern world where students travel abroad to different countries for

studies. Examples of Ottoman madrasahs are the ones built by Mehmed the Conqueror. He built eight madrasahs that were

built "on either side of the mosque where there were eight higher madrasahs for specialized studies and eight lower

medreses, which prepared students for these."[2] The fact that they were built around, or near mosques reveals the religious

impulses behind Madrasah building and it reveals the interconnectedness between institutions of learning and religion. The

students who completed their education in the lower medreses became known as danismends[2] This reveals that similar to

the education system today, the Ottomans had a similar kind of educational system in which there were different kinds of

schools attached to different kinds of levels. For example, there were the lower madrasahs and then the specialized ones

and for one to get into the specialized area meant that they had to complete the classes in the lower one in order to

adequately prepare themselves for higher learning.[2]

This is the rank of Madrasahs in the Ottoman Empire from the highest ranking to the lowest: (From Inalcik, 167).[2] 1)

Semniye 2) Darulhadis 3) Madrasahs built by earlier sultans in Bursa. 4) Madrasahs endowed by great men of state.

Although Ottoman Madrasahs had a number of different branches of study, such as calligraphic sciences, oral sciences, and

intellectual sciences they primarily served the function of an Islamic center for spiritual learning. "The goal of all knowledge

and in particular, of the spiritual sciences is knowledge of God."[2] Religion, for the most part, determines the significance

and importance of each science. As Inalcik mentions: " Those which aid religion are good and sciences like astrology are

bad."[2] However, even though mathematics, or studies in logic were part of the madrasah's curriculum, they were all

centered around religion. Even mathematics had a religious impulse behind its teachings. "The Ulema of the Ottoman
medreses held the view that hostility to logic and mathematics was futile since these accustomed the mind to correct

thinking and thus helped to reveal divine truths"[2] – keyword being divine. Inalcik also mentions that even philosophy was

only allowed to be studied so that it helped to confirm the doctrines of Islam."[2] Hence, madrasahs – schools were basically

religious centers for religious teachings and learning in the Ottoman world. Although scholars such as Goffman have argued

that the Ottomans were highly tolerant and lived in a pluralistic society, it seems that schools that were the main centers for

learning were in fact heftily religious and were not religiously pluralistic, but centered around Islam. Similarly, in Europe

"Jewish children learned the Hebrew letters and texts of basic prayers at home, and then attended a school organized by the

synagogue to study the Torah."[31]Wiesner-Hanks also goes on to mention that Protestants also wanted to teach "proper

religious values."[31] This goes on to show that in the early modern period, Ottomans and Europeans were similar in their

ideas about how schools should be managed and what they should be primarily focused on. Thus, Ottoman madrasahs were

very similar to present day schools in the sense that they offered a wide range of studies; however, the difference being

that these studies, in its ultimate objective, aimed to further solidify and consolidate Islamic practices, and theories.

[edit]Curriculums

As is previously mentioned, religion dominated much of the knowledge and teachings that were endowed upon students.

"Religious learning as the only true science, whose sole aim was the understanding of God's word."[2] Thus, it is important to

keep this impulse in mind when going over the curriculum that was taught.

The following is taken from Inalcik.[2]

 A) Calligraphic sciences—such as styles of writing.

 B) Oral sciences—such as Arabic language, grammar and syntax.

 C) Intellectual sciences—logic in Islamic philosophy.

 D) Spiritual sciences—theoretical, such as Islamic theology and mathematics; and practical, such as Islamic ethics and

politics.

[edit]Social life and the Medrese

As with any other country during the Early Modern Period, such as Italy and Spain in Europe, the Ottoman social life was also

interconnected with the medrese. Medreses were built in as part of a Mosque Complex where many programs, such as aid

to the poor through soup kitchens were held under the infrastructure of a mosque, which reveals the interconnectedness of

religion and social life during this period. "The mosques to which medreses were attached, dominated the social life in

Ottoman cities."[32] Social life was not dominated by religion only in the Muslim world of the Ottoman Empire; however, was

also quite similar to the social life of Europe during this period. As Goffman says: "Just as mosques dominated social life for

the Ottomans, churches and synagogues dominated life for the Christians and Jews as well."[32] Hence, social life and the

medrese were closely linked, since medreses as is previously mentioned taught many curriculums, such as religion, which

highly governed social life in terms of establishing orthodoxy. "They tried moving their developing state toward Islamic

orthodoxy."[32] Overall, the fact that mosques contained medreses comes to show the relevance of education to religion in
the sense that education took place within the framework of religion and religion established social life by trying to create a

common religious orthodoxy. Hence, medreses were simply part of the social life of society as students came to learn the

fundamentals of their societal values and beliefs.

[edit]Madrasahs in Iran

This section requires expansion.

[edit]Madrasahs in South Asia

[edit]India

This is a madarasaa of the Jamia Masjid mosque in Srirangapatna, India. This mosque dates back to the 1700s and is where Tipu Sultan used to

pray.

In India, there are around 30,000 operating madrasahs.[33] The majority of these schools follow the Hanafi school of thought.

The religious establishment forms part of the mainly two large divisions within the country, namely the Deobandis, who

dominate in numbers (of whom the Darul Uloom Deoband constitutes one of the biggest madrasas in the world) and the

barelvis, who also make up a sizeable portion (sufi orientated). Some notable establishments include: Jamia Ashrafia,

Mubarakpur which is one the largest learning centres for the Barelvis. Darul Uloom Deoband which is the largest, and is

considered by many to be the most renowned madrasah in Asia, is located at Saharanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. The HR

ministry of Government of India, has recently declared that a Central Madrasa Board would be setup. This will enhance the

education system of Madrasas in India. Though the madrasas impart Quranic education mainly, efforts are on to include

Mathematics, Computers and Science in the curriculum.

[edit]Pakistan

Main article: Madrassas in Pakistan

There are more than 50,000 madrasahs currently (as of 1998) operating in Pakistan. It is estimated that one to two million

children are enrolled in madrasahs.[34] There has been considerable intellectual disagreement about the linkages of

madrasahs to conflict in Pakistan. A study conducted in 2005 by Saleem Ali for the United States Institute of Peace attempts

to clarify some of these concerns by providing a detailed empirical comparison of rural and urban madrasahs (currently this
study is being updpated and expanded as a book (expected to be completed in 2007), though an earlier draft is available

online.[35] The project also included a web video on such schools titled Children of Faith.[36]

[edit]Madrasahs in Indonesia

This section requires expansion.

[edit]Misuse of the word

Post-9/11, the Madrasas are perceived as a place of radical revivalism among Western countries with a negative connotation

of anti-Americanism and radical extremism. The word madrasah literally means "school" and does not imply a political or

religious affiliation, radical or otherwise. They have a varied curriculum, and are not all religious. Although early Madrasahs

were founded primarily to gain "knowledge of God" they also taught other subjects including mathematics and poetry. For

example, in the Ottoman Empire, "Madrasahs had seven categories of sciences that were taught, such as: styles of writing,

oral sciences like the Arabic language, grammar, rhetoric, and history and intellectual sciences, such as logic."[2] This is

similar to the Western world, in which universities began as institutions of the Catholic church.

The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization examined bias in United States newspaper coverage of Pakistan since

the September 11, 2001 attacks, and found the term has come to contain a loaded political meaning:[37]

"When articles mentioned 'madrassas,' readers were led to infer that all schools so-named are anti-American, anti-Western, pro-

terrorist centers having less to do with teaching basic literacy and more to do with political indoctrination."

Various American public figures have, in recent times, used the word in a negative context, including Newt Gingrich,

[37]
Donald Rumsfeld,[38] and Colin Powell.[39]

The New York Times published a correction for misusing the word "madrassa" in a way that assumed it meant a radical

Islamic school. The correction stated, "An article... said Senator Barack Obama had attended an Islamic school or madrassa

in Indonesia as a child referred imprecisely to madrassas. While some (madrassas) teach a radical version of Islam, most

historically have not."[40]

[edit]See also

Look

up madrasah inWiktionary,

the free dictionary.

 Hawza—used in Shi'a Islam

 Darul uloom—another similar type of Islamic school

 Dars-e Nizamiyyah—most common madrasah curriculum

 Islamic architecture

 Beth midrash, and Yeshiva—Jewish religious schooling.

  Caferağa Medresseh

 Pesantren

[edit]Notes

1. ^ "Madarasaa". WordAnywhere. Retrieved 2007-06-23.

2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t
Inalcik, Halil. 1973. "Learning, the Medrese, and the Ulema." In The Ottoman Empire: The Classical

Age 1300–1600. New York: Praeger, pp. 165–178.

3. ^ Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), passim
4. ^ Ira Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), passim
5. ^ Andrew J. Coulson (PDF), Delivering Education, Hoover Institution, p. 117, retrieved 2008-11-22
6. ^ a b
M. S. Asimov, Clifford Edmund Bosworth (1999), The Age of Achievement: Vol 4, Motilal Banarsidass, p. 33–4, ISBN

8120815963

7. ^ M. S. Asimov, Clifford Edmund Bosworth (1999), The Age of Achievement: Vol 4, Motilal Banarsidass, p. 34–5, ISBN 8120815963
8. ^ Toby E. Huff (2003), The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, Cambridge University Press, pp. 77–8
9. ^ M. S. Asimov, Clifford Edmund Bosworth (1999), The Age of Achievement: Vol 4, Motilal Banarsidass, p. 37, ISBN 8120815963
10. ^ a b c d e f g
Alatas, Syed Farid (2006), "From Jami`ah to University: Multiculturalism and Christian–Muslim

Dialogue", Current Sociology 54 (1): 112–132,doi:10.1177/0011392106058837

11. ^ John William Draper (1878), History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, pp. 154–5 & 237, ISBN

1603030964

12. ^ "education", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008, retrieved 2008-09-30

13. ^ a b c
Makdisi, George (April–June 1989), "Scholasticism and Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian

West", Journal of the American Oriental Society109 (2): 175–182 [175–77], doi:10.2307/604423

14. ^ Toby Huff, Rise of early modern science 2nd ed.(Cambridge University, 2003) p. 149.

15. ^ The Guinness Book of Records, 1998, p. 242, ISBN 0-5535-7895-2

16. ^ Goddard, Hugh (2000), A History of Christian-Muslim Relations, Edinburgh University Press, p. 99, ISBN

074861009X

17. ^ Necipogulu, Gulru (1996), Muqarnas, Volume 13, Brill Publishers, p. 56, ISBN 9004106332

18. ^ A European Civil Project of a Documentation Center on Islam

19. ^ Toby Huff, Rise of Early Modern Science 2nd. ed. p. 78-79; 136, 155.

20. ^ Gibb, H. A. R. (1970), "The University in the Arab-Moslem World", in Bradby, Edward, The University Outside

Europe: Essays on the Development of University, Ayer Publishing, pp. 281–298 [281], ISBN 0836915488

21. ^ Doreen Insgrams (1983), The Awakened: Women in Iraq, p. 22, Third World Centre for Research and Publishing

Ltd., Lebanon
 22. ^ Doreen Insgrams (1983), The Awakened: Women in Iraq, p. 23, Third World Centre for Research and Publishing

Ltd., Lebanon

23. ^ Anthony Nutting, The Arabs. (Hollis and Carter, 1964), p. 196

24. ^ Lindsay, James E. (2005), Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 197, ISBN

0313322708

25. ^ Lindsay, James E. (2005), Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World, Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 196 &

198, ISBN 0313322708

26. ^ Lindsay, James E. (2005), Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World, Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 196, ISBN

0313322708

27. ^ a b
Lindsay, James E. (2005), Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 198, ISBN

0313322708

28. ^ Guity Nashat, Lois Beck (2003), Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800, University of Illinois Press,

p. 69, ISBN 0252071212

29. ^ Reconsideration: A Secret History

30. ^ Hamadeh, Shirine. "Ottoman Expressions of Early Modernity and the 'Inevitable' Question of Westernization". The

Journal of Architectural Historians 63.1 (2004): 32–51.

31. ^ a b
Wiesner-Hanks, E. Merry. Early Modern Europe 1450–1789. New York: U of Cambridge P, 2006.

32. ^ a b c
Goffman, Daniel. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. United Kingdom: U of Cambridge P, 2002.

33. ^ Kennedy, Miranda. "Rumors of jihad". The Boston Globe, April 4, 2004. Accessed 12 May 2009.

34. ^ McLean, Robert T. "Can Pakistan Reform?" FrontPage Magazine, January 5, 2006. Accessed 12 May 2009.

35. ^ Pakistani Madrassahs: A Balanced View, United States Institute of Peace.

36. ^ Dr. Saleem Ali, Ph.D. Children of Faith: The Madrassah Students of Pakistan. Google Video, June 21, 2006.

Accessed 12 May 2009.

37. ^ a b
Moeller, Susan (2007-06-21). "Jumping on the US Bandwagon for a "War on Terror"". YaleGlobal Online. Yale

Center for the Study of Globalization.

38. ^ Rumsfeld, Donald (2003-10-16). "Rumsfeld's war-on-terror memo" (Transcript). USA Today. Retrieved 2008-01-14.

39. ^ "Madrassas breeding grounds of terrorists: Powell". The Tribune. 2004-03-11. Retrieved 2008-01-14.

40. ^ Bill Carter (January 24, 2007 (correction appended January 27, 2007)). "Rivals CNN and Fox News Spar Over

Obama Report". The New York Times.

[edit]Further reading

 Ali, Saleem H. "Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistan's Madrassas", Oxford University

Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780195476729

 Evans, Alexander. "Understanding Madrasahs", Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2006.

  Rahman, Tariq. Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Study of Education, Inequality and Polarization in Pakistan.

Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004. Reprinted 2006. ISBN 9780195978636. Chapter on "Madrassas".

 Tanweer, Bilal. "Revisiting the Madrasa Question". The News International, 6 May 2007. About a talk given by

Dr. Nomanul Haq (University of Pennsylvania) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan.

 Ziad, Waleed. "Madaris in Perspective". Reprinted from The News, March 21, 2004.

[edit]External links

Wikimedia

Commons has media

related to: Madrassas

 Meaning of the word madrassah

 My time in a madrassa

 Pakistani Madrassahs: A Balanced View—A project of the United States Institute of Peace

 Islam Way Online - Your Religion and Spirituality Portal—A traditional Afghan madrassa

 Madrasas.info—About Islamic religious schools

 Lessons from God—The Common Language Project

 Picture of an Ottoman Madrasah

Categories: Madrassas | Arabic culture | Arabic architecture | Arabic words and phrases | Education-related

terms | Universities and colleges by type | Law schools

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