Islamic Education and Islamization

This article was downloaded by: [University of Edinburgh]
On: 08 May 2012, At: 18:32

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs

Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjmm20
Islamic Education and Islamization:

Evolution of Themes, Continuities and
New Directions
Sarfaroz Niyozov & Nadeem Memon
Available online: 19 Apr 2011
To cite this article: Sarfaroz Niyozov & Nadeem Memon (2011): Islamic Education and Islamization:
Evolution of Themes, Continuities and New Directions, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 31:1,
5-30
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2011.556886
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-

conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation
that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any
instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary
sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 1, March 2011
Islamic Education and Islamization: Evolution

of Themes, Continuities and New Directions
SARFAROZ NIYOZOV and NADEEM MEMON
Abstract
Drawing on a number of primary and secondary sources, the paper identifies major
perspectives and debates on themes, issues, challenges, developments important in the
field of Islamic education. Against the backdrop of the rise of religious discourse and
Downloaded by [University of Edinburgh] at 18:32 08 May 2012
politics in the public sphere, this paper (i) discusses the sources and evolution of the
concept of education as a discipline in the Muslim world; (ii) situates Islamic edu-
cation within the wider Islamization project and examines the need to re-conceptu-
alize the concept within the epistemological and ethical perspectives while balancing
it with a re-examination of self and the appreciation of the ‘other’; (iii) explores the
educational implications of the Muslims vs. the West divide, (iv) highlights the pro-
liferation of Islamic schools and the concomitant innovative ideas globally; and (vi)
suggests insights into improving Islamic education in the twenty-first century. The
paper highlights the continuity and change in these themes across time and space.
The paper finally concludes that Islamic education has reached a cross-road. To
succeed in the new millennium will require ingenuity and collaboration, learning
not only from the past, but also from the present and looking into the future.
Introduction
The exponential increase of Muslim populations in the West, the fallouts of events such
as 9/11 in the US and 7/7 in the UK, sensationalized debates of civilizational clashes, and
cases of Islamophobia and racism, have profoundly affected the way Muslim commu-
nities approach the education of their children. At the same time, as Muslim communities
have integrated into the socio-economic fabric of Western societies; established mosques
and community centers; earned a political voice and engaged socially and civically, it has
equally shaped the potential of new directions and approaches to schooling.
Both the polarization and integration of segments within Muslim communities has led
to diverse responses and as a result, new directions under the larger umbrella term—
Islamic education. In non-Muslim majority countries, public/secular schools and
teachers are acknowledging the need to know more, engage Islam and their Muslim
students’ complex backgrounds, accommodate their religious practices, develop cultural
sensitivity, enrich the curriculum, reach out to their students’ parents, and ensure their
students’ academic and social success.1 In the nascent Islamic schools, quality, creation
of an Islamic ethos, articulation of Islamic identity, gender parity, and co-existence with
the non-Muslim majority outside these schools are among the critical issues.2 This review
of the relevant scholarship draws upon a number of secondary (e.g. literature, reports and
media) and primary sources (our own personal, collegial journeys, and research into
Islamic education). The paper identifies perspectives on important themes, issues,
challenges, and developments in the field.
ISSN 1360-2004 print/ISSN 1469-9591 online/11/010005-26 © 2011 Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs
DOI: 10.1080/13602004.2011.556886
6 Sarfaroz Niyozov and Nadeem Memon
Against the backdrop of the rise of religious discourse and politics in the public sphere,
in this paper we: (i) briefly discuss the sources and evolution of the concept of education
as a discipline in the Muslim world; (ii) situate Islamic education within the wider Isla-
mization project; (iii) explore the education aspect of the Muslims versus the West
tension; and (iv) highlight the proliferation of Islamic schools and the concomitant inno-
vative ideas globally. We highlight continuity and change in Islamic education and
suggest insights for looking into Islamic education for the near future.
Islamic education, we argue, has been able to survive challenges, but has also struggled
to deliver on its promises of conceptualizing, articulating, and providing a model of edu-
cation that is an original contribution to the field. To achieve such a model, a concerted
effort must revisit the Islamization strategy and examine its epistemological and meth-
odological assumptions and approaches in the light of the Muslim learners’ realities
living in a knowledge society and globalizing world.
Education as Discipline in Islam: A Journey of Continuity and Change

Although there is a common endorsement on the value of learning, knowledge and intellect
in the various Islamic discourses, the question of whether education was an independent
discipline like jurisprudence (fiqh), scholastic theology (kalam), grammar (nahw) or phil-
osophy (falsafa) remains ambiguous. The debate is inconclusive: Halstead, for example,
suggests that Islamic education as an independent discipline did not exist.3 Other
Muslim education researchers have suggested that education-specific language and con-
cepts have been historically embedded in the Islamic tradition and are worthy of shaping
a field of study.4 Al-Attas, for example, asserted the central meaning of education (i.e.
Greek educere—to draw out or develop from within) corresponds with the Arabic words
ta’lim, tarbiya and ta’dib. 5 These imply to educate, nurture, and bring out wholeness
and learning potential ( fitrah) through erudition. Learning from an Islamic viewpoint
means knowing things as they are; knowing the essence of something, its “mahiyya”, its
quiddity and intrinsic meaning, embedded in the objective reality of a thing, haqiqah.6
Better knowing of things, including of oneself (because these all are signs of the divine cre-
ation), leads us to better knowing of the Creator, his power and uniqueness, as well as the
reason and purpose behind the creation and the human beings’ place within the creation.
Halstead claims that the verb forms used to express these terms (i.e. ta’lim tarbiya and
ta’dib) signify education in Islam as done toward a passive learner, an object who is to be
enlightened, developed, and encultured; Islamic education is a progressive initiation of
the learner into the received truths of the faith. The trajectory, process, and outcomes
are clear, linear, and known. Halstead sums up that “despite the long standing tradition
of respect for education within Islam there has never been a clear and thoroughgoing
enunciation of the principles on which education is based… there has not been strong
theoretical foundation”.7 Our concern with Halstead’s claims is that he does not
specify what philosophy means for him or assumes that philosophy might be of one
kind, in this case a Western notion only. If so, his assertions above render the search
for wisdom and exploration of fundamental questions about human conditions without
a discipline like philosophy untenable. If one looks at philosophy literal sense of love
for wisdom, Islamic discourse uses terms like hikmah and ma’rifah. Scholars on Islam,
both Muslim and non-Muslims, have asserted that Islam is a rational religion, a faith
that is based on reasoning, logic, search for knowledge, and purposeful narrative.
Even though Islam subordinates reasoning to revelation, it endorses reasoning rather
than blind acceptance of the faith. To be sure, majority Muslim thinkers of various
Islamic Education and Islamization 7
denominations have rarely, if ever, accepted unbridled reasoning and search for truth
as the purpose of learning or resolving legal and theological issues of the time.
If philosophy implies the existence of a strategic vision, and questions of purpose,
content, and approach, Islamic education in its various manifestations has always had a
clear vision and strategy. True, education in Islam, as it was in Christendom, has had a reli-
gious orientation. It was framed within the religious discourse, using the vocabulary of the
time and examples and tools of the culture. This education has also embodied a process and
a venue where a careful negotiation between the past (tradition) and innovation and change
(modernity) was played out. Without the former (tradition), students cannot develop a
stable identity, without the latter (modernity), they do not learn flexibility for change.
Debates around the role of Islamic education in tackling modernity and tradition have
become central to the writings of Muslim educationalists since the middle of nineteenth
century, where questions of compatibility of Islamic and Western education, the education
of women, Islam and modern secular sciences, democracy, and humanism became central.
To that end, Islamic education needs to be seen as an evolving, diverse and contested
phenomenon, not only between meeting the needs of tradition and modernity, but also
the needs of a diverse Muslim community (ummah) with various interpretations of Islam.
Similarly, distinguishing between the textual declarations about teaching and learning,
the variety of interpretations of the texts, and the discursive practices on how Islamic
education has been practiced is useful to grasp the complexity of Islamic education.
The realities of schooling as it comes from the writings of Al-Jahiz (d. 850), autobiogra-
phies of Ibn Sina (d. 1037), Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) in medieval times; of Taha Hussein
(d. 1973), Sadruddin Ayni (d. 1954) and Ebrahim Moosa since the end of the nineteenth
century illustrate pragmatic, complex, contested, and existential scenario. An account of
how Islamic schools of thought defined sources, tools and objectives of Islamic education
throughout their evolution may shed some light into this complexity. Dominant
interpretations and powerful discourses have always decided on what Islamic education
at particular time and place should be about.8
Lastly, Halstead’s assertion may come from the fact that philosophers were marginal in
Islamic thought and al-Ghazali (d. 1111 CE) outlawed them. Yet, Muslims’ resentment
towards philosophy (as an ancient or foreign science) has never been total and over-
whelming.9 Islamic history, as it is known, had its own wisdom, intellectual, and philo-
sophical movements such as Mashaiya (peripatetic), Mu’tazila, and Ismailis who
differentially saw reasoning and questioning as the best ways to understand Islam, and
saw no dichotomy between Islam, philosophy, and science.
In sum, the question whether Islamic education had a strong theoretical foundation (e.g.
philosophy) requires a more careful approach and deeper research into the place of Islamic
education in the overall intellectual history of Muslim communities. Our journey into it is a
just a sketch of a massive undertaking that requires tremendous investment. In the rest of
this paper, we attempt to illustrate continuity and change through the mapping of five
major periods in which the conceptualization of Islamic education as a discipline has
evolved. The continuity and change in the goals, processes, methods, and practices of
Islamic education reflect the broader attempts of negotiation between the universal and
the contextual, including tradition and modernity in Muslim intellectual history.
Sixth Century: The Revelation and the Promise

Islamic education, as a distinct activity, has its roots in the revelations, the life, and the
work of the Prophet of Islam.10 The emerging Muslim community [starting in
Medina] selectively and carefully built on the existing practices among the sedentary Arab
tribes (including the Christian and Jewish), living in the Arabian Peninsula. Kuttabs for
reading and writing existed at the time of Islam’s emergence. Sufyan bin Ummayah
and Abu Qais bin Abd Manaf from Mecca are mentioned to have been among these
kuttabs’ students before Islam. Literacy was not absent, although it was limited to a
few. Sophisticated pre-Islamic poetry, stories of Arabs (ayyam al-arab), and Quraish cap-
tives working as teachers in Medina, existence of Christian, Jewish, and Persian schools
are but a few examples of educational and intellectual life in early Islam.
Muslims preserved these kuttabs for reading and writing and opened new ones specifi-
cally assigned for reading and understanding the Qur’an. Dar al-Arqam is presumed to be
one of the first kuttabs where converts were taught about their new faith. Prophet Muham-
mad was the founder of new education, its purpose and content. His companions, bor-
rowing his approaches, spread the word of God and his teaching to the tribes. Muslims
also employed Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians to teach their children.11 The Prophets’
and his companions’ teaching (whether clandestine or open) was intensive and highly
passionate; often involving heated debates and discussions. It was cross-aged, aiming
largely at the adult, the oppositional the disappointed and the marginalized. It spoke
about the social injustices, and daily issues, using the language of religion and poetry.
It was informal and integrative of words and actions. The curriculum of the day
(whether formal or informal) was authentic, pragmatic, and relevant in the sense that it
both built upon and examined the existing beliefs, practices, and traditions.
To that end, Islamic education of the period of revelation was radical and had a
number of goals. First, it accompanied, expounded, justified, and promulgated the
social transformation of the tribal culture, the Quraishite aristocratic status and economic
power. It contributed to unifying Arabian tribes by replacing tribal deities with one God;
by suggesting Muslim brotherhood to overcome tribal, family and clan racism and dis-
crimination; by enhancing Arab-Muslim’s self esteem through defeating polytheists,
Jews and Christians over time. Second, it had to also show the similarities and differences
between Islam (as al-din al-hanif—the original and pure faith) from those of the Jewish
and Christian tribes and communities in the peninsula and its borders. Third, re-concep-
tualization of the existing practices along new Islamic ethics and epistemology and their
transmission were also part of the education strategy.
Given that Muslims were a nascent minority and the context dynamic, interactions,
heated disputations, debates and disagreements and persuasion occurred as natural
methods of teaching and learning. The personal charisma and modeling of the
Prophet, unity, organization, mastery of the various persuasion techniques, and egalitar-
ian principles (e.g. seeking knowledge of the new faith (al-ilm) as an obligation, a form of
worship, and teaching it without remuneration) played a significant role in this new
education.
Given that the Qur’an was not yet compiled as a whole text, Prophet Muhammad was
the source of this knowledge, the judge of its truthfulness and the reference for emulation
in terms of the pedagogy. On a daily basis, the Prophet explained the meaning of the
Qur’anic verses, the new faith’s qualitative superiority, and also demonstrated it
through his words and actions. While oral methods dominated the teaching and learning
discourse, writing and textbook compilation was already in the coming: scribes such as
Zaid bin Thabit, the Prophet’s secretary, wrote down what the Prophet spoke and did.
In addition to the Prophet’s home and the Dar al-Arqam, corners in the mosques
(suffa) and circles of learning (halaqa), served as learning sites for the young and adult,
men and women—all learning, both together and separately. Debates about what the
Prophet and his companions did, and why they acted in certain ways, served as curricu-
lum and as knowledge in the making. Together with the Qur’an, this led to a whole
corpus of knowledge, a curriculum for the nascent Islamic education.
During the period of the righteous Caliphs, schools (kuttab) for primary age children
were opened up for studying the Qur’an and the new faith, with the Companions
serving as teachers. Although learning included many things such as Umar ibn al-Khat-
tab’s insistence that children be taught “swimming, horsemanship, famous proverbs and
good poetry”,12 knowledge of the religion of Islam (‘ilm al-din) was seen as the highest,
most correct and favored form of knowledge (ilm al-yaqin).Writing and standardization
became necessary as the demands for guidance arose from near and far frontiers of the
widening Islamic world. The Qur’an was put together and work on texts of the hadith
emerged. Learning Arabic was important to proper understanding and recitation of the
Qur’an.
As Muslims encountered new lands, cultures and educational institutions, they bor-
rowed and adopted those as well as created new ones to serve the new, in their view, a
superior vision and paradigm.13 Muslim dynasties marked a new era in Islamic edu-
cation. While learning from non-Muslims continued through translation, a class of
ulema (religious scholars) emerged to legitimize the dynasties, judge the appropriateness
of the transmitted, as well as of the translated and borrowed knowledge. These strata also
developed new disciplines around Qur’anic knowledge. Linguistic subjects such as
grammar (nahw), jurisprudence ( fiqh) and tradition (hadith) began their origin during
this period.
Teachers at the primary and secondary level (muallim, mudarris) had to tailor these
sophisticated texts to their students’ abilities, taking various approaches: whether teach-
ing/learning should start with the Qur’an or with basic language skills; with shorter verses
(ayah) of the Qur’an or longer ones; with Meccan or Madinan chapters of the Qur’an;
with poetry or sayings of the Prophet (hadith); or with bits of each at the same time—
were pedagogical questions of the time. This period is also marked with class-based
differentiation of Muslim schooling: court and home schools and court teachers for chil-
dren of the wealthy and rich emerged. Unlike the ordinary teachers, the court teachers
(muaddib) were highly regarded. They taught the caliphs’ and nobility’s children; subjects
included religion, language, Arabic poetry and history, as well as knowledge of the Greek
and of Persians. In other words, with the polarizations of Muslim society politically and
socially, educational structures also diversified to serve the needs of various Muslim
segments.
The late Ummayad and early Abbasid periods led to the proliferation of Islamic
subjects and the emergence of education-related professions such as fuqaha (scholars
of jurisprudence) and ulema (scholars of religion). They offered courses at mosques,
courts, and majalis (assemblies), which, while largely adult, were still open to young
children as early as the primary age.14 Nevertheless, denominational and sectarian
diversification from the outset meant that there was no agreement among Muslims on
how the Islamic messages were to be understood, leading to differences of interpretation
between Shi‘as, Kharijis, and Sunnis, not to mention the claims of numerous sects and
schools which emerged within the major traditions. At the same time, these differences
were given material expression through the development of diverse institutional para-
digms which included masjids and jamias (mosque colleges), dar al-ilms and bayt al-
hikmas (academies of knowledge or wisdom), khizanas and maktabas (libraries),
zawiyas, khanaqahs and ribats (sufi gatehrings), mashhads (shrine colleges), as well as
hawzehs and madrasas (theological colleges). Contrasting forms of curricula, although
sharing some common elements, found expression in these institutions to answer to the
particular understandings of the Islamic vision which each tradition espoused.15
Medieval Islamic Educational Thoughts (9th – 13th Centuries): Building on the

Promise
There is almost a unanimous agreement that during Islam’s golden age tremendous
strides in learning and knowledge production were made as Abbasids in the East,
Fatimids in North Africa and Ummayyads in Andalusia competed in legitimizing their
versions of Islam and authority. Schools of jurisprudence (madhahib al-fiqh) were
established, which had important effects on education in the upcoming centuries.
Prominent learning centers such as Al-Qarawiyin in Morocco, Dar al-Hikmah and al-
Azhar in Egypt, Dar al-Ilm and Nizamiya madrasa chain in Iraq and Persia, with Sufi
learning circles across the whole of Muslim world were just a few examples of the exten-
sive knowledge, education and scholarly infrastructure of the time. Increasing numbers of
teachers were now paid by the states and pensions were established for scholars and
schools across the Muslim world.16 Nizam al-Mulk, for example, declared education
free and also assigned stipends to the good students.17 Primary court schools and their
teachers had high reputations and quality. The famous grammarian Al-Du’ali, jurists
Abu Hanifa and Al-Qazi Nu’man, and theologian Al-Ghazali taught at courts, serving
the caliphs and the nobility; Caliphs personally advised teachers and scholars on what
and how to teach and treat their children to become future leaders. The initial principle
of teaching as voluntary service to God and community began to absorb various forms of
material remunerations, resulting in some teachers becoming very wealthy people of the
time. Many court teachers and scholars such as Al-Hajjaj became political leaders of their
time. Court teachers wore expensive clothing such as quftan, abbayah, jubbah, and tayla-
san, some borrowed from Persian and others from the Byzantium traditions.
Ikhwan al-Safa, a clandestine movement in tenth century Baghdad, elevated teachers
and acknowledged that no one can reach the final truth without a teacher; their version
of teacher had semi –divine or ideal personal and intellectual qualities.18 While girls’
schooling was very limited and took place through home schooling, a few women from
the Abbasid court reached fame and were well known in poetry, music and even
Qur’anic sciences. Some of these women teachers/scholars debated and instructed
men in the issues of faith.19
On the other hand, schools and teachers for ordinary people’s children (muallim al-
sibyan), were mocked and despised in anecdotes, proverbs, and poetry, as persons of
little intelligence and weak judgment, an object of caustic and pitiless ridicule, similar
to the pedagogue in Greek history. A joke depicted Al-Hajjaj, a teacher turned governor
in Iraq, as someone who “has forgotten the lean years when he taught the Sura of Abun-
dance”.20 Abu Nuwas describes the punishment of a boy in the Kuttab of Hafs, because
“he was stupid and was not attentive during the lesson. So he was whipped with a
strap”.21 Rules forbade hitting a child under 10 years of age, hitting more than three
times, and hitting on face and head. Al-Jahiz describes popular perception of teachers
as “stupidity is found in tailors, teachers and weavers; seek no advice from teachers,
shepherds or those who sit much among women”.22 These teachers’ garments were
exceedingly simple, emulating the Prophetic example.
In sum, not all teachers were viewed as equal intellectually and materially. Despite such
social polarizations and ideological diversities, all teachers and educators believed and
espoused that knowledge comes from God and no true knowledge can be in contradiction
with the divine and revealed knowledge. Search for correct knowledge/answers was the
key task. No one could claim originality and creativity without gratefulness and acknowl-
edgement of God’s guidance; Scholars were to remember that they are simply discovering
the signs of God’s creation and his power and solutions to their problems. Increasingly
politicized and polarized debate about the sources, quality, and validity of knowledge
led to the development of tools and methods of proving that certain knowledge is not
only the best, but also in line with Islamic principles. These methods included not just
taqlid (imitation), but also istidlal and istridrak (deductive and inductive reasoning),
qiyas (comparative/analogical reasoning), rai (informed opinion), nass (transmission),
and ijtihad (independent interpretation). These methods were subsumed under transmi-
tive (naqli) and intellectualized, reason-deduced (aqli), where the latter (aqli), based on
empirical, experiential, and logical knowledge production approach were considered as
human product, always inferior to divine (naqli) knowledge transmission as is approach.
Nasir Khusraw (d. 1088), a Fatimid theologian expressed in Farsi as follows: “sari ilmho
ilmi din ast, k-on dar masal mewai boghi paighambarist” (“the best knowledge is the knowl-
edge of the faith, because it is the product of the prophetic garden”).23
The concern for political and theological correctness led to knowledge classification
that culminated in Al-Ghazzali’s famous hierarchy where the highest knowledge (i.e.
knowledge of God, and disciplines related to understanding, explaining, and applying
that knowledge), was followed by empirical and linguistic disciplines, and ended by eso-
teric (Sufi) knowledge. While reasoning was accepted as an Islamic virtue, philosophy
was outlawed by Al-Ghazzali. This epistemological framework determined the official
Sunni Islamic education curriculum and its pedagogy at all levels for the next seven cen-
turies. It served as a gate keeping mechanism to evaluate, reject, or Islamize internal
knowledge production and external knowledge (e.g. Greek, Persian, Chinese, and
Indian).
Such a framework was not exclusive to the Sunni schools of thought: it was accepted
(with certain adaptations) by other Islamic interpretations whether Shi’a, Sunni or
other denominations. Within this framework, medieval Muslim intellectuals such as
Ibn Sahnun [d.854], Ikhwan al-Safa (tenth century CE ), Miskawayh [932–1030], Ibn
Sina [980–1037], Nasir Khusraw (1004–1088), Sa’adi [1184–1293], Nasir al-din Tusi
[1201–1274], al-Zarbuni [d. 1223], Ibn Khaldun [1332–1406], Al-Qalqashandi [d.
1418],and others wrote notes and epistles on definitions and classification of knowledge,
the process, goals and methods of learning and teaching (e.g. nazar, munazara, jadal,
mubahasa), teacher–student relations (e.g. forms of punishment and reward, parental
trust), and associated terms such as wisdom (hikmah, ma’rifah), intellect (‘aql), knowl-
edge (ta’lim, ta’dib, tarbiya, ‘ilm) and their equivalents in the major languages of the
Muslim world. Sufis, Shi’as, and other Muslim groups, constituting minorities,
expanded the foundational sources of knowledge and learning in Islam, including
Imams, Shi’i Akhbar, Sufi Murshids (Sheikhs), or philosophers’ reason as important
sources of Islamic knowledge.24
The rich classical sources continued to serve as a foundation for a number of Muslim
scholars at the middle of the nineteenth and throughout the twentieth centuries to
formulate Islamic education as an independent and distinct discipline. While, centering
education as a discipline and as a hope for Muslim revival, a question to tackle was
whether there was any difference in understanding what education means today and
what it meant in the medieval periods. Combined with the concern for falling behind
economically and socially,25 with identity crisis, and with Western modernity’s aggressive
takeover, deep attention was paid to education as a discipline in the broader Islamic
heritage. In addition to specific search in the scriptural texts and above mentioned
scholarship, an uncovering of Ibn Sina’s treatise on child psychology, Mansur al-
Yaman’s Book of Master and Disciple, Al-Zarnuji’s Instruction on Learning, Ibn Sahnun
Adab al-Muallimin (Rules of Conduct for Teachers), al-Ghazali’s Letter to Disciple,
Tusi’s Nasiri’s Ethics, Sa’adi’s Gulistan and Bustan and Al-Qalqashandi’s Sub al-A’sha
(Dawn of the Night-Blind) and so on took place as evidences of the Islam’s rich edu-
cational thought awaiting serious exploration. The urgency of the discovery and critical
appraisal of the educational heritage within Islam has been a part of the idea that the
seeds of Muslim development or decline need (in addition to external sources), primarily,
to be found within Islamic traditions. This analysis of the Muslim education heritage
could consolidate the corpus of education legacy; provide insights into the sources of
learning and teaching, creativity, curricula, education politics, and programs that may
have led to the Muslims’ success or decline; discover the contextualized meaning of
education and its transformation across history and geography; and illustrate Islamic edu-
cation as a lived practice with its not only religious, but also secular aspects; its
pre-Islamic and non-Islamic aspects, including those of Greek, Jewish, Persian, Indian
in the medieval times and of all that is currently lumped into Western.26 A genuine
appraisal could challenge the clash of civilizations’ discourses and prove the vitality of
cross-fertilizations among cultures and societies.
Colonial Education (17th–19th Centuries): Surviving the Challenge

Colonialism forced Muslims to question how such significant Islamic empires declined; it
highlighted rationalism, humanism, nation state, secularism, and modernization through
science and technology; and established mass secular schooling. All these challenged and
marginalized Islamic education.27 The Muslim countries’ elites such as Ottoman caliphs/
Sultans, the khedives of Egypt and the Shahs of Iran had already, as early as in the middle
of the seventeenth century, realized the early advancements of Europe, and sent their
children to Europe for military and administrative training. Similarly, military and
administrative training centers were established in Istanbul, Tehran, Cairo, Bombay
and other Muslim centers before the Western colonial takeover. Muslim elite played sig-
nificant role in borrowing from and institutionalizing of Western educational ideas, intui-
tions and practices.28 Key purposes of these limited and selective education and cultural
exposures and borrowings were to ensure the reproduction of their status and privilege
internally, defeat their competing Muslim neighbors, and to stop any Western (non-
Muslim) invasion if such an occasion arose.29 To extend this later aim, the establishment
of the Western-style educational institutions was accompanied by reviving traditional
education centers such as Al-Azhar in Cairo, Mustansiriya in Baghdad, Sulaymania in
Istanbul, Fawziyeh in Iran, and Deoband in India during the late eighteenth early nine-
teenth centuries.30
This however did not save Muslim elites from the European territorial invasions, econ-
omic exploitation, and political and cultural takeover. An important feature of the early
colonial education was its Christian missionary zeal, aimed primarily at the non-
Muslim indigenous people. The causes of and responses to colonialism of the Muslim
world are interpreted variously. Some saw colonialism as a result of educational and cul-
tural failure, suggesting the acceptance of colonial education system by filtering it through
Islamic ethics or by adding Islamic subjects to its secular ones. Others considered it to be
God’s punishment for Muslims who had gone astray from authentic Islam, generating
calls for a return to the pure and pristine Islam. The dissemination of the Western
education system, including schools, curriculum, and teacher training across the Muslim
world resulted in an educational dualism: one embodied in the continuity of kuttabs and
madrasahs, and another in Western-style modern schooling. In the first case, Islam was at
the center and served as an overarching epistemological and ethical framework. In the
second case, Islam was included as a subject or as parts of the texts in language,
history, and social studies. This dichotomy between the religious and secular, between
madrassahs, kuttabs and maktabs on one side and the modern schools, colleges, and uni-
versities on the other, coupled with other national and global forces, led to a gradual
diminishing of the value of traditional Islamic education. The dualism, added by
further stratification of schooling (e.g. emergence of private elite schools) linked school-
ing with sorting and reproducing social inequalities in the Muslim world.31 Religious
education lost its appeal and urban elites turned toward the Western system of mass edu-
cation, leading to the marginalization of kuttabs and madrassas.32
The creation of secular schools and universities in the Muslim world led to competition
with existing religious schools, whose leaders sought not only to integrate new subject
matter into the curriculum but also to institutionalize and formalize pedagogical practice.
Even in the informal nature of Islamic education, authorities and certifications were
replaced by a system of formal and hierarchical qualifications and certificates. In sum,
Islamic education altered in order to both respond and survive the challenges of coloni-
alism and modernity.
Post-Colonial Islamic Education (1940s–1970s): Radical Islamization and Living

with the Challenge
Muslim responses to Western modernity and its outgrowths such as colonialism, secular-
ism, modern schooling, and techno-social advancements have ranged between outright
rejection, to adaptation, and to complete acceptance. In the two later cases (i.e. adap-
tation and adoption, the education system became divided between those who promoted
modern sciences and those who isolated themselves into custodial roles of preserving tra-
ditional learning and religious identity. Jamal al-din Afghani (1838–1897), Mohammed
Abdo (1865–1905), Rashid Reda (1865–1935) in the Middle East, Syed Ahmad Khan
(1817–1898), Mohammed Iqbal (1877–1938), Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903–1979), and
Fazlul-Rahman (1919–1988) in the subcontinent, Ata Turk (1881–1938) and Fethullah
Gullen (b. 1941) in Turkey, Ismail Kasprinski (1851–1914), Abdura’uf Fitrat (1886–
1936) in Central Asia, Hamidou Kane (d. 1962) in West Africa have represented
this diverse response spectrum. While Ata Turk marginalized Islamic education and
Hamidou Kane vacillated between modern European and Islamic schoolings, the majority
of Muslim thinkers such as Al-Afghani, Kaspirinski, and Syed Ahmad Khan tried to
reconcile Islamic tradition with conceptions of Western modernity and science.33 These
proponents projected Western education as useful and culturally relevant to the needs
of the Muslim world.
Contrarily, the Islamization movement spearheaded by Abul ‘Ala Mawdudi in the sub-
continent and Sayid Qutb (1906–1966) in Egypt declared Western modernity, its knowl-
edge, and institutions a major threat to the Muslim identity. Their critique emphasized
immorality, corruption, godlessness, and secularism of modern Western schooling.
They saw these as civilizational threats to the Islamic message, the key purposes of
which were obedience to and consciousness of God and service to His appointees on
the Earth. Al-Mawdudi and Sayid Qutb equated Western modernity and modern
Muslim societies with jahiliya [period of ignorance] in pre-Islamic history.34 Syed
Hossein Nasr (b. 1933) sees modern secular education as a diversion and anomaly from
otherwise religious/sacred history of humankind, linked through perennial values, cross-
ing all religious traditions. Teachers in Qur’an schools charged that Western education
lacks spiritual and moral values, and its primary ethos is technological and secular; that
“western education is linear, adding together knowledge in fragmented fashion, but
not relating persons and God together”.35
Islamization and Islamic Education: Expectations and Realties (1970s–1990s)

Without examining Islamization it is not possible to understand modern Islamic edu-
cation as a discipline. Islamization is not a minor filtering or gate keeping conduit: it is
a broad-based, diverse and evolving epistemological, ontological, and pedagogical strat-
egy that aims to counteract not just Western and secular, but also any other non-Western,
and in some cases, not-so-proper-Muslim encroaches into Muslim psyche and society.
Islamization is an alternative paradigmatic endeavor: it is based on the premise that all

knowledge can and need to be understood from within an Islamic worldview. To be
sure, different Muslim schools of thought (progressive and conservative, Shi’a, Sunni
or Sufi), have developed their own Islamization approaches. Islamization has been
both inward and externally-oriented. Competing Islamic traditions have used Islamiza-
tion to filter out not only Western or scientific knowledge, but also each others’ knowl-
edge, values, and practices. Rejection of each others’ knowledge among Muslim
groups has been as robust as their rejection of the non-Islamic ideas. Similarly, the associ-
ation of Islamization with the modern period is misguided, as we illustrated earlier. It has
existed since the advent of Islam in Muslim encounters of both local knowledge (i.e.
Iranian Zoroastrian practices) and of external ideas (e.g. Greek and Roman knowledge).
Modern day Islamization proponents have built on the scripture, Prophetic tradition, and
later developments to enhance and apply it as concept, framework, and methods. In that
sense, Islamization of knowledge could be understood as constituting an ideologically
driven form of Muslim educational and intellectual response to an encounter with the
‘other’ rather than the West only. In this paper we will concentrate on three conceptual-
izations of Islamization as developed by Ismail Faruqi, Sayyid Naquib Al-Attas, and
Syed Qutb.
Modern Muslim history has witnessed two Islamization waves: (i) during the encoun-
ter with the colonial ‘other’, and (ii) as a result of the first international Muslim education
conference in Mecca in 1977. The Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, Islamic revolution in
Iran, the failure of nationalism and modernity in Arab and Muslim countries, and
Muslim identity politics in the Western world have fuelled this second revival. Prolifer-
ation of legal schools and communities of interpretation led to controversies around
content, pedagogy, and educational goals in madaris (pl. of madrasa).36 Growth of
Islamic schools as an alternative to public schooling in the West,37 the increasing attempts
of integrating the secular and the religious within schools in the Muslim world (e.g. the
pesantren in Indonesia,38 and pondoks in Mindanao, Philippines,39 increase of Islam’s
share in the western style school curricula40), have been both the causes and responses
to the Islamization agenda in the Muslim world. The Islamization drive also led to
contestations about what is “Islamic” in Islamic education.41 A number of modern
Muslim intellectuals—graduates of Western universities, such as Ismail Faruqi (d. 1986),
Fazlul-Rahman (d. 1988), Sayyid Naquib al-Attas (1931–2006), Seyyed Hossein Nasr
(b. 1933), Ziauddin Sardar (b. 1951), and Syed Ali Ashraf (1925–1998), have
spearheaded the Islamization of education agenda, working through different, sometimes
competing Islamization viewpoints.42 Educational Islamizers largely consist of two inter-

connected strands. Some emphasize epistemological and ontological dimensions of
knowledge and others ethical and pragmatic.43 Most Islamizers reject secular, humanistic,
and constructivist perspectives. They assert that Islamic education goals have been laid
down by the revealed religion; have objective quality; do not vary according to individual
opinion and experience; and cannot be rejected by new evidence or logic. These goals
include developing learners’ abilities, knowledge, and skills to follow Divine guidance,
worship God and attain happiness in this world and salvation in the hereafter. The best
knowledge is religious; the best religious knowledge is that of one God, His attributes
and His deeds. Knowledge seeking is a form of worship. If any doubt is raised about
these and other doctrines, the fault is with the doubter, not with the doctrinal principles.
The Institute for Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), a university designed and
developed by the Islamization vision of Al-Attas in Kuala Lumpur, sees Islamic curricu-
lum as including two major areas: fard ayn (obligatory responsibility on every individual i.
e. to gain knowledge of their religion) and fard kifayah (obligatory on the community, i.e.
some members in the community should follow it, such as pursuing knowledge in certain
specializations). Among the disciplines taught under the latter are the human, natural,
applied, and technical sciences to ensure that graduates are trained to get jobs and
tackle modern technical and social problems to meet the needs of the society. The first
area, fard ayn ensures that these Muslim graduates think and behave as faithful
Muslims in addressing both societal and metaphysical problems and opportunities.
Even though Al-Attas rejected nationalism and secularism as anti-Islamic, his edu-
cational philosophy and university are not necessarily opposed to Western thought or
to educating for Malaysia’s economic, nation building aspirations as long as these are
positioned in an Islamic epistemology. His disciple, Wan Daud illuminates that
“curricular orientation that flows out of al-Attas’ educational philosophy will support
the government of Malaysia in its attempt to expand higher education and to produce
efficient managers and highly skilled workers in various strategic industries.44
Rahman and Ashraf, on the other hand, have emphasized Islamization as an ethical fra-
mework that enables students to acquire knowledge not just for material, worldly, and
selfish benefits but become rational righteous beings who bring about the spiritual,
moral and physical welfare of their families, their communities, and humanity. While
pragmatic, this Islamization approach suggests that the attitudes derive from deep faith
in God and a God-given moral code.45 Syed Hossein Nasr sees Islamization as sacraliza-
tion of the modern, secular, and profane along sacred perennial values that bind all the
faithful, not just Muslims.
Driven by the epistemological Islamization strand of al-Attas and Faruqi, Islamic edu-
cation discourse in 1970s–1990s focused on the difference and disjuncture between
Islamic and Western education. This constituted a significant break with Islamic moder-
nists at the end of the nineteenth century. Modernists then such as Al-Afghani had a more
universalistic notion of knowledge and insisted that: “science is that noble thing that has
no connection with any notion and is not distinguished by anything but itself… Men must
be related to science, not science to men.46 Conversely, Faruqi and Al-Attas, emphasized
that modern secular knowledge is inappropriate for Muslims. Therefore,
Knowledge must be scrutinized so that there is nothing that contains the germs
of secularization of the germs of tragedy in it, or the germs of the dualistic vision
of reality—because all these spread, are scattered around in the branches of
knowledge, in the entire body of knowledge.47
It is not uncommon to find sentiments of anti-Westernness among many proponents of

Islamization. They challenge Western modernity’s tenets of the primacy of scientific
consciousness; socially-constructed nature of knowledge; multiplicity of truth claims;
ontological and epistemological relativism and secularism; their conception of progress
and happiness, an individualistic understanding of the self and contractual understanding
of the society. They see these as major threats to the God-centric, community-oriented,
revelation-based paradigm of knowledge, and objectivity and unity of truth.48 Some
argue that they conflate Western education’s failure to recognize essential and eternal
continuities and moral absolutes.49 Islamizers use Western critiques of its own education
and society, based on empirical studies or alternative theoretical perspectives of the pes-
simists, ecologists, Christian moralists, anti-racist, and critical educators. For them,
Western social sciences and the humanities: (i) lack tools for understanding the moral
and spiritual realms; (ii) reduce reality to its material level, and by arguing for a value-
neutral observer, falsely claim objectivity; and (iii) divide knowledge into fragments.
All these violate the Islamic principle of tawhid [unity and interconnectedness of truth].50
Domestically, the Islamizers have attacked voices that praised Western education and
society. Taha Hussein, for example, was attacked for his refutation of the Islamizers’
accusations of the West as essentially materialistic. Taha Hussein asserted that “its [i.e.
West’s]material triumphs are products of its intellect and spirit, and even its atheists
are ready to die for their beliefs”.51 Such perspectives have been silenced in the polarized
polemics that has currently engulfed Arab and Muslim debates on Islamic education.52
Presenting Islamic education as a unique, and superior alternative, Islamization dis-
missed the exchange, cross-fertilization, and sharing across the centuries. Egyptian
scholar Mohammed Immara stated: “If the West is combing its hair on a particular
side, we will comb it on the other side. If they shave we will let beard grow, if they
grow it, we will shave it”.53 Wan Daud challenged Francis Fukuyama’s celebration of
liberal democracy as the peak of human development. For Wan Daud, liberal democra-
cies are signs of degradation because they have increasingly emptied from spirituality and
religion and moved toward secularization and materialism.54 Human development and
happiness, for Wan Daud culminated with the final revelation by Prophet Mohammad.
Since then, humanity has regressed by moving further away from the ideal.
Similarly Nasr considers secularism and Darwinist evolutionism as great threats to
Islam. He considered modern science anthropocentric; this science makes human
reason and empirical data the sole criteria for validity of all knowledge and destroys the
sacred and metaphysical foundations of knowledge.55 Holding to the sacred is important
to check scientism [i.e. obsession with the scientific, measurable, observable, and
material], “which otherwise will destroy the last bastion of sacredness in the West,
which is a human person, at the same time also accelerating the destruction of the globe
ecologically”.56 Nasr proposes the return to tawhid and to primordial unity between
God and humanity, which has been severed by modernity. Human history is essentially
a religious history; the current secular triumph is an anomaly that must be reversed.
Bringing the sacred and divine to modernity is the key task of Islamization and Islamic
education.
Many proponents of Islamization have justified the urgency of their approach based on
the institutionalization of secular education and social failures in the Muslim world. They
suggested that the root of poor educational achievement across the Muslim world is a result
of the marginalization of Islamic education. Al-Attas argued that Western models of
education subsequently adopted by Muslim countries have shackled Muslims in the
mindset of the nation state. This accordingly, has led to the further decline of Muslim
power, unity, cultural identity, tradition, and their educational philosophy. Faruqi
supported him by stating that:
…the main locus and core of the ‘Ummah’s malaise is the prevalent education
system. It is the breeding ground of the disease. It is in schools and colleges
that the self-estrangement from Islam and from its legacy and style are gener-
ated and perpetuated. The educational system is the laboratory where
Muslim youth are kneaded and cut, where their consciousness is moulded
into a caricature of the West.57
He added that the Islamic community (ummah),
…[S]tands at present at the lowest rung of the ladder of nations. In this century,
no other nation has been subjected to comparable defeats or humiliation.
Muslims were defeated, massacred, double-crossed, colonized, and exploited,
proselytized, forced or bribed into conversion to other faiths. They were secu-
larized, Westernized, and de-Islamized by internal and external agents of
their enemies.58
Islamizers see the backwardness of Muslims through largely theological reasons, in their
deviation and distancing from Islam of the Prophetic period: Any society that deviates
from this Islamic ideal is a society in conflict, disharmony, and disintegration. The
Muslim world is pervaded by a malaise that “renders the modern Muslim as barbarized
self, estranged from his Islamic legacy and discontinuous with his past”.59 For Faruqi,
Islam is the only solution because it is the only religion that synthesizes reason with
religion.60
Citing Pakistan, Algeria, Iraq, Indonesia, and Malaysia as examples of weak education
planning, Al-Attas argued that each had promoted an education vision of developing
“good citizens”, on the basis of humanistic, nationalist, and pseudo-religious frame-
works, forfeiting the strict positioning of citizenship within Islam’s injunction of
human beings’ servitude to God. The declaration of the universal values and virtues
are not sufficient for someone to be considered a good Muslim; it is the acknowledge-
ment of one God, the establishment of His order, and following the path (al-shari’ah)
on the earth that count. This requires that one’s faith be reflected in one’s daily life
and conduct with the self, God, and other human beings.61
For al-Attas, such a vision of a good citizen resides in the notion of adab, a term that
implies proper behaviour, ethics, and civility achieved through tarbiya (good upbring-
ing).62 Adab means one’s integrated consciousness of and responsibilities toward God,
the Creator, God’s creation, including primarily fellow humans, society, and environ-
ment, and toward oneself. Adab is also the outcome of education: the more one learns
the more God conscious, the more refined, the more mature and the more peaceful, for-
giving, wise and God-like one becomes. Ta’dib (lit. instilling adab) includes within its
conceptual structure the integration of knowledge (‘ilm), instruction (ta’lim), good
upbringing (tarbiya) and faith (iman)”.63 Notably, the word adab or any of its derivatives
do not exist in the Qur’an, while ‘ilm and its derivatives are central.
The epistemological Islamization agenda checks whether any knowledge ontologically
acknowledges its source in God; whether scholars acknowledge that they have discovered
God’s knowledge rather than invented it by themselves; whether such knowledge contra-
dicts Islamic epistemology (e.g. Marxist claims that God is a human construct; social
constructivism’s suggestion that knowledge is created by human beings; secular science’s
claims that truth is relative and falsifiable) are problematic, or even unacceptable if not
positioned within Islamic framework and conceptual vocabulary. Such semantic and
conceptual positioning acknowledges that God knows the final truth; that people’s
construction is simply discovery of existing truth; the need for humility, repentance,
and self–correction if a statement or finding contradicts Islamic precepts. Faruqi,
Sardar, and al-Attas fought for the de-Westernization of knowledge, against Communist,
Chinese, and Orientalist influences in Arab/Muslim world.
Historically, Islamization has also been a methodological tool, emerged as a necessity
for Islamizing the Arabs’ and non-Arabs’ pre-Islamic tribal cultural practices and for fil-
tering the knowledge of the conquered Byzantium, Persia, Andalusia, Central and South
Asia vis-à-vis Islamic tenets. In this task, accepting medicine, science, astronomy, and
logic was easier than Greek mythology and Persian astrology, not just because of their
pragmatic necessity, but also because they did not explicitly contradict monotheism, as
Greek mythology and Persian astrology might. Conversely, “knowledge inspired by
Satan… such as magic, the luck arts, fortune–telling, astrology, and anything related to
immorality or wickedness are not permitted”.64

The way Muslim schools Islamize the secularized subjects such as history, science, and
medicine imported from the West and taught at modern schools and universities remains
a work in progress. Unlike the medieval ages, the modern foreign ideas now come with
power and domination, catching Muslims in a defensive position. Unlike the Islamization
of the nineteenth century, the current wave is dominated by fervor more radical and
antagonistic to Western knowledge and modernity. For Al-Attas, “it is ‘confusion and
error in knowledge’ that is the ultimate cause of the contemporary problems facing the
Muslim world”.65 For Faruqi and Sardar, Islamization is a project of identification of
correct knowledge and transmitting it to the next generation. For Fazlul Rahman,
Badawi and the Ismaili Shi’a Muslims it is the application of Islamic ethical framework
to any knowledge that matters.66 Sardar sums this position as follows:
There is no such thing as religious knowledge and secular knowledge: all knowl-
edge that promotes the goals of Islam—the ideas of tawheed and khilafa, justice
and equality, understanding and brotherhood—is Islamic.67
Badawi expounded that a true Islamic education aims at (i) awakening religious intuition
and inner readiness for transcendental experience (e.g. the Sufi emphasis on the transient
nature of this world); (ii) enablement for living in a culture (e.g. citizenship education);
and (iii) providing specialist education, i.e. the transfer of knowledge and skills, which
correlates with the working in the marketplace. Emphasizing inner purity and primary
role of ethics in Islamic education, Badawi suggested:
Our religion, therefore, is not against science but it is against the misuse of
science and the misapplication of technology… we should endeavor to establish
an educational system based on Islam, yet answering all the needs of modern
society.68
In sum, Islamization has been the major strategic tool in the hands of majority of the
Muslim educationalists (whether they acknowledge it or not) to struggle with modernity,
the foreign, and the internal and external ‘other’ related to knowledge, culture and prac-
tice. Joining other anti-Eurocentric and anti-Orientalist campaigns, Islamization has
evolved into a sophisticated strategy for not just Islamic education, but other social
and natural disciplines. Concurrently, Islamization, because of being a work in progress,
has been a subject of serious critique from within Muslim and non-Muslim intellectual
circles.
Critique of Islamization
Since its revival in the 1970s, Islamization’s debate against secularization, modernization,
and, Westernization have created politicized, often polarized, and in some respects isola-
tionist outcomes. At times perspectives held within the Islamization rubric have become
obsessed with an ideal that clouds contextual realities. Realities such as lack of Muslim
leadership, rampant illiteracy, endemic corruption, internal racism, disunity, power poli-
tics, civil wars, the marginalization of Muslim and non-Muslim minorities, and inequal-
ities related to women often become deemphasized within the discourse.69
The Islamization discourse has resulted in many ways to a uni-dimensional language
that has also missed the historical diversity of the contested perspectives on Western edu-
cation, including particularly the alternative trends that have emerged after modernity’s
pitfalls. These Western alternatives have critiqued the current dominant educational
approaches from both religious and secular perspectives.70 Islamization’s at times oppor-
tunistic, selective, one-sided evaluation and generalization of Western education and

society has led to a false sense of superiority among Muslims. Their language was domi-
nated by emotional rhetoric that lacks recognition of the harsh realities of human Islamic
history. There is little sociological research on the problems in Muslim society. Evidence
based critique of Islamic societies is suppressed either by the states or the radicalized reli-
gious groups. Instead, past Muslim achievements are juxtaposed against the imposition of
Western-based education systems.
Pitting two systems or philosophies of education against each other—one secular and
one faith-centered—limits the recognition of what one can offer the other. Educational
principles and methods that are critical, anti-racist, anti-colonial, feminist, and culturally
relevant, albeit Western, ought to be appropriated within Islamic discourses to more
critically engage with the West and one’s own past and present. Dismissing Western edu-
cational systems with a broad brush of negativity is unproductive. The debate is often
limited to a religious domain with a constant reminder of who is a truer and/or a better
believer in God At times useful ideas have been rejected simply because of their
authors or origin, rather than their value and usefulness. Syed Qutb stated that “the
battle is between believers and their enemies… it is not political or economic in
nature… at the hub of the conflict is the involved belief at issue. The related options
are: either belief or unbelief which means either to accept jahiliyya (ignorance) or
Islam”.71 In other words, morality and ethics are seen as religion’s monopoly. No allow-
ances are made for alternative non-religious spirituality, ethics, and morality, and no
questions are raised about the rampant immorality and lack of ethics by the very
people who claim and promote religiosity. Further, the religious foundations of the
Western education systems, the syncretism of Judeo-Christian and Greek religious
thought as the foundation of the modern secular societies, and the significant similarities
between the religious and secular values are dismissed.
Summing up, most of the Islamization’s existing accusations of Western educational
models appear as poor, misguided and unhelpful. They lack strong historical and com-
parative research methods, which leads to the dismissal of history of cross-fertilization,
and to the division of the world of ideas into Islamic and non-Islamic along weakly-
defined lines. This essentialized thinking mode has missed out diversity, context,
agency, and power relationships in the Muslim education across time and space. Lacks
reflexivity, i.e. ability and courage to problematize one’s assumptions, biases and preju-
dices, has conflated the discourse of victimhood and avoidance of Muslims’ responsibility
and complicity in their crises. Mixed with polemics and politics this may disserve the
history of humanity and contribute to a clash of civilizations discourse.72 Divergence of

views has been projected as a threat and conspiracy. Ironically, Islamizers of all sorts
cite active learning, critical thinking, questioning, creativity, freedom of inquiry as
tenets of Islam and subsequently aims and methods of Islamic education. Little discus-
sion, if ever exists in Islamic education research about what these constructive teaching
principles mean in an Islamic context; whether one allows for critique and questioning
of the fundamentals of one’s religion, one’s authoritative texts and figures; and
whether one allows for a discovery and challenging of finality of the truth in the light of
evidence. Islamization also accepts “Western classifications of knowledge as unproble-
matic and thus pays attention either to the sources of knowledge established in Islam
or to the methodology followed by eminent Muslim thinkers”.73 Lastly, the Islamizers’
critique has been seen as simply “an outdated model of positivist science that does not
count for hermeneutically informed model of science”.74 The use of Western scientific
methods and concepts, to critique and reject Western and non-Western ‘others’, has
been a noticeable paradox in the Islamization project.

In the 1970s’ Islamization’s drive gradually came to face its own limits. Questions were
raised about the connection between Islamic education and indoctrination as opposed
to teaching honesty, self-understanding, humility and developing students’ critical
capacities and attitudes. Some stopped using the term, while others saw Islamization
as a misguided project, detrimental to the spirit of true Islamic education: Islamic edu-
cation is believed to encourage the unfettered search of wisdom for the good of all; the
nurturing of the individual into a rational, responsible being, gifted with the potential
for limitless growth; the respect for the intellect as a universal propensity and divine
endowment; the engagement with the fundamental, existential questions in human life;
and the acknowledgement of the diversity of interpretations in Muslim history and
societies.75 In some Muslim states Islamization was rejected by its elite, in other cases
it led to age old sectarian divides, disunity, declining pluralism, human rights, and dimin-
ishing democratic potential.76 Zaidi critiqued Islamization for lack of any originality and
valued contribution to the globalized search for indigenous knowledge.77 Earlier Fazlur
Rahman charged Islamic theorists with the failure to produce an empowering Islamic
education strategy as follows:
Neorevivalism has reoriented the modern-educated lay Muslim toward Islam.
But the greatest weakness of neorevivalism, and the greatest disservice it has
done to Islam, is almost total lack of positive effective thinking and scholarship
within its ranks, its intellectual endeavor… the neorevivalist has produced no
Islamic education system worthy of name.78
To sum up, Islamization has been a two edge sword: it has excited many Muslims into
potential for living in the modern world without compromising their identity. It promised
educationalists a viable alternative to the Eurocentric and secular paradigm. However,
given its rejectionist, exclusivist and self-isolating proposals, charged with superiority
claims in the face of obvious Muslim struggles, its inability to constructively engage
with Muslim and non-Muslim diversity, plurality, and critical alternatives in a globalizing
world, as well as its inability to move beyond rhetoric, exposed its drawbacks. While the
efforts continue, the 20 years of experiments in Islamic education according to Ramadan
has still been,
…a scattering of Islamic teachings, verses learned by heart, and the values idea-
listically passed on do not necessarily forge a personality whose faith is deep,
whose consciousness is alert, and whose mind is active and critical… the success
of Islamic school cannot be measured by success in examinations.79
Islamic Education in 2000s: Pragmatism, Openness, and Islamization Revisited

In the 1990s, the theory and practice of Islamic education received a boost in the Western
context. Islamic education proponents and Islamization scholarship have made strides
in building educational and social institutions, centers for Islamic studies, Muslim
associations, Islamic schools, developed Islamic curricula, textbooks, resources, and
conducted teacher training. Islamization theorists have made numerous attempts to
reconstruct the existing knowledge and services. Khurshid Ahmad’s idea of Islamic econ-
omics, Nasr’s Islamic science and sacralization of modernity, Al-Attas’ Islamization
of knowledge, Ismail Faruqi’s Islamization of social science, and Sardar’s ijmali
(comprehensive/holistic) education are some key activities in this movement.
Islamization of education and knowledge in their diverse forms remains a dominant

transnational Muslim response. It is, therefore, important to explore its transformation
and practical attempts since the contributions of Al-Attas and Faruqi. With the
Western modernity’s perceived stumbling to deliver on some key promises and the
inability of modern schools to provide religious and moral education reflective of
diverse worldviews, Islamic education and madrassahs have reemerged as hope for par-
ticular segments in the contemporary Muslim world. Studies of madrassahs in India
and South East Asia show that Islamic education has carefully included Western sciences
in their academic and administrative curricula and practices.80 Some Islamization prom-
ises might be found in Gullen and Imam-Khatib schools in Turkey,81 the emerging
pesantrens in Indonesia,82 the syncretic education experiences in Malaysia, Indonesia
and Southern Philippine and madrassah projects in East Africa. These projects are criti-
cally pragmatic and constructive: they admit diversity and try to learn and borrow the best
pedagogies and ideas from wherever these may emerge and adapt them to their cultural
and resource context. In other words, their success is based on refusing the rigid,
polarized, and antagonistic divide of ideas, proposed by some of the earlier Islamization
theorists.
Islamization has also touched the modern public schools, which have been institutio-
nalized in all Muslim countries since the beginning of the twentieth century. In state
schools, Islamic education is taught through subjects of Islamic/Religious Studies,
Arabic, History, Social Studies and Civic Education.83 The Islamic experiments with
education in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan are not always open to critical empirical
inquiry. Few emerging studies portray a universalistic and tailor-made Islam with com-
plimentary and conflicting messages simultaneously perpetuating and challenging
loyalty to humanity, ummah, state, particular sect, tribe, and sanctified families Islamiza-
tion is used as a tool in the contextual and regional power politics, legitimizing some and
excluding others from among the Muslims.84 In such cases, Islamization is re-con-
structed to reproduce the status-quo than serve the case of social transformation for
justice, an important Islamic tenet. In a few cases (for example Egypt, Jordan, West
Bank) curricula and textbooks have been revised to accommodate more moderate, toler-
ant, pluralist and civilizational interpretations of faith.85
Embellished by Arabic language and an Islamic ethos (dress code, gender segregation,
observance of prayers, fasting), Islamic education is also promulgated in many Islamic
schools in the West. In most cases these schools follow a state curriculum, which
means teaching of the secular subjects. Subjects such as physical education, music, sex
education, drama education and some science topics are either rejected or modified
according to a particular Islamic viewpoint on education. Here Islamization aims at
making certain subjects ‘halal’ for students. Moderation, co-existence, and work for
common agenda (e.g. ecology, peace) are the motto of the day among majority of
Muslim educationalists in the West.
In public schools in the West there are efforts (superficial at times) on accommodating
Islamic practices and infusing Muslim history, culture, and religion into the curricula.86
Organizations such as the Council for Islamic Education have been working with the
major textbook publishers in the United States since 1989 to ensure a more balanced
approach in addressing Muslim diversity and the world religions in public schools.
Muslim children are also offered Islamic education through evening and weekend
Qur’an classes and mosque schools.
Across North America, the aims, curricula, teaching methods and resources in these
learning arenas are nuanced between various Islamic denominations. In Toronto, for
example, where there is the largest concentration of Islamic schools in North America
each institution has its own curricular approach, some linked to larger organizations
such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), others to local mosques and
their particular perspectives, and still others that are privately owned. Within the Sunni
community an ample of serious attempts are tried by the International Board of Edu-
cation Research and Resource; Tarbiyah Institute; Islamic Schools League of America;
Council of Islamic Schools in North America (CISNA); IQRA Foundation; Kinza
Academy; Muslim Education Network (MENTORS) Canada, Razi Foundation;
Muslim Education Foundation; and the Consortium of Sister Clara Muhammad
Schools. There are also Twelver Shi’a schools across North America, relatively less
than Sunni schools but significant and often tied directly to local mosques. The Shi’a’
Ismaili Muslim community of Canada has its Tariqah and Religious Education Board,
which follows the complimentary, civilizational and pluralist principle of religious edu-
cation through weekend classes, summer camps, and other socialization means.87
Aside from denominational diversity among Western Islamic schools, the debate over
the purpose and implications of Islamic schools themselves is just beginning to develop in
the literature. Some scholars insist that Islamic schools push children toward the devel-
opment of two contradictory personalities—one within a school where Islamic teaching
and behavior are being inculcated, and the other outside school, where the students
“end up getting lost without knowing how to use ethical references to establish their
own ethical guideposts because they have not really been prepared to face life in
society and to interact with others in it”.88 The Islamic schools appear to be creating
the very split personality syndrome which some of their proponents have attributed to
public schools .Tariq Ramadan wonders whether Islamic education has been a worth-
while endeavor:
…although Islamic message is universal and comprehensive, … what is now
called “Islamic education” is confined to very technical memorization of
Quranic verses, Prophetic tradition, and rules without a real spiritual dimen-
sion. The learning of ritual spills over to ritualism, and the teaching that is
offered is completely unconnected to American and European realities.89
Ramadan raises a critique that is not uncommon by those who oppose Islamic schools
and even those that support them. He brings to light the need for greater inquiry into
the existing models of Islamic schooling in the West over the past 30 years. His calls
for self-critique, avoidance of anti-Western bigotry and making the West a home for
Muslims have had a sobering effect on Muslim education circles.
Ramadan suggests that Muslim education should compliment rather than parallel
public education. He argues that public schools, where most Muslim children are,
provide opportunities for all-round and comprehensive education. Muslims should
seize these. Why, Ramadan asks should, Muslims “reinvent what the public education
already provides? Why should we invest so much money and energy in setting up, in
most subjects, the same programs with the same outcomes leading to the same examin-
ations?”90 His complimentary approach: (i) reduces the need to invest into something that
is already being done; (ii) allows reaching a larger number of students; (iii) allows children
to live among their fellows and friends, amid ordinary realities of their society, and chal-
lenges not to be avoided; and lastly (iv) compels us to study in depth the society in which
Muslims live. Such an approach allows Muslims to integrate in the West at equal footing.
Related to Ramadan’s position, those that advocate for full-time Islamic schools in the
West similarly aspire for a proactive social integration. Researchers who have written
about Islamic schools in Canada and the United States have found that the vast majority
of schools do not see the support of Islamic schools as a disengagement from the civic and
social fabric of society. Many Islamic schools aim to develop a strong sense of religious
identity that will better prepare Muslim children to engage with, contribute to, and
benefit from the world around them.91
At the same time, a significant part of the rationale for those Muslim parents who
support Islamic schools is the need to control what their children are taught and socia-
lized into. What is often articulated as a fear reinforces the core contention related to
the inadequacy of public education. Parents will cite concerns about the curriculum of
public schools as either inaccurate information about Islam in textbooks, the promotion
of “un-Islamic” lifestyle choices in sex education and within school environments, or sen-
timents of Islamophobia.92 Whether related to nurturing a strong sense of identity or pro-
tecting children from perceived irreconcilable inadequacies in the public system, there is
unanimous agreement that Islamic schools are at an early stage of development and have
much to improve toward an ideal Islamic education.93
Some of the Islamic schools are being re-conceptualized as civil society sites where they
constructively engage in the larger society’s issues common to Muslims and non-
Muslims. Daud Tawhidi has developed such approach to Islamic education, applied
through his Tarbiya Project at the Crescent Academy International in Canton, Michi-
gan.94 He emphasized that Islamic schools should educate through lived practice,
through integrating Islamic ethos and spirit across both curricular and extra-curricular
domains, as opposed to teaching through Islamic Studies’ subjects to showcase their
Islamic identity. Delegating a few hours a week to teaching Islam has made Islamic edu-
cation the least-important subject in the West, similar to the secular schools in Muslim
countries. Tawhidi’s values’ education curriculum focuses on personality and character
development, the real needs of the students, critical thinking and problem solving skills
needed to function effectively as Muslims in any society. There is a distinction
between teaching about “Islam “and teaching about being Muslim”.95 Tawhidi has
also emphasized that Islamic education should inculcate positive values in the students
and enable them to live and work with others: indeed Muslims are expected to cooperate
in identifying and resolving the common issues that face their societies.
Similarly, the Muslim Education Foundation (MEF) in Edmonton, Alberta has sought
to establish an educational model for Islamic schools in the West that is grounded in a
Qur’anic worldview. Through Qur’anic themes and principles, the curriculum is
designed to infuse Islamic teachings across elementary school learning expectations that
are Ministry mandated Muslim Education Foundation sees establishing Islamic schools
solely for the “protection” of Muslim children as a fall-back position. Similar to
Ramadan, if Islamic schools are only to protect Muslim children, then why not turn all
resources from Islamic schools into developing public schools further? The stance of
institutions such as MEF is, however, that there is the necessity of educating children
from and within a worldview that is grounded in the Islamic tradition. Otherwise, as
they state, “the vast majority of ‘Islamic’ schools are merely ‘Muslim’ schools—that is,
schools where the children of Muslim parents are sent, sometimes with the realization
that this individual initiative is nothing more than an effort to protect the child from
certain negative influences which abound in other schools”.96
Unlike earlier attempts of integrating Islam within an existing curriculum, the MEF
approach to Islamization is to begin with an Islamic framework. Two essential aspects
embody this framework: (i) understanding of the cosmos and a human being’s place in
it and (ii) the nature and purpose of education, learning, and knowledge. Through
such a framework, the Qur’an then provides the source of themes into which all knowl-
edge is rooted. The work of MEF is characteristic of the contemporary direction of the
Islamization discourse that insists integration ought to be more holistic and grounded
in the tradition as opposed to appended on an existing framework.97 Al-Zeera states,
for example, that “Islamic religious instruction, in the recent centuries, has been
taught primarily as a body of information, rather than a body of experiences”.98 For
Al-Zeera Islamic education is about holism, ethos, cultural change, about creating
oases where ideal Islam is lived, practiced, and spread from. To her, a true Islamic edu-
cation is essentially holistic, where: (i) learning takes place through various human
faculties (e.g. mind, heart, and soul); (ii) knowledge domains are interconnected and
united, serving non-contradictory human and divine purposes; and (iii) education
should turn contradictions into complimentary realities. Such a shift as has been
attempted by the Tarbiyah Project and the MEF are beginning to more closely align
with a grounded conception of Islamic education.
Conclusion
Islamic education is as old as Islam itself and its history shows conceptual, ideological,
and structural diversification.99 It is an unfolding journey of continuity and change, adap-
tation and self-regeneration. There is also diversity and convergence of and contestation
between perspectives about what the “Islamic” in Islamic education is, who decides on it
and how is it to be conveyed to the learner. In doing so and together with the indigenous
and other non-mainstream education movements such as holistic, critical, and Afro-
centric, and other post-colonial education waves, Islamic education has created serious
challenges to the current education establishment. It has contributed to the global
debate on approaches to development, knowledge paradigm and knowledge transfer, tra-
dition and modernity, identity, and culture. This challenge and revival of Islamic edu-
cation should also be positioned within the post-colonial discourse, within the
shortcomings of the modernist narratives, and the national, regional and global political
and cultural economies. Yet Islamic education has also been unable to fulfill its promises.
Sporadic success of Islamic schools in the West, and of Western-style schools in the
Muslim world, has been critiqued in terms of sustainability, replicability and promoting
true Islamic education ethos and spirit. Interestingly, the major successes of some of the
Islamic schools have been excellence in the dominant education paradigms, such as
testing outcomes.
Islamic education has taken many forms and approaches in its journey of maturation. It
has operated as an overarching epistemological and ethical framework; a secular school
subject; weekend tuition; and an informal socialization process through mosques; media;
the internet; and other Muslim transnational activities. Islamic education has been theol-
ogy, culture, nation, or civilization-oriented. It has been seen as a tool for control and resist-
ance, status-quo and transformation, empowerment and oppression.100 The diversity and
contradictions within the Islamic education movement should not be seen as a sign of weak-
ness, but a natural evolution of the project that may produce some important outcomes. It
also suggests that Islamic education, even though based on early traditional sources (e.g.
revelation, Qur’an, sunnah and so on), has been a human endeavor, influenced by social
contexts, human biases, knowledge, aspirations, and imperfections.
As Islamic education grows in approach, depth, and theoretical sophistication, Muslim
educationalists in the West are taking a leading role in defining its nature, practical shape,
and future direction. These Islamic education scholars are not only looking back at (i.e.
the traditional texts and personalities, but also exploring the present (i.e. using empirical
research on various contemporary forms and practices of Islamic schooling) and imagin-
ing the future (i.e. looking into how Islamic education can operate in the post-modern
conditions of uncertainty about truth, plurality of internal and external perspectives on
the aim, processes and outcomes of Islamic education and the role of Islamic education
in resolving inter-faith relations as well as global challenges such as ecology). Creatively
employing Western and non-Western research methods and analysis of the Western and
Islamic theories, and linking foundational texts and tradition with empirical research in
Muslim and Western contexts, these theorists and practitioners are producing new
educational ideas. Practical models and innovations are being made to move Islamic
education beyond rhetoric and theory, illustrate how it would look in reality, and asses-
sing what gives it exact comparative advantage. This move, unlike the earlier polemics,
shows critical pragmatism and realization that any workable model of Islamic education
will have to (i) blend the theory coming from Islamic traditions; (ii) the empirical finding
of the educational experiences of Muslim students in faith-based and secular schools; and
(iii) the best ideas coming from the theory and practice of non-Muslim scholarship on
education.
The search for illustrating the Islamic in Islamic education and its comparative advan-
tage vis-à-vis the burgeoning education theories will require not only referencing to the
figures and names from the past traditions. It will require the development of conceptual
and substantial innovations in educational approaches and aligning with non-Muslim
education achievements. This cannot be done without open-minded, self-critical engage-
ment with one’s history, culture and practices, and without the constructive appreciation
of external ideas. Islamic education must produce new knowledge and re-define its
content, goals, and pedagogy on this basis. This requires empirical, philosophical and
art-based research, and more use of modern technology and science.101
Future engagement with various political and practical dichotomies such as science vs.
religion, secular vs. religious, Muslims vs. the West need to move beyond rejection and
produce constructive synthesis. It is the spirit and processes rather than the special
answers from the tradition that have enabled Muslims to excel in the medieval times
and would likely enable them to succeed today.
The new Islamic education should replace the Islamization’s superiority discourse with
“the being equal” one and being part of the human race, facing common human and
global challenges. The success of Muslim educators will be based on whether their pro-
posals enable the students to: (i) excel in the broad educational sense (academic, social,
spiritual, and emotional); (ii) develop and harmonize the multiple dimensions of their
identities; (iii) feel a genuine sense of belonging to their schools and communities; (iv)
collaboratively live and work with their other Muslim and non-Muslim fellow citizens;
and (v) constructively understand and contribute to the societies where they live and
the globe they co-inhabit. Anything less than this may not be worth pursuing as an
Islamic alternative, to reiterate Ramadan’s and Badawi’s advice. The growth of such
Islamic education, therefore, should continue in an open, full, and fair-minded
culture; it is only this self-critical, rather than apologetic or rejectionist approach, that
will help teachers and administrators of Islamic, public, and commercial schools to
meet the aspirations of their Muslim students’ populations and help them succeed in
the societies where they live while maintaining their identities in the ways they conceptu-
alize them.
Islamization, whether epistemological or ethical, needs to be reconceptualized in the

light of above points. So far the connection between Islamization and Islamic education
has been complex and contested. Different Islamic communities of interpretations
whether they claim to or not, pursue their own Islamization paths in education. While
it provided zeal and direction, Islamization has also reached its limits in terms of ideologi-
cal closure, internal and external exclusiveness, and practicality in the globalizing world.
Among many things, Islamization needs to balance its idealization of the self and rejection
of the “internal and external other” with examining the self and appreciating the other.
Islamization’s potential and passion should be positioned within this constructive frame-
work. Islamic education has reached a cross-road. To succeed in the new millennium will
require ingenuity and collaboration; reflexivity and openness; learning not only from the
past, but also from the present and looking into the future.
NOTES
1. S. Niyozov and G. Pluim, “Teachers’ Perspectives on the Education of Muslim Students: A Missing
Voice”, in Educational Research, Curriculum Inquiry, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2009, pp. 637–677; S. Niyozov,
“Teachers and Teaching Islam and Muslims in Pluralistic Societies: Claims, Misunderstandings,
and Responses”, Journal of International Migration and Integration. Special Issue: “The Education of
Minority Muslim Students: Comparative Perspectives”, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 23–40.
2. N. Memon, “Social Consciousness in Canadian Islamic Schools?”, Journal of International Migration
and Integration, Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 2010, pp. 110–117.
3. M. Halstead, “An Islamic Concept of Education”, Comparative Education, Vol. 40, No. 4, 2004.
4. See for example, Ahmad Shalaby, History of Muslim Education, Beirut: Dar al-Kashshaf, 1954. Munir
ud-Din Ahmed, Muslim Education and the Scholars’ Social Status up to the 5th Century Muslim Era –
11th Century Christian Era. (Studies in Islamic History), Zurich: Verlag Der Islam, 1968; A. Tibawi,
Islamic Education: Its Traditions and Modernization into the Arab National Systems, London: Luzac,
1972, pp. 42–43; and more recently, Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, Faces of Islam, Conversations
on Contemporary Issues”, Kuala Lumpur: Berita Publications, Malaysia, 1989; Wan Mohd Nor
Wan Daud, The Educational Philosophy and Practice of Syed Naquib al-Al-Attas. An Exposition of the
Original Philosophy of Islamization, Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC Press, 1998; Dawud Tauhidi, The Tar-
biyah Project: A Holistic Vision of Islamic Education, Canton, Michigan: Tarbiyah Institute, 2003.
5. Al-Attas. “Preliminary Thoughts on the Nature of Knowledge and the Definition and Aims of Edu-
cation”, in S.S. Aims and Objectives of Islamic Education, Jeddah: King Abdulaziz University, 1979,
pp. 19–45.
6. Y. Waghid, “Ta’dib: Reinstatement of Islamic education”, Muslim Education Quarterly, Vol. 13, No.
4, 1996, p. 43.
7. M. Halstead, “An Islamic concept of education”, op. cit., p. 519.
8. See e.g. Levtzion, Nehemia and John O. Voll, eds., Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam,
Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987; A. Shalaby, History of Muslim Education, op. cit.,
9. R. Martin and M. Woodward with A. Dwi, The Defenders of Reason in Islam, Mu’tazilism from Med-
ieval Schools to Modern Symbol, Oxford: Oneworld, 1997.
10. I.A. Al-Sadan, “The Pedagogy of the Prophet”, Muslim Education Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1999,
pp. 5–18.
11. A. Tibawi, Islamic Education, op. cit,
12. A. Shalaby, History of Muslim Education, op. cit., pp. 16–22.
13. M. Al Otaibi and H.M. Rashid, “The Role of Schools in Islamic Society: Historical and Contempor-
ary Perspectives”, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 1997, pp. 1–18; M.N. Nakhosteen,
History of Islamic Origins of Western Education, A.D. 800–1350: With an Introduction to Medieval
Muslim Education, Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1964.
14. A. Shalaby, History of Muslim Education, op. cit.,
15. J. Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social history of Islamic Education, Prin-
ceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992; H. Heinz, Fatimid Traditions of Learning, London: IB
Tauris, 1996; F. Rahman, Islam and Modernity, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982;
G. Makdisi. The Rise of College: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1981.
16. H. Heinz, Fatimid Traditions of Learning, op. cit.
17. A. Shalaby, History of Muslim Education, op. cit.
18. Ibid.
19. See “Islam’s Women Scholars”, in Madrasa Reform in India, ed. Yoginder Sikand, Wedneday April
23, 2008. Retrieved on December 30, 2010, from http://madrasareforms.blogspot.com/2008/04/
islams-women-scholars.html
20. A. Tibawi, Islamic Education: Its Traditions and Modernization into the Arab National Systems, London:
Luzac & Company Ltd, 1972, p. 35.
21. A. Shalaby, History of Muslim Education, op. cit., p. 150.
22. Ibid., p. 120.
23. Nasir Khusraw, Diwan-e Nasir Khusraw (Collection of Poetry). Tehran: Simone Donish
Publications, p. 113.
24. Farid Panjwani, “Agreed Syllabi and An-Agreed Values: Religious Education and Missed Opportu-
nities for Fostering Social Cohesion”, British Journal of Sociology of Educational Studies, Vol. 53, No.
3, 2005, pp. 375–393.
25. UNDP The Arab Development Report, 2005.
26. M.N. Nakhosteen, History of Islamic Origins of Western Education, op. cit.
27. Shiraz Thobani, “The Dilemma of Islam as School Knowledge in Muslim Education’, Asia Pacific
Journal of Education, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2007, pp. 11–25.
28. D. Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992;
A. Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia, Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1998; A. Shalaby, History of Muslim Education, op. cit.
29. D. Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, op. cit.
30. Cf., N. Levtzion and J.O. Voll, Eighteenth-Century Renewal, op. cit.
31. A. Talbani, “Pedagogy, Power and Discourse. The Transformation of Islamic Education”, Compara-
tive Education Review, Vol. 40, No. 1, 1996, pp. 66–82; T. Rahman, Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Study
of Education, Inequality and Polarization in Pakistan, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004.
32. Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education, eds., R. Hefner and M Zaman,
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
33. A.H. Zaidi, “Muslim Reconstruction of Knowledge and the Re-enchantment of Modernity”, Theory,
Culture, and Society, Vol. 23, No. 5, 2006, pp. 69–91; Adib Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural
Reform, op. cit.
34. B. Tibi, “Culture and Knowledge: The Politics of Islamization of Knowledge as a Postmodern
Project? The Fundamentalist Claim to De-Westernization”, Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 12,
No. 1, pp. 1–24.
35. A. Nanji, “Learning and Education”, The Muslim Almanac, ed. A. Nanji, New York: Gaele Research,
1996, p. 9.
36. R. Hefner and M.Q. Zaman, Schooling Islam, op. cit.,
37. There are about 150 Islamic schools in the UK, 50 in Canada, 51 in the Netherlands, more than 200
in the USA, 100 in the Netherlands, and 13 in Sweden with the number increasing rapidly. Overall
students’ enrollment in the Islamic schools here is around 5–7% of the total Muslim student popu-
lation in these countries. For more on the types of Islamic schools in the West, their history and
funding, see J. Zine, Canadian Islamic Schools: Unraveling the Politics of Faith, Gender, Knowledge,
and Identity, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008; L.A. Cristillo, Religiosity, Education and
CivicBelonging: Muslim Youth in New York City Public Schools. A Research Report, New York: Teachers
College, Columbia University. April 30, 2008; Merry, M., & Driessen, G. “Islamic Schools in Three
Western Countries: Policies and Procedure”, Comparative Education, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 411–432;
Marie Parker-Jenkins, Dimitra Hartas, and Barrie A. Irving, In Good Faith: Schools, Religion and
Public Funding, Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2004.
38. R. Luknes-Bull, “Two Sides of the Same Coin: Modernity and Tradition in Islamic Education in
Indonesia”, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 2001, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 350–372.
39. J. Milligan, Islamic Identity, Post-coloniality, and Education Policy: Schooling and Ethno-Religious Con-
flict in Southern Philippine, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
40. Teaching Islam. Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East, eds. E.A. Doumatto & G. Starret, Boulder,
CO: Lynne Riener Publishers, 2007.
41. F. Panjwani, “The Islamic in Islamic Education”, Current Issues in Comparative Education, Vol. 7, No.
1, 2004.
42. L. Stenberg, “The Islamization of Science: Four Muslim Positions, Developing an Islamic Moder-
nity”. Published PhD Dissertation, Lund, Sweden: Lund Studies in History of Religions, 1996; J.A.
Milligan, “Reclaiming an Ideal: The Islamization of Education in the Southern Philippines”, Com-
parative Education Review, Special Issue on Islam and Education, August 2006, Vol. 50, No. 3,
pp. 410–431.
43. J. Milligan, “Reclaiming the Ideal”, op. cit.
44. W.M.N. Wan Daud, The Educational philosophy and Practice of Syed Naquib al-Attas, op. cit.,
45. S.S. Husain and S.A. Ashraf, Crisis in Muslim Education. Jeddah: Hodder and Stoughton, King
Abdulaziz University, 1979.
46. Quoted in M. Abaza, Debates on Islam and knowledge in Malaysia and Egypt: Shifting worlds, Oxford-
shire: Taylor & Francis, 2002, p. 307.
47. S.M.N. Al-Attas, Faces of Islam: Conversation on Contemporary Issues, Kuala Lumpur: Berita Publish-
ing, 1989, p. 10.
48. A.H. Zaidi, “Muslim Reconstruction of Knowledge”, op. cit.
49. K. Hussain, “An Islamic Consideration of Western Moral Education: An Exploration of Individual”,
Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2007, pp. 297–308.
50. I. Faruqi, Islamization of Knowledge: General Principles and Work Plan, Herndon, VA: International
Institute of Islamic Thought, 1982, p. 16.
51. Quoted in M. Abaza, Debates on Islam and Knowledge, op. cit., p. 148.
52. For more discussions on the Islamic responses to Western modernity see K. Hussain, “An Islamic
Consideration of Western Moral Education: An Exploration of Individual”, Journal of Moral Edu-
cation, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2007, pp. 297–308; F. Najjar, “The Debate on Islam and Secularism in
Egypt”, Arab Studies Quarterly, Spring 1996, available on line: http://find articles.com/p/articles/,i_
m2501/is_n2_v18/ai_18627295/print. pp. 1–13; and Tibi, “Culture and Knowledge: The politics
of Islamization”. op. cit.
53. Quoted in M. Abaza, Debates on Islam and Knowledge, op. cit., p. 179.
54. W.M.N. Wan Daud, The Educational Philosophy and Practice of Syed Naquib al-Attas, op. cit., p. 158.
55. S.H. Nasr, Islam and the Plight of Modern Man, London and New York: Longman, 1976; L. Stenberg,
“The Islamization of Science”, op. cit.
56. A.H. Zaidi, “Muslim Reconstruction of Knowledge”, op. cit., p. 75.
57. L. Stenberg, “The Islamization of Science”, op. cit., p. 175.
58. I. Faruqi, Islamization of Knowledge, op. cit., p. 1.
59. Quoted in A.H. Zaidi, “Muslim reconstruction of knowledge”, op. cit., p. 77.
60. L. Stenberg, “The Islamization of Science”, op. cit., pp. 202–208.
61. D. Tawhidi, A Vision of Effective Islamic Education, Canton, Michigan: Tarbiyah Institute, 2006.
62. Some traced the origin of the term tarbiya to the pre-Islamic Middle Eastern traditions of civility and
refinement. The term was Islamized by as late as the 8th century through the works of Miskawayh and
Ibn Muqaffa’ (d. 756), in A. Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, 1996, p. 23). Contrarily,
Al-Attas attaches the concept to the Prophetic tradition (hadith). Education implies “the instilling
and inculcation of adab”, in Wan Daud, The Educational Philosophy and Practice of Syed Naquib Al-
Attas, op. cit, p. 133.
63. W.M.N. Wan Daud, The Educational Philosophy and Practice of Syed Naquib al-Attas, op. cit., p. 134.
64. Quoted in M. Parker-Jenkins, D. Hartas, and B.I. Irving, In Good Faith, op. cit., p. 41.
65. Hamid Reza Alavi, “Al-Ghazali on Moral Education”, Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 36, No. 3,
September 2007, pp. 309–319, p. 309.
66. Cf., Secondary Teacher Education (STEP) 2008. Available online at http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.
asp?ContentID=106627.
67. L. Steinberg, “The Islamization of Science”, op. cit., p. 75.
68. M.A.Z. “Badawi, Traditional Islamic Education—its Aims and Purposes in the Present Day”, in
Aims and Objectives of Islamic Education, eds. S.S. Hussain and S.A. Ashraf, op. cit., p. 105.
69. S. Douglass, Response to the American Textbook Council Report. Islam and the Textbooks. A Report for
Council of Islamic Education. February 13, 2003. Available on line at www.cie.org/news; and
G. Sewall, Islam and the Textbooks. A Report of the American Textbook Council. Available online at
http://www.historytextbooks.org/islamandthetextbooks.pdf.
70. See, for example, L. Kohlberg, Essays on Moral Development, Vol. I: The Philosophy of Moral Develop-
ment, San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1981, where Kolberg acknowledged the value of transcen-
dental and metaphysical experience as sources of understanding; also H. Gardner’s Frames of Mind:
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, New York: Basic Books, 1983 was a clear call for expanding learn-
ing and teaching to include all forms of human talents.
71. S. Qutb, quoted in B. Tibi, “Culture and Knowledge”, op. cit., p. 12. Also see M.S. Khan, “Human-
ism and Islamic Education”, Muslim Educational Quarterly, 1987, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 25–35, p. 28.
72. M. Abaza, Debates on Islam and Knowledge, op. cit., p. 302.
73. A.H. Zaidi, “Muslim Reconstruction of Knowledge”, op. cit., p. 76.
74. Ibid, p. 77.
75. Shiraz Thobani, “The Dilemma of Islam”, op. cit.,
76. A. Talbani, “Pedagogy, Power and Discourse”. op. cit.,
77. A.H. Zaidi, “Muslim Reconstruction of Knowledge”, op. cit.,
78. F. Rahman, Islam and Modernity, op. cit., p.137.
79. T. Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, London: Oxford University Press, 2004,
p. 132.
80. R. Hefner and M. Zaman, eds., Schooling Islam. op. cit.
81. B. Aras, “Turkish Islam’s Moderate Face”, Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1998, pp. 23–29.
82. F. Pohl. “Islamic Education and Civil Society: Reflections on the Pesantren Tradition in Contempor-
ary Indonesia Comparative Education Review, August, 2006, Vol. 50, No. 3, 389–409.
83. Teaching Islam, Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East, eds. E.A. Doumatto and G. Starret,
Boulder, CO: Lynne Riener Publishers, 2007.
84. R. Arjmand, “Education and Empowerment of Religious Elite in Iran”, in eds, H. Daun and
G. Walford, Educational Strategies among Muslims in the Context of Globalization. Some National
Case Studies, Leiden: Brill. 2004, pp. 63–80.
85. Teaching Islam, eds. E.A. Doumatto and G. Starret, op. cit,
86. See, Toronto District School Board, TDSB, Guidelines and Procedures for the Accommodation of Reli-
gious Requirements, Practices, and Observances, Toronto: TDSB publications, 2000; Council for
Islamic Education (CIE), Teaching Resources on Islam in World History/Cultures and Geography
courses for Elementary, Middle and High School, Presented by Susan Douglass, Council on Islamic
Education, Fountain Valley, CA.; S. Azmi, “Muslim Educational Institutions in Toronto, ON”,
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2001, Vol. 21, No. 2, 259–272.
87. For example, the Secondary Teacher Education Program of the Ismaili Religious education is being
developed and executed between the Institute of Ismaili Studies and Institute of Education in
London, UK. See www.iis.ac.uk
88. T. Ramadan, Western Muslims, op. cit., p. 132.
89. Ibid., p. 127.
90. Ibid, p. 139.
91. M. Merry, Culture, Identity and Islamic Schooling: A Philosophical Approach, New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2007; N. Memon, “Social Consciousness in Canadian Islamic Schools”, op. cit.; J. Zine,
Canadian Islamic Schools, op. cit.,
92. Y. Haddad, Y.F. Senzai and J. Smith, Educating the Muslims of America, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2009, pp. 8–9.
93. A. Lemu. “What Makes an Islamic School Islamic”, National Conference of NAMIS (Nigerian
Association of Model Islamic Schools), Ibadan, Nigeria. Available online at: www.iberr.org.
94. D. Tawhidi, A vision of effective Islamic education, op. cit.

95. Ibid., pp. 1–2.
96. E. Harder, Concentric Circles: Nurturing Awe and Wonder in Early Learning, A Foundational Approach,
Edmonton, AB: Al Qalam Publishing, 2006, p. xvii.
97. J. Henzell-Thomas, “Mythical Meaning, Religion and Soulful Education: Reviving the Original
Sense of Intellect”, Reasons for the Heart Conference, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 2004.
98. Z. Al-Zeera, Wholeness and Holiness in Islamic Education, Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Islamic Thought
Press, 2005, p. 23.
99. A. Badran, At the Cross-Roads: Education in the Middle East, New York: Garland, 1989.
100. O. Leivrik. “Religious Education, Communal Identity and National Politics in the Muslim World”,
British Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3, September 2004, pp. 223–236.
101. Cf., S.F. Alatas. Alternative Discoures in Asian Social Science : Responses to Eurocentrism, New Delhi:
Sage Publications, 2000, pp. 108–122; M. Abaza, Debates on Islam and knowledge, op. cit.

Islamic Education and Islamization

Încărcat de

Informații document

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Islamic Education and Islamization

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

This article was downloaded by: [University of Edinburgh]

On: 08 May 2012, At: 18:32

Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs

Islamic Education and Islamization:

Available online: 19 Apr 2011

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2011.556886

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-

Islamic Education and Islamization: Evolution

SARFAROZ NIYOZOV and NADEEM MEMON

Education as Discipline in Islam: A Journey of Continuity and Change

Sixth Century: The Revelation and the Promise

Medieval Islamic Educational Thoughts (9th – 13th Centuries): Building on the

Colonial Education (17th–19th Centuries): Surviving the Challenge

Post-Colonial Islamic Education (1940s–1970s): Radical Islamization and Living

Islamization and Islamic Education: Expectations and Realties (1970s–1990s)

Islamization is an alternative paradigmatic endeavor: it is based on the premise that all

competing Islamization viewpoints.42 Educational Islamizers largely consist of two inter-

It is not uncommon to ﬁnd sentiments of anti-Westernness among many proponents of

immorality or wickedness are not permitted”.64

tunistic, selective, one-sided evaluation and generalization of Western education and

history of humanity and contribute to a clash of civilizations discourse.72 Divergence of

been a noticeable paradox in the Islamization project.

Islamic Education in 2000s: Pragmatism, Openness, and Islamization Revisited

Islamization of education and knowledge in their diverse forms remains a dominant

Islamization, whether epistemological or ethical, needs to be reconceptualized in the

94. D. Tawhidi, A vision of effective Islamic education, op. cit.

S-ar putea să vă placă și