Memorization and Learning in Islamic Schools

Abstract

In the late 1990s, literature on Islamic schools focused on the characteristics and impact of the education received in relatively contemporary Qur anic schools, much of it from Morocco. There was also a whole body of historical research on Islamic education, mainly focused on institutions of higher education rather than on elementary education, again, with Morocco well represented. Madrasas, kuttabs (preschools), Qur anic schools—Islamic schools all—existed long before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting, very explicit politicization of religious education that began to occur in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980s and certainly long before hijacked airplanes were crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, in the United States on September 11, 2001. However, after those critical events, issues related to Islamic schools grew from a relatively academic area of study within the fields of education, Islamic studies, and Middle Eastern studies to encompass a more heated public debate, both in the West and in Islamic countries, on the role of these schools in the growth of terrorists groups calling themselves Islamic. In recent years, the purpose and methods of Islamic schools have received increased scrutiny from non-Muslim and Muslim leaders as well as the West-