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.

Winner of Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA)'s inaugural PESA Book Awards in 2015, and The University of Hong Kong Research Output Prize for Education 2014-15. Muslims and Islam in U.S. Education explores the complex interface that exists between U.S. school curriculum, teaching practice about religion in public schools, societal and teacher attitudes toward Islam and Muslims, and multiculturalism as a framework for meeting the needs of minority group students. It presents multiculturalism as a concept that needs to be rethought and reformulated in the interest of creating a more democratic, inclusive, and informed society. Islam is an under-considered religion in American education, due in part to the fact that Muslims represent a very small minority of the population today (less than 1%). However, this group faces a crucial challenge of representation in United States society as a whole, as well as in its schools. Muslims in the United States are impacted by ignorance that news and opinion polls have demonstrated is widespread among the public in the last few decades. U.S. citizens who do not have a balanced, fair and accurate view of Islam can make a variety of decisions in the voting booth, in job hiring, and within their small-scale but important personal networks and spheres of influence, that make a very negative impact on Muslims in the United States. This book presents new information that has implications for curricula, religious education, and multicultural education today, examining the unique case of Islam in U.S. education over the last 20 years. Chapters include: Perspectives on Multicultural Education 9/11, the Media, and the New Need to Know Islam and Muslims in Public Schools Blazing a Path for Intercultural Education This book is an essential resource for professors, researchers, and teachers of social studies, particularly those involved with multicultural issues, critical and sociocultural analysis of education and schools; as well as interdisciplinary scholars and students in anthropology and education.

Motivated by the intellectual historian Shahab Ahmed’s observation that “the history of Islamic paideia has yet to be written,” Islam as Education explores multiple forms that the search for knowledge and the transmission of wisdom have taken in Islam, focusing on the classical period (800–1500 CE). Ghiloni draws on a wide range of Islamic primary source material, ranging from sacred texts and parables to neglected pedagogical literature and paintings. He depicts three Islamic religious practices—pilgrimage, prophecy, and jihad—as modes of pedagogy: embodied ways of defining, defusing, and defending sacred knowledge. Islam as Education’s educational heuristic not only aids in understanding Islam, but also provides guidance for intercultural and interreligious relations. Ghiloni argues that Islam’s grand (knowledge) tradition serves as a bridge between Muslims and non-Muslims, and compares it with the educational theory of John Dewey, the celebrated American pragmatist. Based on this discussion, a final chapter develops practical tools for learning from cultural and religious difference.

The scholarly contributors to this volume investigate various means to stimulate and facilitate reflection on new social relations while clarifying the contradictions between religious and social affiliation from different perspectives and experiences. They explore hindrances whose removal could enable Muslim children and youth to pursue equal participation in political and social life, and the ways that education could facilitate this process.

An empirical study of madrassahs in Pakistan focusing on two case studies; Islamabad and southern Punjab. In addition, the book considers the questionable linkage between Islamic education and conflict from a theological as well as historical perspective. The author concludes with a clear set of policy recommendations for Muslim and non-Muslim constituents to reduce conflict escalation.

Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam: Religious Learning between Continuity and Change offers fascinating new insights into key issues of learning and human development in classical Islam, including their shared characteristics, influence, and interdependence with historical, non-Muslim educational cultures.