The word madrasah (مدرسة in Arabic) means school or "learning center". It is variably transliterated as madrasah, madrash, medresa, or madressa.
What is a Madrasah?
The word "madrasah" also exists in many Arabic-influenced languages such as Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Indonesian, Malaysian and Bosnian. In the Arabic language, the word مدرسة implies no sense other than that which the word school represents in the English language, such as 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 referred to as a university in American English. The appropriate word for the university, however, is al-Jami'ah. The Hebrew cognate "midrasha" also connotes the meaning of a place of learning. There are some madrasah-like institutions also in North America and in Europe.
It is commonly argued that wherever the governments failed to provide general education to its common citizens, private religious establishments succeeded to take the lead to fill this gap and administer the educational system of the country according to their own religio-philosophical understanding. In this context, a madrasah herewith is referred as an Islamic school for Muslims, just as a parochial school for Roman Catholic children or the yeshiva for orthodox Jews. Although these institutions are academically assigned to provide general education, they also feel obliged to teach their students about the fundamentals of their religion - in the case of a madrasah, Islam. Just like normal schools many madrassahs enrol female students, however as is the muslim custom, they usually study separately from the opposite sex. There are also examples of large all-girl madrasahs.
A typical madrasah 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. 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.
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.
In South Africa, madrasahs play an important 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 fully-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.
History
Madrasahs did not exist in the early period 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 knowledgable Muslims; these informal teachers later became known as the shaykhs; and these shaykhs began to hold regular religious education sessions called 'majalis'.
Established in 859, Jami'at al-Qarawiyyin (located in Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque) in the city of Fas (Fez), it is considered the oldest madrasah in the Muslim world.
During the late Abbasid period, the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk created the first major official academic institution known in history as the 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.
Madrasah in Pakistan
There are approximately 10,000 madrasahs currently (as of 1998?) operating in Pakistan. Contrary to some media reports, only 0.3 percent of Pakistani school age children are enrolled in traditional madrasahs. This is according to Pakistan's 1998 Population Census [1]. Other sources estimate that enrollment at 1–1.5 million children although the 1998 Population Census found only 150,000 children. Orphans, migrants, and part-time students may explain the discrepancy. Regardless, percentage wise, the madrasah enrollment is relatively insignificant.
Criticism
Due to administrative mishandling, radical political indoctrination of students and adopting a more conservative view of the simple teachings of Islam, especially in certain Muslim countries such as Pakistan, the madrasahs nowadays are frequently deemed as ideological and political training grounds for hatred against the West. In Pakistan in particular, the heavy emphasis on religious teachings to the exclusion of more economically viable subject areas has been criticised. There are also many allegations and documented cases of physical abuse in madrasahs, especially in the UK, such as corporal punishment, beatings and other such practices; such criticisms are usually limited to western countries, as practices such as these are an established pedagogic norm in many nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh or Nigeria. There have also been a few claims of sexual abuse in some Madrasahs, although such cases are extremely rare. These critical elements have forced government to regulate and the madrasah more. The Western media to some extent is also criticized for producing misleading reports on madrasahs.
See also
External links
- Alexander Evans, Understanding Madrasahs, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2006: [2]