Toward a New Approach to Islamic Education

Abstract

The production of soldiers by Pakistani madrasas during the Cold War and their recent association with terrorist attacks in the United States and the United Kingdom ignited a lot of interest in understanding the psyche of Muslims and their views on Islamic education. However, this exploration focused on Muslim extremists and madrasas as their breeding grounds. Such an approach assumes that the message from all formal institutions of Islamic education is homogeneous and that their students are passive receivers of knowledge. Whereas in Pakistan, it is common knowledge that madrasas cater to the poor, living in slums, and are not the primary educational choice for those who can afford to pay for education; studies have not prioritized understanding the mainstream Muslim citizens from the middle and upper classes, their educational choices, or the ways in which they make Islam, to use Starrett’s term, functional to their socioeconomic needs and political and ideological concerns.¹