‘Geertz vs Asad’ in RE Textbooks: A Comparison Between England’s and Indonesia’s Textbooks

Abstract

In past decades, it has increasingly been argued that the concept of religion is a modern Western construct and that there are dangers in employing it when ‘translating’ other traditions—Islam, in particular. In the case of textbook analysis, this critical awareness poses two questions. First, do Western textbooks describe Islam with any Western bias; how are they different from textbooks used in Muslim countries in their representation of Islam? Second, if there is a noticeable difference, what should be done with the Western textbooks? Should Western textbooks follow the Muslim way in describing Islam? This chapter attempts to answer these questions by comparing English religious education (RE) textbooks with Indonesian RE textbooks used in public education. It focuses on textbooks produced by WRERU (the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit), which is known for its ethnographical method and has supposedly attempted to describe Islam from the Muslim point of view. It shows that the juxtaposition of WRERU’s RE textbooks with Indonesian RE textbooks strikingly parallels the contrast between the approaches to religion of Clifford Geertz and Talal Asad. The main challenge is to decide which way to proceed on the basis of such a finding.