On the secularization of Islamic institutions.
Local projects and translocal impact in the Islamic world
Saeed Ur Rehman
Farish Noor
S. M. Faizan Ahmed
Case studies of institutions, concepts and projects that reflect
the changing character of Islamic educational institutions are
the focus of the intended research. Subproject 1 (S. Rehman) looks
at training institutes for young Islamic graduate scholars in
India, and at private secondary schools with a mixed religious
and secular curriculum in Pakistan; subproject 2 (F. Noor) will
focus on the International Islamic University in Malaysia and
three state Islamic universities in Indonesia. In view of the
growing internal and external political pressure on state and
private actors to open up and modernize religious institutions
and projects, these activities acquire priority and urgency. At
the same time, they respond to the ambition of socially conservative
strata in the fast-growing and highly heterogeneous middle classes.
They wish to gain access to modern education and effective political
participation in consonance with “authentic” religious
knowledge and political legitimation. In an attempt to bridge
the gap between religious and secular education, religious scholars
and politicians cooperate with secular Muslims in these projects,
and frequently combine development concerns with social objectives
and missionary aims.
Research will be guided by a multidisciplinary translocal perspective
focusing on discourses, institutions and actors. It seeks to understand
the impact of such reforms on education and politics in the countries
concerned; their chances of success; the nature of the education
acquired in these new institutions; and the character of the religious
and secular politics behind these developments. The project follows
up on the preceding research on “Transcultural transfer
of Islamic knowledge”, which primarily looked at the actors
(students, graduates, teaching staff) and their implementation
of Islamic normative concepts in diverse cultural contexts.
Subproject 1
Bridging the gap. Blending Islamic and secular education in
new school projects in India and Pakistan
Saeed Ur Rehman
The subproject studies the fusion of Islamic and secular education
in selected educational institutions. The Markaz al-Ma´ārif
foundation (Centre of Knowledge) and its various training institutes
will be studied in India. They not only teach computer applications
and English, but also discuss current social and political issues
in a religious context. The ‘Iqra‘ Rawdat al-Atfāl
(School for Knowledge Transfer) foundation, which runs secondary
schools, will be the focus of study in Pakistan. Here children
undergo training in memorising and reciting the Qur’an (hāfiz),
as well as secondary education for intermediate level based on
the state curriculum.
The research concentrates primarily on concepts, actors and institutions
and their interconnections in local and translocal networks in
South Asia and other Islamic countries. It aims at understanding
the consequences of such an opening of Islamic institutions for
the interpretation of Islam and the shaping of a graduate identity
as Muslims in a secular social context.
References to common discourses as well as institutional and personal
connections will be looked into as a means of comparing the educational
projects. In addition, local roots and the cultural disjunctions
that come with this broken modernity will be explored.
Subproject 2
The Reform of Islamic education in Malaysia and Indonesia. The
Struggle for modernisation, contestation of power and politicization
of knowledge in Malaysia and Indonesia
Farish Noor
The focus of this project is on current developments within the
sphere of Islamic education in Malaysia and Indonesia. Its practical,
objective focus will be on the process and systems of institutional
reform, with the debate on what constitutes a modern form of Islamic
education in both countries, which takes place via the ‘opening
up’ of Islamic education to other disciplines such as the
humanities and natural sciences, as its theoretical focus. While
the educational reform process itself can be analysed in terms
of a secularisation process, its proponents in Malaysia and Indonesia
maintain that their brand of ‘Modern/ist Islam’ is
a search for a Modern Islam that is nonetheless ‘authentic’
and distanced from ‘Western Secularism’. It is this
analytical paradox and its political implications that are the
subject of our research, as we attempt to understand this new
form of ‘Islamic Modernity’ as one variant of the
‘multiple Modernities’ that are emerging in the world
today.
The project will look at the process of Islamic educational reform
in two Southeast Asian countries, Malaysia and Indonesia. It will
examine how the reform of higher (university level) Islamic education
is meant to have a spillover effect on other lower-level Islamic
educational institutions, and how the reform processes in these
countries have been affected by both internal and external variables.
The project also aims to analyse how the process of reform is
being shaped and guided by the creation of a global, transnational
network of Islamic educational institutions and academicians/scholars;
how both local and foreign actors and agents have come on the
scene and are now competing to impose their brand of Islamic modernity
and reform; how this modernisation process has itself led to a
counter-reaction among local Islamic educational institutions
and educationists, and how the debate on the question of Islamic
modernity is being managed in these countries.
Subproject 3
Negotiating epistemologies and their challenging forces
A study of Modernization of Madrasas in India
S. M.Faizan Ahmed
Religion is an integral as well as one of the oldest institutions in human existence. It has served many purposes in judging what is good and what is evil. Modernity defines itself by distancing from religion – something that is not so encompassing a worldview that can any longer be considered as legitimate source of authority in resolving the issues of this world, except in theological matters. Several attempts on contesting such a paradigm of knowledge has been on its march along with those that want to incorporate (or appropriate) its other. Modernization of Madrasas in India is a case in point that leads us in understanding the ways through which this contestation and incorporation (or appropriation) can be examined to elaborate the present crisis.
The project, at first, intends to outline different existing forms of Madrasas in India and classify them accordingly on the basis of content and structure of syllabus, its nature of functioning and orientation. It will explore the Madrasas that refuse to accept any modernization proposal; Madrasas run by the Government or affiliated to Government board; and Madrasas that are offering modern syllabus or vocational courses along with theological learning. The purpose of this study is whether ‘fusion’ or ‘modernization’ is helpful for Madrasa students in bringing them to the national mainstream, or they get lured to it only because they think such knowledge is essential for their survival. Another research question that will be pursued during the course of study is ‘does ‘fusion’ or ‘modernization’ effect their sense of judgment’ about issues of this world? And lastly, where lies the scope of the meeting ground between Secular and Islamic?
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