Towards an Alternative Reading of Ideological and Civic Activism in Islamic Schools: Case Studies from Indonesia, Pakistan and America - Sponsored by the South Asian Muslim Studies Association (SAMSA)

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

The production of soldiers by madrasas during the Cold War and the post-9/11 association of Islamic schools with terrorism have narrowed the understanding of Islamic education and practice to religious extremism, militancy, and brainwashing of students as represented by some radical madrasas. Such an approach assumes that the message from all formal institutions of Islamic education is homogeneous, that Islamic schools operate in isolation from the social, economic, historical and political realities of their surroundings, and that Islamic education is received passively without critique and active debate by the students. Taking ethnographic and qualitative fieldwork conducted on Islamic schools in Indonesia, Pakistan, and America, presenters in this panel will critique this approach by drawing attention to new actors in debates about contemporary Islamic education; the patrons, consumers, administrators and entrepreneurs of Islamic schools.

The assessment of Islamic education narrowly assumes that its diverse patrons and proprietors act in isolation with the state. Through case studies from three regions, the panelists highlight how the state’s shifting policies on Islamic education, practice, and philanthropy and their respective roles in the society and for Muslim communities, inform and shape the ideological, pedagogical, activist, and civic discourses inside Islamic schools. The aim of this panel is to highlight and welcome discussions on how the participants’ experience of the educational environment, its mission and its impact on their ideological and social value systems should be made central to understanding the heterogeneity of religious, philanthropic, civic, class, ethnic, national and cultural subjectivities in Islamic schools.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing

Session Organizer

• Sanaa Riaz, Metropolitan State University of Denver

Individual Presentations

• A Gate around Your Heart: Ethical Subject Formation in a Traditionalist Islamic Boarding School in Indonesia - Claire Marie Hefner, Emory University

• Philanthropy and Religious Education in the US - Sabith Khan, Virginia Tech

• Alternative Subjectivities in Islamic Schooling: The Case of Urban Pakistani Parochial Schools - Sanaa Riaz, Metropolitan State University of Denver