Since the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, the public has grappled with the
relationship between Islamic education and radical Islam. Media reports
tend to paint madrasas--religious schools dedicated to Islamic
learning--as medieval institutions opposed to all that is Western and as
breeding grounds for terrorists. Others have claimed that without
reforms, Islam and the West are doomed to a clash of civilizations.
Robert Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman bring together eleven
internationally renowned scholars to examine the varieties of modern
Muslim education and their implications for national and global
politics. The contributors provide new insights into Muslim culture and
politics in countries as different as Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, India,
Indonesia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. They demonstrate that Islamic
education is neither timelessly traditional nor medieval, but rather
complex, evolving, and diverse in its institutions and practices. They
reveal that a struggle for hearts and minds in Muslim lands started long
before the Western media discovered madrasas, and that Islamic schools
remain on its front line.
Schooling Islam is the most comprehensive work available in any
language on madrasas and Islamic education.