WFDD CASE STUDY MODERNIZING ISLAMIC EDUCATION: THE CASES OF BANGLADESH AND SENEGAL By Nathaniel Adams, Lauren Herzog, and Katherine Marshall This case study is one of a series produced by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University and the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD), an NGO established in the World Bank and based today at Georgetown University. The goal is to generate relevant and demanding teaching materials that highlight ethical, cultural, and religious dimensions of contemporary international development topics. This case study underscores the complex roles played by Islamic schools in Bangladeshi and Senegalese societies, the contemporary challenges these schools face, and various reform efforts undertaken by both religious and secular actors. Earlier case studies on female genital cutting (FGC or FGM) and the Ebola crisis focus on the complex questions of how culture and religious beliefs influence behaviors. This case study was prepared by Nathaniel Adams and Lauren Herzog, with oversight and direction from Katherine Marshall. Field research was conducted by Nathaniel Adams, Lauren Herzog, and Wilma Mui. Comments from Jocelyne Cesari, Crystal Corman, and Ebrahim Moosa are gratefully acknowledged. Cover photo by Andrew Oberstadt. About the World Faiths Development Dialogue The World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) is a not-for-profit organization working at the -in tersection of religion and global development. Housed within the Berkley Center in Washington, D.C., WFDD documents the work of faith-inspired organizations and explores the importance of religious ideas and actors in development contexts. WFDD supports dialogue between religious and development communities and promotes innovative partnerships, at national and international levels, with the goal of contributing to positive and inclusive development outcomes. About the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, created within the Office of the President in 2006, is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of religion, ethics, and public life. Through research, teaching, and service, the center explores global challenges of democracy and human rights; economic and social development; international diplomacy; and interreligious understand- ing. Two premises guide the center’s work: that a deep examination of faith and values is critical to ad- dress these challenges, and that the open engagement of religious and cultural traditions with one another can promote peace. BERKLEY CENTER FOR RELIGION, PEACE & WORLD AFFAIRS CASE STUDY — ISLAMIC EDUCATION 2 THE CONTEXT: CONTENTIOUS DEBATES ABOUT ISLAMIC EDUCATION PART 1 Why this case study? This case study focuses on contemporary Islamic education Islamic education systems (broadly, and sometimes approaches and systems in Bangladesh and Senegal. It offers misleadingly, termed madrasa education) are the subject of a picture of the promise and challenge involved in efforts to mounting attention, prominent on various development and reform two systems that are rooted in distinct and illustrative foreign policy agendas. Discussions are often driven primarily contexts. It is designed to help students ask deeper questions by security concerns, namely efforts to address the spread of about how and why Islamic education merits attention as part radical Islam through these institutions. There is, however, also of broader educational reforms. The case should be enriching a growing recognition that Islamic education institutions can for students in a wide range of disciplines including political and do play important roles in meeting the basic global goal science, education, development, public policy, peace studies, of education for all and in addressing a common and growing and comparative religion. demand for attention to values and culturally appropriate curricula in the school context. In many countries (Bangladesh Approaching the disputed topic of Islamic and Senegal notable among them), Islamic school systems are education and reform major education providers. They often fill key gaps in state- A central premise in contemporary approaches to development run education systems, for example in reaching marginalized is that access to quality education undergirds all other develop- populations. They also point to significant demand for religious ment efforts. Education is seen as critical to sustained devel- education, notable in Muslim communities in different world opment because of its role in building the skilled workforce regions. For these reasons, it is important to explore and necessary for economic transformation. Equally important, think critically about these systems, including how they fit education is viewed as fundamental to cultivating the informed within broader national education strategies and how reform citizenry necessary for an engaged democracy and the increas- proposals meet concerns both of national education authorities ingly plural societies that characterize much of the world. Ed- and of religious leaders and communities. With its important ucation’s roles in shaping social values and norms explain its contributions and contested social position, Islamic education central role in all manner of social movements, both religious will be a critical element in education policy in the years to come. and secular, that seek to bring about social change. Education has likewise been a central preoccupation for many Terminology: Madrasa of the world’s major faith traditions, including Islam. Since Madrasa means school in Arabic and it is used in its earliest days, Islamic teachings highlighted learning the that sense in this case study. However, the label is used revealed word of God (the Qur’an) as a central component of in different ways in different countries, sometimes to religious worship. The first Islamic schools, which began in the refer to what are essentially schools for young children, seventh century, taught Arabic literacy and were aimed mainly elsewhere to describe an Islamic education system at memorizing the Qur’an.1 In the ensuing centuries, the body that may extend through post-graduate studies. Some of knowledge associated with Islam grew. The words and deeds use the term rather pejoratively, thus failing to take of the Prophet Muhammad were compiled into what is now into account both the rich historical traditions of known as the hadith; the body of scholarship associated with Islamic education and the diversity of contemporary the Islamic legal schools (madhab) developed, and Islamic law approaches. The term madrasa is widely used (fiqh) was standardized. The expanding Islamic corpus necessi- in Bangladesh, less so in Senegal. tated a deeper and more rigorous approach to study. The first BERKLEY CENTER FOR RELIGION, PEACE & WORLD AFFAIRS CASE STUDY — ISLAMIC EDUCATION 3 schools for advanced Islamic learning and scholarship appeared cation, debates about madrasas can touch at the heart of rede- in the tenth century, first in what is now Iran, then spread rapid- fining what it means to be a Muslim today both in Muslim- ly across the Islamic world. During this period, Islamic schools, majority and more plural communities. or madrasas, began to develop a standardized physical format with a mosque and ablution house, dormitories, and classrooms. The term madrasa is used to refer to various and quite different The madrasa curriculum also assumed a familiar form around Islamic educational institutions; global discussions of madrasa this time, teaching Qur’anic recitation (qira’a), hadith, Arabic education are complex partly because of the imprecise usage grammar (nahw), Qur’anic interpretation (tafsir), jurisprudence of the term. Madrasa can be used to refer to a range of Islamic (fiqh), religious principles (usul ad-din), legal sources (usul al- schools, from Islamic primary schools or “kindergartens”— fiqh), and Islamic theology (kalam).2 Many madrasas also began known in Bangladesh as maktabs and in Senegal as daraas, to incorporate subjects including mathematics, medicine, as- which focus primarily on rote memorization of Qur’an— tronomy, philosophy, and poetry based on classical texts. Indeed, to Islamic universities, some of which teach predominantly from the eleventh until the fourteenth centuries there were im- secular subject matter, including engineering or medicine. portant Muslim scholars in all these disciplines. Islamic schools Policy discussions of madrasa reform, however, are most often cultivated some of the greatest and most influential thinkers of focused on Islamic schools at the primary and secondary level. the medieval era such as, among others, Al Ghazali, Al Farabi, Ibn Rushid, Ibn Sina, Ibn Al Haytham, and Al Qurtubi. Traditionally, most Islamic education institutions functioned to train religious clergy, as well as teach foundational recitation of After the so-called Islamic “golden age,” this cosmopolitan the Qur’an for children, at least for boys. In parts of the Muslim tradition in Islamic education faded slowly. Madrasas became world, they have become important education providers for a increasingly interested in the preservation of tradition, notably much broader range of students. However, perceived deficiencies in the face of European colonialism. It was during the colonial in curriculum and pedagogical approaches in these schools have era that both externally- and internally-driven madrasa reform led education