- "Madrasa" and "Medrese" redirect here. For the village in
Azerbaijan, see Mədrəsə
.
Madrasah ( ,
madrasa pl. ,
madāris) is the Arabic word for any
type of educational
institution, whether
secular or
religious (of any religion). It is variously
transliterated as
madrasah,
madarasaa,
medresa,
madrassa,
madraza,
madarsa,
medrese etc.
However, in contemporary
English
usage, the term most frequently refers to the
Madrasah
Islāmiyyah, or traditional Islamic school.
Definition
The word
madrasah is derived from the triconsonantal
Semitic root د-ر-س
(
D-R-S), which relates to
learning or
studying, through the
wazn (form/stem) (
mafʻal(a), meaning "a place where X is done." Therefore,
madrasah literally means "a place where learning/studying
is done". The word is also present as a
loanword with the same innocuous meaning in many
Arabic-influenced languages, such as:
Urdu,
Bengali,
Hindi,
Persian,
Turkish,
Kurdish,
Indonesian,
Malay and
Bosnian. In the Arabic language, the word
مدرسة (madrasah) simply means the same as
school does in
the English language, whether that is private, public or parochial
school, as well as for any primary or secondary school whether
Muslim, non-Muslim, or
secular. Unlike the understanding of the word
school in British English, the word
madrasah is
like the term
school in American English, in that it can
refer to a university-level or post-graduate school as well. For
example, in the
Ottoman Empire during
the
Early Modern Period,
Madrasahs had lower schools and specialized schools where the
students became known as danismends. The usual Arabic word for a
university, however, is simply
(jāmiʿah). The
Hebrew cognate
midrasha also connotes the meaning
of a place of learning; the related term
midrash literally refers to study or learning,
but has acquired mystical and religious connotations.
However, in English, the term
madrasah usually refers to
the specifically Islamic institutions. A typical Islamic school
usually offers two courses of study: a
hifz course; that is memorisation of the
Qur'an (the person who commits the entire
Qur'an to memory is called a
hafiz);
and an
'alim course leading the candidate to
become an accepted scholar in the community. A regular
curriculum includes courses in
Arabic,
Tafsir
(Qur'anic interpretation),
shari'ah (Islamic
law),
Hadith (recorded sayings and deeds of
Prophet
Muhammad),
Mantiq (logic), and
Muslim
history. In the
Ottoman Empire,
during the
Early Modern Period,
the learning of the Hadith was introduced by Suleyman I. Depending
on the educational demands, some madrasahs also offer additional
advanced courses in
Arabic
literature, English and other foreign languages, as well as
science and world history. Ottoman madrasahs along with religious
teachings also taught "styles of writing, grammary, syntax, poetry,
composition, natural sciences, political sciences, and
etiquette."
People of all ages attend, and many often move on to becoming
imams. The certificate of an
‘alim for
example, requires approximately twelve years of study. A good
number of the
huffaz (plural of hafiz)
are the product of the madrasahs. The madrasahs also resemble
colleges, where people take evening classes and reside in
dormitories. An important function of the madrasahs is to admit
orphans and poor children in order to provide them with education
and training. Madrasahs may enroll female students; however, they
study separately from the men.
In
South Africa, the madrasahs also
play a socio-cultural role in giving after-school religious
instruction to Muslim children who attend government or private
non-religious schools. However, increasing numbers of more affluent
Muslim children attend full-fledged private
Islamic
Schools which combine secular and religious education. Among
Muslims of
Indian origin,
madrasahs also used to provide instruction in
Urdu, although this is far less common today than it
used to be.
Early history of Madrasahs
Madrasahs did not exist in the early beginnings of Islam. Their
formation can probably be traced to the early Islamic custom of
meeting in
mosques to discuss religious
issues. At this early stage, people seeking religious knowledge
tended to gather around certain more knowledgeable Muslims. These
informal teachers later became known as
shaykhs; and these shaykhs began to hold regular
religious education sessions called
majalis (Sessions).
Established in 859, Jami'at
al-Qarawiyyin
(located in Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque) in the city of
Fas
, Morocco
, is
considered the oldest madrasah in the Muslim world. It was founded by
Fatima al-Fihri, the daughter of a wealthy
merchant named Mohammed Al-Fihri.
This was later followed by what is now
Al-Azhar
University
, established in 959 in Cairo
, Egypt
.
During the late
Abbasid period, the
Seljuk vizier
Nizam
al-Mulk created one of the first major official academic
institutions known in history as the Madrasah
Nizamiyyah, based on the informal
majalis (sessions of the shaykhs). Al-Mulk, who would
later be murdered by the
Assassins
(
Hashshashin), created a system of state madrasahs (in his
time they were called, the Nizamiyyahs, named after him) in various
Abbasid cities at the end of the 11th century.
During the rule of the
Fatimid and
Mamluk dynasties and their successor states in the
medieval Middle East, many of the ruling elite founded madrasahs
through a religious endowment known as the
waq'f. Not only was the madrasah a potent symbol of
status but it was an effective means of transmitting wealth and
status to their descendants. Especially during the
Mamluk period, when only former slaves could assume
power, the sons of the ruling Mamluk elite were unable to inherit.
Guaranteed positions within the new madrasahs thus allowed them to
maintain status.
Madrasahs built in this period include the
Mosque-Madrasah of Sultan Hasan in Cairo
.
Dimitri Gutas and the
Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy consider the period between the 11th and 14th
centuries to be the "
Golden Age"
of Arabic and
Islamic philosophy,
initiated by
Al-Ghazali's successful
integration of logic
into the Madrasah curriculum and the subsequent rise of
Avicennism.
The following excerpt provides a brief synopsis of the historical
origins and starting points for the teachings that took place in
the Ottoman madrasahs in the
Early
Modern Period:
"Taşköprülüzâde's concept of knowledge and his division
of the sciences provides a starting point for a study of learning
and medrese education in the Ottoman
Empire. Taşköprülüzâde recognizes four stages of
knowledge—spiritual, intellectual, oral and written. Thus all the
sciences fall into one of these seven categories: calligraphic
sciences, oral sciences, intellectual sciences, spiritual sciences,
theoretical rational sciences, practical rational sciences. The
First Ottoman medrese was created in Iznik in 1331, when a
converted Church building was assigned as a medrese to a famous
scholar, Dâvûd of Kayseri.Suleyman made an important change in the
hierarchy of Ottoman medreses. He established four general medreses
and two more for specialized studies, one devoted to the hadith and
the other to medicine. He gave the highest ranking to these and
thus established the hierarchy of the medreses which was to
continue until the end of the empire."
During
this time, the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, experienced a growth in
literacy, having the highest literacy rate of the Middle
Ages, comparable to classical Athens
' literacy in antiquity but on a larger
scale.
Elementary education
In the medieval Islamic world, an
elementary school was known as a
maktab, which dates back to at least the 10th century.
Like madrasahs (which referred to
higher education), a maktab was often
attached to a mosque. In the 11th century, the famous Persian
Islamic philosopher,
Ibn Sina (known as
Avicenna in the
West), in one of his books, wrote a chapter dealing with the
maktab entitled "The Role of the Teacher in the Training
and Upbringing of Children", as a guide to teachers working at
maktab schools. He wrote that children can learn better if
taught in
class instead of
individual
tuition from private
tutors, and he gave a number of reasons for why this
is the case, citing the value of
competition and
emulation among pupils as
well as the usefulness of group
discussions and
debates.
Ibn Sina described the
curriculum of a
maktab school in some detail, describing the curricula for
two stages of education in a
maktab school.
Primary education
Ibn Sina wrote that children should be sent to a
maktab
school from the age of 6 and be taught
primary education until they reach the age
of 14. During which time, he wrote that they should be taught the
Qur'an,
Islamic metaphysics,
language,
literature,
Islamic ethics, and manual skills (which
could refer to a variety of practical skills).
Secondary education
Ibn Sina refers to the
secondary
education stage of
maktab schooling as the period of
specialization, when pupils should begin to acquire manual skills,
regardless of their social status. He writes that children after
the age of 14 should be given a choice to choose and specialize in
subjects they have an interest in, whether it was reading, manual
skills, literature, preaching,
medicine,
geometry,
trade and commerce,
craftsmanship, or any other
subject or profession they would be interested in pursuing for a
future
career. He wrote that this was a
transitional stage and that there needs to be flexibility regarding
the age in which pupils graduage, as the student's emotional
development and chosen subjects need to be taken into
account.
Higher education
During the formative period of the madrasah, used to refer to a
higher education institution,
philosophy and the
secular sciences were often excluded from
its
curriculum, which initially only
included the "religious sciences". The curriculum slowly began to
diversify, with many later madrasahs teaching both the religious
and the "secular sciences", like
logic,
mathematics and
philosophy. Some madrasahs further
extended their curriculum to
history,
politics,
ethics,
music,
metaphysics,
medicine,
astronomy and
chemistry. Some Islamic
schools by the 12th century also taught early ideas related to
evolution. The curriculum of a madrasah
was usually set by its founder, but most generally taught both the
religious sciences and the physical sciences.
Madrasahs were
established throughout the Islamic world, the most famous being the
10th century Al-Azhar
University
and the 11th century Nizamiyya, as well as 75 madrasahs in Cairo
, 51 in
Damascus
and up to 44
in Aleppo
between 1155
and 1260. Many more were also established in the
Andalusian
citites of Córdoba
, Seville
, Toledo
, Granada
, Murcia
, Almería
, Valencia
and Cádiz
during the
Caliphate of
Córdoba.
In the
Ottoman Empire during the
early modern period, "Madrasahs
were divided into lower and specialized levels, which reveals that
there was a sense of elevation in school. Students who studied in
the specialized schools after completing courses in the lower
levels became known as danismends."
College
The origins of the
college lie in the
medieval Islamic world. While
"madrasah" can now refer to any type of school, the term "madrasah"
was originally used to refer more specifically to a medieval
Islamic college, mainly teaching
Islamic law
and
theology, usually affiliated
with a
mosque, and funded by an early
charitable trust known as
Waqf. It has been argued that the
internal organization of the first European colleges was borrowed
from the earlier madrasahs, like the system of
fellows and
scholars, with the
Latin term for fellow,
socius, being a direct translation
of the Arabic term for fellow,
sahib.
The funding for madrasahs came primarily from
Waqf instititions, which were similar to the
charitable trusts which later
funded the first European colleges. Syed Farid Alatas writes:
University
If a
university is defined as an
institution of
higher education and
research which issues
academic degrees at all levels (
bachelor,
master and
doctorate), then the first "universities" were the
Jami'ah founded in the 9th century. While the madrasah
college could also issue degrees at all levels, the
Jami`ah differed in the sense that it was a larger
institution that was more universal in terms of its complete source
of studies, had individual faculties for different subjects, and
could house a number of mosques, madrasahs and other institutions
within it. Such an institution has thus been described as an
"Islamic university".
The University of Al Karaouine
in Fez,
Morocco
is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the
oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in
859 by Fatima al-Fihri.
However, if a university is defined as a legally autonomous
corporation, then medievalist
specialists disagree with the term "university" for the Islamic
madrasas and
jami'ah because the medieval European
institution of higher learning called a "university" (from Latin
universitas) was structurally different, being a legally
autonomous corporation rather than a
waqf institution like the madrasah and
jami'ah. Despite the many similarities, medieval
specialists have coined the term "Islamic college" for madrasah and
jami'ah to differentiated them from the legally autonomous
corporations that the
medieval
European universities were.
What is
now Al-Azhar
University
, founded in Cairo
, Egypt
in 975 by
Ismaili Shi`ah Fatimid dynasty, was a Jami'ah which
offered a variety of post-graduate degrees (ijazah), and had individual faculties for a theological seminary, Islamic law and
jurisprudence, Arabic
grammar, Islamic astronomy,
early Islamic philosophy
and logic in Islamic
philosophy. Abd-el-latif
also delivered
lectures on
Islamic medicine at Al-Azhar, while
Maimonides delivered lectures on medicine
and astronomy there during the time of
Saladin. Another early
jami'ah was the
Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad
(founded 1091), which has been called the "largest
university of the Medieval world".
Mustansiriya University,
established by the
Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir in
1233, in addition to teaching the religious subjects, offered
courses dealing with philosophy, mathematics and the
natural sciences.
Law school
Madrasahs were largely centered on the study of
fiqh
(Islamic jurisprudence). The
ijazat attadris
wa 'l-ifta' ("license to teach and issue legal opinions")
in the medieval Islamic
legal
education system had its origins in the 9th century after the
formation of the
Madh'hab legal
schools. George Makdisi considers the
ijazah to be the
origin of the European
doctorate. There
were some differences though; for example, the former was awarded
by an individual teacher-scholar and the latter by the collective
faculty.
To obtain an
ijazah , a student "had to study in a
guild school of law,
usually four years for the basic
undergraduate course" and ten or
more years for a
post-graduate course. The "doctorate
was obtained after an oral
examination to determine the
originality of the candidate's
theses",
and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all
objections, in
disputations set up for
the purpose." These were scholarly exercises practiced throughout
the student's "career as a
graduate
student of law." After students completed their post-graduate
education, they were awarded
ijazas giving them the status
of
faqih (meaning "one who does
law"),
mufti (meaning "professor of
Fatwā") and
mudarris (meaning
"teacher").
The
Arabic term
ijazat
attadris, was awarded to
Islamic scholars
who were qualified to teach. It has been argued that the Latin
title
licentia docendi ( "license to teach") in the
European university may have been a translation of the Arabic.
However, a significant difference between the
ijazat
attadris and the
licentia docendi was that the former
was awarded by the individual scholar-teacher, while the latter was
awarded by the chief official of the university, who represented
the collective faculty, rather than the individual
scholar-teacher.
Much of the study in the madrasa college centered on examining
whether certain opinions of law were orthodox. This scholarly
process of "determining orthodoxy began with a question which the
Muslim layman, called in that capacity
mustafti, presented
to a
jurisconsult, called
mufti, soliciting from him a response, called
fatwa, a
legal opinion (the
religious
law of Islam covers
civil
as well as
religious matters). The
mufti (professor of legal opinions) took this question,
studied it, researched it intensively in the sacred scriptures, in
order to find a solution to it. This process of scholarly research
vas called
ijtihad, literally, the
exertion of one's efforts to the utmost limit."
Medical school
Though
Islamic medicine was most
often taught at the
Bimaristan teaching
hospitals, there were also several madrasah
medical schools dedicated to the teaching of
medicine.
For example, from the 155 madrasah colleges
in 15th century Damascus
, three of them were medical schools.
In the
Early Modern Period in
the
Ottoman Empire, "
Suleyman I added new curriculums to
the Ottoman medreses of which one was medicine, which alongside
studying of the
Hadith was given highest
rank."
Female education
From around 750, during the
Abbasid
Caliphate, women “became renowned for their brains as well as
their beauty”. In particular, many well known women of the time
were trained from childhood in
music,
dancing and
poetry. Mahbuba was one of
these. Another feminine figure to be remembered for her
achievements was Tawaddud “a slave girl who was said to have been
bought at great cost by
Harun
al-Rashid because she had passed her examinations by the most
eminent
scholars in
astronomy,
medicine,
law,
philosophy,
music,
history,
Arabic grammar,
literature,
theology and
chess”.
Moreover,
among the most prominent feminine figures was Shuhda who was known
as “the Scholar” or “the Pride of Women” during the twelfth century
in Baghdad
. Despite the recognition of women’s aptitudes
during the Abbasid dynasty, all these came to an end in Iraq
with the
sack of Baghdad in
1258.
Women
played an important role in the foundations of many Islamic
educational institutions, such as Fatima
al-Fihri's founding of the University of
Al Karaouine
in 859. This continued through to the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th and 13th
centuries, when 160 mosques and madrasahs were established in
Damascus
, 26 of which were funded by women through the
Waqf (charitable
trust) system. Half of all the royal
patrons for these institutions were also
women.
According to the
Sunni scholar
Ibn Asakir in the 12th century, there were
opportunities for
female education
in the
medieval Islamic world,
writing that women could study, earn
ijazahs (
academic
degrees), and qualify as
scholars and
teachers. This was especially the case for learned and scholarly
families, who wanted to ensure the highest possible education for
both their sons and daughters. Ibn Asakir had himself studied under
80 different female teachers in his time. Female education in the
Islamic world was inspired by
Muhammad's wives, such as
Khadijah, a successful businesswoman.
According to a
hadith attributed to Muhammad, he praised the women of Medina
because of
their desire for religious knowledge:
While it was not common for women to enroll as students in formal
classes, it was common for women
to attend informal
lectures and study
sessions at mosques, madrasahs and other public places. While there
were no legal restrictions on female education, some men did not
approve of this practice, such as Muhammad ibn al-Hajj (d. 1336)
who was appalled at the behaviour of some women who informally
audited lectures in his time:
The term
'awra is often translated as
"that which is indecent", which usually meant the exposure of
anything other than a woman's face and hands, although scholarly
interpretations of the
awra and hijab have always tended to vary, with some more or
less strict than others.
While women accounted for no more than one percent of Islamic
scholars prior to the 12th century, there was a large increase of
female scholars after this. In the 15th century,
Al-Sakhawi devotes an entire volume of his
12-volume
biographical
dictionary Daw al-lami to female scholars, giving
information on 1,075 of them. More recently, the scholar
Mohammad Akram Nadwi, currently a
researcher from the
Oxford Centre for Islamic
Studies, has written 40 volumes on the 'muhaddithat' (the women
scholars of
hadith), and found at least 8000
of them.
Madrasahs by region
Madrasahs under the Ottoman Turks
"The
first Ottoman Medrese was created in
Iznik
in 1331 and most Ottoman medreses followed the
traditions of sunni Islam." "When an Ottoman sultan established a
new medrese, he would invite scholars from the Islamic world—for
example, Murad II brought scholars from Persia, such as Ala al-Din
and Fakhr al-Din who helped enhance the reputation of the Ottoman
medrese". This reveals that the Islamic world was interconnected in
the
early modern period as they
traveled around to other Islamic states exchanging knowledge. This
sense that the Ottoman Empire was becoming modernized through
globalization is also recognized by
Hamadeh who says: "Change in the eighteenth century as the
beginning of a long and unilinear march toward westernization
reflects the two centuries of reformation in sovereign
identity."Inalcik also mentions that while scholars from for
example Persia, traveled to the Ottomans in order to share their
knowledge, Ottomans traveled as well to receive education from
scholars of these Islamic lands, such as Egypt, Persia and
Turkestan. Hence, this reveals that similar to today's modern
world, individuals from the early modern society traveled abroad to
receive education and share knowledge and that the world was more
interconnected than it seems. Also, it reveals how the system of
"schooling" was also similar to today's modern world where students
travel abroad to different countries for studies. Examples of
Ottoman madrasahs are the ones built by Mehmed the Conqueror. He
built eight madrasahs that were built "on either side of the mosque
where there were eight higher madrasahs for specialized studies and
eight lower medreses, which prepared students for these." The fact
that they were built around, or near mosques reveals the religious
impulses behind Madrasah building and it reveals the
interconnectedness between institutions of learning and religion.
The students who completed their education in the lower medreses
became known as danismends This reveals that similar to the
education system today, the Ottomans had a similar kind of
educational system in which there were different kinds of schools
attached to different kinds of levels. For example, there were the
lower madrasahs and then the specialized ones and for one to get
into the specialized area meant that they had to complete the
classes in the lower one in order to adequately prepare themselves
for higher learning.
This is the rank of Madrasahs in the Ottoman Empire from the
highest ranking to the lowest: (From Inalcik, 167).1) Semniye2)
Darulhadis3) Madrasahs built by earlier sultans in Bursa.4)
Madrasahs endowed by great men of state.
Although Ottoman Madrasahs had a number of different branches of
study, such as calligraphic sciences, oral sciences, and
intellectual sciences they primarily served the function of an
Islamic center for spiritual learning. "The goal of all knowledge
and in particular, of the spiritual sciences is knowledge of God."
Religion, for the most part, determines the significance and
importance of each science. As Inalcik mentions: " Those which aid
religion are good and sciences like astrology are bad."However,
even though mathematics, or studies in logic were part of the
madrasah's curriculum, they were all centered around religion. Even
mathematics had a religious impulse behind its teachings. "The
Ulema of the Ottoman medreses held the view
that hostility to logic and mathematics was futile since these
accustomed the mind to correct thinking and thus helped to reveal
divine truths" – keyword being divine. Inalcik also mentions that
even philosophy was only allowed to be studied so that it helped to
confirm the doctrines of
Islam." Hence,
madrasahs – schools were basically religious centers for religious
teachings and learning in the Ottoman world. Although scholars such
as Goffman have argued that the Ottomans were highly tolerant and
lived in a pluralistic society, it seems that schools that were the
main centers for learning were in fact heftily religious and were
not religiously pluralistic, but centered around Islam. Similarly,
in Europe "Jewish children learned the Hebrew letters and texts of
basic prayers at home, and then attended a school organized by the
synagogue to study the Torah." Wiesner-Hanks also goes on to
mention that Protestants also wanted to teach "proper religious
values." This goes on to show that in the early modern period,
Ottomans and Europeans were similar in their ideas about how
schools should be managed and what they should be primarily focused
on. Thus, Ottoman madrasahs were very similar to present day
schools in the sense that they offered a wide range of studies;
however, the difference being that these studies, in its ultimate
objective, aimed to further solidify and consolidate Islamic
practices, and theories.
Curriculums
As is previously mentioned, religion dominated much of the
knowledge and teachings that were endowed upon students. "Religious
learning as the only true science, whose sole aim was the
understanding of God's word." Thus, it is important to keep this
impulse in mind when going over the curriculum that was
taught.
The following is taken from Inalcik.
Social life and the Medrese
As with any other country during the
Early Modern Period, such as Italy and
Spain in Europe, the Ottoman social life was also interconnected
with the medrese. Medreses were built in as part of a Mosque
Complex where many programs, such as aid to the poor through soup
kitchens were held under the infrastructure of a mosque, which
reveals the interconnectedness of religion and social life during
this period. "The mosques to which medreses were attached,
dominated the social life in Ottoman cities." Social life was not
dominated by religion only in the Muslim world of the
Ottoman Empire; however, was also quite
similar to the social life of Europe during this period. As Goffman
says: "Just as mosques dominated social life for the Ottomans,
churches and synagogues dominated life for the Christians and Jews
as well." Hence, social life and the medrese were closely linked,
since medreses as is previously mentioned taught many curriculums,
such as religion, which highly governed social life in terms of
establishing orthodoxy. "They tried moving their developing state
toward Islamic orthodoxy." Overall, the fact that mosques contained
medreses comes to show the relevance of education to religion in
the sense that education took place within the framework of
religion and religion established social life by trying to create a
common religious orthodoxy. Hence, medreses were simply part of the
social life of society as students came to learn the fundamentals
of their societal values and beliefs.
Madrasahs in Iran
Madrasahs in South Asia
India
In
India
, there are around 30,000 operating
madrasahs. The majority of these schools follow the
Hanafi school of thought.
The religious
establishment forms part of the mainly two large divisions within
the country, namely the Deobandis, who dominate in numbers (of whom
the Darul Uloom
Deoband
constitutes one of the biggest madrasas in the
world) and the barelvis, who also make up a sizeable portion (sufi
orientated). Some notable establishments include: Jamia
Ashrafia, Mubarakpur which is one the largest learning centres for
the Barelvis. Darul Uloom Deoband which is the largest, and is
considered by many to be the most renowned madrasah in Asia, is
located at Saharanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. The HR ministry of
Government of India, has recently declared that a Central Madrasa
Board would be setup. This will enhance the education system of
Madrasas in India. Though the madrasas impart Quranic education
mainly, efforts are on to include Mathematics, Computers and
Science in the curriculum.
Pakistan
The madaris rose as colleges of learning in the Islamic world in
the 11th century, though there were institutions of learning
earlier.[1] They catered not only to the religious establishment,
though that was the dominant influence over them, but also the
secular one. To the latter they supplied physicians, administrative
officials, judges and teachers.
Madrasahs in Indonesia
Misuse of the word
Post-9/11, the Madrasas are perceived as a
place of radical revivalism among Western countries with a negative
connotation of
anti-Americanism and
radical extremism. The word
madrasah literally means "school" and does not imply a
political or religious affiliation, radical or otherwise. They have
a varied curriculum, and are not all religious. Although early
Madrasahs were founded primarily to gain "knowledge of God" they
also taught other subjects including mathematics and poetry. For
example, in the
Ottoman Empire,
"Madrasahs had seven categories of sciences that were taught, such
as: styles of writing, oral sciences like the Arabic language,
grammar, rhetoric, and history and intellectual sciences, such as
logic." This is similar to the Western world, in which
universities began as institutions of the
Catholic church.
The
Yale
Center for the Study of Globalization examined bias in United
States newspaper coverage of Pakistan since the
September 11, 2001 attacks, and
found the term has come to contain a loaded political
meaning:
"When articles mentioned 'madrassas,' readers were led
to infer that all schools so-named are anti-American, anti-Western,
pro-terrorist centers having less to do with teaching basic
literacy and more to do with political
indoctrination."
Various American public figures have, in recent times, used the
word in a negative context, including
Newt
Gingrich,
Donald Rumsfeld, and
Colin Powell.
The New York Times
published a correction for misusing the word "madrassa" in a way
that assumed it meant a radical Islamic school. The correction
stated, "An article... said Senator Barack Obama had attended an
Islamic school or madrassa in Indonesia as a child referred
imprecisely to madrassas. While some (madrassas) teach a radical
version of Islam, most historically have not."
See also
Notes
- Inalcik, Halil. 1973. "Learning, the Medrese, and the Ulema."
In The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. New
York: Praeger, pp. 165–178.
- Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval
Cairo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992),
passim
- Ira Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), passim
- Toby E. Huff (2003), The Rise of Early Modern Science:
Islam, China and the West, Cambridge University Press, pp.
77–8
- John William Draper (1878), History
of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, pp. 154–5 &
237, ISBN 1603030964
- The Guinness Book of
Records, 1998, p. 242, ISBN 0-5535-7895-2
- Toby Huff, Rise of early modern science 2nd
ed.(Cambridge University, 2003) p. 149.
- A European Civil Project of a Documentation Center
on Islam
- Toby Huff, Rise of Early Modern Science 2nd. ed. p.
78-79; 136, 155.
- Doreen Insgrams (1983), The Awakened: Women in Iraq,
p. 22, Third World Centre for Research and Publishing Ltd.,
Lebanon
- Doreen Insgrams (1983), The Awakened: Women in Iraq,
p. 23, Third World Centre for Research and Publishing Ltd.,
Lebanon
- Anthony Nutting, The Arabs. (Hollis and Carter, 1964),
p. 196
- Reconsideration: A Secret History
- Hamadeh, Shirine. "Ottoman Expressions of Early Modernity and
the 'Inevitable' Question of Westernization". The Journal of
Architectural Historians 63.1 (2004): 32–51.
- Wiesner-Hanks, E. Merry. Early Modern Europe
1450–1789. New York: U of Cambridge P, 2006.
- Goffman, Daniel. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern
Europe. United Kingdom: U of Cambridge P, 2002.
- Kennedy, Miranda. "Rumors of jihad". The Boston
Globe, April 4, 2004. Accessed 12 May 2009.
Further reading
- Ali, Saleem H. "Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in
Pakistan's Madrassas", Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN:
9780195476729
- Evans, Alexander. "Understanding Madrasahs", Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2006.
- Rahman, Tariq. Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Study of Education,
Inequality and Polarization in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 2004. Reprinted 2006. ISBN 9780195978636. Chapter
on "Madrassas".
- Tanweer, Bilal. " Revisiting the Madrasa Question". The News International, 6 May
2007. About a talk given by Dr. Nomanul Haq (University of
Pennsylvania) at the Lahore University of
Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan.
- Ziad, Waleed. "Madaris in Perspective". Reprinted from The News, March 21, 2004.
External links