While there exists scholarly works on madrasas in India during medieval times and the colonial period, there is hardly anything on the conditions of madrasas today, and those are by and large based on secondary literature and not grounded in detailed empirical investigation. This work, through ethnographic study undertaken at two madrasas in Mubarakpur in Uttar Pradesh, shows how Indian madrasas represent a diverse array of ideological orientations which is mostly opposed to each other’s interpretation of Islam. If madrasas are about the dissemination of Islamic knowledge, then they also problematize and compete over how best to approach that knowledge; in the process they create and sustain a wide variety of possible interpretations of Islam. This volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers interested in the study of Islam and Indian Muslims. Since it is multidisciplinary in approach, it will find space within the disciplines of sociology, social anthropolgy, history and contemporary studies.

The prospects for peace in Afghanistan, dialogue between Washington and Tehran, the UN's bid to stabilise nuclear-armed Pakistan, understanding the largest Muslim minority in the world's largest democracy in India, or the largest Muslim population in the world in Indonesia all require some knowledge of the traditional religious sectors in these countries and of what connection traditional religious schooling has (or not) to their geopolitical situations.Moosa delves into the world of madrasa classrooms, scholars and texts, recounting the daily life and discipline of the inhabitants. He shows that madrasa are a living, changing entity, and the site of contestation between groups with varying agendas, goals and notions of modernity.Reading this unique and engaging introduction will provide readers with a clear grasp of the history, place and function of the madrasa in todays Muslim world (religious, cultural and political). It will also investigate the ambiguity underlying the charge that the madrasa is at heart a geopolitical institution.

Summary: "Since the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the traditional Islamic schools known as the madrasa have frequently been portrayed as hotbeds of terrorism. For much longer, the madrasa has been considered by some as a backward and petrified impediment to social progress. However, for an important segment of the poor Muslim populations of Asia, madrasas constitute the only accessible form of education. This volume presents an overview of the madrasas in countries such as China, Indonesia, Malayisia, India and Pakistan."--Publisher description.

This in-depth ethnography looks at the everyday lives of Muslim students in a girls’ madrasa in India. Highlighting the ambiguities between the students’ espousal of madrasa norms and everyday practice, Borker illustrates how young Muslim girls tactically invoke the virtues of safety, modesty, and piety learnt in the madrasa to reconfigure normative social expectations around marriage, education, and employment. Amongst the few ethnographies on girls’ madrasas in India, this volume focuses on unfolding of young women’s lives as they journey from their home to madrasa and beyond, and thereby problematizes the idealized and coherent notions of piety presented by anthropological literature on female participation in Islamic piety projects. The author uses ethnographic portraits to introduce us to an array of students, many of whom find their aspirational horizon expanded as a result of the madrasa experience. Such stories challenge the dominant media’s representations of madrasas as outmoded religious institutions. Further, the author illustrates how the processes of learning–unlearning and alternate visions of the future emerge as an unanticipated consequence of young women’s engagement with madrasa education.

This book provides an understanding of pedagogy rooted in the developments of Islamic Education. It is the first book to explore this in the Madrasah context. The focus on Islamic pedagogy provides a way to explore knowledge, spirituality and education that is shaped by a universal approach to personalised learning.

This study steers clear of the stereotype conception of madrasas as the training ground of terrorists. Its chief concern is the search for the ground of realities about madrasas, what and how they teach, and whether the syllabus or ambience of madrasas prepares the students for successfully facing the challenges of the modern world. It enquires into the reasons for a relatively large number of Muslims opting for madrasas education for their children. The work also tries to understand the almost universal nisab or syllabus of madrasas, called Dars-i-Nizami, developed during Aurangzeb s time, and notes that there have been very few marked changes in the madrasas syllabus, though the world and life have moved so much ahead. A large portion of madrasas syllabus, therefore has become irrelevant for modern times. The author convincingly argues that most Muslim children must study in modern schools and only a small number who want to specialize in theology should study in madrasas. The study pays particular attention to the proposals for madrasa reforms, both from within the system, and the madrasa modernization scheme of the government."

Islamic schools, or madrasas, have been accused of radicalizing Muslims and participating, either actively or passively, in terrorist networks since the events of 9/11. In Pakistan, the 2007 siege by government forces of Islamabad's Red Mosque and its madrasa complex, whose imam and students staged an armed resistance against the state for its support of the "war on terror," reinforced concerns about madrasas' role in regional and global jihad. By 2006 madrasas registered with Pakistan's five regulatory boards for religious schools enrolled over one million male and 200,000 female students. In The Rational Believer, Masooda Bano draws on rich interview, ethnographic, and survey data, as well as fieldwork conducted in madrasas throughout the country to explore the network of Pakistani madrasas. She maps the choices and decisions confronted by students, teachers, parents, and clerics and explains why available choices make participation in jihad appear at times a viable course of action. Bano works shows that beliefs are rational and that religious believers look to maximize utility in ways not captured by classical rational choice. She applies analytical tools from the New Institutional Economics to explain apparent contradictions in the madrasa system-for example, how thousands of young Pakistani women now demand the national adoption of traditional sharia law, despite its highly restrictive limits on female agency, and do so from their location in Islamic schools for girls that were founded only a generation ago.