Between Tradition and Transition: An Islamic Seminary, or Dar al-Uloom in Modern Britain

Haroon Sidat

doi:10.3390/rel9100314

Abstract

Based on detailed ethnographic fieldwork, this article provides an insider account of life inside a British Dar al-Uloom, or a traditional Islamic religious seminary, for the first time. Given that Dar al-Ulooms play an important role in the British Muslim landscape in providing training for religious leadership, the article argues that, far from the Dar al-Uloom tradition being static, it is undergoing continuous adaptation and change. After mapping the historical and geographical lineage of the modern Dar al-Uloom, the article explores its pedagogy. The postural tradition and adab (broadly translated as comportment or code of behavior) embody the notion of humility, as the classroom has become the locale for balancing a curriculum with depth and coverage, especially given the challenges young Muslims in Britain are facing. The current students of the Dar al-Uloom will become imams and faith leaders primarily responsible for addressing the changing needs of young Muslims. What has emerged is a traditional Dar al-Uloom that is in a dialogical relationship both with the modern world outside of it and within it. There is the need to embody a ‘tarbiyyatic pedagogy’ that is one that emphasises the student-teacher relationship where the student is transformed in the process of learning while interpreting Islam through the lens of the Deobandi universe. Ultimately, it will be the younger generation of teachers who determine the particular trajectory of the Dar al-Uloom.

Highlights

IntroductionThe migrants included those from the Deobandi, Tablighi and Barelvi movements
The 1960s and 1970s witnessed the arrival of large numbers of South Asian Muslim migrants to the U.K., primarily for economic reasons and because of a sense of loyalty to the British Empire after the devastating impact of two World Wars (Scott-Baumann and Cheruvallil-Contractor 2017, p. 18).The migrants included those from the Deobandi, Tablighi and Barelvi movements
This article has broadly shown that this particular Islamic religious tradition is undergoing significant evolution as it attempts to adapt to an environment that is placing greater demands on its particular form of education

Summary

Introduction

The migrants included those from the Deobandi, Tablighi and Barelvi movements. The generic word ‘madrassa’ can be used, though in the British Deobandi nomenclature, the Dar al-Uloom refers to a particular type of teaching institution: that of higher learning. Their history can be traced back to colonial India where the reformist ‘ulama, or religious scholars, sought to revive Islam by training well-educated believers to instruct the community in the true practice of Islam to create what Geertz They were part of a broader spectrum of revivalist movements that manifested in a visible expression during the 18th and 19th centuries in Arabia, and earlier during the 17th century in

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