Abstract
Islamic higher education finds itself at the cross-roads of a variety of developments: it oscillates between the ‘teaching into’ approach of Theology and the ‘teaching about’ approach of Religious Studies, between the security-driven need for a ‘European Islam’ and a European Muslim-driven need for a high-quality education in ‘Islam in Europe’, between traditional one-way knowledge dissemination and innovative two-way knowledge sharing, and between Islam as defined and discussed by scholars and Islam as defined and discussed by the public. This myriad of dynamics is challenging and a source of tensions among all parties involved, in particular between lecturers and students. In this article, a qualitative self-study research based on personal experiences with various Islamic higher education programs at Leiden University will be used to reflect on the broader developments in Islamic higher education programs in Europe. It argues that thinking about Islamic higher education is not a process of finding solutions to problems but is a process of educational opportunities and innovation.
Highlights
Published: 18 January 2021The development of Islamic higher education within Europe is a new, and rapidly developing, phenomenon.1 Even in southeast European countries, where Islam has a centuries-old presence that includes an educational infrastructure, the communist era and the devastating wars of the 1990s have caused this education to be rebuilt from the ground up.2 After 2001, the attacks of 9/11 prompted many Western European governments to initiate higher Islamic education at their own universities in order to create ‘home grown imams’
The standards and reputation of European Islamic education are by far not that of renowned centers of Islamic theology in the Muslim world, and most Muslims in Europe still prefer to travel abroad to pursue their studies in Islamic theology, which is a cause of concern to many European governments
In addition to the wish of quite some Muslim students for Islamic theology programs to be more normative (‘teaching in religion’), governments expressed the wish—backed up by finances—for Islamic theology programs to be normative in the sense that they instructed in a form of Islam that was considered conducive to de-radicalization and to integration in Europe
Summary
With the start of the Leiden Islam Academie in 2014, the volume of extra2019. (Figure 2), and even with the with irregular and tentative approach taken when offering. 2), and even the irregular and tentative approach taken when university these new courses, their participant intake was more than double than that of the regular offering these their intake was more than double of the. 2),new andcourses, even with theparticipant irregular and tentative approach taken than whenthat offering university student intake in intake the same period. 85of courses taught, whereby some courses university student intake in the same period. Most the out-of-university courses were consisted of three to five lectures given on separate days. Consisted of three to five lectures given on separate days. Taught more than once, resulting in a total of 85 courses taught, whereby some courses consisted of three to five lectures given on separate days.
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