Islamic Education in Britain: New Pluralist Paradigms 9781472569387, 9781474219761, 9781472581235

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Note on text
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Islamic Education in Pluralist Britain
1. British Islam and Islamic Education: Two Approaches
2. Mapping Islamic Studies Provision in Britain
3. More Than Imams: New Narratives of Muslim Faith Leadership
4. Arabic: The Centrality of a Living World Language
5. Muslim Women’s Voices, Feminisms and Theologies
6. Universities and Muslim Colleges: ‘Collaborative Partnerships’ in Higher Education
Conclusion: New Paradigms for Islam in Education
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Islamic Education in Britain

Also available from Bloomsbury The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities, Amanullah De Sondy The Muslim World and Politics in Transition, edited by Greg Barton, Paul Weller and Ihsan Yilmaz Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality, Paul Weller, Kingsley Purdam, Nazila Ghanea and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor European Muslims, Civility and Public Life, edited by Paul Weller and Ihsan Yilmaz Islam and the Veil, edited by Theodore Gabriel and Rabiha Hannan The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies, edited by Clinton Bennett

Islamic Education in Britain: New Pluralist Paradigms Alison Scott-Baumann and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 Paperback edition first published 2017 © Alison Scott-Baumann and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, 2015 Alison Scott-Baumann and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: PB: ePDF: ePub:

978-1-4725-6938-7 978-1-3500-2690-2 978-1-4725-8123-5 978-1-4725-8124-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cheruvallil-Contractor, Sariya. Islamic education in Britain : new pluralist paradigms / Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, Alison Scott-Baumann. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4725-6938-7 (hardback) 1. Islamic religious education–Great Britain. 2. Islamic education–Great Britain. 3. Islam–Study and teaching–Great Britain. I. Scott-Baumann, Alison. II. Title. BP43.G7C44 2015 297.7'70941–dc23 2015007960 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

To Edward and Ahmed

Contents Note on text Foreword, Tim Winter Acknowledgements Introduction: Islamic Education in Pluralist Britain 1 British Islam and Islamic Education: Two Approaches 2 Mapping Islamic Studies Provision in Britain 3 More Than Imams: New Narratives of Muslim Faith Leadership 4 Arabic: The Centrality of a Living World Language 5 Muslim Women’s Voices, Feminisms and Theologies 6 Universities and Muslim Colleges: ‘Collaborative Partnerships’ in Higher Education Conclusion: New Paradigms for Islam in Education Afterword, Shuruq Naguib Notes Bibliography Index

viii ix xii 1 9 31 57 83 105 133 159 183 186 206 216

Note on text Transliterations of words, unless specified otherwise, are based on common English usage as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, referred to as Esposito (2003) in the text. Preferred meanings for transliterated Arabic or Urdu words are included in short in the main text (either in parentheses or as a footnote) the first time they occur.

Foreword Tim Winter The Cambridge Muslim College

It is a privilege and delight to be able to welcome the publication of this reflective investigation of Islamic Studies as currently pursued in the British environment. Islam, in some urban contexts now the most seriously followed of our national religions, is growing but also changing fast. As a knowledge-based faith with a traditional reverence for its scholars, the training of the next generation of Muslim leaders is of immense importance for the well-being of Islam’s adherents and for its capacity to mobilize its best traditions of positive engagement with the religious (and secular) Other. The authors systematically document a strange bifurcation in the British pedagogical landscape which has not only significantly impeded the creation of a new and more relevant Islamic voice, but also seems to have limited the quality of Islamic Studies in the secular academy. Young Muslim school-leavers seeking to ‘travel the path of knowledge’ are confronted by a seemingly abrupt and even absolute dichotomy. They may choose to enrol in a traditional seminary, thereby entering a warm and spiritual fellowship nurtured in a centuries-old Indian theological syllabus. Or they may pursue Islamic Studies in a secular British university, dominated either by an ‘area studies’ paradigm of little relevance to the needs of domestic Muslims, or by a nineteenth-century orientalist philological approach, many of whose older texts are written in a woundingly disdainful or patronizing idiom. Whereas Christians who study in theology faculties may expect to be sympathetically and deeply exposed to contemporary faith perspectives, Muslims are not infrequently taught by individuals with an invidious or indifferent attitude to their religion’s truth claims and core values. Lecturers may be highly sympathetic, but may also be polemical or dismissive: one distinguished professor of Islamic Studies recently told me that ‘I like to study Muslims, but I do not like to meet them’. Orientalism, a classical Enlightenment discipline informed by Kant’s determination to chase theology out of the faculties, has historically sought to treat Islam and Muslims as the passive objects of a putatively objective European

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gaze, specimens on the microscope slide of modern techniques of research. However, even where this objectivity seems real and helpful, Muslim students often report that the concerns of orientalism seem barely relevant to the skills required by Muslim religious leaders. Islamic Studies programmes are often staffed by two or three highly specialized scholars who may not be able to provide an adequate overall coverage of the key areas of the discipline. A survey of current lecture lists reveals that many faculties are unable to provide any teaching in, for instance, Arabic, Islamic law or theology, or Quranic interpretation, and are therefore likely to produce graduates unable to recognize key aspects of belief familiar to every Muslim. These products of Islamic Studies departments tend to be overwhelmed by the erudition and comprehensive knowledge of the scholars of the Islamic seminaries, on the rare occasions when they visit them. They may also feel intimidated by the general level of seminary culture, which is embedded ultimately in the sophisticated world of Mogul India, in which the quoting of poetry in conversation, for example, is the norm rather than the eccentric exception. Modern Britain offers few environments as deeply refined as the darul ulooms. The large Muslim seminary sector offers resources which, intelligently mobilized, could remedy some of these frequently lamented shortcomings in university-based Islamic Studies, and might help to enrich graduates with cultural perspectives unavailable in the modern academy. The decline of ‘fundamentalist’ secularism in the best university teaching of religion is now widely noted (in the work of Mike Higton, for instance). Generally I find that the postmodern and allied turns have made an older Enlightenment belief in purely phenomenological, ‘objective’ scholarship in the humanities rather hard to defend, and the late modern academy may be more open to a plurality of scholarly paradigms than it has been for many decades. But it is not only the universities which are likely to benefit from a broader and less monocultural paradigm of scholarship. The seminaries, too, increasingly recognize that their syllabus is an imperfect fit with the realities of modern British society. They can surely benefit from the best aspects of contemporary historiography, philology and comparative religious studies which those faculties promote. The case for greater mutual interaction and the overcoming of the unfortunate levels of misgiving on both sides is surely overwhelming, and it is compellingly made in this volume. This book’s solid grounding in four publicly funded research projects gives it great empirical value: the theory is rooted in properly sourced knowledge of community and institutional realities, and this produces a firm argument

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against any attempt to aggregate British Muslims into a single discrete category. Islam is itself diverse, and the differential forms of hybridization with an already disparate British social reality are adding to and enhancing this diversity. The Cambridge Muslim College, where I work, deals on a daily basis with this plurivocal and rapidly evolving British Muslim reality, and I am delighted to share the authors’ sense that the overwhelmingly positive experience of communal interaction between Muslims and others in the United Kingdom can be fostered and enhanced by rigorous research leading to nuanced and respectful policy decisions.

Acknowledgements The following experts gave generously of their time in reading and critiquing sections of this book in draft form; their contributions have led to robust and exhilarating debate and strengthened the final result: Dr Ahab Bdaiwa, Dr Lisa Bernasek, Taoufiq Cherkaoui, Dr Theodore Gabriel, Dr Georgina Jardim, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp, Dr Leslie McLoughlin, Dr Malcolm Maclean, Mike ScottBaumann, Angus Slater, Ian Thackray and Professor Paul Weller. There are others who have engaged in this process through discussion with us during the gestation and drafting: Robina Pelham Burn, Murtuza Ali Contractor, Sam Holmes, Professor Hugh Goddard, Professor Abdel Haleem, Dr Shuruq Naguib and Professor Reinhard Schulze. There are four research projects upon which this book is based; the people who worked with us on the projects have, for the most part, not had direct input to this book, and where we wanted to cite them we have checked first to see whether they now still hold the views they did then. This book would not be possible without them: their contribution is a necessary but not sufficient component of our research, and our book is dedicated to them all, in taking our next step to ensure that as many people as possible can have access to their and our valuable work. Therefore, although we thanked them at the time of the projects, we wish to acknowledge them again.

Muslim Faith Leader Training Review (MFLTR) (2008–2010) We thank the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) for funding this research on Muslim faith leader training in Britain; we thank our colleagues in the research team, Dr Mohamed Mukadam and Ashfaque Chowdhary, and the advisory board: Ghulam Abbas (from December 2009), Mohammed Abdul Aziz (DCLG Adviser), Sheikh Arif Abdulhussein (AlMahdi), Shiban Akbar OBE (independent consultant), Yousif al-Khoei (Al-Khoei Foundation), Batool al-Toma (New Muslim Project), Elizabeth Ammon (BIS), Anjum Anwar (Blackburn Cathedral), Amra Bone (Birmingham

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Shariah Council), Dr Mahmood Chandia (UCLAN), Farkhanda Chaudhry, Irfan Chishti, Caroline Cooke (DCLG), Jane Everton (DCLG), Professor Ron Geaves (Liverpool Hope), Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray (Cardiff University) (until September 2009), Hermione Gough (BIS) (until December 2009), Khola Hasan (scholar and Muslim women activist), Hisham Hellyer (Warwick University) (until September 2009), Shazim Husayn, Ather Hussain, Munawar Hussain, Akram Khan-Cheema OBE, Dr Bustami Khir (Birmingham University), Rabbi Jonathan Magonet, Dr Ashraf Makadam, Sabin Malik, Sheikh Milani, Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, Gul Muhammed, Natasha Mulvihill (DCLG), Asgar Halim Rajput, Shahid Raza, Lucy Rigler (DCLG) (until November 2009), Dr Anas Sheikh-Ali (Association of Muslim Social Scientists), Professor Ataullah Siddiqui (Markfield Institute of Higher Education), Shahien Taj, Mushfique Uddin (Ebrahim College), Victoria Waite (HEFCE from December 2009), Canon David Whittington and Rachel Winny (from November 2009). We thank the Muslim institutions we visited that gave us access to their staff and students. Finally, we would like to thank the community researchers who worked with us on this project: Jahangir Akbar, Dr M D Iqbal, Khalid Miah, Yusuf Seedat, Shazad Mohammed and Ahmed Hussain. Others who provided advice, information and research assistance included David Coles, Dr Malcolm MacLean, Dr Debra Marshall, Dr Gareth Nutt, Jane Robinson (all of the University of Gloucestershire), Robin Richardson and Sara Rusling.

Encouraging Muslim Women into Higher Education through Partnerships and Collaborative Pathways (2011) We thank the Higher Education Academy Islamic Studies Network (HEA ISN) for funding this project: Sheikh Arif Abdulhussein (Al-Mahdi), Dr Fauzia Ahmad (Bristol University, AKU-ISMC), Farah Ahmed (Headteacher, Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation), Shiban Akbar OBE (Assessment & Training Consultant, Communication Essentials UK), Dr Fozia Bora (Markfield Institute of Higher Education), Dr Lisa Bernasek (Higher Education Academy), Alyaa Ebbiary (Lancaster University), Amina Inloes (Islamic College), Hilary Kalmbach (University of Oxford), Humera Khan (An-Nisa Society), Dr Arzina Lalani (Institute of Ismaili Studies), Dr Mohammad Mesbahi (Islamic College), Dr Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster University), Robin Richardson (INSTED), Professor Francis Robinson (Royal Holloway, University of

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London), Dr. Delia Cortese (Middlesex University), Dr Ida Glaser (Oxford Centre for Muslim–Christian Studies), Suhaila Merali (Khoja Shia Itna Asheri community contact) and Ian Thackray (University of Gloucestershire).

Arabic Language and the Study of Islam: Who Studies Arabic and Why and How Can These Skills Be Used at University and Beyond? (2012) We thank the Higher Education Academy Centre for Languages Linguistics and Area Studies (HEA LLAS) for funding this research, and especially Dr John Canning and Dr Lisa Bernasek. Contributors included Dr Samar Al-Afandi (Leeds University), Dr Hossein Godazgar (Al-Maktoum College), Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (independent translator), Simon Kemp (HESA), Dr El Mustapha Lahlali (Leeds University), Dr John Morley (Manchester University), Professor Paul Starkey (Durham University), Dr Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster University), Dr Mohammed Mesbahi (Islamic College), Shams Aduha (Ebrahim College), Mushfique Uddin (Ebrahim College), staff at Ebrahim College and Dr Ibrahim Surty (Quranic Arabic Foundation). We also thank the interviewees, too numerous to mention, who gave their time very generously.

Collaborative Partnerships between Universities and Muslim Institutions: Dismantling the Roadblocks (2012–2013) The team wishes to acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council that funded this research project through a follow-on research grant. Acknowledgements are also due to the Human Rights Consortium and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, who supported our events in London. We acknowledge the efforts of the project administrator Ms Michelle Wood, and thank her for her commitment to supporting the organization of the project’s research events. Finally, the most important acknowledgements must go to the individuals, groups and organizations that gave of their time and expertise to attend the research events. They include Ms Farah Ahmed (Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation), Ms Sahar Al-Faifi (Federation of Student Islamic Societies – Wales), Dr Muhammad

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Mansur Ali (Cardiff University), Mr Omar Ali (Federation of Student Islamic Societies: FOSIS), Professor Shaheen Sardar Ali (Warwick University), Ms Anjum Anwar (Blackburn Cathedral), Professor Robin Attfield (Cardiff University), Dr Musharraf Hussain Al Azhari (Karimia Institute), Professor Ron Geaves (Liverpool Hope University), Dr Hossein Godazgar (Al-Maktoum College Dundee), Professor Abdel Haleem (SOAS), Professor Mawil Izzidien (University of Wales Trinity Saint David), Dr Haifa Jawad (Birmingham University), Dr Kate Maguire (Middlesex University), Professor Kristine Mason O’Connor (University of Gloucestershire), Dr Mohammed E Mesbahi (Islamic College), Mr Patrick Morrow (Council of Christians and Jews), Dr Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster University), Mr Mizan Raja (Islamic Circles), Dr Saeeda Shah (University of Leicester), Dr Elliott Shaw (University of Cumbria), Maulana Qari Shabbir Sialvi (imam), Professor Alison Stone (Lancaster University), Professor Paul Weller (University of Derby) and Mr Tim Winter aka Abdul Hakim Murad (University of Cambridge and Cambridge Islamic College). Finally, we want to thank our families, Murtuza, Mike, James, Lizzie and Benjie and the babies Edward and Ahmed, who are our tomorrows and to whom this book is especially dedicated: they are growing up in a complex world that requires strength, commitment and understanding.

Introduction: Islamic Education in Pluralist Britain

Islamic education in Britain takes one of two different forms: teaching and learning Islam (Islamic Theology), which usually takes place in Muslim seminaries, or teaching and learning about Islam (Islamic Studies), which usually takes place in universities. While the former institutions may be perceived as religious, the latter are usually perceived as secular. Furthermore, the former may be understood as a space for pious believers to study sacred texts, and the latter are seen as spaces for the development of criticality and scepticism. So in describing both forms of Islamic education we encounter a number of dichotomies: sacred and profane, religious and secular, confessional and critical, different and similar. However, in this book we recognize that both forms of Islamic education are necessary aspects of pluralist Britain, and although at the moment these occupy separate and perceptually insular spaces, we suggest that there is an increasing need for them to talk to each other, to share expertise and to collaborate, using clear research evidence. This book initiates a new strand of this process of dialogue, by asserting the significance of collaborative Islamic education for British Muslim identity that includes Arabic language and an open approach to preconceptions on all sides, and the promotion of inter-community relationships in pluralist Britain. We acknowledge that there are four major phenomena that influence the way people understand our work as recorded in this book. First and foremost, Islam is often perceived as a monolithic block that is a threat to Europe. Second, Muslims are often portrayed as ‘insufficiently secular’ and as demonstrating ‘Islam’s incapacity to “handle criticism” ’.1 Third, in an age that sees itself as secular and feels uncomfortable about religion, Islam has become a proxy for religion as a phenomenon: ‘negotiating religion and Europe has been enacted in a debate on Islam’.2 We must consider whether we can live plurality and also whether there is an integrative order of civil or civic Islam: it can be argued that the idea of an Islamic state is an oxymoron, as Hallaq proposes with regard to modernity’s moral predicaments.3 Finally, we are under pressure from ideas about true

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knowledge: an epistemic question arises about the status of Islam in what can be called ‘post-societal’ or ‘post-religious’ situations, when the normative idea of religion in general may be thought to be disintegrating under the pressure from ultra-religious groups on the one hand and extreme secularism on the other. The discussions in the book are based on four groundbreaking, funded research projects which explored the nature of faith-based educational needs within several groups of British Muslims, including Sunni and Shia. Each project informs the discussion throughout the book and also contributes in a more specific way to particular chapters. The Muslim faith leader training project informs Chapters 1–3 on Classical Islamic Theology, the provision to study it in this country and the role of classically trained Muslim scholars and imams in modern British society. Chapter 4 on Arabic language is directly informed by our Arabic project. Chapter 5 on Muslim women’s voices, feminisms and theologies is in part informed by the Muslim women and HE project; however, this chapter is also informed by all our other research in which we have always sought to involve Muslim women. Chapter 6 is on collaborative partnerships and the ESRC collaborative partnership project. Our findings invite critical analysis of the provision for the study of Classical Islamic Theology in Britain and clarify the diversity of denominations, movements and traditions within British Islam that have shaped such education, the successes of these providers and the challenges they face. Our research identifies new and important trends within British Islam: dissatisfaction among many young Muslim men and women with the theological/secular split, and their desire for courses that provide combinations of these two strands of their lived experience as Muslim British citizens.4 In this book we will refer to British Muslim histories. We will look at the British colonial legacy, the recent history of Muslims in Britain and the growth of the Muslim community following immigration in the 1960s and 1970s. We will chart the gradual dismantling of the ‘myth’ of returning home,5 which meant that communities recognized the need to establish mosques and institutions for Islamic education here in Britain. We will examine both the historical traditions that have shaped British Islamic education and the developments of faith and culture that young Muslims are living. In doing so, this book will reach far beyond the metanarratives of securitization and orientalism to demonstrate the importance of the teaching and learning of Classical Islamic Studies for the promotion of reasoned dialogue and interfaith and intercultural understanding in pluralist British society. This book is written for a diverse audience in a pluralist world,

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including for Muslim communities that have contributed to this research and that may be able to use our research findings in their everyday practice of Islamic education. This book is written for everyday pluralist British society – communities, practitioners and policy-makers – to enable better understanding of one of the many facets – the Muslim facet – of British society, and also more significantly how this facet interacts with the rest of British society. Finally, this book is written for the academic community working in the areas of Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, Religious Diversity, Pluralism and Interfaith Dialogue and will advance new, more inclusive and democratic ways of conceptualizing, undertaking and disseminating research with, by and for those who are researchers – within, in our case, British Muslim communities.

Witness and dialogue In this book we recognize that there are different ways of believing, being and living that all come to bear upon how Islamic education is experienced and perceived in modern British society. Among Muslims there are different standpoints, not only different denominations and ethnicities but also different relationships with faith – ranging from practising Muslims for whom faith is an important aspect of their religious lives, to nominal Muslims for whom religious education bears little significance. There are also different opinions within the wider society – ranging from those who consider Islam and Islamic education to be an integral part of British society, to those who feel that, in a ‘secular’ society, religion and religious education have no role at all. Terrorist events and subsequent debates about radicalization and the prevention of violent extremism further complicate discussions and perceptions of Islamic education.6 In a complicated and politicized research area, this book bears witness to the multiplicity of experience and perception and asserts that, while it may not be possible for different stances to be reconciled, it is still valuable for these stances to enter into dialogue with each other. This book is designed to facilitate such dialogue across the different sections of pluralist British society. We begin with an acceptance of the need to acknowledge hybrid British Muslim identities and to involve British Muslim voices. In doing so, we also acknowledge that many British Muslims are reflecting on the synergies and disconnections between their faith and their Britishness and are critically engaging with their religious institutions. Interfaith dialogue has created opportunities for different religious groups to share their experiences and to learn

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from each other. Such self-reflection and information exchanges are resulting in organic community-led innovations and changes, particularly in the institutions of Islamic education. However, Britishness and faith would be too simple a dichotomy; British Muslim identities, as for everyone, are comprised of complex synergies and also inconsistencies in other identities, such as along fault lines of class, gender, sexuality and other social-cultural and historical associations, all of which remind us that we should not limit our discussions of identity.

Research perspectives Having provided background contextualization about Muslims in Britain, we now set out the philosophical and methodological standpoints that inform and underpin all our research. Each of our research projects provides a way of bearing witness to the lived reality of British Islam, both accurately and critically.

The academic team As academics, both of us are committed to promoting greater social understanding and intercultural dialogue in a world that is increasingly more diverse. As a philosopher and a sociologist – both of whom are women and feminist researchers – social justice, equality and egalitarian society are our longterm and shared academic goals. Our definition of feminism extends beyond narrow conceptualizations of a philosophy that is only for women; rather, we understand feminism as a way to undertake research that can bring about change in society, that addresses the needs of any marginalized group – male or female – and that allows for collaborative research by challenging traditional researcher– researched hierarchies. Most importantly, this allows the researcher and the researched to work together. Our work and this book will feature throughout the voices and experiences of the people who contributed to our research in different ways. However, we are also two very different people, who have been brought up in different social contexts, who have different religious beliefs and who have experienced life differently. Our experiences of academia are different, and the disciplinary frameworks within which we work – philosophy and sociology – have very different norms. Therefore, our ontological stances, the lens through which we view our surroundings and our work are very different. As we – a ‘secular’ Christian and a ‘practising’ convert to Islam – work together on a

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shared project (this book), the debates we have had between ourselves reflect the discussions that the wider society is having about the antagonisms between the secular and religious aspects of society. So this work is a result of our efforts to work across our differences, while acknowledging the commonalities of our objectives and more significantly the need to achieve them – in this case greater understanding of Islamic education in Britain. This book therefore juxtaposes a religious voice and a secular voice, with both bringing criticality and scepticism to the discussion, in different ways that do not always agree with each other but which recognize the importance of working together. In successfully completing this project, we therefore also personify the confluences that are possible between religiosity and secularity and the need for increased cooperation between the two.

Research approaches: ‘If you ban clapping in school you must be a terrorist’ Yet it is delicate to bring people with different identities together in the currently overheated and feverish environment about Islam, as we see from the so-called Trojan Horse episode in Birmingham schools in 2014.7 There was presumably some conservative, even reactionary Islamic thinking taking place, and possibly some rejection of pluralism and preference for particularism, yet that does not signify violent, extremist attitudes. Significantly, in October 2014, months after the original reports emerged, the Education Secretary stated that a report commissioned by the government found no radicalization or violent extremism in the five schools that faced allegations and which were subsequently investigated:8 our debate challenges whether it is possible to work fairly and in trust with people who are being lumped together with terrorists, or to conduct research in their communities.9 Balanced and critical research needs to be carried out in such heated areas. There is in fact little reflection and discussion in academic literature about the methodologies that are best suited to doing research that engages with Muslims. This research area is politicized by ‘Islam versus the West’ debates and publicized by media preoccupations with the ‘Muslim’ as the other, the alien, pathologized and feared. There are also persistent methodological concerns over access, ethics, feedback and ‘positionality’, dating most recently from the late 1960s and focused on two insolubles: on the one hand the political applications of anthropology in the context of British colonialism and US and UK impact on Muslim countries, and on the other the challenges to anthropology as a discipline

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that reflects decolonization and nascent nationalisms. These debates have faded away: they still require the researcher’s critical thinking and engagement, ‘yet there has to date been little work exploring such issues’.10 This is particularly true of Islam and Muslims, as Farrar demonstrates with regard to the silence that surrounds Islam in sociology. He demands a public social pedagogy of modern Islam.11 Our research will attempt to fill this gap in academic literature and in applied academic practice and will explore the philosophical and methodological considerations that may underpin research with Muslim communities. We believe that there is an unmet need to ask questions without prejudice about Islam: this book will identify that need and respond to it by proposing how to identify a new research paradigm for searching inside one’s own belief systems in order to face up to personal weaknesses and strengths. Instead of accepting such work as ‘anthropology at home’, as it was called in the 1970s and 1980s, we will avoid both the idea of studying the exotic and the tyranny of disciplinary specificity by combining empirical research findings, philosophy, sociology and religion to challenge the long-accepted duality of faith and secularism. By building on good research practice, we hope to give believers and non-believers alike – citizens, researchers, students and academics – a strong sense of what is possible and what is not, and how complicated tensions and conflicting interests may be managed. In our coverage of what is happening in the ‘field’, we hope to appeal to all of them – interested citizens, students and young scholars who seek guidance to plan their first research projects as well as established scholars who want awareness and knowledge of current research. In our development of research processes and methodological issues, we will also appeal to researchers who are not engaged in research about Muslims but who are trying to engage with similar issues concerning the ethics, positionality and politicization of the research field, as well as the contested identity of the university. The research requires the creation of new teaching and learning models. In addition, we want to engage with those who start their thinking about Islam as if it is an automatically oppressive structure, and also those who approach secularism by exaggerating all its weaknesses, such as mistaking consumer choice for freedom. Such approaches assert that some have access to the whole truth; we propose that negative approaches only provide some of the picture, and there will be a philosophical strand running through this book that invites consideration of different viewpoints and different positions, so that we can look at Islam and secularism in new ways. This can presumably also be detected within Muslim communities where ‘modern liberal life’ may be seen

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by some as dangerous and contaminating and by others simply as a way of life that can be balanced with their religion. Similarly, secularism can take a form that either integrates and works with religion or rejects it completely. If this is accurate, we need to confront these polarizations together, not build walls to keep us apart.

Research methodology Our work focuses upon developing ways to keep a highly politicized research field in a relatively calm state while also conducting useful research that contributes to the common good. This means then that others can enter the field and be received well. Working on living faith and belief systems entails working in places where people live and work – and in this project this means not only Muslims but also those of other faiths and of none. There are ideologies in play that can obscure and/or contaminate research work in the highly politicized research field of Muslims in the West, and here issues regarding national identity, national security and foreign policy come to mind: artificial polarizations must be identified so they do not colour the research investigation before there are any findings. We wish to contextualize the key issues about research on belief within the complexities of modern British society. Research conducted by Weller et al. demonstrates that the religious composition of British society has changed.12 Whereas it was previously mostly Christian, British society now has the religion and belief contours of a threedimensional society: in which Christianity, secularity and religious plurality are all important.13 Within such a context of diverse voices and different value systems, it is easy for antagonistic or at least competitive voices to emerge, and so we have debates about the erosion of Britain’s Christian values, secular versus religious dichotomies, the rise of secularism and so forth. In such a context of diversity, a fundamental component of our work is that researchers must interrogate their own value system and their own ethical literacy and research ethics, which are part of this pluralist landscape, in order to be able to undertake research.14

Conclusions Here we have set the scene for an evidence-based discussion of Islamic education in Britain. This is practical research based on four projects and is also underpinned by an open debate about the history of ideas, philosophy,

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sociology and a range of critical research methods. For philosophy, Scott-Baumann demonstrates how Paul Ricœur’s work is inspirational: he was a committed believer in God and also critiqued modern society and modern thought with models of ‘the hermeneutics of suspicion’ and his challenge to Hegel’s negativity.15 He saw the need to consider an element of irreconcilability between secular life and religious belief: attempting to deal with that strengthened both his faith and his secular critique. We will be bearing witness to Islam as experienced in secular Britain. Bearing witness can take many different forms, even including the apparently inactive reading of a text or attempting to ‘read’ another person. The witness brings testimony to a third party about events that the third party has not witnessed. You must be prepared to take the witness seriously, or there is no evidence to challenge or accept. Principles of veracity and credulity may be severely tested for some readers. Yet we will demonstrate that much of that on which we undertake research is easily visible and plain for all to see if they choose to look and acknowledge: for example, Ofsted16 inspection reports for all the seminaries we discuss are online. Another aspect of our work requires that the witness helps the third party not only to look but also to see, to perceive differently: for example the young hijabbed Muslim woman may be struggling with the same issues of sexism and objectification as her bareheaded counterpart. We will bear witness to an aspect of British life that is often depicted as if it is in the shade, literally and metaphorically, yet should be understood as neither invisible, nor incomprehensible. By this means we hope to demonstrate the educational challenges that face us all.

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British Islam and Islamic Education: Two Approaches

Islamic theology is taught in seminaries and colleges, most of which are registered as charities and are inspected by Ofsted, the school inspection service. Their students take national examinations at sixteen and eighteen in a broad range of conventional subjects, and some stay on to finish the theological training that they have undertaken alongside state exams. Arabic is taught for learning the Quran. These institutions have no power to award educational qualifications, but may bestow ijazah, a theological qualification. Islamic Studies is taught in British universities and may form part of a wide range of humanities or social sciences curricula that will lead to a degree or a master’s qualification, awarded by the university and in line with national benchmarking and quality assurance. Arabic may or may not be taught as a part of Islamic Studies. In this book, we explore Islamic Theology and, to a lesser extent, Islamic Studies in the context of Islam in Britain. We will consider what role these two approaches play and what the merits and weaknesses of this dualtrack system may be. As we undertake this exploration, we are intensely aware of the debates about what constitutes Islamic Studies and on the other hand studies about Islam. There are similar contestations about the difference between Islamic Studies and Muslim Studies – some proponents of the latter would argue that this is perhaps more reflective of the university model, which usually takes an outsider position, studying Muslims as a group of people from the outside. Another discussion is about the term Muslim Theology, and some Muslims argue that this term is not relevant to Islam and Muslims at all. We are aware of these debates and hope that this book advances these debates by providing research-based evidence. For clarity, we generally use Islamic Studies to refer to teaching and learning that takes place at universities and Islamic Theology to refer to teaching and learning at Muslim seminaries. We will not be delving deeply into the complexities of Islamic Theology and Islamic Studies, but rather we seek to contextualize certain trends in both

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Islamic Education in Britain

disciplines in order to look at the nature of the relationship that British Islam has with the education sector. This relationship takes place within the context of a general shift in emphasis from studying Islam in the setting of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Arabic countries towards the study of Islam in a European context. Many texts now relate to Islam and Christianity in some way, and twothirds of them deal with relating Islam to non-Islamic epistemic orders.1 First, we need to set the context: historically, philosophically, ethically, theoretically and methodologically.

Pluralist Britain Modern, twenty-first-century Britain has changed tremendously. It is very different from the Britain of the mid-twentieth century that took its first shaky steps towards multiculturalism and pluralism as it, grudgingly, accepted the first large groups of immigrants from its erstwhile colonies. We hope to be different Britons from those who inhabited that Britain where racism and classism were accepted societal norms. We are moving away from mono-cultural and exclusionary constructs of Britishness and generally, but not unanimously, accept that the modern British way of life is characterized by diversity: different races, religions and cultures and by equality across gender, sexuality and seven other equality strands (see Equality Act 2010). So in a globalized, interconnected and ethno-diverse context, Britain often appears to be, and in some senses is, a pluralist, multicultural nation that understands the imperative to accept all the different social groups that live here. There are justifiable concerns about possible ‘post-societal’ situations of decay in which social norms no longer hold: yet there are still diverse living traditions, including religious ones, living side by side, even if they do not interact particularly well. Yet the actuality is more complex: open any newspaper or online news portal, and it is easy to read articles about young Muslims being radicalized, extremism in Muslim communities, sectarianism, Sunni–Shia violence and Muslim communities failing to integrate. Whether this is lazy journalism or Islamophobia, such popular debates question the nature of British Muslim communities and their role in modern, pluralist British society. Public discussions online and offline indicate a sense of fear and suspicion about whether British Muslims are terrorists and whether they should be feared even if they are not. In the contexts of Islamic education, which is at the heart of this book, individuals, communities and the government are all interrogating the fitness of purpose of traditional Islamic curricula that are being taught to young British Muslims.

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Traditional Islamic theology is taught in Muslim seminaries that are spread all over the country – madrasas, jamias, hawzas and darul ulooms – and people ask, ‘Are these the spaces where radicalization takes place?’ Recent public debate about faith schools in general and Islamic schools in particular such as the socalled Trojan Horse in Birmingham adds to the urgency of our investigation of Islamic education in Britain.2 We will also consider whether new knowledge, new vocabulary and new pedagogies are needed for effective communication between secular and religious groups.

Dialogue across dichotomies Usually such discourses present a discussion of dichotomies: faith versus secularism, indigenous versus immigrant, Islam versus the West and ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’. What is missing are the voices of British Muslims who transcend these dichotomies. These debates almost always fail to capture the ethnic, cultural and religious diversities within British Muslim communities and instead perpetuate a stereotype of a homogeneous and ‘different from us’ Muslim Other. What is also missing in these debates is a questioning of underpinning definitions of terms like fundamentalism, extremism and radicalization. If an agreed definition of radicalization can be arrived at, what then is the impact of poorly managed oilled foreign policy, far-right politics, Islamophobia and media scaremongering on the processes of radicalization?3 As we move towards a super-diverse and interconnected global world, it is no longer sufficient to disagree with separatist narratives. It is also no longer possible to assume that the implications of crises in Muslim lands will be geographically limited to those areas. Furthermore, Britain has its own Muslim population, its own form of British Islam and young people who have a hybrid British Muslim identity. Esposito writes about ‘not one but many Islams’, though he also asserts that some Muslims could take offence to this statement and that they would argue that ‘there is only Islam and many Muslims’.4 Whatever standpoint one takes, it is clear that we have seen the evolution and consolidation of a British form of Islam, which retains religious, social and emotional linkages with the global Muslim ummah, and which also embraces British values, morals and pluralism.

Dialogue in a ‘secular’ world In this book we place importance upon inter-religious dialogue because faith and belief are important in many ways: we do not really accept the view of the world as an increasingly secular place. Not only are religions around the world

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Islamic Education in Britain

demonstrating great power, as in the continents of North and South America, and countries such as Nigeria, India and Malaysia, to name but a few, but also we can see that even countries that describe themselves as secular retain their religious traditions. Just as France is, despite its assertions of secularism, very much still a Catholic Christian country, so England and Wales comprise, often by default, a Protestant Christian community. Even the deeply secular in Britain bring a broadly Judeo-Christian outlook to their views on life. Levels of religious literacy are low among the general population as Dinham and Jones show,5 yet that tradition still provides the default position. To add to the complexity of the debate, we also suggest that if we look through the lens of Abrahamic religion and a family of faiths, then the religious outlook that underpins society may be a Judeo-Christian-Islamic one. This is an area that is a core part of our research.

Secularism Secularism is what we call a process that pays attention to social order before it pays attention to religion.6 Schulze’s definition suggests that human rights and equality find their place better in secularism than in faith. However, he himself also argues that this picture should be challenged, because definitions of secularism tend to be understood in the context of, and as contrasting with, religion and vice versa. In this way, whatever the one is, the other is not, in an endless ping-pong of assertion and counter-assertion. We can recognize as familiar the resultant polarization whereby women, for example, are described as embracing either silent faithful piety or worldly secular activism. Secularism can be presented as inviting personal ambition and enhancing the ego, whereas religion involves submitting humbly to faith and subjugating the ego. By creating this dualist model, we accept two ends of a spectrum where even the middle ground between them is defined by the poles on either side. However, as we have already argued, the creation of such dualist models has to be taken account of, even if they are false, because Western thought has affection for them and they are highly influential: including the debate in which secularism is pitted against religiosity. In this debate, we can at least seek universals, and this brings us back to Schulze’s description. Even if we are wary of his generalization, it seems realistic to privilege the secular state over the kingdom of God: we believe that British law provides universal structures to guarantee protection and redress for all citizens. In her book On Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti demonstrates how, when

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universality is broken and laws are developed to entrap a minority, such as terror suspects, these tailored laws can entrap ordinary citizens instead.7 This universality of laws must include protection of minorities. All law should be dedicated to human dignity, asserting universal dignities and resisting special pleading. However, there is a place for the religious voice in this secularized situation: to offer expertise in making moral judgements and to present the struggle for special recognition, not least because special pleading is not restricted to religious groups within a secular society. It requires imagination to suggest that religious groups can be valuable, while at the same time denying them the right to win their own battle for recognition. Here, we can note the question posed by Asad et al.: ‘is critique secular?’ If criticism presupposes some imperfection and provisionality in human thought, is it incompatible with devout religious practices? We also want to look at their answer, which is a provisional redefining of secularism to conclude that secularism is inherently generative and suffused with religious content, that reason always tenders a particular order of rationality and that critique is inherently situated and partial.8

We support their claim in order to depict how a secular society can function at its best and also to extrapolate from society as a whole to the microcosm of society to be found in universities: we depict the university campus as having become, in many cases, one large café culture with pedagogy that seems to present education as consumable – education shaped by pressure from the corporate world that makes consumer choice appear to be one of our human rights.9 Value-driven education often seems old-fashioned: as Guest et al. reported in 2013, Christians on campus often hide their beliefs at university,10 and, as we know, many devout young Muslims simply do not attend university, because of its reputation for alcohol and promiscuity. In the context of the secular–religious dichotomy, the work of the philosopher Paul Ricœur is important; as a French Protestant philosopher, he was a very religious man who was also very much part of the secular world and struggled with this problem for most of his long life (1913–2005). Secularism is clearly a complex term. Ricœur provides a useful definition; he describes secularism as having two main characteristics: it involves the transfer of power from the churchman to the civil servant, and also the ‘erasing of the distinction between the spheres of the sacred and the profane’.11 Indeed, this suggestion of a permeable membrane between the secular and religious lived experience is something that

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is also suggested by many young Muslims who, in consolidating their Britishness and their Muslim-ness, bridge both sides of the secular–religious divide. This stance is ratified by Islamic foundational texts that encourage diligence in both religious and non-religious activities (as long as the latter are halal or permitted). In our research narrative we argue that the religious voice could have interesting and useful commentaries to make on such situations, if it were encouraged to speak. There are also many other voices, not only the religious, that could articulate concern. This will bring us to another major area of importance in our research – the existence of polarization within society on a number of different grounds; artificial binaries are constructed between the secular and religious, between feminist and religious women, and other exclusionary debates.12 We seek here to move beyond a secular–religious dialogue and one that hopes to be welcomed in higher education.

British Muslims Muslims in modern Britain are diverse and heterogeneous and include different ethnicities, ‘races’, classes and identities. Britain’s colonial history (including in Muslim-majority lands), years of migration and the growth of indigenous white Muslim communities have meant that the British Muslim population is a mosaic of the global Muslim ummah. Therefore, questions such as ‘who is a British Muslim?’ or ‘what does it mean to be a Muslim in Britain?’ are necessarily complex ones, which require nuanced and detailed answers, but which inevitably entail the privileging of particular aspects of these groups – their ‘Muslim-ness’ as well as, to a certain extent, their ‘Britishness’ – from within the multiple identifications to which they may subscribe.13 Most Muslims living in Britain have a number of different aspects to their identity which can best be described in the sense of the term intersectionality, with its focus upon oppressions and their interconnections. For British Muslims, the identity label of ‘Muslim’ coexists with others that denote, for example, their sense of belonging (English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish or British); their own or their ancestral national and ethnic origins (South Asia, Middle East, Africa or South East Asia); their ‘race’, gender, political leanings, specific forms of Islamic belief (Sunni or Shia, Barelwi or Deobandi); and the extent of their religious practice (practising, believing, non-practising, cultural or non-religious). British Muslims are a complex group, and we begin this discussion with a brief statistical overview of the British Muslim population based on the Census

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2011 figures. Britain’s colonial legacy has shaped patterns of migration that have led to the formation of modern Britain. These patterns of migration mean that according to Census 2011 figures, the ‘Asian/Asian British’ category at 7.5 per cent is the largest ethnic group in England and Wales after the category ‘white’. This group, which consists of people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, includes a large proportion of Muslims.14

Population Census 2011 data According to data from the 2001 census, self-identifying Muslims in the UK amounted to 1,591,126 people, being about 2.7 per cent of the total UK population at the time, and forming the largest religious minority. This rose to 2,660,116 in the results of the 2011 census, which confirm Muslims as continuing to form the largest religious minority in Britain. Please see Table 1.1. In each of the countries of the UK for which the census results for 2011 are currently available, over the last decade there has therefore been a substantial rise (of 43 per cent in England, of 53 per cent in Wales, of 79 per cent in Scotland, and of 49 per cent in Northern Ireland) in the Muslim population. This has occurred partially as a result of continued migration and refugee movements, as well as due to individuals from other than Muslim family backgrounds adopting Islam as their religion. At the same time, the population ‘shape’ of Muslims in the UK is a disproportionately young one (see Table 1.2 for the example of England and Wales only rather than Table 1.1, which is for all of the UK) compared with other religious groups, meaning that much of the Muslim population growth has come about through natural reproduction on the part of young Muslims. Migrant and refugee Muslim arrivals are becoming more diverse, including especially from parts of Africa, from Bosnia in Europe and Arabs from the Syrian and other conflicts. In the London area, there is also a significant Turkish Muslim population, well established and still growing. Despite this diversification of national and ethnic origins, the majority of Muslims (67.65 per cent) in the UK continue to have ancestral roots in the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent (see Table 1.3). White, indigenous Muslim ‘convert’/‘revert’ communities continue to grow, but these communities remain a scattered and relatively small proportion of British Muslim communities, a notable exception being the city of Norwich in the East of England, which has a large convert community with its own mosque. Black and African/ Caribbean communities account for around 10 per cent of the Muslim population in Britain and include an increasing number of ‘converts’ (again, Table 1.3 is only for England and Wales rather than for the whole of the UK).

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Table 1.1 Religion and belief in the UK England Christians Muslims

Wales

Scotland

Northern Ireland

United Kingdom

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

31,479,876

59.4

1,763,299

57.6

2,850,199

53.8

1,490,588

82.3

37,583,962

59.5

2,660,116

5.0

45,950

1.5

76,737

1.4

3,832

0.21

2,786,635

4.4

Hindus

806,199

1.5

10,434

0.3

16,379

0.3

2,382

0.13

835,394

1.3

Sikhs

420,196

0.8

2,962

0.1

9,055

0.2

216

0.01

432,429

0.7

Jews

261,282

0.5

2,064

0.1

5,887

0.1

335

0.02

269,568

0.4

Buddhists

238,626

0.5

9,117

0.3

12,795

0.2

1,046

0.06

261,584

0.4

Other religion

227,825

0.4

12,705

0.4

15,196

0.3

7,048

0.39

262,774

0.4

4,614,244

8.7

83,232

2.7

136,049

2.6

14,859

0.8

4,848,384

7.7

13,114,232

24.7

982,997

32.1

1,941,116

36.7

183,164

10.1

16,221,509

25.7

3,804,104

7.2

233,928

7.6

368,039

7.0

122,252

6.8

4,528,323

7.2

Total No religion and 16,918,336 Religion not stated

31.9

1,216,925

39.7

2,309,155

43.6

305,416

16.9

20,749,832

32.8

53,012,456 100.0

3,063,456

100.0

5,295,403 100.0

1,810,863

100.0

Total other than Christian religion No religion Religion not stated

Total population

63,182,178 100.0

Sources: For England and Wales: 2011 Census: KS209EW Religion, local authorities in England and Wales ons.gov.uk, accessed 15 November 2014; for Scotland: Scotland’s Census 2011: Table KS209SCa scotlandcensus.gov.uk; and for Northern Ireland: Census 2011: Religion: KS211NI (administrative geographies) nisra.gov.uk and Census 2011: Religion – Full Detail: QS218NI – Northern Ireland nisra.gov.uk.

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Table 1.2 Muslims in England and Wales by age (2011 census) Age Age 0–15 Age 16–24 Age 25–34 Age 35–49 Age 50–64 Age 65–74 Age 75 and over All categories: Age

Numbers in 2011

Percentages in 2011

895,137 414,245 543,783 526,286 219,789 67,199 39,627 2,706,066

33.08 15.31 20.09 19.45 8.12 2.48 1.46 100.00

Source: http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/lc2107ew

Table 1.3 Muslims in England and Wales by ethnicity (2011 census) Ethnic group

Numbers in 2011

Percentages in 2011

210,620

7.78

77,272

2.86

1,914

0.07

131,434

4.86

White: Total White: English/Welsh/Scottish/ Northern Irish/British White: Irish White: Other white Mixed/multiple ethnic group

102,582

3.79

1,830,560

67.65

Black/African/Caribbean/Black British

272,015

10.05

Other ethnic group

290,289

10.73

2,706,066

100.00

Asian/Asian British

Total all

Source: http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/lc2201ew

British Muslim histories and the beginnings of British Muslim educational institutions To begin this debate about the nature, quality and relevance of Islamic education in Britain today, it is important to examine the history of British Islam. We begin this history not with stories of communities that came here as migrants in the 1960s and 1970s. Rather, we begin this narrative with Abdullah Quilliam, who converted to Islam and established the first mosque in Britain in 1889. Quilliam was a leader for all British Muslim communities, and his mosque became a place both for religious worship and for intercultural exchanges. Into this narrative of an innately British Islam, we introduce Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, another convert to Islam, whose translation of the Quran into English

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(completed in 1930) continues to be one of the most widely read. We also consider the British-Yemeni communities who have lived in Britain since the middle of the eighteenth century and who in many ways built the foundations of British Islam.15 Having set this historical background, we now bring in the communities who came here in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly from the Indian subcontinent, but also from the east coast of Africa and other British colonies. Academics and social commentators often describe these early immigrants as having come to Britain purely for economic reasons or that they were economic migrants. However, there is much more to their stories in addition to prospects of earning a good living. These people came here because of a sense of loyalty to what was essentially their mother nation. So rather than describe these people simply as economic migrants who yearned to go back ‘home’, we present an alternative narrative of communities whose parents were loyal to the Queen as citizens of the erstwhile British Empire, who fought under the British banner in both World Wars, who came to their ‘motherland’ to help rebuild it after the war and who subsequently made Britain their home. Those who came here from East Africa were already British citizens, albeit of a different race. These were naturalized British citizens and holders of British passports, people – such as plantation workers and managers – who had been taken from the Indian subcontinent to Africa to build the British Empire and many of whom, due to so-called Africanization politics, could no longer live in Africa and had to flee to Britain, whose passports they held. Such a narrative, which is rooted in history and which positions the intentions of early migrants to move to Britain as being as much about loyalty and ‘home’ as about economics, begins to find a space where common British values can be identified and where dialogue about diversities may take place. Such a narrative also demonstrates that the ‘Britishness’ of British Muslim communities is by no means an invention of well-meaning liberal thinkers who seek a way to integrate a Muslim voice; rather, such inclusive narratives demonstrate the historical and real linkages that inform and perpetuate a British Muslim identity. In his book Religion and the Law: Religious Liberty in Modern English Law, the legal scholar St John Robilliard discusses how, during the nineteenth century, non-established Christian groups in England began to secure for themselves a greater participatory space in public life, and how the British state and society gradually began to accommodate that. He describes this change as follows:

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The early story of the struggle for religious liberty is one of the sects establishing an identity of their own, with their members being freed from the obligation of supporting a faith that they did not hold. From the struggle for existence, we pass to the struggle for equality.16

The establishment of mosques, madrasas and then seminaries illuminates how Robilliard’s comments about Christian minorities gradually opening up a space in the public, social and political life of the country may also be applied to British Muslim communities. Indeed, it may be said that, in many ways, these communities are now beginning to move into a yet further stage of development in which, after establishing their existence and struggling for their equality, they must now struggle to maintain, sustain and develop the roles that they have negotiated for themselves in a plural and multicultural Britain.17

An introduction to Classical Islamic Theology in Britain In Chapter 2, we discuss the various organizational settings where Islam is studied. However, before we do that, it is important to present our understandings of the study of Islam. The term Islamic Studies is an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of disciplinary approaches ranging from Islamic theology to sociology of Islam to Islamic finance and also a wide range of geographical areas. In this book, we seek to make a distinction between Islamic Studies as taught at universities and Muslim seminaries, and we discuss this in detail in Chapter 2. The content of ‘Islamic Studies’ courses can vary: focusing on contemporary Islam in a particular geographical context or on Islamic history or even on Arabic texts about Islam. In this section, however, we focus on Classical Islamic Theology, which may be taught in some universities (such as Edinburgh, Exeter, Manchester, Oxford and SOAS) but which is also the focus of study in Muslim seminaries all over the world and particularly in Britain. In seminaries, young Muslims from diverse socio-ethnic backgrounds study Classical Islamic Theology with a view to understanding their faith better – ‘to become better Muslims’. On one level, this is an intensely personal study with an aim to morally and ethically better oneself. For younger students, it may be because their parents want to shield them from what they perceive as the ‘corruptions’ of the West. In either case, these students will apply their study to their everyday lives, which will thus necessarily have an impact upon their life choices and life experiences, and also possibly the choices and experiences of their families and in some cases of entire communities. Such scholarly pursuit

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is rooted in paradigms of piety, sacred texts and confessional learning and is usually undertaken with the intention of knowing the divine. Here, we seek to understand the content and context of such study which for now we term as Classical Islamic Theology.

Classical Islamic Theology Our work with Muslim institutions indicates that Islamic theology as taught in British seminaries includes subjects that enable students to achieve a detailed and in-depth understanding of the beliefs, values and histories associated with Islam and with emphasis upon the form of Islam followed by that particular community. Students’ experiences at these institutions also include what can be understood as the more holistic aspects of an education, such as imbibing good values, morals and ethical behavioural codes – all conveyed to students in an Islamic ethos. The Islamic theology that is taught at these institutions is necessarily from the believer’s perspective and may be understood as ‘traditional studies focusing on learning and interpretation of texts to clarify and enhance personal and religious practice, and the application of Islamic law’.18 Necessary aspects of the study of Classical Islamic Theology include discussions of the foundational Islamic texts: tafsir (or the study of Quranic exegesis), Sunnah and Hadith (narratives from Prophet Muhammad’s life), tarikh (history), aqidah (creed) and shariah (Islamic law), which we discuss below. It also includes a range of disciplinary perspectives: (1) Sufism (as a category of esoteric and ascetical traditions that extend beyond pejorative understandings of ‘mysticism’), (2) falsafah or Islamic philosophy and (3) kalam, which literally translates as ‘discourse’ and which is sometimes translated as ‘Islamic doctrinal theology’.19 These Islamic disciplinary stances, like academic disciplines, have their own tools, perspectives, approaches and theoretical underpinnings. So, for example, whereas kalam may be perceived as legalistic – it is best described as dogmatic theology which is rooted in rational enquiry and draws on philosophy – Sufism is seen as less dogmatic and more spiritual. Sachiko Murata describes these two stances as the two poles between which Islamic thought takes shape. In the former God is a stern forbidding father, and in the latter a warm loving mother – both perspectives are needed to arrive at a right understanding of Divine Reality.20 Falsafah or philosophy and a range of other disciplines exist between both these poles, including approaches and theology specific to particular disciplines.

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It is also important to note here that the most sophisticated Muslim thinkers usually maintained a balance between these two polar positions. They recognized that Sufism is not any less ‘authentic’ than kalam or vice versa and that both stances are valid within traditional Islam. Such openness extended beyond just disciplinary thought, and we find that in the early years of Islamic theological development, Sunni and Shia scholars often studied together and under each other. They were open to understanding the other’s scholarship while remaining loyal and committed to their own denominational stance. Such cross-denominational cooperation is rarely found in modern contexts, which are characterized more by inter-denominational suspicion at best and conflict at worst. As demonstrated by Khaled Abou El Fadl et al., there is also within Classical Islamic Theology openness, and Islam has a long tradition of tolerance towards other faiths.21 Classical Islamic Theology has a deeply rooted tradition of interfaith and intra-faith dialogue, cooperation and indeed pluralism, which urgently needs to be rediscovered and implemented across all forms of Islamic education.22 The brevity required by the nature of this project – a book on Islamic education – will not allow us to undertake a discussion that can do justice to the depth and diversity of Classical Islamic Theology – this is simply a too large and continually expanding compendium of sources and systems of knowledge. However, the purpose of our discussion is to contextualize this Islamic knowledge in the educational systems prevalent in modern pluralist Britain. Why are young British men and women studying Classical Islamic Theology? What may be the impacts of such study? And how can it contribute to pluralism in modern Britain? To begin with, we look at basic definitions. Tafsir and Hadith constitute the study of the two foundational texts of the Islamic faith. Muslims believe that the Quran is God’s own words as revealed to Prophet Muhammad and as recorded by scribes during his lifetime. The Quran is a poetic book with strong melodies and includes narratives that would be familiar to the readers of Torah and the Gospel and, like biblical texts, it includes parables. Its poetic form also means that it is not a continuous text and can in places be abrupt. The Quran repeatedly addresses ‘men and women of understanding’23 to read it and study it – this is tafsir where students study Quranic exegesis with a view to better understand this deep text. Hadith is the study of narratives of actions and sayings from the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims describe Prophet Muhammad as the ‘living Quran’ – his actions and words complemented the divinely revealed message of the Quran, and through emulating him by following his Sunnah,

22

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they practice their faith. The Sunnah may be understood as the ‘established custom, normative precedent, conduct, and cumulative tradition, typically based on Muhammad’s example’, and constitute a source for establishing norms for Muslim conduct and making it a primary source of Islamic law.24 Sunnis and Shia have different books of Hadith. For both groups, the Quran and the Sunnah form the foundations of Classical Islamic Studies. Tarikh is history and has similar disciplinary tools to historical study in a university or in a secular context. The unique point is that it focuses on Islamic history and is told through a religious lens.25 In addition to histories of the Prophet’s era, the caliphate era and early Muslim expansion, such study will also include a geographical focus based on the ethnic origins of the institution/ community where it is being studied. Aqidah is the study of Islamic creed or articles of faith. A basic understanding of aqidah based on the Quranic formulation includes belief in God, angels, prophets, scriptures, and the Day of Judgment. Over the centuries, aqidah has evolved into a complicated subject as multiple scholars and thinkers have debated the nature of belief. Aqidah addresses complex issues such as the nature of God and divine revelation. Different denominational groups and religious movements usually have their own slightly different understandings of aqidah. The final subject that we discuss here is shariah or the study of Islamic law. The Quran contains only about 90 verses (out of 6,236 verses in total) that directly and specifically address questions of law. Shariah or Islamic legal discourse refers to these verses as God’s law and incorporates them into legal codes. The remainder of Islamic law is the result of jurisprudence (fiqh), human efforts to codify Islamic norms in practical terms and legislate for cases not specifically dealt with in the Quran and Sunnah. Just like every other aspect of Islam, shariah is not monolithic and is traditionally expressed in four orthodox schools: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii and Hanbali. The Shia adhere to concepts of the imamate, whereby authority to interpret law is vested in learned men. These differences are seen not only in jurisprudence within the Muslim community but also in practices of everyday life, such as prayer times, dress code and marriage/divorce practices.

Classical Islamic Theology in modern Britain It is important to remind ourselves of the denominational and ethnic diversities within the British Muslim population and the impact that this necessarily has on the ways in which the above subjects and disciplines are experienced by British

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Muslims. Almost two thirds of the British Muslim population is of South Asian heritage. Seminaries run by these communities are deeply influenced by the lingual, cultural and historical legacy of the subcontinent including histories of colonization and the British Raj. So, for example, the majority of seminaries in Britain are darul ulooms affiliated to the Deobandi tradition, while a smaller number are jamias that are affiliated to the Barelwi tradition. Both traditions are religious movements that originated in the Indian subcontinent during the colonial period. Our research demonstrates that in addition to the core ‘Muslim’ languages of Arabic and Persian, Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati, which are ‘Indian’ languages, are also taught at seminaries. In the Middle East, Persian is used in Shia contexts (Iran) rather than in Sunni contexts, yet in Britain the Persian language is significant in Sunni institutions too. This is due to historical connections between Persia and India during Mughal rule (c.1526–1827), which meant that Persian was one of the languages of scholarship in the Mughal courts and in seminaries which had royal patronage. When migrant South Asian Sunni communities came to Britain, they brought with them their loyalties to the Persian language. British Muslims undertake Islamic Studies to better understand their faith and to receive guidance about the choices they will need to make during their lifetime. Islam is a din or way of life, and Islamic texts not just contain moral guidance but also provide guidance for everyday routine matters – how and what one must eat, how one must dress, how one must speak and behave. Students we spoke to as part of our research process told us how intensive their curriculum was. They graduated with a deep knowledge of Islamic theology. However, opinion and experience differ considerably about whether their studies prepare them for life in pluralist Britain. One interview respondent told us how, after leading a relatively sheltered life, some students were ‘blinkered’ to the realities of everyday British life and that they lacked the confidence to engage with wider society. Furthermore, these students understand theology, but they do not usually know how to apply this knowledge to the challenges of modern life – for example, how can Classical Islamic Theology be used to challenge drug abuse or relationship problems? For young women, the situation could be much more difficult, with many seminaries insisting that they wear a niqab, lead a sheltered life and in a way almost retreat from wider society, which is perceived as containing impurities and evils. Theologically trained women would therefore usually not take on paid work outside their small communities and often ‘disappeared’ from the employment scene. This is perhaps where an Applied Theology component can strengthen

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current provision for Classical Islamic Studies by giving students practical skills such as counselling, teaching and conflict management. For other students such as those studying at the Cambridge Muslim College, where practical skills are already part of the curricula, the experience is very different. Students acquire both practical and theoretical knowledge on subjects such as interfaith dialogue, gender roles, counselling and British intellectual history, allowing them to bridge the best of both worlds.26

Secular versus sacred Classical Islamic Theology at seminaries can be understood as the pious study of sacred texts that a believer undertakes. This can be contrasted with Islamic Studies curricula at UK universities, which are not taught from a believer’s perspective and which draw on a range of modern academic disciplines, including sociology, history, anthropology, linguistics, geography and politics, to study the Muslim world. Islamic Studies provision in universities is perceived to be secular, critical and modern, whereas Classical Islamic Theology as taught at Muslim seminaries is perceived to be confessional, non-critical and outdated. While some aspects of such dichotomization may be true, our previous funded research27 indicates that the boundaries between these two approaches are less rigid and much more permeable than is initially apparent. We postulate that these two approaches should be seen as complementary to each other and that it is both possible and necessary to bridge the gap between them and create a dialectic between them. Our research also indicates that the people who adhere to one or other of the two sides of this dichotomy rarely have the opportunity to come together or learn from each other’s curricula, pedagogy and philosophical approaches. However, it is imperative that opportunities for such cross-fertilization are developed, which can lead to models of Islamic studies that can enhance student employability, lead to interfaith and intercultural dialogue and enable society to be more cohesive and understanding of diversity. In such contexts, our work on collaborative teaching models can be beneficial to both sides of this dichotomy, as with our project on Muslim women and HE. Chapter 6 discusses collaborative partnerships in more detail. The tension evident in the study of Islamic theology, between faith and academic standpoints, is not a new phenomenon. There are precedents for this in the study of all the world faiths, and this is something that scholars, theologians and students have always had to grapple with:

1. British Islam and Islamic Education: Two Approaches

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One option, followed by many Christians training for practical ministry, is to have specific faith-based courses. In Christian theology, there is always a tension between faith based study and so-called objective academic study. Of course, we all know that no-one is objective, but this is the reality. There is the insider/outsider study of religion and theology. So education in Christian theology develops along ‘vocational’ and ‘academic’ tracks, and students learn to distinguish between writing from within their faith commitments and writing from a more ‘objective’ standpoint. (Excerpt from a consultative e-mail)28

The stance that we take facilitates a space where differences of opinion may be brought into dialogue with each other. Although disagreements may remain, dialogue between, within and across standpoints facilitates a process that unearths common scholarly goals and good practice in pedagogy and course content. There is a need for further such work involving the exploration and implementation of collaborative initiatives in Islamic Studies in the UK and the incorporation of the diverse aspirations of students into the course design process.

Theoretical debates about religion Let us pause for a moment at the theoretical debates hinted at above in the work of Weller and Cheruvallil-Contractor: we will review, revisit and embellish the following major approaches to religion in modern secular society, using ScottBaumann’s and Moyaert’s philosophical approach. Pluralism is a major liberal approach: it offers to help us embrace one another’s ideas, to be able to hope that there is some uniting, foundational set of values or morals that can give us common cause to help each other to lead a better life and even to learn from each other’s differences. This seems then to be an optimistic approach, a belief that can give us the confidence that we can learn how to get on with each other. Pluralism gives us the opportunity to encounter other faiths, to learn about them and to respect them. In doing so we better understand our own faith. This is the basis for most interfaith dialogue events where participants from different religious and non-religious groups seek to understand the beliefs, values and philosophies of the different other. Achieving the co-operation necessary for social life requires ‘giving differences a chance to show themselves. The expression of difference is not only the right of the other person but is a means of enriching one’s own life-experience.’29

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Yet some interpretations of pluralism may require a reduction in emphasis upon differences between religions and therefore can lead to the weakening of the particular features of each religion that make each unique. This can be seen in modern, liberal approaches to religions, where the aim is to look for similarities. Such forms may thus be considered to lead to the possibility of a loosening of the affiliation with one’s own faith. We will discuss whether this is a price worth paying in order to try and make space for others and whether it would arguably lead to sameness or even new forms of oppression. It is also necessary to consider the possibility that pluralism as it is discussed in much current literature is a distinctly Western phenomenon, based on the philosophy of Kant – so that would make the pluralism espoused in Europe a version of pluralism, not a neutral ground for growing other faiths upon but one based on Kant’s interpretation of the Ten Commandments of the Christian Bible. This would make pluralism as understood in Northern Europe quite particular to one religious and cultural setting. Marianne Moyaert points out that this may even make pluralism as we know it into a form of particularism. Indeed, there are other models that we could draw upon: Indian models of pluralism that have existed since the Middle Ages, and the diversity that was encouraged under the Ottomans.30 If pluralism shows little interest in the unique differences of faiths, seeking instead to find commonalities that will enhance mutual understanding, then particularism takes a different path: seeking to accept other faiths with all their differences and making no attempt to broker understanding between them. For the particularist, ‘real openness requires at least the recognition of the radical alterity of the religious other and his tradition’.31 However, this does not necessitate any attempt at understanding, and we will show pathways to achieve a balance between pluralism and particularism. Particularism presents a post-liberal position that could actually make inter-religious dialogue impossible because it fails to see the point of brokering discussion across religions, according to Moyaert’s analysis of this relatively new phenomenon. Moreover, it becomes inappropriate, if we follow particularism, to critique any aspects of religions that seek to – for example – protect their own traditions by keeping themselves separate and thereby avoiding contamination. This can also lead to an ethnocentric tendency to protect one’s tradition from criticism: as we find in the debate about whether types of clothing and growing a beard or being clean-shaven are more religiously significant or culturally important.

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27

If neither pluralism nor particularism works very well, then we will need another path towards a better solution to thinking about religion. We need to seek and find an alternative to pluralism – pluralism that feels good but may be considered by some of faith to dilute belief – and to particularism that seems realistic, yet can also preclude debate. Marianne Moyaert proposes that a solution may result from developing comparative theology, following in the tradition of Francis X. Clooney. We will draw on the comparative theology model, which combines theology with religious studies. This can be enriched with the addition of linguistic hospitality, in the chapter on collaborative partnerships, the chapter on Arabic and elsewhere: we will draw on Lindbeck and his cultural linguistic theory for religious belief, and Moyaert’s development of this into comparative theology with her proposal that we read the texts of other religions in order to understand belief systems that are different from our own.32 We will then take such models even further by combining them with Ricœur’s idea that the self must see itself as another in order to understand both oneself and the other, in the conclusion. We have to come together to try and ‘read’ the other as if this is possible. Ricœur was critical of the modern world, and we will use his three main approaches to clarify our work: existentialism is based on the belief in personal individual action to justify one’s existence, phenomenology is attentiveness to that which one experiences directly and hermeneutics is interpretation of texts or actions. Ricœur combined these approaches to assert that we can only develop a reasonably accurate understanding of ourselves through understanding the other person, who is, by definition, not me. We can only understand ourselves by accepting that ‘you are not me, and yet you reflect me’.33 As Western culture has nominated the Muslim as the official ‘other’, we will consider how to facilitate better understanding. It may even be possible that some Muslim communities have nominated the Western world as the ‘other’. So we seek to explore how to bring the two together.

Our research narrative This book is informed by the findings of four research projects that are summarized below. We will discuss our findings self-critically, and demonstrate the difficulties inherent in any research: by settling upon methods the findings are automatically restricted, and by deciding upon research questions one

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is automatically and necessarily limiting the range of answers that one can justifiably reach. These are major epistemological issues that will be affected by the research team’s ontological position: working consistently together as a core team comprising a Muslim and a liberal Christian, we also draw on the expertise of many others to provide a balanced picture. Here is a brief summary of each of the projects: 1. In 2008–2010, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) funded a review of Muslim faith leader training in the UK (Mukadam et al. 2010) – which throughout the book we will refer to as the ‘Muslim faith leader project’. The research set out to explore various models for the training of Islamic scholars – imams, alims, alimahs and others – in the UK, and ways and means through which existing facilities may be acknowledged, contextualized and enhanced as part of pluralist British society. The report was submitted to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, in October 2010, and is available at www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1734121.pdf 2. In 2011, the Higher Education Academy (HEA) funded a project on Muslim women in British higher education (Contractor and Scott-Baumann 2011), which throughout the book we will refer to as the ‘Muslim women and HE project’. This research built on the CLG work and specifically explored women’s issues with women. It suggested four ‘bridging’ modules that potentially can enable collaborative linkages and also give Muslim women employable skills. Here, the emphasis is on the practitioner-researcher: working with and alongside a community to conduct a living, evolving research project. In such work, the goals are decided upon cooperatively and the lines become blurred between researchers and researched. Findings were analysed in order to establish whether the shared research goals that women develop when they work together are having the desired effect, in order to decide upon the next steps forward. We recommend that such an approach can become part of the research undertaken by experienced teachers doing research in their workplace. The full report can be downloaded at http:// www.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/detail/islamicstudies/Aug_2010_Alison _Scott_Baumann 3. In 2012, the HEA funded a project on Arabic in higher education and Muslim institutions, which in this book we refer to as the ‘Arabic project’. Learning a modern foreign language in UK has declined, yet the learning of Arabic is rising. We hypothesized that there is more Arabic-language

1. British Islam and Islamic Education: Two Approaches

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competence among Islamic Studies students than is currently apparent in the university sector: this represents missed opportunities for Arabic as a career-enhancing skill. A small mapping exercise sampled possible relationships between students’ prior Arabic competence and Arabiclanguage courses at Islamic Studies and other departments within UK universities. The study also investigated Arabic-language studies that students undertake in Muslim institutions such as darul ulooms, madrasas, Muslim schools and Muslim higher education (HE) colleges. This exploration examined issues like possible correlations between classical Arabic (including that of the Quran) and modern Arabic, ways to enhance the uptake of degree-level Arabic courses amongst students who have prior knowledge of Arabic and enhancing undergraduates’ career possibilities involving Arabic (Scott-Baumann and Contractor 2012). The full report for this project can be found at http://www.islamicstudiesnetwork .ac.uk/islamicstudiesnetwork/resources/display?id=/resources/alldetails/ islamicstudies/Arabic_languages_and_IS_AS-B 4. In 2013, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded a follow-on project to consider the value of collaborative partnerships between UK universities and Islamic institutions, which in this book we refer to as the ‘collaborative partnerships project’. This project developed and disseminated the research findings from the previous three projects, focusing particularly on ways to forge a more cohesive society for Muslims and other Britons. Furthermore, changes are afoot in the Arab world, and we need to be able to understand and relate to these changes for cultural, economic and social reasons. This will require specific skill sets, for example, an understanding of Islam that is positive, cultural literacy about diverse Muslim communities and Arabic-language fluency – skills which may be developed as part of such collaborations. We ran four regional knowledge exchange seminars and an academic conference. These seminars and conferences brought together academics, practitioners and employers in an environment that was conducive to sharing experiences and opinions. This process of knowledge sharing led to enhanced understandings of good practice and also clarified and suggested solutions to potential obstacles. Through these consultations we achieved a critical mass of information that may encourage increased collaborations between universities and Muslim institutions and enhance awareness about the importance of Arabic, the urgent need for women’s higher education and the many related benefits for all stakeholders involved.

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Talal Asad reminds us that ‘it is in universities that critique of one kind or another has become essential to useful knowledge production’.34 The university can be particularly helpful in brokering enhanced understanding of Islam and of modern Britain. The focus in this book is on Islam, in order to attempt to reduce prejudice and improve understanding – yet much work also needs to be done to clarify what else is happening in modern Britain. Not least of these other issues is the state of the university sector, where few challenge the current accusations from the government that universities are allowing Islamic radicalization to take place. It can be argued that these accusations harm Islam and also harm the university sector, by limiting the university’s autonomy and reducing the capacity of higher education to create safe places for good minds to engage in critique and debate. And after all, the university reflects the state of a nation because it functions as the greenhouse that produces successive crops of citizens. If the capacity for good university education itself is being challenged, and if balanced critique is being compromised partly by attacks on Islam, then critique seems profoundly political. Constructive critique is also valuable for debates about the place of religion in modern, liberal, secular societies, which, by definition, should facilitate acceptance of a wide variety of groups. This book will therefore initiate debates about other issues as well as Islam, including pluralism and particularism. Islam is everyone’s responsibility.

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Mapping Islamic Studies Provision in Britain

The British university system still provides, arguably, world-class higher education in many subjects, of which Islamic Studies is one. There are also Muslim colleges and seminaries (darul ulooms, jamias, hawzas) where Islamic Theology is taught. Islamic Studies in various different forms has been taught and studied in Britain at least since the nineteenth century. The major difference between Islamic Studies provision in universities and Islamic Theology in Muslim institutions is that the former is usually not faith based and the latter is. Now, in the twentyfirst century, this academic field, in both its forms, is attracting unprecedented interest from politicians and policy-makers. Motivations are complex: a combination of fears about terrorism and, perhaps, hopes of improving relations between Muslim countries and the UK business communities.1 We demonstrate the reality for British Muslim individuals of educational choices by means of three case studies; the friends Imani, Hamid and Tasneem.

Review of Muslim faith leader training In 2008 we were commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to review imam training in Britain. This led to a funded project entitled ‘The training and development of Muslim faith leaders: Current practice and future possibilities’.2 The research set out to explore various models for the training of Islamic scholars in the UK, and the ways and means through which existing facilities may be acknowledged, contextualized and enhanced as part of pluralist British society. Our research also involved case studies of successful collaborative partnerships and interfaith testimonials that indicate that both these players – UK universities and Muslim institutions – will benefit from collaborative work and linkages which can lead to cross-fertilizations of pedagogy and intellectual context. This in turn will facilitate courses that bridge a perceived gap between

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confessional and academic approaches to the study of Islam. In the long run, such courses can produce professionals, academics and practitioners who are more aware of the sensitivities of developing and sustaining integration and social cohesion in pluralist Britain. With regard to the higher education sector, our specific recommendations to government in 2010 were, and still are, as follows:

●

●

●

●

●

A three-year honours degree in Islamic Studies and Sciences which would build on, though not be narrowly dependent on, the traditional Shia and Sunni Muslim syllabi. This would be validated by the host university and requires close collaboration between the seminary and university. Developing a two-year foundation degree, perhaps employment based, in applied Islamic theology, that is courses like chaplaincy that are practical and skills based, covering counselling and pastoral work. Reorienting Islamic Studies programmes at first degree and postgraduate level to make them more relevant for both male and female students who wish to undertake faith leadership responsibilities as teachers, chaplains and scholars. Setting up a senior fellowship or scholarship programme, enabling imams to undertake MBA and other Master’s-level courses in areas such as community development, interfaith relations and social policy. All the above requires an honest debate about teaching Islamic Studies from a confessional and a non-confessional standpoint and attempting to meld the two in some ways.

Our conclusions in our government research recommended that validation bodies should work in partnership with schools, colleges and universities to create pathways that facilitate licensing, accreditation and validation. In Britain, this already takes place at the level of compulsory schooling: each darul uloom (seminary) is registered with Department for Education (DfE) and is inspected by Ofsted, like any other 11–16 schools. The United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) acquired special powers to control and investigate immigration with regard to colleges of higher education, and now there are companies specializing in inspections of minority faith groups, like Bridge Schools Inspectorate: they also inspect HE faith institutions, including Muslim ones. These powers are now with the Home Office, as UKBA was abolished in 2013. Successful grading on an inspection entitles these institutions to hold a special permit

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for inviting applications from foreign students, who need visas. However, such institutions are not supported in a forward-looking way to create new courses or to collaborate with local universities to seek validation. Nor is it clear yet who should and could provide such support. If they were, we argue that this will provide opportunities for practising Muslim students and even alimahs and alims or those who aspire to become imams, or any other related positions to obtain recognized qualifications, such as diplomas, foundation degrees and external university postgraduate awards.

The Islamic Studies Network In a different approach to investigating the situation, a fund of £1 million from the British government (mooted in 2007 after 7/7 and made available for use for three years: 2009–2011) made it possible for the Higher Education Academy (HEA) to establish the Islamic Studies Network (ISN) and many activities generated by the ISN.3 The Islamic Studies Network aimed to establish an academic network for academics working in the publicly funded British higher education sector on Islamic Studies. As discussed in the 2010 inaugural symposium for the ISN, the core question is about what is included within Islamic Studies and how this relatively young discipline can be fully inclusive without weakening its identity.4 For our government-funded project, our empirical research involved visiting over 30 British-based Islamic seminaries and colleges: we found high educational standards in GCSE and A level, as well as outmoded pedagogies for Classical Islamic Theology. We also found high standards of Arabic language in the seminaries and Muslim colleges. Significantly, under the leadership of Dr Lisa Bernasek and with the support of Dr John Canning, the ISN responded positively to our research on the traditional seminaries and the Muslim colleges in Britain. The ISN accepted our findings that there are many British Muslims who study Islamic Studies and Sciences and Arabic and who do not have a voice in academia, even if they are strong academics in their own right. As a direct result of our research, the ISN accepted the imperative to examine the needs and the potential contributions of Islamic Studies academics working at non-publicly funded higher education institutions. During its three-year funding, the ISN created the impetus for establishing BRAIS, the British Association for Islamic Studies. BRAIS is a lively, new and unique organization for encouraging collaboration and activity among all scholars of Islam, including Muslim academics and those from Muslim

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colleges and seminaries in Britain. BRAIS is based at Edinburgh University and now led by Dr Shuruq Naguib and Dr Ayman Shihadeh, with Professor Hugh Goddard, Dr Saeko Yazaki and Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor. Here, we will explore the provision in Britain for the study of Islamic Theology (which we will use to denote Islam as studied by believers and based on textual interpretation), and then look at other forms of Islamic Studies. ScottBaumann was commissioned by the government, with Dr Mukadam as co-chair and Cheruvallil-Contractor as researcher, to review imam training in England, a complex process that took two years: 2008–2010. In this chapter, we use findings from that project and others to present a mapping of Islamic Studies provision in Britain. In doing so, we also describe how students experience Islamic Studies in the different organizations where the subject is studied.

A brief history of Islamic education provision in Britain We frame our discussion by looking at the historical evolution of Muslim institutions and Islamic Theology provision in the UK. The first purposebuilt mosque built in England was opened in Woking in 18895 funded by the Princess Nawab Sultan Shah Jahan Begam (1838–1901) of Bhopal6 and built by an orientalist scholar, Dr Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner. This mosque hosted visiting dignitaries, migrants and an early community of British converts to Islam. At the same time, there were also several early indigenous adopters of Islam, one of the most famous of whom was William Henry Quilliam (1856–1932), a prominent Liverpool lawyer who embraced Islam in 1887. Some histories note that the first mosque opened in Britain was actually the Liverpool Muslim Institute, established by Quilliam in a residential property in Liverpool in 1889. Before its closure in 1908, like the Woking mosque, the Liverpool Muslim Institute became a centre for visiting dignitaries, Islamic study circles and talks. Following the building of the Woking mosque, the historian John Wolffe notes that, ‘A number of zawiyas [small mosques in the Sufi tradition] were set up around the turn of the century’,7 although following the First World War a number of these ceased to function. These zawiyahs and mosques were the earliest places where Islamic education was taught and learnt. So, for example, ●

the Woking mosque was built as part of Dr Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner’s ‘Oriental Institute’. He himself had studied at madrasas in Istanbul, and

2. Mapping Islamic Studies Provision in Britain

●

●

35

in creating the institute he envisioned a space where ‘visiting dignitaries from India could stay and study in culturally sympathetic surroundings. It also enabled Europeans being posted to India to learn the language and culture. By the time of Leitner’s death in 1899 the Institute was awarding degrees through its affiliation to the University of the Punjab.’8 However, it is important to note that this early innovation in Islamic Theology was not sustained beyond the lifetime of Dr Leitner. The Quilliam institute included facilities where the new converts who constituted its community could study Islam. Furthermore, it included a school for girls and later on for boys. It also included a space where public events could be hosted, about Islam, its role in Britain, and Islam and science. The zawiyahs were established with the main purpose of creating a community space for worship and to study Islam. For example, when in 1936 Shaykh al-Hakimi established a mosque in South Shields, he also set up facilities for women, including the British convert wives of some of the sailors, where they and their children could study Islam and Arabic.9

The first madrasas and maktabs were established where children could study the ‘basics’ – reading Arabic for the Quran and rote-learning key prayers. Gradually, as Muslim communities became more settled, a need was felt across British Muslim communities for spaces where more advanced study of Islam could take place and where faith leaders (male: imam; female: imamah) and scholars (male: alim; female: alimah) could be trained. All over the world, Muslim seminaries exist – these are usually residential, offering courses that last between two and seven years. Curricula cover the foundational Islamic texts – the Quran and the Sunnah, Islamic History (tarikh), Islamic Jurisprudence (fiqh), Islamic Law (shariah), commentaries on Islam by classical Muslim scholars and other subjects. Different denominational groups refer to these institutions in different ways. Sunni Deobandi groups prefer the term darul uloom, which literally means ‘house of knowledge’; Barelwis use the term jamia and Shias use the term hawza. While the overarching curricula across all three types of institution will be very similar, denominational differences appear in specific content. Darul Uloom Al-Arabiya Al-Islamiya, the first formal Islamic seminary in Britain was opened in Holcombe, Bury, in the North of England by Shaykh Yusuf Motala in 1979. This is a Deobandi institution, and its establishment quickly led to a number of sister organizations being established in the early 1980s.10

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Tradition, pluralism and particularism This brief historical summary of Islamic institutions in Britain raises important issues related to religious tradition, pluralism and particularism. Pluralism, if understood as a way of seeking commonalities between belief systems in order to forge understanding, can also appear to weaken the uniqueness of any one belief system. Alternatively, pluralism may create spaces of trust where different faiths interact with each other openly, safely, without judging each other and understanding both commonalities and differences. This later experience of pluralism, in which both commonality and difference matter, allows each faith group involved to better understand itself both from its own foundational texts and also in relation to the other faiths that inhabit the same shared environment. However, these Islamic establishments may be understood, like many religious institutions, as particularist rather than pluralist; in other words, they seek to protect their religious traditions and hand them on in a form that is not weakened by modern trends or other belief systems. So we ask: what is the experience of pluralism in Britain with particular reference to Islamic education? Why does popular rhetoric about Islamic Theology in Britain always hinge upon its perceived suspiciousness? Should all education be broadly secular, as in France? Why is it necessary to have faith-based educational institutions? Alternatively, why is it frowned upon to have faith-based institutions? More significantly, why can we not depart from imagined secular–religious dichotomies and create educational provision where both the secular and the religious coexist? There are direct parallels with this debate and that which is regularly conducted within traditional Islamic Theology circles. These are highly significant epistemological as well as existential issues: how can we believe that we know the truth, and yet also move and change with the world around us? How is it possible to reassert our core beliefs and also modernize without losing our cultural roots? Can it even happen that we may become entangled in those very roots to the point of paralysis or slash and burn them in an act of rejection? And, of course, once we exaggerate these elements that we regard as being special, we have to acknowledge that they may well be special precisely because they make us seem different from others; this can serve to exaggerate those fissiparous tendencies that we can see in certain forms of particularism, including certain brands of secularism. The traditional Muslim seminaries in England are usually single-sex, alcoholfree zones, seen by many as an example of particularism: other approaches to belief are accepted as very different indeed from Islam, such that no attempt can be usefully made to broker understanding between them. Acknowledging the

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37

radical alterity of traditional Islamic seminary life has mutated into a suspicion that they may encourage and harbour those with extremist tendencies, a view held by some within the Muslim communities themselves. Yet it is worth pausing to wonder why an individual should be perceived as different or radical because he or she refuses to drink alcohol and chooses to spend time in the monk-like pursuit of prayer. Let us consider the facts.

Studying Islamic Studies in Britain – A range of provision We use Islamic Studies as an inclusive term, the pursuit of which may be a desire to lead a better life or a desire to guide one’s community or a combination of both. In Britain, undertaking Islamic Studies very rarely leads to becoming an imam. Often, when we have asked young people why they study Islam, they have told us: I simply want to be a better Muslim.

The term Islamic Sciences is often preferred in Muslim communities and refers to a religious and moral education for life. It covers traditional, devotional studies that focus on learning and interpretation of texts to clarify and enhance belief, religious practices and practice of Islamic law. We will use the term Islamic Theology to distinguish this study from that taught in British universities. Some of these courses can also be considered to provide vocational learning and pastoral ministry. The following trends have been corroborated by our research and others regarding Islamic religious training provisions in the UK: 1. There is a wide range of Islamic institutions which cater to a wide age range of students. 2. Most of these institutions are registered as charities with the UK government and inspected by Ofsted, the UK Border Agency, until 2013, and subsequently by UK Visas and Immigration and often a private inspection firm such as the Bridge Schools Inspectorate, on behalf of the government. Inspection reports can usually be found on the Internet. 3. Most UK seminaries are Sunni Deobandi (darul ulooms). 4. Several UK seminaries are Sunni Barelwi (jamias). 5. Much fewer are Shia (hawzas). 6. Some institutions (which may be identified with a particular denominational group) prefer not to use any particular form of denominational labelling and instead position themselves as for, and open to, students and teachers from any denominational background (Islamic College, Markfield Institute of Higher Education (MIHE)).

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7. Other forms of faith leader training are available to young British Muslims, for example Muslim chaplaincy at MIHE (which secured validation in 2014–2015 by Newman University). 8. The majority of institutions also offer a range of externally validated courses, for example GCSE, A level and BTec. 9. There are many online movements and national and worldwide networks such as Path to Salvation, based in Birmingham, which offers its own diploma in Foundational Classical Islam.11 Current research on Islamic education in Britain tends to focus on provisions for imam training in the UK.12 We demonstrate that both the provision and the purpose for studying Islamic Studies are far wider than such narrow conceptualization. We found evidence of much greater variety of provision than might be predicted from public, governmental and even academic expectations, so we widened the scope beyond that of imam training (which is usually traditional and male only) to look at faith leadership generally, which gave us the opportunity to explore a broad spectrum of different provisions. We found that, more than training to be imams, it is much more prevalent and important for British Muslim communities to pursue theological training to equip one to be a better person, a better Muslim and a better British citizen. Our model presented in Figure 2.1 outlines the range of Islamic Studies provision in the UK. They cover a spectrum from studies to better oneself, to studies that enhance one’s ability to minister to others. Here we bear witness, through our fieldwork, to the broad range of provision available in Britain for studying Islam in different ways. E.g. Cambridge Muslim College, MIHE, Islamic College Collaborative partnerships

Age Basic knowledge of religious practice

4–11

Madrasas

E.g. madrasa attached to local mosque

18+ Adult courses

11–18+

18–21+

Seminaries

UK universities

E.g. online E.g. darul courses, ulooms, jamias, Islamic circles hawzas

21+ Practical courses

E.g. degrees at SOAS and Cardiff

Figure 2.1 Mapping the provision for Islamic Studies in the UK

E.g. Faith Matters, chaplaincy

Knowledge sufficient to minister to others

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In the above figure, the boxes in the thick arrow at the centre of the diagram represent the five broad forms of Islamic Studies in the UK. We arrange them from organizations (on the left) that provide basic knowledge to enable individuals to practise their own faith, to organizations that provide pastoral, ministering and also academic knowledge. As the arrow progresses towards the right, the provision has a larger proportion of pastoral and applied theology skills, enabling successful graduates from such courses to minister to others. The figure also highlights the existence of a few collaborative partnerships between Muslim institutions and UK universities, the benefits of which we assert throughout this book and particularly in Chapter 6 on collaborative partnerships. The arrows and boxes above this outline the ages of students when they may be studying at each form of institution. In some cases, we suggest an age range, but in others, as indicated by the ‘+’ sign, older, more mature students may also be undertaking Islamic Studies at that form of institution. In the following sections, we discuss each broad form of institution in order to highlight the differences in provision and purpose that each represents. To personify what a student may experience we include in the discussion three fictional case studies about the experiences of three friends, Imani, Hamid and Tasneem, as they study at different Islamic Studies institutions. These case studies are based on ethnographic data from interviews and focus group discussions with young Muslims.

Madrasas/Maktabs These are small local schools that are usually annexed to mosques and/or Muslim community centres. These are usually led by the imam at a local mosque and function as supplementary schools with students from the locality attending either daily for a couple of hours after school or for longer sessions on weekends. The imam may be assisted by theologically trained alims and alimahs and also by volunteers from the community. Students learn basic knowledge to practise as ‘good’ Muslims. They are taught to read and write classical Arabic so that they can read the Quran. They may be taught tajwid (or the rules of pronunciation) so that they can recite the Quran correctly. They are taught how to make the five obligatory prayers, and may also be taught other optional prayers. At some madrasas, students may be told selected stories from Islamic history. The curricula will always reflect the denomination, school of thought or religious movement that the mosque is affiliated with, yet it is also significant to note that curricula are usually quite similar because of the very introductory

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level at which such education functions. The school also usually reflects ethnic heritage; for example, part of the teaching may be done in the dominant language of the mosque congregation such as Bengali, Urdu or Gujarati, as well as classical Arabic for the Quran. The curricula at madrasas offer very basic religious literacy only aimed at preparing students for life as religious and moral individuals. Students are very young and may start their madrasa education as early as 4–5 years old. There is no space for critical engagement, and students must accept what they are taught.

When Imani was five years old, her parents enrolled her in their local madrasa. She went to classes every day for an hour after school. The madrasa was on the top floor of the local mosque, and she attended classes with her friends Hamid and Tasneem. Since they were very young, boys and girls studied in the same classroom, so all three friends sat together. They were taught by the imam’s daughter, who had studied at a darul uloom for five years and was very knowledgeable. Imani learnt to read the Quran in Arabic and also learnt how to pray. Sometimes she was bored but not always. They were occasionally told stories about Prophet Muhammad, which was always inspiring. Imani remembers that when they were older, Hamid had to go to a different class because he was a boy, but they stayed in touch at school. When Imani was eleven or twelve years old, she stopped going to madrasa because she wanted to concentrate on preparation for her GCSE exams as she wanted to study medicine. At around the same time, Imani’s friend Tasneem went to study at a girls-only residential darul uloom sixty miles away.

Modern courses We use the term ‘modern courses’ as an umbrella term to describe a wide range of courses. Like madrasa education, they are designed for the individual to better their personal knowledge of the Islamic faith. These courses bridge traditional Islamic approaches with the use of modern technology to enable young British Muslims to intellectually engage with Islamic theology in ways that are not possible in more traditional settings. Completely unlike madrasas, these are undertaken in environments characterized by critical engagement and the freedom to ask difficult or searching questions. Often, these are set up by young second- and third-generation Muslims who want to engage with their faith, but who feel that mosques, madrasas or indeed parents are unable to provide the answers they are looking for. These are strongly rooted in a

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British Islamic identity, are delivered in English and deal with subjects of (1) ‘everyday’ significance such as Islamic finance or the arkans (rituals) of hajj, (2) identity-related issues such as British Muslim history and migration from the Indian subcontinent and (3) deep religious discussions on Sufism, aqidah (creed) or ethics. Such courses are undertaken both in real venues and also online via webinars and online tutorials. An example of such ‘modern courses’ is Islamic Courses, a London-based organization that offers such courses. This is material about their work taken from their website: Islamic Courses is a ‘non-profit’ project initiated by Islamic Circles, a community-based network … They organise a wide range of Islamic events, projects and activities including short courses, seminars, workshops, social gatherings and more. We serve as a much-needed platform to engage leading Muslim Theologians, Thinkers, Philosophers, Academics AND non-Muslim experts on various Islamic and Muslim-related subjects. These are aimed at/for young Muslim scholars, Imams, senior activists (dai’ees), junior Muslim academics and researchers, etc., on highly intellectual, content-based subjects through one day seminars. These seminars focus on subjects which are not covered by weekend Islamic Course providers and mainstream institutes like darul ulooms and Muslim Colleges. Subjects are delivered in one-day or weekend seminar formats by world class experts, be it Muslim or non-Muslim on the subject of their expertise and research. We tend to focus on ‘Islamic History’, aspects of theology, Quranic Studies, Philosophy, Modernity and classical text based works by important and famous Islamic Scholars of the past and present. We also focus on contemporary issues and matters which are not being addressed in an academic manner by many Muslim institutes.13

Just before going away to medical school, Imani decided to go for a weekend workshop on gender roles in Islam. She had studied in madrasa that once they were older, males and females must not talk or interact with each other. But she was going to university, which was a mixed environment where males and females would have to study together. Also, she was hoping to be a doctor, and she wanted to treat patients of either gender. She did not feel her madrasa had satisfactorily equipped her to deal with this issue. The workshop she had chosen was run by a group that consisted of theologians and also Muslims who had professional ‘secular’ roles – doctors, academics, financial experts. They convinced her that she would be treated with respect.

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She was very satisfied with her course and came back with a clearer and more open understanding of segregation of the sexes that allowed her to train and practise as a professional without compromising her personal faith choices. She realized she could treat both male and female patients without compromising her faith at all, as she had a duty of care towards them, and fulfilling one’s responsibilities is considered virtuous within Islam.

Seminaries We borrow the term seminary from Christian theological training provision. In our work, this refers to the darul ulooms, jamias and hawzas that are run by Sunni Deobandi, Sunni Barelwi and Shia groups, respectively. From our survey we found that there are currently 138 Islamic schools that are registered with the DfE: 128 are independent and ten are state-maintained voluntary aided faith schools. Eighty-four of these registered schools provided secondary school education, with some schools extending the range to cater for post-16 education. We were able to establish that thirty-eight of these Muslim secondary schools provide Islamic Sciences courses. Some of these thirty-eight registered secondary schools are seminaries.14 These seminaries provide in-depth Islamic theology through a programme which takes between five and eight years to complete. What is significant is that all seminaries provide both the extensive study of Islamic Sciences (Alimiyyah or Darse Nizami course) and subjects of the National Curriculum. This parallel track provision was clearly appreciated by the students, who told us that they were gaining the ‘best of both worlds’. All registered Muslim schools/seminaries provide at least the core subjects (English, Mathematics, Science and Religious Education) of the National Curriculum with many darul ulooms providing a good range of additional subjects. Most darul ulooms provide an Islamic Studies syllabus that allows students an opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of their faith, and, upon completion, students become alims and alimahs and are awarded an ijazah (certificate). Although this religious qualification is recognized by most mosques and religious places, it is not accepted by further education (FE) colleges and universities. This clearly prevents students graduating from darul ulooms to enter into higher education. However, to overcome this problem, we found many students taking ‘A’-level courses on two or more subjects on a parttime basis either at the institution or at their local FE college. We found many good examples where extensive Islamic Theology was combined with subjects

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of the National Curriculum at GCSE and advanced levels. In some cases, this provision is extended to the level of undergraduate studies. The Darse Nizami – a Classical Islamic Theology curriculum that originates in the Indian subcontinent – is by far the most widely studied course offered by those British Muslim institutions that provide faith leadership training programmes. All darul ulooms offer this course with some variations. The darul ulooms that educate eleven- to sixteen-year-old students provide the Darse Nizami in conjunction with some subjects of the National Curriculum. The subjects are taught either in the morning or in the afternoon and are provided to help students achieve some recognized qualifications so that their aspirations for formal FE/HE type of education are not hampered. Muslim institutions operating in this country have adopted the Darse Nizami course with some modifications to suit their institutions. This modification is different in different institutions. Some institutions have cut back on content which they consider as superfluous to the needs of students growing up in Britain, while others have taken a pragmatic decision to make it more manageable given the educational demands placed on students of compulsory school age. For Shia Muslim communities, hawza ilmiyya provides the structure for theological study, comprising the following stages: muqadamat (introductory studies), sutuh (intermediary–advanced studies), Dars al-Kharij (advanced– independent studies) and finally ijtihad (deducing laws independently, that is, where one becomes a mujtahid). The titles for hawza graduates will vary from a talaba (student) to shaykh, ustadh, hujjat al-Islam, mubaligh (fem. mubaligha), allama and ayatollah. In parallel to GCSE- and advanced-level teaching, most of the British Muslim schools/darul ulooms have preserved the book-based teaching style employed by the traditional Muslim institutions of the subcontinent. The entire syllabus is based on a series of textbooks which are taught throughout the duration of the course. Taking the six-year alim course as an example, we find that subjects such as Arabic grammar (etymology and syntax), vocabulary, fiqh, adab, aqidah, Hadith, tafsir and sirah are taught using the traditional teaching methods. Almost all these religious lessons are conducted in Urdu or Arabic. Arabic is mainly used in the final years of the course. Although most of the darul ulooms employ the traditional book-based method of teaching, we came across some individual cases, where the teacher had prepared a scheme of work and lesson plans to go with the scheme. In these lessons, there was a mixture of teaching styles: whole class didactic sessions followed by interactive sessions in small groups.

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Tasneem had gone to study at a residential darul uloom. She had chosen to go because she was inspired to learn more about her faith and also to learn to serve her community. Life at the darul uloom was very busy; she took national curriculum subjects in the morning and in the afternoon attended classes from her Alimiyyah/Islamic Studies course. Arabic was particularly difficult. She was encouraged to wear a niqab, about which she was initially unsure, but in the end she decided to wear it because all her classmates did. Life was very sheltered, all her teachers were female and she was told not to interact with unrelated males at all when she went home for the holidays – this was very different from what Imani had learnt at her weekend workshop! Although she enjoyed and valued her studies, she also felt they were a little limited – she wanted to know how to apply her theological skills in an environment that was simultaneously religiously diverse and secular.

Islamic Studies at UK universities Much more is known about Islamic Studies at universities than Islamic Theology in Muslim institutions, which explains the preponderance of the latter in this chapter. The Siddiqui report of 2007 provided a clear picture of Islamic provision in universities, which dates back to at least the seventeenth century, originally with chairs in Arabic at Oxford and Cambridge universities.15 Dr Siddiqui’s research clearly demonstrated the legacy of what can be called an orientalist approach, in which the Muslim is seen as the exotic other and also as the colonial subject. Siddiqui recommended reform and innovation in the teaching of Islamic Studies at UK universities. He proposed a curriculum that reflects the living reality for young Muslims in Britain: negotiating hybrid identities, facing the challenges of faith in a secular world and providing access to the demands of academic disciplines like sociology that often question religious belief. In 2010, Bernasek and Bunt provided a full definition of Islamic Studies as taught in universities and in some Muslim colleges:16 Islamic Studies is applied as an umbrella term which includes the study of Islam and Muslim societies in a variety of disciplines such as, but not exclusively, Religious Studies, Theology, Language Studies and Linguistics (in particular in relation to Arabic, but also including Turkish, Persian and other ‘Muslim’ languages), International Relations, Law, Finance and Business Studies, History, Literature and Textual Studies, Security Studies, Economics, Education, Science, Philosophy, Art, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Politics, Anthropology and

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Sociology, and interdisciplinary Area Studies programmes, for example those associated with Middle East or South Asian Studies.17

Bernasek and Bunt found that provision of Islamic Studies does not reflect concentrations of Muslim populations, but, rather, presumably, subject expertise and interest of academic staff. They found Islamic Studies to be most concentrated at SOAS, Oxbridge and Exeter and some other pre-1992 universities, but also that limited provision can be found at most institutions surveyed. A large amount of provision takes place within a core of disciplines and departments traditionally associated with Islamic Studies, namely Theology and Religious Studies (21%), Arabic and Islamic Studies (16%), Politics, Government and International Relations (12%) and History (9%). There is also a scattering of provision in a wide range of disciplines and departments, although a relatively small proportion of the modules identified contribute to named degrees in Islamic Studies. The greatest provision of Islamic Studies is at Master’s level. Bernasek and Bunt found quite a wide distribution: although many modules are devoted entirely to Islamic Studies topics, Islamic Studies is also taught in many modules for which Islam is not the primary focus.18 They did not comment on whether the field has developed according to the recommendations of the Siddiqui report.

Hamid, like Tasneem, was very interested in his faith and wanted to learn more about it. He chose to study Islamic Studies at a university in Britain. His studies were difficult, but what he was most perplexed by was the fact that the course content did not acknowledge the fact that many Muslims lived in the West, in Britain. He was constantly being called upon to be more critical in his essays, but was not sure what it meant to be critical – he was not prepared to criticize his faith, if that is what it meant. His was a three-year degree course, and by the middle of his course he gradually began to settle down into his study. After graduation he decided to continue study Islamic Studies at a higher level. He felt that it was important to bring a believer’s voice to the academic study of Islam and started a doctorate.

Collaborative partnerships We discuss collaborative partnerships in detail in Chapter 6, which is completely focused on this subject. However, we begin this discussion here. In-depth Islamic Theology provision is offered by Muslim seminaries and, much less,

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by universities. However, these very rarely engage with each other, which we believe is a lost opportunity for pluralist modern Britain. There is a need for the ‘pious’ outlook of the seminaries and the ‘critical’ outlook of universities to come together to create hybrid courses that can be horizon broadening and can also engage with the believer’s voice at the same time. These collaborations can take very different forms, and can be based on validation achieved through partnership or through sharing of pedagogy and curricula. We provide a few examples below: 1. Intellectual rigour: Cambridge Muslim College: Cambridge Muslim College was established by Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad (Tim Winter) and took its first cohort of students in 2009 for a one-year Diploma in Contextual Islamic Studies and Leadership. The college is a registered, non-denominational institution that, at the time of writing, is applying for charitable status and has no government affiliation. An informal element of partnership exists because Tim Winter lectures at Cambridge University and staff from the university come to Cambridge Muslim College to teach. The management team currently does not have validation for its course, but is considering seeking validation in future and hopes to develop threeto four-year degree courses, with part-time options. The college wishes to provide ‘an intensive introduction to a range of contemporary perspectives and disciplines which will complement the students’ existing Islamic education’. By ‘existing Islamic education’, we understand Tim/Shaykh Murad to mean Darse Nizami, taught in darul uloom and jamia, as it is his intended aim to complement full theological training with an understanding of the secular world that surrounds us: ‘The college’s academic approach is to integrate both traditional Islamic and Western scholarship in a critical and rigorous manner, not to treat them as parallel, separate elements.’ The scope of the curriculum appears to be a judicious blend of historical context (Western intellectual history), new coverage of vital areas (Islam and gender) and practical skills for daily communal living as a devout Muslim (e.g. counselling). The teachers are highly qualified in both Islamic and Western intellectual cultures; there are weekly Hadith and Quran classes and periodic seminars about traditional and contemporary Islam by visiting experts such as Tariq Ramadan and Cambridge University staff. The degree is variable to which students can achieve the critical combination of traditional Islamic and Western scholarship and then maintain it in their lives after they finish the course. As the website announces: ‘Our aim

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therefore is to connect the best students from British darul ulooms with some of the world’s best academics and thereby introduce young British ulema (Muslim scholars) to a whole new world of learning.’19 We believe that the long-term aim of this course is to provide three components necessary for faith leaders: religious learning, vocational education and practical ministry. 2. Modern theories in the study of religion: Al-Mahdi Institute: The Al-Mahdi Institute was established as a non-profit charity with the perceived need for an educational institute in the United Kingdom, Europe and beyond which would provide students with a structured degree course in the field of Arabic and Islamic Sciences within a multicultural and pluralist society. The fact that the members of the institute come from diverse intellectual and philosophical schools of thought is a reflection of the institute’s philosophy and mission. The curriculum is a modified form of the curriculum taught in the traditional Islamic colleges and can provide alim training. The major addition and difference between the institute and the traditional colleges of Islamic Studies is that there is great emphasis on the use of modern theories in the study of religion, theology and language. The other noted addition and difference is the institute’s use of English and Arabic as the main languages of instruction. The stated reason for introducing this modified curriculum is the need to train and prepare students who upon graduation will be able to function within the Western academic tradition as participants (not spectators) in contemporary intellectual discourse. 3. MA Islamic Studies and doctoral course at Islamic College: Islamic College in London presents various curricula, which at Bachelor’s and Master’s level do not necessarily emphasize the distinctive nature of Shiism (except the planned MA in Shia Studies) – the Shia focus comes at doctoral level. The Master’s-level courses in various Islamic Studies are validated by Middlesex University. These comprise Islamic Studies and Comparative Philosophy, and more are in preparation, for example, Islamic Banking and Finance, and Muslim Civilization and the Culture of Dialogue. The hawza studies provide ministerial and pastoral as well as theological training and offer a range of qualifications, none validated as yet. The first one is the Diploma in Muslim Chaplaincy, while the second is the Diploma in Shia Studies. Each takes two years. Students may also study the Muslim Ministry for becoming an alim, a religious scholar, which they may take to a higher level in the doctoral course. The term thiqat al-Islam means a junior, reliable

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religious scholar, and the term hujjat al-Islam may be used to refer to a senior alim, and Islamic College offers a wide range of approaches to Islam with a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Islamic Studies. At Bachelor’s and Master’s levels, these courses do not necessarily emphasize the distinctive nature of any particular Muslim sect. The BA Islamic Studies course offered at the college includes a year of Arabic studies through its Quranic Arabic Foundation Course. This course provides the students with a full one year’s study of Arabic, which assists them in understanding Arabic sources at the undergraduate- and postgraduate-level courses in various Islamic Studies. The Islamic Studies courses are validated by Middlesex University. These comprise Islamic Studies, Muslim Culture and Civilization, Islamic Law and Comparative Philosophy. There is also a complete ministerial and pastoral programme of hawza studies, which is also validated by Middlesex University. This gives theological training and understanding of Shia religious doctrine for religious scholars appropriately trained for Islamic centres in the UK. On completion of the course, students can become Muslim ministers and can also study further to higher levels, leading to doctoral courses in this field both at home and abroad. The Islamic College assists Muslim ministers to acquire reliable religious scholarly status, leading to positions of hujjat al-Islam: this term refers to a senior alim, which would assist the students to provide their professional understanding of religious values to the general public through existing Islamic centres. The doctoral studies include studying at authentic international Shia theological seminaries, thereby providing students with greater knowledge from classical and modern sources of religious doctrine. Over more than a decade (up to 2015 at the time of writing), these programmes have been built up by Dr Mohammed Mesbahi and his team, to provide recognized qualifications for students wishing to study Islamic Theology with Shia components.

When Tasneem completed her darul uloom course, she realized that she had a wealth of knowledge but no recognized qualification. She could be an alimah and teach in Muslim schools and perhaps offer advice and ministry in her community, but she had always wanted to know more, to broaden the scope of her work. She came across information about a Muslim college that had a partnership with a big UK university that offered an MA course. She could get onto this course after completing a special entrance examination. The initial months of her course were extremely difficult for her – how could

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she be critical of sacred knowledge? However, a female Muslim lecturer teaching a course on gender roles in Islam demonstrated that it was possible to be both critical and religious at the same time. Tasneem saw how patriarchal readings of religious texts had led to a marginalization of women’s scholarly voices. So, for example during her darul uloom studies, she had studied about Khadijah, the wife of the Prophet, and that she was a role model for all Muslims. Her darul uloom studies had only focused on Khadijah’s piety and modesty, but her lecturer also told her about Khadijah’s business acumen, agency and beneficence towards the early Muslim community. When she read the Islamic rulings about modesty, she decided the niqab was not a foundational belief and perhaps more of a cultural practice – she decided she was not going to wear it in professional contexts.

4. Secular curriculum with multicultural focus: Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education: Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education in Dundee, Scotland, led by Dr Hossein Godazgar, is a private college of higher education that focuses upon relations between Islam and the West. It provides no religious education and offers an approach to the Muslim world and Islam through humanities, social sciences and core approaches. This resembles Islamic Studies at university. At the time of writing, in 2015, the college was seeking validation for higher degrees, following severance of its collaborative partnership with Aberdeen University. Al-Maktoum has established a validated programme with Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), offering certificates and diplomas in Arabic, Islamic finance and study of Islam and Muslims. Al-Maktoum also offers community education classes in beginners’ Arabic. Since 2010, Al-Maktoum has been offering a successful programme of Open Lectures, expanded from an annual lecture to seven or eight per year by 2012. Speakers include David Thomas, Shuruq Naguib and Angelika Neuwirth, thereby demonstrating a wide range of different approaches to Islam and the Muslim world in conjunction with other religions and cultures. In 2014, the college started a new research centre for the study of Islamic diversity, education and ethics, which would make funds available to its new, as yet unconfirmed validation partner.

Practical courses This is the final category in our range of provisions. This category includes all those courses that offer students a practical skill that they may use in their

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everyday work as ministers and leaders of their communities. In their study of religion and education in Europe, Jackson and his team of researchers indicate the ‘correlation between low levels of religious education and a willingness to use religion as a criterion of exclusion and confrontation’.20 These practical courses give young Muslims the religious education and the everyday skills that they need to challenge exclusionary and confrontational narratives while also dealing with the real issues that Muslim communities are facing in the West. Here are a few examples: 1. Certificate in Muslim Chaplaincy: At MIHE, Dr Ataullah Siddiqui, with Dr Fatma Amer, has developed a course for Muslim chaplains that provides training for chaplaincy in three areas: HM Prison Service, NHS hospitals and further education or higher education. This course is the first of its kind and has set a trend for acceptance that chaplaincy is a workable concept in British Islam. The study routine attempts to fit in with busy lives and to give time for placements and moral growth, running for eight days spread over seven months. Entry requirements are flexible, allowing for experience as well as paper qualifications: GCSEs and English-language competence, as well as some experience with community work. This flexibility is appropriate for adult students. The course takes both men and women, both experienced and novice chaplains, demonstrating the perceived need for such training:

Markfield Institute of Higher Education Chaplaincy course Dr Siddiqui explains: We have run eleven cohorts, starting in 2003: at that time the idea of chaplaincy was that it was a Christian concept and many Muslims wanted nothing to do with it. Now 250 students have successfully graduated with the certificate, and the average intake is eighteen. Seventysix of the students came onto the course as ulema/imams and seven were alimahs, although the theological training is not an entry requirement. So they can add to their pure theology the practical life skills for working with the community – both Muslim and other communities. It is essential that the students engage with the tensions between their own beliefs and those of others. They must undertake critical reflection and they have sixty hours of working with another team largely from a different faith. This really changes a lot of their preconceived ideas. It is a two-way process;

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when we send students on placement, people are impressed with them. In several universities in the Midlands for example, the chaplaincy team are so impressed with students from our chaplaincy course, with their commitment to their faith and their approach to the faith of others, that they create jobs for them. Of course, this is unpaid, voluntary, but it still shows that they want them as part of the multi-faith team. Some Muslim chaplains create a role for themselves in their own community when they finish the course; they now see the potential for the work they do and play an active role, [and] some have made a niche for themselves in their community. When I am accused of stealing the best ulema from the mosques, I say ‘guilty as charged’. The next step is for our trained chaplains to be actively included in the life of the mosque. A few are achieving this already and are attached to mosques. They have also lost the hesitation they used to have about other faiths and the society of those who are not Muslim. We will offer a new validated Master’s chaplaincy course with Newman University from 2014 onwards and our focus is always on Islamic thought as well as practice in this world. Dr Ataullah Siddiqui, Markfield Institute of Higher Education, September 2014, personal communication

2. Religious continuing professional development (CPD) – Faith Associates: Faith Associates is a community-led organization that describes itself as influencing ‘the strategic planning of decision makers in all levels of government and non-governmental organisations’ and working with ‘with faith based-communities, young people and women to empower those communities’.21 In partnership with the University of East London, it runs a course which offers imams and madrasa teachers a Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). This course is a collaborative partnership, which also makes this fit into the previous category; however, we chose to include this here due to its practical skills element. This programme is designed to deepen students’ knowledge and skills, allowing them to become more effective madrasa or mosque teachers and to develop a teaching approach and curriculum that is relevant and fit for purpose in their context. It is aimed at people who are already teaching in madrasas and those interested in developing a career in this area. They also run nonvalidated courses on mosques and madrasa management, leadership and safeguarding skills.

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Imani, Hamid and Tasneem have now all completed their education. Imani is a doctor in a nearby hospital. Hamid has a PhD and is lecturing at a local university. Tasneem has graduated in Islamic Studies from both a university and a seminary. She did not have any practical skills, so finding a job was difficult. She then completed a certificate course and is now a chaplain at both the hospital and the university. Imani, Hamid and Tasneem all began their Islamic Studies in the same madrasa; however, they then continued their studies in different forms of Muslim institutions. They have all had to struggle in different ways. Imani had to understand how to balance her religious faith and her secular career. Her medical practice demonstrates the practical compromises that are possible – she wears a hijab (headscarf) to work, but not a niqab (face veil) and treats both males and females. Hamid has a stable job at the university and through his scholarship constantly challenges orientalist approaches to Islamic Studies – he wishes he could have studied classical theology; however, he recognizes that he would not have the job security he now has if he had done so. Tasneem perhaps faces the most struggles. Despite studying theology for five years in a darul uloom to gain her theology qualifications, these were not recognized by the employment market, and she had to undertake further study. Working within her own community was hard too: as a trained religious scholar (alimah), she could give good advice about ethical dilemmas, but if the advice was sought by a male, her brother acted as intermediary. She hopes in time to use her education to alter such practices.

Summary and conclusions The young Muslims we interviewed often expressed a need for constantly renewed interpretations of religious texts in order to find answers to modern problems – some questioned whether this can be satisfied by the traditional seminary or whether there must be an additional aspect, that is, real engagement with the living world on the street and in the supermarket. They worried about how such engagement can be managed without too much contamination from excessive economic secularism. It is also clear that most higher education facilities, and these Muslim provisions are no exception, do not facilitate the active opportunity to respect the presence of others by actually being with those whom one considers different. In 2002, Amin wrote about ‘micropublics’, a term to encapsulate the places where dialogue and ‘prosaic negotiations’ are

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compulsory, in sites such as the workplace, schools, colleges, youth centres, sports clubs and other spaces of association.22 Yet, this can be avoided in higher education; even in a university seminar, it is possible to avoid interaction with others, and certainly around campus it can be managed. One of our concerns is how it can become possible to facilitate this active respect for the presence of the other, when the democratic ethos of freedom of choice, paradoxically, facilitates the opposite – if one chooses to avoid those who seem different. There is tension within each of us about how to lead a good life, and this is reflected in our society, and in our cultural identities. In a democracy like that in Britain, we believe that we must be attentive to all voices along the cultural spectrum, from those who appear non-believing, or inactive in their faith, to those who display their faith adherence confidently. Initial concerns raised during our research by various British Muslim groups suggest that the young and the women believe they are not being heard in their own communities. Our research also indicates that Shia Muslim groups and Sunni Barelwi groups may feel that their voices are not heard outside their own communities, because the Sunni Deobandi and recently Sunni Salafi voice is strong. We wish to initiate consideration of the variety of ways in which the needs of different groups can be met and we propose various future possibilities for consideration by Muslim communities. As a result of discussions, visits, interviews and consultations, we have identified a range of different forms of provision, from the relatively practical life skills of Faith Matters, the chaplaincy and the balanced curriculum of the darul ulooms, through the blended curricula of Cambridge Muslim College, to the faith-based approach of the traditional seminaries. Clearly, as in other recent research projects, the politicization of the research field meant that all respondents were conscious of being part of a community under public and government scrutiny. Moreover, in a secular society like that of Britain, we see the tendency for the mainstream educational establishment to assess the authenticity of courses by their secular content and accreditation by national examination or assessment bodies. By contrast, the leaders of religious communities may assess the authenticity of courses by the status of the faith-based elements; this can include study abroad, where teachers provide traditional courses and are Arabic speakers. The perceived authenticity of these courses is measured differently depending on the criteria being used: are we interested in a faith leader who has the accreditation or the authenticity or who is devout or who is attuned to plural British life, and are these – accreditation, authenticity, devoutness and plurality – compatible? Clearly, the issue of accreditation is at the heart of any

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full societal acknowledgement of learning and the wish for jobs and salaries, whereas authenticity and devoutness are key to religious life and practice within British Muslim communities. We believe that work is still to be done around issues of scholarly and spiritual authenticity and authority and about how a secular university and a faith institution can agree about these issues.

Conclusion and recommendations There are two types of higher education courses on Islam being taught in Britain in parallel, with little or no cross-fertilization between them: the Muslim seminaries and colleges tend to teach with a faith-based approach, and the universities tend to teach according to the disciplinary codes and take an approach that is described as ‘critical’. The faith-based courses are rigorous with regard to depth and breadth of curricula and require high levels of student effort and high standards, yet they are usually not academically controlled and may lag behind quality-assured courses in terms of pedagogy: significant exceptions are those courses that are validated by a university (MIHE by Newman and Islamic College by Middlesex.) The university-based courses in Islamic Studies are quality assured and validated, yet those offered without collaboration with a Muslim college (i.e. the majority) tend to be taught from a non-Muslim perspective. It is also necessary to understand that there is a great hunger in British Islam for good teaching about the faith: many British Muslims undertake theological study, and most of them are motivated by the desire to be morally better and to be better citizens and usually have no desire to become imams or other leaders. We found that many young Muslims see the limitations of classical study for understanding modern life, yet they also see the limitations of Islamic Studies at university, which usually do not facilitate engagement with subject matter from a Muslim perspective, but look in from the outside. There is already a range of different support systems and guidance for Muslims of different persuasions and needs, from the practical community work of the Faith Matters course to the religion-only courses offered in madrasas. Our research shows that many Muslim institutions offer state examinations at school level (GCSE, A level). Very few are validated at university level. However, there are distinct influences in one direction; the Islamic education courses that are validated by universities are obliged to follow rigorous curricular structures and quality assurance procedures to ensure fairness. These courses are also influenced by research methodologies that are currently followed in

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university: differentiating between qualitative and quantitative approaches, combining them into mixed methods and being aware of modern hermeneutical approaches to interpretation. This creates interesting creative tensions with faithbased thought. There should also be beneficial influence flowing in the other direction, from the Muslim colleges to the universities: the Muslim institutions contain Arabists and theologians whose expertise would enrich the mainstream university curriculum. We believe the existing situation can be enhanced by the following: ●

●

●

●

Bringing together the religious and the secular through providing for religious learning, vocational education and practical ministry; we emphasize the value of work placements and of sharing staff expertise. Validating Muslim school and college courses at university so that many years of study can be acknowledged. Coordinating courses so that different qualifications can be combined: we see already how valuable it is when a trained alim or alimah becomes a chaplain. Thinking about the pastoral needs of communities: from community focus groups and consultation meetings, our research reflects a clear desire from within these communities for religious leaders who can give guidance in how to manage the tension between religious beliefs and the demands of the secular world.

To conclude, the provision for Islamic Studies in Britain is wide and ranges from basic religious skills to pastoral and religious leadership courses. The provision is beginning to reflect the embeddedness of British Islam in plural constructs of Britishness and vice versa: Britishness is embedded in British Islam. Yet there is very little provision that takes into account both the Britishness and Muslimness of British Muslims, and collaborative partnerships between Muslim institutions remain few. Participants in our research assert that efforts to initiate further partnerships are often met with suspicion and barriers that prevent their success. We, in Britain, hope we are moving towards a more cohesive future. We also continue to face challenges caused by radicalization, terrorism and far-right politics and the fear generated by all three – fear that exaggerates these phenomena.23 It is useful here to use Ricœur’s ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’; he showed how Marx, Freud and Nietzsche demonstrated that humans habitually conceal their true motives for acting when they are motivated by the desire for money, sex and power, respectively.24 We can use

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the hermeneutics of suspicion to question the motives and the evidence for emphasizing possibilities of terror attacks. Here we can instructively consider the French philosopher Guy Debord on the mechanism of terror: Such a perfect democracy constructs its own inconceivable foe, terrorism. Its wish is to be judged by its enemies rather than by its results. The story of terrorism is written by the state and is therefore highly instructive. The spectators must certainly never know everything about terrorism, but they must always know enough to convince them that, compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.25

Yet we also need the optimism and the imagination that can carry us forward. We need courses that create citizens who are knowledgeable about their faith, who can engage with secular aspects of Britain and who lead British Muslims and their non-Muslim neighbours towards inter-community understanding and a more cohesive future.

3

More Than Imams: New Narratives of Muslim Faith Leadership

Our consultations with Muslim communities emphasise the importance of the training of imams. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will be announcing an independent review to examine, with the communities, how to build the capacity of Islamic seminaries, learning from other faith communities as well as from experience overseas. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speech to the House of Commons, autumn 2007 The general understanding of Muslim faith leadership in Britain appears to be either confused or incorrect. The word ‘imam’ is by far the most common term used to describe a Muslim faith leader. Very rarely is there a mention of any other faith leaders besides imams in the general media coverage or other public spaces. Newspaper headlines focus on foreign-trained imams, imams who preach fire and brimstone speeches from mosque pulpits, imams who radicalize young British Muslims or imams who are incapable of dealing with radicalization or even with social issues and problems. Yet, other than the occasional high-profile, usually terrorism-related cases, British citizens are not actually told who these men are and how they become imams. Furthermore, other leadership roles are only rarely mentioned. In this chapter, we aim to clarify and challenge this inordinate focus on the word ‘imam’ without any discussion of who an imam is or what he does. Leadership within the Muslim community is not and never was limited to the mosque – various forms of formal and informal faith leadership exist in communities, community organizations, schools, news media and online spaces. We will discuss the many other terms, roles and forms of religious and community leadership which exist within the Muslim community.

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We build on our discussions of Islamic education as studied in Muslim seminaries – in this chapter, however, our emphasis shifts from the content and challenges of the educational processes to life after accomplishing a high level of competence in Islamic theology. What do the British Muslim scholars do with their scholarship, how are they serving their communities and in what ways are they contributing to British society? The assumption is that these young scholars go on to become imams; however, this is far from the reality of British Muslim communities we worked with while undertaking the research that informs this book. In this chapter, we discuss the diverse ways in which Muslim faith leadership is experienced and exemplified in modern and plural Britain. Our narrative of Muslim faith leadership presents a paradigm shift in the way both traditional Muslim faith leadership and Classical Islamic Theology are perceived and understood, both within British Muslim communities, and by wider plural society. We track how traditional Muslim faith leadership roles have responded to secular British society. In doing so, the leaders and their theological study (that leads to their formation) have engaged with and adapted to British values, morals and social norms and as a result both have become more plural. The most significant aspect of the paradigm shift is the recognition within our narrative of the ‘evolution’ of leadership and the resultant ‘new’ forms of faith leadership that are British, Western and Muslim at the same time. Our work is groundbreaking in its examination of the ‘British history’ of Muslim faith leadership and its presentation of the diverse contemporary Muslim faith leader roles we have in Britain. This imagination of faith leadership recognizes the roles and contribution for female leaders, which we discuss in further detail in Chapter 5. It also recognizes that faith leadership can be relevant in spaces that are secular or not religious. Finally, by acknowledging their contributions, we begin a process by which their authority in plural society may be recognized.

Imams or Muslim faith leaders – Widening the terms of reference We begin this discussion with a vignette from our research which illustrates the problems that can be caused by this blinkered focus on imams. In 2008, following concerns around terrorism and preventing violent extremism, the then Prime Minister made the comment that is presented at the beginning of this chapter. Subsequently, we were commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government to undertake a research review of

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how Muslim faith leaders are trained in Britain. What makes this vignette interesting is that the original title of the work did not use the term ‘Muslim faith leaders’ at all; instead, the preferred term in the government, the media and possibly the communities they were consulting with was ‘imams’. In our opinion, this focus on imams is problematic because it does not adequately reflect the diversity of Muslim community and the different forms of leadership that exist within it: ●

●

●

Women are not usually imams in the Muslim community, but Muslim women in Britain take on a variety of different leadership roles. In a society that still retains vestiges of patriarchy, women in all religious and nonreligious communities are particularly marginalized in leadership roles. For example, in Britain, female political leaders, CEOs, professors and parliamentarians are much fewer in number than their male counterparts.1 Furthermore, in some Muslim communities, a different form of patriarchy exists which promulgates religious interpretations that are less amenable to the rights of women.2 In such environments of male dominance and female marginality, Muslim women’s experience of and access to religious leadership needs to be contextualized for a complete picture. In Shia contexts, the word ‘imam’ has a completely different meaning and refers to a very specific form of divinely appointed spiritual leadership. The Shias in Britain are a minority within a minority. The Sunni–Shia tensions in the Middle East and in the India–Pakistan subcontinent are growing. The migration patterns from the British colonial era continue to bring mostly Sunni Muslims to Britain, and so it is all the more imperative that Shia voices and experiences of leadership are heard. There are a number of other leadership roles within British Muslim communities. Such roles may be described using Islamic or Arabic terms – alims, alimahs, ustadhs, ustadhahs, mujtahids, mujtahidahs – whereas other roles are described using English terms and in some cases possibly more ‘secular’ terms – chaplains, youth workers, faith advisers, etc. The latter roles are particularly relevant to Islam in the West as these have often been created as a response to the plural contexts within which Islam has evolved in the West and as a result of the need for Muslim communities to function in religiously diverse and pluralist professional and social contexts. Indeed, a term such as Muslim chaplain has been directly ‘borrowed’ from Christianity. Such roles need to be included in any discussion about theology, theological formation and religious leadership.

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In today’s IT-enabled world, religions, their practice and discussions about them have moved to the Internet as well, where they have an important presence that is gradually gaining more significance, particularly among the young. This is true for all religions; however, for this book, we refer to discussions that young people are having about their faith on social networking sites such as Facebook, on online forums and on blogs. It has been observed that these online discussions can often be more critical and reflective than real-world ‘offline’ discussions, because young people (often erroneously) feel this is a safe anonymized space.3 What forms of Muslim faith leadership are emerging online? For example, on some online forums, ‘moderators’ and ‘senior members’, particularly those who are religiously more aware, are often respected and perceived as leaders by other forum users. Therefore, framing research or popular discussion using the word ‘imam’ alone is insufficient and usually means that a number of voices are not heard. While we acknowledge the significance and topicality of the role of imam, we also recognize that many questions about an imam’s role remain unanswered – who is an imam, what does he do and why is he significant? As in other religious groups, the concept of leadership in Islam is a complex one. Different denominations, religious movements and ethnic and linguistic groups within Islam attach very different interpretations to the concept of faith leadership. So first, as in the research project to which this vignette refers and in our current work, we prefer to use the term ‘Muslim faith leader’, which we believe will allow the discussions in this chapter to be inclusive and to demonstrate that faith leadership within the Muslim community consists of more than just imams. There are other types and forms of faith leaders that are particularly significant in plural and multicultural contexts, and which allow for the contributions of less-voiced groups – women, minorities – to be heard. Second, we assert that there is a need for greater clarity about the roles that an imam undertakes. In this chapter, we will discuss Muslim faith leadership, but in doing so we will critique the narrow ways in which the imam’s role is construed not just in popular media and policy-speak, but also in traditional Muslim discourses.

Imams – Beyond traditional constructs The term ‘imam’ in its original Arabic meaning simply means ‘in front of ’ and in Sunni contexts is used to refer to the person, male or female, who stands in front of others and leads the congregational prayers that are offered in the

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mosque, in community settings or even in the home. Most imams are based full-time or part-time at a mosque. Shia mosques would similarly have a person who leads the prayer in a mosque, who colloquially will be called an imam, but who must not be confused with the more core Shia theological construct of divinely ordained spiritual imams. In both Sunni and Shia contexts, the imam or the person who leads the prayer in a mosque is usually a man. However, leadership in Muslim communities is exercised by both men and women in several other kinds of institutional spaces, including in schools, universities and community organizations, and increasingly nowadays in cyberspace, through websites and blogs. There is no formal process by which one may become ordained as a priest or other formal form of faith leadership in Islam. Unlike Christianity, Islam does not have centralized formal hierarchies of religious authority that stipulate specific qualifications or even a definition for an imam. Muslim communities the world over have their own local historical, environmental, political, social and religious contexts, and systems of religious authority have evolved as a response to the needs of these specific communities. Such varying local circumstance means that the social production of ‘being Muslim’ or the lived experience of religion is a local process which is unique to each community and its geographical location. These local ‘Islams’ are different from each other; however, they also share common beliefs and lexicons as drawn from the foundational Islamic texts.4 So Muslims from different communities would have the same foundational belief in the five pillars of Islam.5 Similarly, their lexicon – their vocabulary – would include Arabic words and phrases that are universally understood and used in conversations across Muslim communities worldwide, such as the Muslim greeting ‘Assalam Alaikum’ (may peace be with you). These individual communities in the historical and social process of defining themselves have developed and implemented systems through which (imams and) faith leaders may be trained and selected and also particular criteria that they are required to meet. Hence, for example, the Darse Nizami curriculum of Classical Islamic Sciences was developed as a perceived need, in eighteenthcentury India, to preserve Islamic forms of religious education and as a form of resistance to the reform and perceived ‘secularization’ of education being conducted by British colonial rulers.6 The Darse Nizami, which has already been discussed in Chapter 2, may be understood as a localized form of theological training that led to the formation of scholars and imams, particularly in South Asian contexts. Having developed in Uttar Pradesh in what is modern north India, this evolved to become the preferred form of training in Sunni

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communities in most of the Indian subcontinent. As discussed in Chapter 1, when South Asian migrants migrated to the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s, they brought this curriculum with them. In Britain, curricula or systems to train Muslim faith leaders, such as the Darse Nizami, continue to evolve in response to modern changes in Muslim communities, albeit at a slower pace than many policy-makers, communities and young people would like. Given that Britain is a proverbial melting pot within which different Muslim communities coexist, this model has had to engage with other models and systems, for example from the Middle East, Bosnia–Herzegovina and North Africa. Furthermore, young British Muslims who are born and brought up in the UK have initiated the dialectical processes to articulate and consolidate a British Muslim ‘way of being’ or British Islam. As they consolidate this new hybrid and hyphenated identity position, young British Muslims are also making new demands of their religious leadership. They are demanding that it responds to their local contexts here in Britain and that, in addition to it being inherently Islamic, it is also inherently British, European and Western in nature. To briefly go back to the basic meaning of the term, an imam is any individual, male or female, who leads congregational prayer. The ijma opinion or consensus is that male imams can lead mixed congregations of men and women, and that female imams may lead women-only congregations although some schools of thought forbid or discourage this (we discuss female faith leadership and some of the challenges in Chapter 5 on Muslim women’s voices). Foundational Islamic texts specify only basic criteria for the person who leads the prayer: that he or she should be of sound mind, be of good character and have sufficient knowledge of the Quran and the rules of prayer. However, as one examines community discussions about imams, a more complex picture begins to emerge about what characteristics an imam should have. Some of these, as in the excerpt from the Behisti Zevar,7 a significant (and also contested) Deobandi text (see on the next page), seem to ‘develop’ the basic requirements mentioned in the Quran and the Hadith. Personal attributes like having a ‘sweet voice’, being ‘handsome’ or being ‘well dressed’ are added to the original criteria. Such descriptions are enlightening in that they demonstrate the non-hierarchical ‘democratic’ structures within Muslim communities – the followers must choose their leader. However, these are also significant in demonstrating how the reasonably straightforward and simple requirements for an imam as set out in the foundational texts have been made more complicated in subsequent religious commentaries. An important critique of descriptions

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such as this one is that they are almost exclusively focused on the male faith leader, with no space for women’s leadership roles:

The followers should select such a person as imam who is most suitable and possesses a virtuous conduct from amongst those present for the congregational prayer. If there are several such persons, then the choice of majority shall prevail. If in the presence of a most suitable and qualified person some other man is appointed imam, then it will be an act against the Sunnah and would amount to giving up Sunnah. The person most suited to be imam should be one in order of merits and qualifications as under: a. He is well versed with the requisites of prayer provided that there is no apparent impiety in him and he fully remembers the minimum portion of the Holy Quran, the recitation of which is Sunna, and recites the Holy Quran correctly b. Then the person who recites the Holy Quran properly according to the rules of intonation c. Then the oldest amongst those present for the congregation d. Then the person who is the most handsome e. Then the most respectable person f. Then one who possesses sweet voice g. Then the man who is most well dressed h. Then a resident in preference to a traveller i. The person possessing two qualities should be preferred over one possessing only one, i.e. a person who knows the requisites of prayer and also recites the Holy Quran correctly and properly, should be preferred over the one who knows the requisites of prayer but cannot recite the Holy Quran so properly. Behisti Zewar, p.190

Further exploration of key texts and also community discussions online and offline highlight further complexities in the criteria that communities set for choosing their faith leaders. The imam, as a visible community leader, performs the additional function of consolidating that community’s religious identity. So in selecting their imam, communities apply criteria that allow for their community’s cultural heritage, denominational affiliation, lingual preferences, etc., to be mirrored and sustained in the persona of the imam. Therefore, in

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addition to the criteria discussed above, communities may specify further requisites for the imam, such as the following: 1. Some schools of thought insist that an imam must have a beard that satisfies the Sunnah criteria. This, it is said, is an important aspect of a Muslim man’s Islamic attire. 2. Some religious movements/denominations define the criteria for an imam in ways so as to exclude individuals from other groups from becoming an imam. For example, some Sunni groups would insist that an imam acknowledges that Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman were the first three righteous caliphs, which immediately excludes a Shia from leading the prayer in their mosque. The obverse is also possible, as with Shias stipulating that the person who leads the prayer acknowledges that Ali was the first caliph. 3. Similarly Deobandi, Barelwi and other groups would have similar stipulation that preserve the integrity of their specific religious identity. 4. Our 2008–2010 research indicated that in the West, particularly in Britain, there exists a power struggle between older and younger sections of the community, of whom the former would prefer imams who can speak and preach in the language of the country of their origin. This is so that the culture of their ancestral ‘home’ may be preserved in diaspora communities. This has led to some mosques having imams who have attained their religious qualifications (either having completed the Darse Nizami or having attended an Islamic seminary) abroad and who have recently moved to the UK. However, young people who have strong British Muslim identities and governments seem to prefer English-speaking and as far as possible locally trained imams whose sermons (delivered in English) they can understand and who understand the British way of life, contexts, social problems and civic systems.

Imams – A more rounded discussion The basic construct of an imam as somebody who leads the prayer is by no means the only discussion about imams. Anthropological study of dynamics within the Muslim community reveals a much wider remit for the imam and his duties. Except where they are central mosques for an entire city (e.g. London, Edinburgh and Glasgow have central mosques), mosques usually cater to

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specific ethnic, linguistic and denominational communities. So, for example, it is not unusual to find a Sunni Deobandi Gujarati Indian mosque and another Sunni Deobandi Pakistani mosque in the same town or city, sometimes even on the same street! The specific communities they service are therefore close-knit, bonded together by common ancestral heritage, language and cultural practices. In these communities, the imam as the leader of the prayer becomes the most visible elder/senior figure who must be respected. Although in theory an imam is only expected to have sufficient religious knowledge to lead the prayer, in practice many British communities as represented by their mosque committees usually require some form of theological qualification. The imam in traditional Muslim contexts did not always have a pastoral role; the closest he came to such a role was to offer advice based on the shariah or Islamic law on civil matters such as marriage, divorce and inheritance. He also performed rites for births, marriages and deaths. A Sufi spiritual leader, a murshid, on the other hand, did not just offer advice – he or she was usually more involved in the physical and spiritual well-being of his or her followers or murids too (please see discussion below about murshids). However, patterns of migration to Britain meant that communities established mosques and immediately needed imams and so appointed them, whereas the arrival of murshids in Britain was a much slower process. Furthermore, in Western contexts, particularly in Britain, where until recently Christianity was the dominant religion, the wider Christian community that has been socialized to understand Christian constructs of faith leadership imposes their perception of Christian leadership onto the role of the imam. Like a parish priest, an imam is constructed as the leader of his flock, responsible for their spiritual and material well-being. He is also perceived as the representative of his community in the media and wider social contexts such as at interfaith dialogue events. In modern British contexts, rather than simply lead the prayer, the imam’s role has become more complex and includes expectations, from both Muslim and non-Muslim sections of the community, of pastoral support and community liaison. He is the shepherd herding his flock, and he is also a dialogian representing his (and his community’s) religious views to plural audiences. This ‘enhanced role’ that many British imams take on is partly because of the expectation of the wider community, given the more rounded and pastoral role expected of Christian vicars and pastors. However, it is also symptomatic of the fact that nascent British Muslim immigrant communities in the 1970s and 1980s needed leaders. In an era that did not have Muslim Members of Parliament, Muslim community workers and

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other forms of ‘Muslim leadership’, the imam was vested with a leadership role that extended beyond his religious duties:

The imam – What does he do? (This is based on interviews and discussions with practising imams.) Core duties – What does a British imam do? ●

●

He leads the five daily prayers, conducts marriages and funerals, preaches and teaches. He advises on fiqh and fiqh issues, works for and with the mosque committee and writes reports for the committee.

What do some British imams do in addition? ●

●

●

They may train and line-manage other mosque staff, including the muezzin and maktab teachers. They may do community cohesion work with schools and local government, mediate with the press and appear on local radio. There may also be denomination-specific prayers and private functions.

The imam may also ●

take on a wide range of pastoral roles, such as setting up a football team and working with a local university to overturn prejudiced stereotypes.

What training does he have? ●

He will have some theological training. He may, or may not, already be an alim, that is, have undertaken formal scholarly training, which is the Dars al-kharij or Darse Nizami. A minority of imams also have UK degrees, even up to doctoral level. The main training is theological.

Some imams take on even more! Yahya Birt defines the ‘good’ imam as ‘one who embodies civic virtues, interfaith tolerance, professional managerial and pastoral skills, possibly become involved in inner city regeneration, work as an agent of national integration (most importantly on behalf of his young unruly flock), and wage a jihad against extremism’.8 The imam becomes a ‘superman’

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who must manage all these varied tasks but who is often not given the time, support (infrastructure and people) or training required to deal with problems as diverse as unsupportive mosque committees, divorce counselling, drug abuse and bad press! Furthermore, many young people expect imams to steer social change in British society: And if somebody tries to go and explain to them ‘Oh you should allow you[r] daughters to go into HE’ they are not going to listen. But if they go to the mosque and the imam says my daughter goes to university and we should all encourage our daughters, it will all change everything … I think imams are the leaders of grass-roots Muslims; they should be encouraging this change. Farida, a young woman from Leicester

So the imam is also a religious scholar and therefore the first port of call for advice and expertise on all forms of community issues such as marital problems, a need for special prayers, officiating in a religious capacity at social functions and managing rites of passage. It is important to note here that although imams are a source of advice for communities, they are limited in the amount and quality of advice they can give. While they have theological knowledge and are aware of the religious laws and social customs of their respective communities, they do not usually have practical skills in counselling or pastoral care. Throughout our research process, we came across young students or newly qualified religious scholars who said they would like to acquire practical skills that they believed would allow them to better support their communities. Moreover, young British Muslims told us that they would welcome such support. Below is a case study about Abdullah, an imam who trained in Pakistan and who is now an imam in a mosque in a city in the North of England.

Case study 1: A ‘cool’ foreign-trained imam Abdullah is a foreign-trained imam. He has trained in South Africa and Pakistan. When he finished his training, which lasted eight years, he was offered a job to be an imam in Britain. He liked the idea of seeing a new country and took the job. Abdullah is a busy man. He leads the prayers, gives the Friday sermon, teaches local children Islamic Studies and Arabic, and presides at weddings and other religious ceremonies – the usual stuff that an imam is expected to do. But that is not all he does – in fact, he may even be called a ‘super-

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imam’. He visits local schools to talk to the children about Islam, he goes on the radio to talk about Islam, local politicians seek his advice on sensitive matters, and the list goes on. He is particularly concerned about the young people in his congregation. So during Friday sermons (sometimes to the dismay of the elders), he talks about matters such as drug abuse, gang crime or even bullying at school. During teaching sessions, he tries to make the subject matter interesting and relevant to his students’ interests. He says that to engage with the youth, ‘You must talk their language’. And so he plays football with his boys! Abdullah tries his best to balance his duties, but sometimes his wife complains about him not spending enough time with her and their two children. There is one more concern he has – he is not paid enough. There are no formal frameworks in place that decide how much an imam should be paid. He nevertheless continues to be a dedicated football-playing imam, even though he has had other job offers.

Faith leadership: More than imams We began this chapter with a commitment to demonstrate the diversity of Muslim faith leadership. Our research shows that Muslim faith leadership in Britain takes different forms in different communities. These may be broadly categorized as roles that stem from religious or traditional social norms and those that have developed as a result of Islam’s interaction with the West. To begin this discussion of leaders other than imams, who are active in the Muslim community, it is useful to briefly trace the evolution of significant faith leaders in the early history of British Islam.

A brief history of British Muslim faith leadership Muslims have travelled to Britain and have lived here ever since the country emerged as a maritime empire in the eighteenth century. The first Muslims to arrive in Britain were lascars – Bangladeshis and Yemenis – who arrived in the ports of Liverpool, Cardiff and South Shields on sailing ships, often undercutting white sailors by undertaking the ‘dirty jobs’ on ships for lower pay.9 Although there is historical evidence that some lascar sailors married local English women, these early communities were by no means structured in the manner of modern British Muslim communities – they did not have mosques, community centres

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or faith leaders. The first ‘lascar sailors’ homes’ and ‘Arab-only boarding lodges’, which may be considered as initial steps towards a sense of settled community, began to appear in the second half of the nineteenth century. But these, too, were merely temporary accommodation. The first community that somewhat mirrors modern Muslim communities in their possession of community space and leadership is the Liverpool mosque community led by William Henry Quilliam, who converted to Islam, taking the name Abdullah, and established the first mosque in Britain in 1889. This small proto-British Muslim community consisted of local converts to Islam and loyal but transient lascar sailors from all over the British empire. In Quilliam’s leadership style, a prototype for Muslim faith leadership in modern Britain begins to emerge. Quilliam was a criminal lawyer by profession and was not formally trained in the Classical Islamic Sciences. As described by Geaves in his recent monograph, Quilliam was, as was the style for upperclass gentlemen of the time, well read in philosophy, religion, history and the arts. As a convert to Islam, he clearly had to teach himself about Islam. The nature that his self-study took is not clearly recorded; however, his scholarship about Islam and its interactions with Christianity are evident in his writings. In 1889, Quilliam established the Liverpool Muslim Institute, which very quickly became a centre for visiting dignitaries, Islamic study circles and talks. The institute incorporated separated spaces for worship and for dialogue with people from other faiths. Gradually, as the community evolved, a home for orphans, an Islamic boarding school for boys and a day school for girls was added to the list of community facilities. As a faith leader, Quilliam very much ‘led from the front’. Like modern imams, he led prayers, delivered the Friday sermon and celebrated the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday or Mawlid. Quilliam also engaged in debates and public discussions; he ran a printing press that published ‘The Crescent’, a weekly newsletter that was both inward looking in addressing the religious education needs of his congregation but also outward looking as a tool for proselytization. Finally, he also collected and distributed charity to the needy in his community. In this nascent community, women were not imams, yet their leadership roles were already apparent – for example, Rosa Warren, a convert to Islam, was known as the ‘mother of the Muslims’ by the children of the community and was renowned for her charity work.10 A second historical model of faith leadership is that of Shaykh Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi, a Sufi shaykh who came to Britain and established zawiya (Sufi lodges) among the Yemeni communities settled in British ports.11 Shaykh al-Hakimi received his Islamic education via a Sufi route. He studied Sufism

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under his own teacher in order become an adherent of the Alawi tariqah, a branch of the Shadhili order. He initially studied as a faqir (initiate) and finally became a muqaddim (a representative of a Sufi shaykh) of the Alawi tariqah. In 1936, the shaykh received ijazah12 from his teacher to come to Britain. Shaykh al-Hakimi’s route to leadership was different from that of Quilliam in that he undertook traditional studies; however, as he was a Sufi, his studies would not be structured as they would be for a student studying the Darse Nizami in modern Britain. As a leader, like Quilliam, he led his congregation in ritual worship. He also helped this community establish structures and spaces for itself. In 1936, the Yemeni community under the leadership of the shaykh established a mosque in a former public house in South Shields. Like Quilliam, he also undertook other social roles including caring for the sick, supporting ill or aged members of his congregation to go back to Arabia if they wished to, providing financial assistance if required and setting up a schools for girls and boys. Interestingly, a process was also set up for selected older boys to go abroad to undertake traditional Islamic learning. These young men came back to Britain after their training – thus, we begin to see the beginnings of succession planning, and faith leadership was sustained within the community. Shaykh al-Hakimi also set up facilities for women including the British convert wives of some of the sailors, who reported feeling more involved in religious activities after his arrival and ministry. In the life histories of both Quilliam and al-Hakimi, two patterns for faith leadership begin to emerge. Quilliam, on the one hand, was a convert to Islam whose knowledge of Islam was probably acquired due to his passion and personal desire to study and propagate his new faith. Al-Hakimi, on the other hand, had been through the traditional route, studying under his murshid or spiritual guide/teacher and then receiving ijazah from him. Both men did not limit their roles to ritual leader of congregational prayers and instead undertook activities that were philanthropic, pastoral and aimed at dawah or inviting people to Islam. Around them, they also established colleagues and assistants who took on specific roles within their mission. From the lives of these two men, models of faith leadership that extend beyond the traditional role of the imam begin to emerge – models of Sufi shaykh, enthusiastic convert and also other roles such as mosque teacher, interfaith dialogian, preacher, philanthropist and pastor that continue to persist in modern Britain. We categorize these diverse roles first into those that evolve out of religious practice and that are undertaken in religious spaces and second into those such as chaplains and youth workers that have evolved at the confluence between Islam and the West.

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Traditional religious leadership roles These are roles that function in a mosque, madrasa or another religious context. In the South Asian context, alim (male) and alimah (female) are commonly used terms to describe a male or female religious scholar who has completed the Darse Nizami course, and who therefore has a scholarly grasp of Islamic theology and on the foundational texts of Islam. These scholars are different from imams in that they necessarily have deep theological understandings of their faith and are qualified to give advice on socio-religious matters. An important clarification to make here is that some imams may be alims and therefore will have theological qualifications but not all imams will have this. Given the smaller number of mosques as compared to the number of graduates from Muslim seminaries and the fact that some mosque committees prefer foreign-trained imams, only a small proportion of British alims go on to become imams in mosques; however, the vast majority of them go on to do other things – some work with a faith leadership capacity whereas other simply undertake their religious studies more as a path to religious awareness and personal development, rather than any aim to work as a religious leader. The simplest path that many alims and alimahs take is to go back and teach within the seminary where they undertook their studies. Others teach Islamic studies and Arabic in madrasas, mosque classes, supplementary schools and Islamic faith schools. This is the easiest route to employment; however, salaries are quite low and career progression opportunities are extremely limited. Some alims and alimahs also run voluntary religious educations sessions in the mosques for specific groups such as children, teenagers, women or converts to Islam. An alimah we spoke with told us how she became a role model for her community and the pressures this brings: If anyone needs any type of advice they know they can come to me. Alimah, speed dialling, they know you are an alimah. You are seen as a role model, no clubs, no pubs, because you can either guide or mislead, and they tend to think everything you do is right. An alimah from Leicester

It is also important to note that this usage of the words alim and alimah to denote religious scholarship is specific to South Asian Muslim communities; other Muslim communities would use other words to denote positions of religious leadership within their communities. Some such traditional Sunni titles used to describe Muslim faith leaders found among British Muslim communities are abla, amir, khatib, maulana, mu’allim, mufti, murshid,

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qadi, pir, sayyid, shaykh and ustadh. Such titles in addition to specific religious connotations also take into consideration the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the communities within which they are used and hence can vary considerably. This list is therefore not an exhaustive one, but only serves to illustrate the diversity of possible titles. A final comment about this list is that in colloquial everyday usage many of the titles mentioned are shared by both Sunni and Shia Muslims. However, the more formal terms that Shias use to describe their religious leaders are as follows: the key religious functions and giving of advice are adjudicated by the marja al-taqlid, who is a grand ayatollah with the authority to make legal decisions within the confines of Islamic law for followers (muqallid) and less well qualified clerics. A mujtahid is someone who has studied to the level of dars al-kharij (advanced independent studies) and thereby attained a degree of intellectual autonomy in the hawza. This mujtahid has acquired the licence to engage in ijtihad from one or several ayatollahs, and is exempted from the requirement to follow a marja (a grand ayatollah). It should be noted, however, that ijtihad is not always comprehensive and so a mujtahid may be an expert in one particular area of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and exercise ijtihad therein, but follow a marja in other areas of fiqh. An overview of some of the traditional Muslim faith leadership roles, both Sunni and Shia, is presented below: Khatib (usually male): This is the main person, a senior imam who leads the Friday khutbah/sermon and the jummah/Friday congregational prayers. He also leads the other major events in the mosque. He usually has a deputy imam to help him with leading other five daily prayers. Such a role is present in both Sunni and Shia mosques. The qualifications for a khatib are the same as that for an imam, with the difference being that he is probably a senior and respected person in his local community. Imam (usually male): The imam would normally lead the five daily congregational prayers or share it with a co-imam. He would teach the young how to read the Quran, perform the five daily prayers and discharge other religious duties in accordance with their madhhab (school of thought). Such a role is present in both Sunni and Shia mosques. Alim (male)/alimah (female)/ustadh (male)/ustadhah (female)/abla (male)/mudarris (male)/mudarrisah (female): These male and female teachers teach Islamic/Religious Studies in mosques, madrasas, seminaries and Islamic schools (primary and secondary). They may provide/lead

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collective worship material for whole school (if Islamic) or for Muslim children in maintained schools. They would also be involved in providing madrasa education as part of the extended school service for children coming from Muslim faith backgrounds. These teachers usually have a theological qualification and are therefore either an alim or an alimah. Some may have gone on to universities to undertake degree courses and Postgraduate Certificates in Education (PGCEs) to obtain QTS. A number of them are working in schools (independent and state funded) as class and subject teachers. Such roles are present in both Sunni and Shia communities. Mufassir (male)/mufassirah (female)/muhaddith (male)/muhaddithah (female)/mufti (male)/muftiyah (female): These are scholars who are experts in tafsir, Hadith studies and shariah (Islamic law), respectively. These scholars may engage in adult education and also act as advisors/counsellors, giving advice to members of the public – individuals or groups – on socio-religious matters. Muftis can provide fatwas and information on Islamic fiqh concerning religious matters, marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc. Such scholars are present in both Sunni and Shia communities. Amir or ameer (male)/amirah or ameerah (female): An amir is a leader who may be chosen by his community to lead local Muslim organizations or community groups in particular tasks. This may be carrying out aims and objectives of the organization, raising funds for a particular religious purpose such as building a new mosque, leading the hajj pilgrimage, etc. Murshid (male)/murshidah (female)/shaykh (male)/shaykha (female)/pir (male)/pirani or pirdni (female): The murshid is the leader of a Sufi tariqah or a Sufi order. This role is achieved through traditional forms of learning where a murid/student may spend years studying under his murshid. There is no set curriculum for this, and study includes both theological learnings and, perhaps more significantly, deep spiritual development. Such study in its traditional and perhaps most authentic sense is unquantifiable in terms of curricula, period of study, age of entry, assessments etc., and may best be understood as an individual’s journey through faith as guided by his or her murshid. When a murshid is satisfied with his/her student’s abilities, he or she then gives ijazah to the student to become a murshid in a specific subject or in more than one subject or appoint the student as a successor in charge of the entire tariqah. As Sufism and tasawwuf is practised in both Sunni and Shia contexts, the role of murshid is perhaps the most significant in traditional Islam, as it is through the murshid–murid relationship that Islam

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has been sustained over the centuries. Furthermore, the murshid, in addition to religious leadership, also offers pastoral care to the members of his/her tariqah and also counsels them on all life matters. Significantly, the role of a murshid has always been open to both men and women, with theological and spiritual excellence being the only criteria upon which selection to this post is based. Dai (male)/dai’ iyah (female): A dai is the Muslim equivalent of a missionary whose main task is to propagate his or her faith to audiences who are not Muslim. In less multicultural contexts, a dai’s chief aim was to discuss Islam with a view to converting people to this faith. With the rise of information and communication technology, Muslim communities all over the world have their own favourite ‘televangelists’ and now ‘Web evangelists’, who talk about faith on television and on websites like YouTube or blogs or forums such as Yusuf Estes and Zakir Naik. Dai can be male or female, Sunni or Shia. However, it is important to note that in some Shia communities, particularly the Dawoodi Bohra community, the dai is a specially designated post within the religious leadership hierarchy that comes with some authority. However, in multicultural Britain, this role has evolved to address more pluralist aims such as disseminating information about Islam so that people understand this faith better, challenging Islamophobia, participating in interfaith dialogue. In this new sense of having situated itself between Islam and the societies that surround it, this role perhaps fits better into the second category of Muslim faith leadership that we discuss in the following section.

Muslim leadership: Between religions, secularism and pluralism Our research with British Muslims over the last 15 years has led us to recognize the evolution of a number of faith leader roles that exist at the boundaries of religious and secular life in modern Britain. These roles have evolved first because some young people graduating from Muslim seminaries want to use their religious training in their communities but do not want to become imams or because they are women and therefore may not become imams. In their quest for paid employment, both men and women forge new roles/jobs for themselves that bridge the best of both worlds: their religious training and their pluralist, secular social contexts in Britain. It also allows them to use their religious qualifications to contribute to civil society in Britain. They do

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so by addressing the needs of a society that is increasingly more plural, but whose leadership does not reflect the diversity of society. So, for example, a city council in modern Britain needs Equality and Diversity or Cohesion Officers who are aware of social and religious diversities – young Muslims and young people from other ethnic and religious minorities can contribute to such roles. Second, as the Muslim community in Britain is becoming more settled, it is developing a unique identity and social space which is inherently British and Muslim at the same time. The young people who are growing up within this community have been educated and socialized through the British education system. They are both aware and confident of the rights, responsibilities and roles in British society. They are also aware of the specific needs of their community as contextualized within the wider British nation. So, for example, Islam in Britain 1. Is a minority religion: Yet Islam is also the largest religious minority in a nation whose religion and belief contours are changing rapidly. Over the last decade, Britain has become less Christian, more non-religious and more religiously plural. The Muslim community needs leadership that can respond to such change. 2. Is a melting pot that brings together diverse elements from the global Muslim ummah: The religious, ethnic, lingual and social diversity within the British Muslim population is unparalleled, except perhaps in North America. Furthermore, all these diversities interact with each other on a daily basis, resulting mostly in a vibrant mosaic of different forms of Islam. However, tensions in different parts of the ummah are easily transferred to Britain. British Muslims need leadership that can mediate across all its diversities. 3. Is young: Census 2011 indicates that the Muslim population in Britain is disproportionately young as compared to other religious groups in Britain – 68 per cent of population is under the age of thirty-five. Research indicates that young Muslims are more likely than non-Muslims to retain the religious traditions in which they were raised.13 The community needs leadership that can engage with young people. 4. Exists in a pluralist context: Freedom to practise one’s own religion, intercultural dialogue and community cohesion are a recognizable feature of religious plurality in Britain. The community needs faith leadership that is competent to function in interfaith settings, who can talk about their own faith in an accessible manner, discuss other religious and non-religious

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beliefs in a non-judgemental way and most significantly find common ground and common values. 5. Exists in a context where public debate about terrorism and far-right extremism are also present: Muslim leadership needs to be able to engage with policy-makers, police and also the wider community in order to address and prevent the insecurities and disruptions caused by extremist views. 6. Exists in a context that allows interrogation of faith: Values around freedom of speech and religious practice in Britain, together with histories of enlightenment, have created a space where religion is constantly questioned. Muslims in Britain value this freedom and sense of enquiry and are engaging with their faith in a critical manner. They need leadership that encourages and guides their enquiry rather than stifles it. 7. Exists in a context of information democracy: Modern information technology (IT) developments have created a world where information about almost anything is available literally ‘at a touch of a button’. Muslims, particularly IT-savvy young Muslims, have unprecedented access to information and also misinformation about their faith. They need leadership that can guide them through this information super-maze. The following case study illustrates how traditionally trained scholars are using the theological qualifications in tandem with other secular qualifications and skills. This allows them to address the needs of British Muslim communities that have now settled in their pluralist British contexts, and who are demanding leadership that can address the challenges that pluralist life necessarily presents:

Case study 2: Shia imam who can manage multiple expectations! As an Islamic scholar, I engage with a number of people and organizations; for example, in a voluntary capacity, I have helped develop strategic plans and help implement change at the Allens Croft Primary School by introducing new policies and outreach methods for greater community cohesion, inclusion and participation. I am fully committed to the Every Child Matters policy. I have also assisted in the drafting of business and strategic plans for the Martineau Gardens, an environmental charity in Birmingham of which I am a trustee. In addition to this, I am also a member of the senior advisory and curriculum board for Islam and Citizenship Education being

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directed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (in 2010, Department for Children, Schools and Families was replaced by Department for Education) and the Department for International Development. I have also worked and engaged with the cultural and educational attachés of the American, Iranian, Dutch and Pakistan embassies to develop educational programmes. I have had the honour of addressing them all at the House of Commons on educational and social issues. All of this testifies to my experience of working directly with senior-level staff at a ministerial, regional and national level. Other organizations such as the Birmingham City Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Ofsted, the British Council and the Learning and Skills Council have invited me to work at senior management and executive level with developing educational and training programmes. I have also been engaged in senior youth work, education and outreach programmes in Tamworth with the Tamyouth Centre, Walsall Council, Smethwick women and youth centre and Sandwell and Dudley councils in addition to the former position of being the director of the Begin again Youth Centre in Birmingham. I have also worked with disadvantaged women and youth in the Midlands via running collaborative training programmes with the St Paul’s Trust in Birmingham and Bharosa, a Birmingham City Council organization for abused women, as well as working with excluded Afro/Caribbean groups in London with the Spring Educational Charity by running collaborative training programmes in prison and communities.

Over the last decade, the British Muslim community has become more aware of the seven trends listed above that are influencing the nature of and dynamics within their community. The Muslim community specifically and its wider British home have invested resources and time in nurturing new forms of faith leadership that can meet these challenges and lead the community into the future. A few of these roles are as follows: Islamic Studies lecturers/academic researchers: These are individuals who have either studied Islamic Studies at a seminary or in a university and who then go on to acquire a doctorate in a specialist area of Islamic Studies. They may then go on to take up an academic role with a UK university, either teaching or researching. Such individuals provide a valuable re-contextualization of academic Islamic Studies, which when taught

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or studied by such scholars is no longer outside-looking-in study about the different-other, but becomes a process of self-reflection and critical discovery. Such lecturers/academic researchers are important role models in modern British society, both for young Muslims who may be inspired to aspire for more academically and for students from other than Muslim backgrounds who have the opportunity to study Islam from one of many authentic Muslim voices. We say this while acknowledging that authenticity is always contestable and may in itself be a space for dialogue. Muslim chaplains/faith advisors: This is a role that has been directly borrowed from British Muslims’ Christian compatriots. Muslim chaplains provide religiously grounded pastoral support and counselling to Muslim students, patients, prisoners and soldiers in British universities, hospitals, prisons and the armed forces, respectively. Youth leaders: Like chaplains, youth leaders provide pastoral support and counselling to young people. They may address problems such as drug abuse, gang trouble and relationship issues, but more importantly they act as positive role models for the young people they work with. Circle/halaqah leaders: Young British Muslims are seeking new forms of seeking Islamic knowledge that allow them to interrogate, debate and critically engage with the subject matter. They want the answers to difficult questions about their faith that they may feel unable to ask in the mosque, madrasa or seminary. This gap is being filled by Islamic study circles or halaqah groups, often led by young and passionate men and women who may not necessarily have a theological qualification. The faith leaders provide valuable contributions that enable the consolidation of British Islam. Leaders of Muslim organizations/charities: A number of Muslim organizations have been set up in Britain since the 1980s, beginning with localized umbrella organizations such as councils of mosques, and then later on national organizations such as the Union of Muslim Organisations (founded in 1970), the Islamic Society of Britain (founded in 1990), the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain (founded in 1992), the Muslim Council of Britain (founded in 1997) and the British Muslim Forum (founded in 2005). The leaders of these organizations, in their lobbying for Muslim causes and leadership of Muslim activism, have also become faith leaders. While their activism is usually for social causes, these are often linked to and informed by religious practice. Interfaith workers: As discussed in the previous section, interfaith workers work at the internal boundaries within British society, between Islam and

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people of other faiths and no faith. By disseminating information about Islam and by engaging with other faiths and non-religious philosophies, they make these boundaries permeable. Such interfaith workers may be undertaking their work as part of local and national interfaith organizations such as the Leicester Council of Faiths or the Christian Muslim Forum. Politicians: A number of Muslims have visible political roles, and often, but not always, lay particular emphasis on ‘Muslim issues’. A key figure is Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who in August 2014 resigned from her post in the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government in protest against the government’s stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Another significant Muslim politician is Sadiq Khan, who in 2014 is the Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor. Media personalities: These individuals are a subset of all the above categories and are individuals who present the Muslim voice in popular media, including on newspapers, online publications and radio and TV channels. Some important examples are Mehdi Hasan, the political editor of the Huffington Post and TV presenter on the channel Al Jazeera; Salma Yaqoob, the head of the Birmingham Stop the War Coalition, the former leader of the Respect Party and a former Birmingham City councillor; and Ajmal Masroor, imam and politician.

Conclusion New forms of religious leadership in a globalized and digitized world In this chapter, we have presented a narrative of Muslim faith leadership that highlights the complexities of this discussion. The category ‘imam’ is perhaps the most simple and complicated at the same time. Foundational Islamic texts specify very few qualifications for an imam, yet, as Islam has evolved, the list of requirements has increased. Furthermore, we demonstrate in this chapter that it is not sufficient at all to talk about imams alone: there are many different forms of faith leadership within Muslim communities that need to be acknowledged and celebrated. New faith leaders, as we describe them here, are vitally important for creating the imagination for a new Islam that supports modern Britons, whatever their belief system, to lead morally good lives. These new faith leaders need to be accepted by the establishment to foster mutual understanding and to be free

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of the hermeneutics of suspicion that precludes open discussion. The places for such discussion are few, and higher education can help in various ways. Jocelyn Cesari provides four forms of Islamic leadership – bureaucratic, parochial, transnational and charismatic – each of which relates to a different leadership style and, more significantly, a different jurisdiction.14 Our work, however, demonstrates that forms and ways of Muslim faith leadership are much too complex to be categorized. Furthermore, these leadership roles are in a state of evolution, in response to new social contexts in the West, to new political contexts in the East and to the global IT revolution. Faith leaders must now function not just in the ‘real’ world but also in the ‘virtual’ world. A good example of the latter are the Muslim scholars and academics who work on the website qibla.com, offering courses in Arabic and Islamic Sciences and Islamic advice on socio-religious matters, and who run a question-and-answer service where people can have their queries answered confidentially. And then there are the challenges of radicalization, terrorism and media headlines about imams who radicalize worshippers at mosques.15 Imams and other faith leaders have been working towards challenging both radicalization and religiously motivated acts of violence, which is a real threat, and also stereotypes of radicalization. An imam in Derby runs training sessions for local mosque and school teachers, giving them the skills and Islamic knowledge to challenge radical narratives of Islam. He does this by presenting narratives of Islam that are about peace and loyalty to one’s homeland. More recently, an interdenominational group of imams, including Sunni, Shia, Deobandi and Barelwi imams, spoke out in a YouTube video against radicalization and the importance of belonging to the British nation:16 As the name suggests the United Kingdom is a kingdom which is united under various colours, nationalities, cultures and creeds. I believe in this country we are one united nation and we should promote that to other parts of the world. Sheikh Sayed Ali Rizvi17

Issues around radicalization and gender issues continue to persist and influence the ways in which Islam and its leaders are perceived. And we agree that on both issues there is a great diversity of opinion among faith leaders, from those who challenge patriarchy to those who condone it, and from those who condemn violent extremism to a small minority who remain silent on the matter and in very extreme cases those who support it: for example, Abu Hamza, the so-called hate preacher from Finsbury Park mosque in London.18

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However, the negative stereotypes and extreme radicals are by no means characteristic of British Muslim leadership. The YouTube video from which we quote above is indicative of the ways in which British Muslim faith leadership is evolving towards forms that are open-minded and democratic. Sheikh Sayed Rizvi (whom we quote above) is Shia, yet he appears in a YouTube video with Sunni imams to challenge radicalization – an example of the myriad ways in which Muslim faith leadership is evolving. The video is an example of intrafaith understanding that faith leaders from different denominations are trying to forge. It is also an example of the gradually increasing significance of online tools to demonstrate and exercise leadership. Another leader worth mentioning in this context is Sughra Ahmed, the first female president of the Islamic Society of Britain. Her leadership is of a very different form from those of the imams in the video – a woman who leads a ‘community based charity’ that is aimed at enabling ‘Muslims … to think seriously about understanding their faith in a British context’.19 Her leadership may be different in remit and scope: she is not necessarily a ‘religious leader’, yet her leadership is exercised within religious contexts and is an example of creating a space for women in leadership. To conclude this chapter on the forms that Muslim faith leadership may take, we emphasize first the significance of historical models that continue to mould Muslim faith leaders and second the impacts of modern forces of pluralism, globalization and the World Wide Web that are shaping their future and the future of their ministry. Muslim faith leadership is far more diverse than popular discussions would let us believe – the discussion, as we have demonstrated, needs to be extended beyond imams, and also beyond the rhetoric of radicalization and preventing violent extremism. Government, policy-makers, academics, plural society and indeed Muslim communities themselves need to acknowledge that traditional forms of Muslim faith leadership have been moulded into British constructs of civil society. In doing so, these ‘new’ faith leaders address the challenges of both pluralism and particularism. They are faith leaders and they also become pastors, representatives and dialogians – men and women who lead change.

4

Arabic: The Centrality of a Living World Language

France’s new education minister – young, female and Moroccan-born – has become a lightning rod for all that is nasty in French politics … A forged letter carrying the minister’s signature calls for primary schools to be given lessons in Arabic each week in the name of good community relations … Ms Vallaud-Belkacem’s appointment as France’s first woman education minister in a reshuffle two weeks ago was taken by many right wingers – even relatively moderate ones – as a ‘provocation’. Independent newspaper, 9 September 2014: 29

Introduction Arabic has great importance in many different ways for all Muslims and is a modern language that could be of great value to non-Muslims also. The importance of words – written or spoken language – cannot be underestimated as one of many different forms of communication that we use to understand each other: language is communication. It is the major means by which we understand each other in various forms: symbolic, cultural, phatic, emotional, social and even political. This is demonstrated very clearly in recent reactions within France to the appointment to high office of a Muslim woman from an Arabic-speaking country. Arabic is a language among thousands of others in the world, many of which are spoken in France. But it clearly is not just another language for these French political commentators, as John Lichfield, a seasoned commentator on French matters, reported recently in the Independent newspaper.1 Our research on access to opportunities to learn Arabic in 2012 focused on Britain, and one of our conclusions was that Arabic could and should be

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taught much more than it is, including at primary school as an integral part of the government’s languages programme. Hafeesa, one of our case study interviewees, wants to teach Arabic in primary school so that young Muslim children can learn to understand the Quran in its original classical Arabic. This suggestion might not be perceived in the UK as a provocation, as it was in France, where the concept of state secularism has created a restrictive atmosphere. However, our research found that there might well be a very different response in Britain characterized by lack of engagement with Arabic, despite interest in other difficult languages like Chinese; there is a silence about and persistent omission of Arabic from most of the current debate in Britain about language learning. This omission, partly due to lack of engagement in Britain with Arabic, is being addressed by British Council seminars and workshops on language development, and British Council and Qatar Foundation initiatives. There are also other encouraging and exciting initiatives in Britain: ‘Translation Nation’ and ‘Translators in Schools’ are two initiatives that embody a truly creative approach to languages and translation in schools. The former involves working with pupils to develop their translation skills with immediacy and relevance. The latter helps translators to see the value of combining teaching and translating skills. These programmes aim to help children appreciate and respect other languages and cultures, and appreciate also the process involved in translation; this can improve students’ English vocabulary and use of synonyms, because the process of translation makes us think about the range of words that can be used to express one idea.2 These projects reflect our belief, which we take from Edward Said and Paul Ricœur, that humans have the capacity to use language to be ethical and moral, that no thought is value free, that even silence can have significance and that we all use language to make value judgements which then become embedded in the ways in which we communicate with each other. As Said argued: Humanism is the exertion of one’s faculties in language in order to understand, reinterpret and grapple with the products of language, in history, other languages, other histories 28: 2004 Humanism and Democratic Criticism NY Columbia University Press

Edward Said understood humanism as the possibility to use human potential to grapple with the problems that face humanity, but viewed it with ambivalence because of humanism’s power to unhinge what we know by giving us critical faculties. There are people whose religious convictions will not allow them

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to countenance humanism, as it opens up doubt, relativism and a focus upon individual humans. We believe that debates must take place between doubt and belief and will return later to the possibility that translation can be seen as a practical mechanism for understanding other people and also as a metaphor for seeking to understand, which requires criticism of given structures of beliefs and of languages. These thinkers, Ricœur and Said, wrote at a time when structuralism was influential. Structuralism denied the thinking subject the power to shape language, arguing that language has already created the structures that determine how we think. The French philosopher Deleuze wanted to go in the opposite direction and set language wildly free, thought without a thinker or a predictable pattern. He was reacting against structuralism but also against Hegel, who gave us thought without a thinker, thought held firmly in a dialectic pattern. Ricœur took a very different line: that we inhabit language structures and use language to express our values, our ethical position and our sometimes-violent prejudices.3 Ricœur also found that we construct language to reflect the ways in which we think; he was, for example, very interested in negative thought processes and negative linguistic structures, which we will discuss more in the conclusion to this book. Here, we comment briefly on the way non-Arabic speakers use Arabic words to create negative opinions: value judgements appear to colour the debate about Islam. Consider the term ‘jihad’ in non-Muslim and Muslim contexts and the very few Arabic words known in the West by non-Muslims. As Said points out in his essay ‘The Return to Philology’, the term for interpretation, ‘ijtihad’, which contains a component of independent thought, personal commitment and extraordinary efforts, has the same root as the term ‘jihad’, which is used by nonArabic speakers to describe a violent crusade by Muslims, when in fact it also means a personal journey to achieve ethically demanding goals.4 We therefore wish to emphasize that there is a value judgement and an ethical paradigm at the core of the language work we all do daily as we talk, write, read and listen. Moreover, we propose that, through speaking and translating other languages, we may be able to understand the other person better, and in the penultimate section of this chapter we will propose in more detail that language can be used as a paradigm for tolerance and is a moral mediator. If language has value weightings, then language can have great importance as a part of spiritual experience. In the context of religion, we can see how language can be emphasized through the ideas of Lindbeck; he presents a post-liberal theological approach to religion, which expresses disillusion with pluralism.5 Similar ideas are expressed by Stanley Hauerwas and Willi Willimon.6 Lindbeck

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proposes a cultural-linguistic theory that is rather particularist, proposing that religions cannot translate their ideas in order to be comprehensible to others, as each religion explains everything in its own way and is therefore untranslatable. Yet he also argues for enough common understanding between religions, as between languages, for there to be significant dialogue. We will show how Lindbeck’s model can be improved upon, by using a range of ideas, some from Ricœur. Paul Ricœur looks at languages as an instructive model: he argues for translation from one language to another as a metaphor that shows us how to strive to be hospitable to others. From a faith perspective, Ricœur is similar to Lindbeck, yet Ricœur also presents the actual skill of translation as an act of energy for bringing together differences, while acknowledging the inevitability of loss and imperfection in the process. When Diana Darke describes the impossibility of translating the Arabic word ‘mamnou’, she shows her sophisticated understanding of all that needs to be borne in mind when making the effort to understand its meaning and to use it well. In this way, she achieves the almost impossible act of hospitality accorded by one language to another.7 The power of the model of translation that Ricœur presents can clearly have ethical, even spiritual implications. Yet, we also have models that assert the untranslatability of faith in language, and the comparative theologian Marianne Moyaert proposes that, apparently paradoxically, this untranslatability may help us find the key to a way forward in intercultural and inter-religious dialogue.8 Before we consider in more detail the ethical importance of how we use language, we want to sketch the complexities of Arabic as a living language of importance for all and the practicalities of studying Arabic in Britain.

Arabic in British higher education: LLAS research Arabic is seen as core to the Muslim faith, and there is a close connection between Islam and Arabic language, whether spoken by Muslim, Christian or Jewish Arabs. In 2011–2012, as the result of successful competitive bidding for pedagogic research funds from the HEA Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS), we secured a small grant to survey the teaching and learning of Arabic in UK higher education.9 Our research methods started with desk research. In addition to desk research,10 we conducted three research visits to HE providers (one darul uloom (seminary), one Muslim college and one British university), a focus group at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a telephone interview with an online Arabic provider

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and attendance at two language conferences.11 We also assembled a group of university academics who are experts in Arabic to advise us on our findings.12 From the evidence gathered during the government-funded report on Muslim faith leader training in 2008–2010, we had hypothesized that there is more Arabic-language interest and competence among Islamic Studies students than is currently apparent in the university sector.13 We found persuasive evidence for that hypothesis: moreover, we found that if the Arabic experience is neither assessed nor accredited, this may represent missed career opportunities for such students – and arguably for the British economy. We explored possible relationships between students’ prior Arabic competence and Arabic-language courses at Islamic Studies and other departments within UK universities. This study recognizes the significance of Arabic-language studies that students undertake in Muslim institutions such as darul ulooms, madrasas, Muslim schools and Muslim HE colleges. It suggests that collaborations between Muslim institutions and universities could lead to cross-fertilization of curricula and pedagogy and staff exchanges, with provision of more creditbearing courses at a higher level for competent Arabic speakers wishing to improve even more. Furthermore, recognizing students’ prior learning of Arabic could be beneficial to students, who would have options to enhance their skills and career opportunities, and also to universities, which would have access to an increased cohort of potential students if they offered Arabic tuition up to a more advanced level. Using some of our LLAS research findings, we will consider here Arabic language, Arabic learning and Arabic as part of British Muslim identity. Yet, Arabic has so many versions: how can understanding in Arabic be achieved with its many varieties? Arabic is spoken by those of many religions, although it is most commonly identified, in the non-Arabic world, with Muslims and Islam. The Arabic that has been preserved in a written form in the Quran has provided the basis for classical written Arabic. From classical written Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) has evolved and is the written form of Arabic that is used throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and, as the spoken language of media and politics, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the best common written version, used in academia and for examinations at GCSE and advanced levels. Local dialects are different from MSA and are used domestically and for everyday life at a local level. Unlike standard written Arabic, spoken Arabic takes so many different forms throughout the world that linguists characterize it as a language with several discrete and different varieties. In this sense, the definition of Arabic as one language has certain political and social implications, and such

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implications may imply a unity that is seen as somehow trapped in the amber of history and should instead be acknowledged as susceptible to growth and change: the written version may be commonly shared but many of the regional versions are like different varieties and may be incomprehensible to Arabic speakers from different regions. The Arabic-speaking nations are sometimes considered as comprising three main regions which have similar dialects – the Maghribi (north-west Africa – Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya), Shami (Levantine – Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine) and Khaliji (Gulf region – Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait). In each region, people may understand the dialects of countries other than their own that are within their regional pool. Countries such as Egypt and Iraq have their own distinctive dialects. There is a good overview of dialects and their groupings in Bassiouney (2009).14 Furthermore, within each country, there is often further diversity in the vocabulary and dialects spoken in different regions. There is the possibility of a state of mind, a way of using one’s imagination while communicating, a ‘middle way’ that may help resolve confusions by merging language codes and code switching. The mutawassit or ‘mixed/middle Arabic’ approach may be a partial solution to the rich variety within Arabic: it is a matter of people using more standard pronunciation instead of their local pronunciation of various letters, and perhaps using more standard structures, but they might still retain features of their own dialect. This is an approach, a state of mind and a way of communicating that are predicated upon the need to compromise in regional language use in order to communicate with those from other regions of the Arabic-speaking world. Some linguists comment on muttawasit (middle way or average) as a sort of compromise of all major dialects used for speaking; when Arabic speakers from different dialects converse, they use a muttawasit approach, which eliminates the extreme forms of their dialect and ‘centres’ the sounds and syntax to a less extreme form than is found in local versions. Moreover, the difference between the written and the spoken language is an issue in terms of communication, that is, which version (High or Low) has more status and is more accepted. This discrepancy is known as diglossia: traditionally, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) has been seen as High and regional variations have been seen as Low. MSA is used for the vast majority of media communications, spoken and written.15 It is useful when several Arabic speakers come together to use a modified version of their own regional Arabic; when students are learning Arabic in an

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Arabic-speaking country, this approach can have heuristic value by helping them to experience and thereby understand the modifications that can take place in living Arabic-language use. Bassiouney and Katz discuss similar phenomena in ‘The Elusiveness of Luġa Wustā – Or, Attempting to Catch Its “True Nature”’ (2012).16

Arabic language, learning and identity Arabic as a world language is uniquely important to Muslims because of the Quran, which should be read in Arabic. Yet millions of Muslims are not Arabic speakers, and millions of Arabic speakers are not Muslim – if you attend a religious service at St George’s Church in Ramallah, Palestine, the service will be conducted in Arabic for the Arabic Christian population. Not all Arabs are Muslims, and many Arab countries are multi-faith societies in their nature (around 40 per cent Lebanese are Christian). In British contexts, almost 70 per cent of Muslims are from non-Arabicspeaking South Asian backgrounds.17 For most of these British Muslims, learning Arabic is a religious duty that they must fulfil in order to recite the Quran. All formal prayers are recited in Arabic. Many Muslims can read Arabic and recite the Quran (often with great artistic flair and spiritual sensitivity as communicated by the beauty of the language) but they may do so without understanding and without being able to speak and communicate in Arabic. Thus, Arabic is central to their sense of identity as Muslims. In the context of Islam as a world religion, learning classical Arabic is a significant issue for modern Muslims, who often have hybrid identity positions: they see themselves as citizens of their adopted country and also as part of a global Muslim community – the ummah – which despite its inherent social, cultural, ethnic, denominational and religious diversities is often seen to be held together by the five core pillars of Islamic belief and the Arabic language. Arabic is the medium through which belief is usually articulated during the five compulsory prayers, informal prayers and while reciting the Quran. Knowledge of classical Arabic is prestigious and is a sign of religious authority in non-Arabic-speaking Muslim communities. The Islamic greeting Assalam Alaikum (May peace be with you) which is often said in Arabic and other Islamic-Arabic phrases such as Alhamdullilah (Praise be to God), SubhanAllah (Glory be to God) and Allahu Akbar or Taqbir (God is great) are part of the ‘Muslim lexicon’ all over the world. The use of such phrases in everyday conversations in Muslim communities all over the world means that when these diverse communities meet, despite not

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having any language in common, they are able to have basic conversations using these Arabic terms. Thus Arabic phrases, even in brief communications, sustain and strengthen the practical experience of a global Muslim ummah. Indeed, Arabic is so central to Islamic faith practice and to Muslim communities that when an individual seeks to convert to Islam, the declaration of faith is recited first in Arabic and then in whatever is the first language of the individual. Arabic language is vitally important in Islamic law, known as shariah, which is bound to Arabic terminology, and, as with the reading of the Quran, a good knowledge of Arabic will enable more informed understanding of Islamic laws. British Muslims are bound by British laws, yet they also have deep cultural and religious affection for Islamic laws and may, for example, marry in a registry office and also have a Muslim legal ceremony to maintain cultural bonds. Learning modern Arabic should be complementary to the classical language. In terms of communication, spoken Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) seem to fulfil different purposes: colloquial Arabic varies greatly in the Arab world but is vital for daily life because of social acceptance and practical vocabulary. For a non-Arabic speaker, it is generally agreed that MSA is necessary in order to learn local Arabic. Egyptian Arabic is widely understood and therefore potentially more useful than some other versions of Arabic. There is agreement that MSA is generally a most useful although not essential prerequisite for learning classical Arabic. More work is required on the increasing trend we observed in Muslim institutions to teach MSA alongside classical Arabic and, conversely, the apparent decline in teaching Arabic as part of Islamic Studies. There is clearly an appetite and a need for Arabic-language teaching beyond the university, as we see in the case of Sam:

Case study 1: Student Sam – Learning Arabic for Islamic Studies 18 Sam or Samira is a British Muslim of South Asian origin. She was born in Manchester and has lived there all her life, except when she went to a university in the Midlands to train as a solicitor. When she was six years old, her father enrolled her at the madrasa attached to their local mosque. She first completed a hifz course (memorization and pronunciation of the Quran) and then a hafiz course (Quran Studies). Both courses included aspects of Arabic, and she was taught to recite and memorize the Quran, tajwid (pronunciation and state of mind for recitation),19 qirat (recitation) and various Arabic prayers that she uses

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in her everyday life. She can neither understand nor speak Arabic but she can recite. ‘I’ve done the hifz course and then I’ve been to madrasa from the age of six till around thirteen. So I’ve been educated about the Quran, I’ve learnt Urdu books. I have looked at the Hadith and the rules of namaz [a Persian word used in the Indian subcontinent for the five daily prayers]. So I’ve had my Islamic education and I can confidently say that I know my Islam to some extent.’

Arabic language in higher education in Britain Within the university sector, according to Bernasek and Bunt (2010), 16 per cent of Islamic Studies modules are offered by ‘Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies’ departments, of which 2 per cent may be classified as ‘Languages and Culture’. In Bernasek and Bunt’s research, this 2 per cent covers classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic or Islamic texts in Arabic, and does not cover MSA. However, in Muslim institutions, the focus on Arabic-language skills continues to be a core aspect of student learning as reported in our review of Muslim faith leader training in the UK (Mukadam et al. 2010). Arabic usually comprises a large part of learning in the first years and gives students a basis for further in-depth exegetical and hermeneutical studies in the following four to six years of their course in Islamic theology. While English is the medium of study in most British Muslim institutions, Arabic together with languages such as Urdu or Persian may also be used as the medium of study for some sessions. It may be true that many business deals are conducted in English in many parts of the world, yet the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Foreign Languages is working to redress Britain’s poor standards in languages, to support business, diplomacy and national security issues.20 If we accept the importance of Arabic for British Islam, and for Britain’s ability to communicate with the Arab world, what then are the facts about Arabic in the British education system and the provisions necessary for British educational systems to provide Arabic tuition? UNESCO estimated in 2010 that Arabic is spoken by around 420 million people.21 The major research project that we carried out, commissioned by DCLG, on Muslim faith leader training in 2008 demonstrates that Muslim communities believe Arabic to be necessary for verbal mastery and textual exegesis of the Quran and other Islamic texts such as the Hadith and commentaries by classical writers.22 This research showed that Arabic is much sought after by British Muslims, and that many British Muslims are learning

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Arabic to a higher standard outside than inside the formal education system. Such work necessitates a high level of linguistic competence in Arabic grammar from the teacher and the student and takes place in intensive language lessons, mainly at darul ulooms (seminaries), madrasas, Muslim schools and HE colleges. In Britain, there are about forty darul ulooms and thousands of madrasas. Where facilities exist, students may also take GCSE and GCE A level Arabic.23 For 2012–2013, the Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) subject coding system as managed by Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) was updated and now specifies Arabic separately from ‘Middle Eastern Studies’. The students at UK higher education institutions studying Arabic language-related subjects in 2012–2013 by level of study were as follows:24 Subject

Postgraduate

Undergraduate

Total

(Q420) Classical Arabic

0

15

15

(T611) Arabic Language Studies

0

255

255

(T612) Modern Standard Arabic Language Studies

0

10

10

(T621) Arabic Literature Studies

5

0

5

Total

5

280

285

This table naturally does not give numbers for the thousands of British students of Arabic who are studying on non-validated courses, like Hamad:

Case study 2: Student Hamad – Arabic for religious scholarship 25 Hamad is studying an alim course at a Muslim college. He is studying Arabic as he wants to engage critically with his faith: ‘Most of us are Bengalis; we are Muslims and seek to learn Arabic, unlike our parents who did not seek to learn Arabic. Now we understand the Quran because we are learning classical Arabic by learning MSA, which is similar, and we may want to work in Arab countries, for which we need colloquial Arabic of that region in case MSA is seen as too formal: short courses may be useful – it’s not useful to use MSA in Egypt. It is not only the status, the rural, the urban, but the Arabic of the major world regions are very different. For us right now, classical Arabic is the most important, and fusha (MSA). There are not enough Arabic opportunities; often Urdu is offered instead, but learning Arabic is very important to young Muslims.’

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There is indeed clear evidence of growing activities in Arabic-languagelearning opportunities at university. The 2013 University Council of Modern Languages/Association of University Language Centres (UCMC–AULC) survey of institution-wide language provision in universities in the UK (2012–2013) shows that, in language learning at universities, over 5 per cent is Arabic, with forty-three universities offering Arabic, presumably Modern Standard Arabic, as contrasted with under ten offering it in 2001.26 These are credit-bearing modules but do not lead to degrees in Modern Languages or Arabic, and in fact universities are closing their language degrees, so there is more opportunity to learn languages but at a relatively lower level, as an adjunct to another degree. Universities are responding to demand; as yet, this seems to be Arabic as an optional small part of a degree in an unrelated subject. Islamic Studies is one subject that has traditionally taught classical Arabic for Quranic readings or for readings of classical Arabic texts: Hamad, and many like him, would attend Arabic courses at his local university if they were available and if they offered classical Arabic and MSA and (in Hamad’s case) Egyptian Arabic. This is a lot to ask, but could be provided if universities ‘teamed up with’ Muslim colleges and Islamic seminaries and developed a commercial model together.

Arabic Studies within Islamic Studies27 If we can accept that Arabic has enormous practical, cultural and spiritual importance for Muslims, then we need to look for it in Islamic Studies courses. Following Bernasek and Bunt, we accept this definition of Islamic Studies: for the purposes of this research, Islamic Studies is applied as an umbrella term which includes the study of Islam and Muslim societies in a variety of disciplines such as, but not exclusively, Religious Studies, Theology, Language Studies and Linguistics (in particular in relation to Arabic, but also including Turkish, Persian and other Middle Eastern languages, or languages of the Islamic world) and others.28 Studying Islam can form part of a subtext for language courses, including the study of a range of languages associated with Muslim societies such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu.29 Of course, there are overlaps between Islamic Studies and Arabic-language studies in the university sector; for example, students of Islamic law often have to read and engage with Arabic law texts which may require some pre-learning in Arabic language. In darul ulooms, jamias, hawzas and madrasas, Arabic-language learning is a prerequisite for studying Islamic Sciences. In their 2010 study, Bernasek and Bunt demonstrated the

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interconnectedness that is found between Arabic-language studies and Islamic Studies in UK universities,30 and we followed this up by also exploring some of the complexities in teaching and studying Arabic such as the methodologies to study Arabic,31 diglossia32 and mutawassit or middle Arabic, a state of mind that facilitates combination of standard and local varieties and which depends on the fluidity of the speaker’s code-switching choices according to the context and the interlocutor.33 Arabic is clearly central and complex, yet as Siddiqui pointed out, many Muslims do not learn Arabic and Islamic Studies at university. Moreover, the course numbers at university are small. According to HESA student record, the numbers of students at UK higher education institutions whose course title included the word ‘Arabic’ in 2012–2013 by level of study were as follows: Postgraduate

80

Undergraduate

1,155

Total

1,235

Of these, fewer than three were studying for a teacher training qualification to teach Arabic in schools.34 If opportunities to study Arabic and Islamic Studies are available to students they will be able to use Arabic to relate personally to their faith, to develop critical understanding of texts and for career development.35 There are many madrasas, either attached to mosques or independent ones, that offer students basic Arabic lessons. Usually, these courses teach students to read Quranic Arabic, qirat (recitation) and tajwid (the discipline of how to recite, that is, the pronunciation and the discipline of interpretation). This sector of Arabic teaching provision in the UK usually has no formal records of student numbers. Furthermore, it is impossible to estimate how many of these formal and informal organizations exist; for example, there are thousands of madaris attached to mosques and study circles in people’s homes, which are mostly unregulated. Numbers are unknown for the places where British Muslims are learning Arabic, but they outnumber the students and courses in Islamic Studies offered at university.

‘Arabic is not one country!’ This comment from one of our research participants illustrates the complexities and diversity in Arabic teaching provision and students’ aspirations. Arabic

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is spoken in many different dialects that vary considerably. Students usually study MSA, but this is not sufficient to interact with local Arab communities. Across the teaching community, increased access to native Arab speakers with a range of regional versions would greatly enhance the quality of teaching and students’ preparations for their year abroad. The comment ‘Arabic is not one country!’ is also linked to issues around funding, strategic support and visibility. Since Arabic is the language of so many countries, unlike for example Japanese or Chinese, there is no single national or international body that supports its learning: Arabic suffers somewhat from the lack of an internationally recognized qualification accrediting (advanced) professionallevel/communicative language skills for professional use, such as what exists for German and Japanese and for English with International English Language Testing System (IELTS). However, an ideal framework for language accreditation exists in the Common European Framework for Reference [for languages] (CEFR), and Qatar through the Qatar Foundation International (QFI) is promoting Arabic as a foreign language, so perhaps they could take the lead and provide frameworks for qualifications. In our LLAS/Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)funded research in 2012, our interviewees – staff and students – agreed that not many British Muslim students are studying Islamic Studies at university, but they study classical Arabic mostly for religious purposes and sometimes scholarship. This may or may not lead them to careers that involve their Arabic skills. Furthermore, there seem to be separate courses that are dedicated to different purposes since students’ aspirations are different – some want to learn Arabic for religious purposes, others for careers and yet others simply because they enjoy and value the language. This is commendable, but often their achievements are not formally assessed or validated within the mainstream education system. Our experts suggested a need for more consolidated approaches through which darul ulooms, universities and other institutions may come together to share expertise in the teaching of Arabic.

Career progression Our focus in the LLAS study was upon students’ experiences. It would be interesting to explore through future research students’ perceptions of the usefulness of their Arabic studies beyond academia. There was also a perception of a strong demand within the security services (and police, to a lesser extent) for Arabic graduates and bilingual British-nationality heritage

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Arabic speakers, and it is because of the perceived lack of supply of Arabic speakers of a sufficiently high linguistic and analytical calibre that so many non-Arabic linguist graduates are retrained. British universities offer courses ab initio, so the already-fluent Arabic speaker cannot easily find a course to improve from an already-reasonable or even excellent baseline competence, such as would be needed in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, for example. There are also very good career possibilities as a freelance translator and/or interpreter, for example, in law courts, National Health Service (NHS) and social services, but even in specialist Master’s courses the impression is given that such careers can be difficult to get into. These jobs may be offered to locals from within certain communities, often chosen for their specific dialect skills. In fact, with so few qualified English native speaker Arabic translators in the UK market, work should be relatively easy to come by, but currently it may be rather ad hoc and depend on networks and contacts. We believe there needs to be more awareness of careers using languages, beyond teaching and academia, throughout the education sector. Asim’s case study demonstrates the flexibility and potential of the British system, when well developed as at Leeds:

Case study 3: Student Asim – Basic Arabic to MA Translation Studies 36 Asim was always interested in learning the Arabic language at an academic level and attaining a deeper knowledge of Islam. In 2006–2007, Asim undertook three modules from the Arabic Islamic Studies programme offered by the Lifelong Learning Centre at the University of Leeds: Arabic for Beginners, Interpreting the Quran and Hadith, and Introduction to Islamic History and Civilisation. Asim enjoyed studying on the programme as the courses fitted in with his lifestyle: ‘I found these courses very flexible with my hours as a full-time retail manager. The courses were very interesting, taught in a very relaxed and professional manner, and not too intense.’ He successfully completed these modules and obtained the sixty credits required to qualify to study the undergraduate degree. According to Asim, the knowledge he gained on the programme provided a solid stepping stone for the degree course: ‘The courses were wonderful, and without them I would never have had the motivation to return to full-time study. The courses have equipped me with all the skills required to study at degree level.’ Asim concluded that, ‘I was ready to start a family before I took a U-turn

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to continue my studies. I was able to adapt to this change, and I feel confident that anyone can go back to education too.’ Asim completed his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies in 2011, and he is currently studying for an MA in Translation Studies at the University of Leeds.

‘Arabic as a bridge to bring people together’ The current national and international tensions around terrorism, security and Islamophobia also contribute to issues around Arabic, which risks being identified as the terrorists’ language. As Bernasek and Canning identified in 2010, this will have influenced the decision to make Arabic a strategically important language.37 The British Council Languages for the Future report asserts that Arabic is the second most important foreign language for the UK, after Spanish, and above French and Chinese.38 At the UK level, such discourses are embedded in issues around immigration, integration and community cohesion. Teaching Arabic could perhaps act as one pathway, among many others, to enable discussions across and within diversity, thereby advancing societal understanding and reconciliation. The French philosopher Paul Ricœur recommended that European citizens should learn at least two languages in addition to their own, hoping that as linguists and as translators we can demonstrate at a cultural and spiritual level the gesture of hospitality that can be achieved when we speak another language.39 He uses the model of language learning as a way of understanding European integration, with three aspects: translation, shared narrative and shared forgiveness of Europe’s history.40 However, language provision in the British education sector has declined steeply.41 Moreover, in this research we can ask whether Ricœur’s model can really work in a world where few English mother-tongue speakers learn Arabic or another language of the Middle East despite the significant presence of these languages in the UK and mainland Europe. It can be argued that more availability of Arabic-language teaching could help with understanding of the Arabic-speaking world for those who seek the opportunity to do so.

Language as a paradigm for tolerance In order to emphasize the value of Arabic and the need to pay more attention to its provision, we consider Ricœur’s view that mastery of another language than one’s own gives one a better possibility of understanding the other person.

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He describes this most potently with regard to translation. Translation is a form of interpretation between two languages, of which one, usually the ‘host’, will dominate; indeed, Paul Ricœur believed that equal balance is impossible. Translation from one language to another and within one’s own language provides both a metaphor and a real mechanism for explaining oneself to the other and attempting to understand each other. Judith Butler even sees translation as a potentially political act of rebellion, counter-hegemonic: ‘Translation becomes the condition of a transformative encounter, a way of establishing alterity at the core of transmission.’42 For her as a Jew attempting to challenge Zionist policies on Palestine, this can have the terrifying corollary of creating more conflict if there is no translation: there is no ethical response to the claim that any other has upon us if there is no translation; otherwise we are ethically bound only to those who already speak as we do, in the language we already know.43

Attempting and failing to achieve symmetry between two languages is thus yet another manifestation of the asymmetry inherent in human relationships. If actively pursued, this can also show us how to forgive other people for being different from us. At its best, translation thus serves as a paradigm for tolerance. In the history of ideas, there are many examples of Arabic and other languages coming together through translation, where translation of text is used as a sort of communicable bridge for dialectical, potentially productive tension between languages and the ideas they present. For example, Ibn Rushd and others translated Aristotle’s and Plato’s great texts and classical works of maths, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, etc., in Baghdad in the ninth century, at a time when Western Europe was not engaging with them. So two cultures came together in each other’s texts, and this led to Ibn Rushd’s commentaries and to the safe keeping of Aristotle. It also led Ibn Rushd in his Commentary on Plato’s Republic to make additions to Plato: Ibn Rushd deviates from Plato’s text to discuss the role of women in society.44 However, Ibn Rushd’s Arabic text was not read by many Europeans, nor apparently endorsed by those who came after him. The labour of translating a text into another language is a complex process of compromise and disappointment that can lead to productive development of shared concepts. It necessitates acceptance of our own inadequacy – complete transposition of meaning from one language to another is impossible, and there is a need to negotiate with the text to find the least intrusive way of achieving fairness to the two languages and to the message embedded therein.

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To return to Lindbeck, he is important in discussion about the weaknesses of translation: he represents the post-liberal view that rejects pluralism’s attempt to be liberal in sharing meanings across and within faiths in order to be able to communicate with and understand and even tolerate those of different faiths.45 Lindbeck’s particularism makes it clear that this sharing of meanings is not possible; he sees Christianity as needing to be protected both as its own language and as if it is its own language: we see the real and the metaphorical conjoined – for him it is clear that translation weakens faith irrevocably. Yet, in common with Ricœur, we argue that the act of translation makes it possible for people with different ideas to share some commonality: most will never give up their view in favour of the other, but may come to a clearer mutual understanding. This mutuality must involve provisionality, because we can neither fully understand each other nor fully predict what each other may believe or think about any particular issue. Translation from one language to another, and also translation within one’s own language, provides both a real mechanism and a metaphor for explaining oneself to the other. This is a form of linguistic hospitality, through compromise, and is a strong model for navigating the complex relationships between culture, religion and ethics.46 Ricœur presents it as a model for European citizenship, as a way of understanding other people and as an ethical framework; his vision for Europe requires polyglot peoples. Many British citizens of white heritage are unashamedly monoglot, which is a great failing of the education system: even though many people speak English, it facilitates understanding of other cultures if one has some grasp of the possibility of communicating differently and it enhances communication if one has comprehension of even some of the other person’s language. Many British citizens of Asian or Arab heritage have several languages, for historical reasons, also including English. There is also a current debate about those in Britain who do not learn English and who make use of translation services when dealing with public institutions: all efforts should be made to facilitate English learning as these are British citizens who need to be able to share common understanding of what it means to be British. We need to take care, however, that this issue of learning English retains a balance: Gus John asks about the National Front and the British National Party’s grasp of English when inciting racial discord.47 Translation does not have to involve transferring meaning from one language to another; it can also involve negotiating meanings within one language in order to share some common

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understanding that facilitates peaceful, ethical cohabitation. Therefore, I believe we can and should consider both the idea of translation and the act of translation as ethical paradigms, as we see in the schemes ‘Translators in Schools’ and ‘Translation Nation’. Within a language there can be considerable distortion and misuse of a shared language, for different purposes, such as creation of division, mistrust or unity. Language can be used violently in breeding fear, hatred or disgust, and this may depend on the context: this is evident in the current narrative about fundamental British values (FBVs), which needs to be carefully analysed in order to notice that the eminently desirable values such as liberty, freedom of speech and equality and democracy are in fact being taken directly from the governmental Prevent publications about counter-terror. In this way, language that is useful can be contaminated by association, such that we see how FBVs are being pointed at Muslim communities, rather than being made the responsibility of all of us, including fascist and racist groups.48 Translation of meaning from one context to another is thus a vitally important issue: in the religious sphere, it is possible to argue that religious texts must be kept stable so that they remain recognizable and are interpreted in old ways laid down by tradition. This can be complemented by another approach, which is that the only way to keep working at one’s faith is to constantly re-examine and re-analyse religious texts.49 Ricœur also argued that we experience difficulties in translating meaning between people even when we are speaking the same language: we see this in friendships, marriages, arguments in the kitchen, political manifestos and those from other Arabic or Muslims backgrounds than our own, or other English-speaking countries than our own. This can happen with regard to cultural differences and religious misunderstandings. We hope to develop the possibility that comparative theology can be useful and can even be enhanced by paying attention to language. Moreover, as Moyaert suggests, in trying to understand the other and knowing that it will never be fully possible, we can learn from language studies to enrich inter-religious dialogue. We will go even further and suggest that we can even attempt to ‘read’ and ‘translate the other’ so that we have some sort of mutual understanding, even though fallible and finite. Surely we need to go beyond Lindbeck, by insisting that it is vital for cultures, languages and religions to attempt to communicate with each other directly, in the acceptance that any understanding is hard-won, provisional and constantly in need of reciprocal revision.

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Conclusions: Proposals for the future of Arabic-language studies in Britain Arabic is a world language that is of great importance numerically, financially, culturally and politically as argued in the British Council report Languages for the Future.50 Better business relations can influence intercultural relations also. If language learning is actively pursued, we can use another language and translation to understand and accept how different other people are from us and yet also how similar we all are. Thus, according to Ricœur, using another language serves as a paradigm for tolerance. Relations between Islam and the West could perhaps be helped by Ricœur’s approach to languages as conciliatory. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Foreign Languages chaired by Baroness Coussins alerts us again and again, as many reports have over the last decade, to the fact that British standing in the world is weaker because of our poor language skills.51 Modern-language uptake generally has been in decline for some time. Arabic-language activities are expanding at universities as described in the UCMC–AULC report on Institute Wide Language Provision (IWLP) and particularly among British Muslim communities (no figures obtainable, but many in all Muslim communities – comprising c.3 million – are engaged in Arabic learning to some level), yet Arabic is often omitted from the debate; the British Academy is actively supporting language learning, yet the British Academy 2013 Multilingual Britain report only mentions Arabic once, as the seventh most spoken language in Britain after English. This listing of ‘seventh’ does not tally with verbal reports: Arabic is studied by many more than the recorded numbers of Community Language Arabic would indicate. Yet the British higher education sector is well placed to expand its Arabic teaching, and is already to an extent doing so. In a small and growing way, this is happening through the IWLP, a growing field across the university sector that is offering language classes that do not lead to examinations or validation. The language levels are not high, and the focus is on communication. We know that thousands of Muslims are learning Arabic ‘off-piste’, so why is it not possible to take account of the rich and complex Arabic activities outside the validated and statistically measured HE sector? We know that thousands of British Muslims are learning Arabic in madrasas and darul ulooms every day, and through our case studies we have identified reasons to celebrate such activity. We suggest that further work should concentrate on linking up the Muslim education sector and the mainstream HE sector. Whereas it is possible to take GCSE and A levels as evidence of language competence, there is currently no higher-level

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assessment for students who study Arabic in Muslim institutions, except perhaps the possible option of studying Arabic at university. Furthermore, as discussed earlier, BA courses in UK universities usually offer only ab initio Arabic and do not cater for students with prior learning of Arabic. At the time of writing (autumn 2014), it seems as if the Edinburgh University MSc Advanced Arabic, the only post-BA-level Arabic course in Britain, is to be scrapped.52 These are missed opportunities: links between the funded and un-funded sectors could benefit learners, who would have greater access to universitylevel learning; by this we mean that there are expert Arabic teachers who work in Muslim educational institutions, and there are mechanisms in place and active at all universities for accreditation of courses. This would benefit universities by increasing student numbers, and it could benefit staffing by creating access to Arabic speakers who are not currently teaching in the HE sector but may have mastery of regional versions of Arabic; these, as identified earlier, are necessary to prepare students and businesspeople for travelling abroad.53 The trends we have identified are also notable and valuable in providing advantages to Muslim girls and women in Britain.54 HEIs need to collaborate more to provide a varied, rich mix of opportunities to learn Arabic for different purposes, at different levels and in different combinations. The higher education sector already contains plenty of good examples – now they need to be coordinated better across the sector. Given the need to be competitive and effective in world markets as well as the undeniable need to understand the Arabic-speaking parts of the wider world we all inhabit together, we recommend that consideration be given to standardization of language assessment levels, using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages as a starting point. It would be worth undertaking further research in order to attempt to answer questions posed by our student interviewees. These questions are of major significance and relate persistently to various ways in which the student experience can be improved: i. ii.

iii. iv.

the need for more teacher training courses for Arabic teaching, whereas currently (2014) only Goldsmiths and SOAS offer certification; the need to increase opportunities to study Arabic at school and university, and to improve routes of progression from school courses, including A level, to BA degree courses; opportunities for fluent/heritage Arabic speakers to develop further; addressing the difficulties in finding enough Arabic speakers with regional expertise to support university-level courses;

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consideration of progression routes from Muslim institutions to mainstream universities, which could lead to development of exciting new blends of courses about the Islamic world, including classical and modern Arabic; further research may also be undertaken to explore career issues including the apparent lack of employment opportunities for using Arabic, students’ future career roles, their feedback about their use of Arabic beyond academia and whether or not they were adequately prepared by their university course; and finally, the British Council is working with Arab funders (Qatar Foundation) to encourage schools to teach Arabic: this should be developed to include universities.55

Our research demonstrates clearly that there is much more Arabic learning taking place in the UK than is apparent from current data through HESA, IWLP, etc. There is a wealth of creativity and dynamic teaching across the UK, which, if developed on a larger scale, would enrich the student experience. The teaching and learning that takes place outside the mainstream university sector is usually neither quantified nor assessed formally, thereby restricting students’ abilities to capitalize on their studies. Assessment and validation of Arabic could unlock new improved economic possibilities within mainstream sector study and future employment. Increased collaboration across the university sector will also create a range of new courses to complement the already-existing good practice. British Muslims and also, more broadly, Western Muslims with their hyphenated identity positions – British and Muslim and with specific cultural roots in a part of the Muslim world – also seek to develop modern understandings of Islam, which requires that they are fluent in Arabic: then they can read the Quran and attendant texts such as the Hadith for themselves in Arabic and interpret them for themselves. This may be linked to a need as expressed by many young Muslims to engage with their faith critically, to ask difficult questions and to find answers for themselves. These young Muslims are in a state of constant negotiation as they seek to balance their personalities, their religious faith and their Western social contexts,56 and they usually look for clarity in Islamic foundational texts, especially if they are religious. This process of questioning and negotiation is a resurgence of Islamic traditions of ijtihad,57 and, as stated by young people, their engagement in this process makes them ‘different from their parents’. Religiously literate British Muslims believe that competence in classical Arabic is a prerequisite to understanding Islamic texts

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and is therefore an essential skill to engage in ijtihad: interpreting, using one’s imagination, developing hermeneutics for modern Islam. Such independent hermeneutics can complement and on occasion challenge established religious scholarship that insists upon Islam being nonambiguous. This could be helpful at a local level for imams, alims or alimahs who are negotiating their way through complex pluralist lives and also more widely through the published work of scholars such as commentaries and interpretations.58 It may also provide opportunities for these religious scholars to deepen their own understanding: many imams, alims and alimahs would welcome opportunities to enhance their knowledge of the Arabic language. It is a powerful combination to teach Arabic within an Islamic Studies course, a practical way of bringing apparently separate worlds together. Factors that include resurgence of Islam, the understanding in some quarters of Islam as the clear unambiguous antidote to Western decadence and of young Muslims’ critical engagement with their faith, and improved access to classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic can make it possible for new understandings of the classical texts to emerge and be shared: this may create opportunities for British and European Muslims to strengthen the emergent paradigm shift of understanding the Quran for oneself, and of creating an epistemic bridge between worlds; worlds of belief and secularism, worlds of East and West and worlds of old and new.

5

Muslim Women’s Voices, Feminisms and Theologies

Muslim women living in British societies are particularly visible as symbols of religious belief in secular contexts and of religious diversity in pluralist contexts. Whether they like it or not, whether they wear a hijab or not and whatever their ethnic background, these women become representatives of their faith. And since they embody faith in a shared world, these women’s opinions and experiences of ‘theology’, ‘lived religion’ and indeed pluralism are central to the discourses around Islamic education that this book facilitates. In writing this chapter about Islamic education and women, we examine whether current paradigms of Islamic education recognize the intellectual, social and political contributions that women have made to the development of Islamic thought. We ask and address four questions: first, does Islamic education equip modern Muslim women with the skills and knowledge base to recognize their potential to be leaders and dialogians both within the Muslim community and also in pluralist contexts? Second, what do different models of Islamic education currently tell students, who may not be Muslim or women, about the roles and contributions of Muslim women across history and in the modern world? Third, are current paradigms fit for purpose in a pluralist world? And fourth, what might the future look like? By listening to Muslim women’s voices, we uncover women’s scholarly contributions to the corpus of Islamic knowledge and discover a strong sense among Muslim women to reclaim their faith, and the rights and respect it assigns to them. Whether or not they call this a feminist movement, Muslim women all over the world and in Britain are acquiring Islamic education as a means to challenge patriarchy and to recover their voice and agency.

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Invisibility, double marginalization and feminism Our research indicates that in most discussions about Muslim communities, the narratives and intellectual contributions of Muslim women are usually invisible, misrepresented or sidelined. According to Hasan and Menon, sociological research around Islam and Muslims often prioritizes male voices and male experience as the normative position.1 At the same time, discourses about Islam in the West tend to be dominated by gender roles, and the social status of Muslim women forms a significant aspect of public scrutiny of Islam.2 In this chapter, we attempt to redress this imbalance and recognize Muslim women’s contributions to and experiences of Islamic education. Women have been integral to the development of Islamic thought and sciences right from the inception of Islam. Khadijah, the wife of Prophet Muhammad, was the first convert to Islam and its first benefactor. More recently in Britain, the first purpose-built mosque – the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking – was funded by a Muslim woman, Begum Shah Jahan, the ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Bhopal in what is now modern India, in 1889. Throughout this chapter, we discuss such female pioneers and leaders, and their contributions to society. However, normative narratives of the history of Islam often seem to relegate women to being at most pious onlookers. Their roles as supporters, benefactors, warriors and commanders are barely written about except in texts by and for women. So, for example, the website of the Shah Jahan Mosque tells us nothing about the woman who funded it and instead focuses on two men: Dr Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, who established an Oriental Institute at the site of the mosque, and Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, who later rescued the mosque when he found it in a state of disrepair.3 The work of both these men is significant, but it is a strange and questionable oversight that we know nothing about the woman who funded the mosque: she is described in a recent publication, by a woman, as a visionary who worked within Islamic frameworks to challenge traditional norms of womanhood in India and introduced reforms in veiling practices, women’s education, marriage, motherhood and women’s political rights.4 Why is Begum Shah Jahan invisible? As a faith and a din (way of life), Islam has a rich history of emancipation towards women, giving them social, political and financial rights. This is manifest in Prophet Muhammad’s equitable treatment of women and his encouragement of their scholarly endeavours, and in early Muslim society’s acknowledgement of women’s scholarly prowess. Aisha for example is cited as a scholar and Islamic teacher by all Sunni schools of thought and Fatima’s

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scholarship is recognized by both Sunnis and Shias, making both these women exemplars for all Muslims – male and female. However, many traditional biographies of these women tend to focus on their piety and excellence in the domestic spheres and disregard their roles as leaders, knowledge producers and transmitters of knowledge.5 These narratives position Aisha and Fatima as exemplars and role models not because of their scholarship and leadership but rather to celebrate their piety, purity and domesticity, which then becomes the normative ‘acceptable’ behaviour for Muslim women. Why is their scholarship invisible in normative narratives of their lives? Narratives about the leadership and agency of Muslim women are also disregarded by ‘mainstream’ and ‘secular’ sources of information such as the media and popular literature (and also occasionally by some feminist voices), which present differently uninformed imageries of Muslim women as oppressed and subjugated by their Islamic faith. As an illustration of these kinds of images, Clyne writes about a genre of writing she calls ‘Airport Literature’, which she describes as ‘those popular paperback books frequently, though not exclusively, sold in airport book-shops and therefore intended to entertain the traveller rather than for serious study. Occasionally more serious academic books or books by acclaimed authors share the shelves with these popular titles.’6 These books are characterized by eye-catching covers and titles, and effective marketing. A shelf full of veiled faces promises prospective readers stories of injustices in foreign locales, different from the reader’s habitat, and which reinforce the undiscerning reader’s beliefs in the superiority of one culture over another, which then is othered as the misogynist, exotic and different perpetuator of injustices against women. Multiple voices seem to be speaking for the Muslim woman – with her own voice being barely heard. In her groundbreaking research that involved coproduced research with over fifty-five Muslim women in Britain, CheruvallilContractor7 concluded that Muslim women are doubly marginalized: first by patriarchy within Muslim communities and what many Muslim women call ‘cultural’ interpretations of Islam that deny women the rights that are divinely ordained for them in the foundational texts of Islam.8 Second, Muslim women are marginalized by popular narratives of suspicion and radicalization that are prevalent in many Western societies and which position her as the different other. The latter is also compounded by the patriarchy that is prevalent in all societies, and which objectifies and marginalizes all women.9 It was only in 2014, for example, that the Church of England agreed to allow women to become bishops.

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Muslim women must address and are addressing this double marginalization on many fronts. In some cases, they are collaborating with women of diverse backgrounds to address the common issues that all women face. While feminist frameworks are usually extremely useful and relevant to their struggles, Muslim women, like many women from different backgrounds all over the world, have a love–hate relationship with feminism, with some embracing it and others eschewing it. Some Muslim women recognize that feminism can offer models of action and philosophies that create spaces where the commonalities in all women’s existences may be celebrated while also recognizing their diversity. Other Muslim women reject feminism, because they associate it with forms of feminist resistance that do not recognize the significance of religion to some women’s lives. Evidence shows us that there are many sorts of feminism, as we see in the book Fifty Shades of Feminism with Lindsey Hilsum, an intrepid foreign correspondent, Ahdaf Soueif, a novelist, translator from Arabic and political commentator, Tahmima Anam, a novelist, and forty-seven others.10 Feminism can facilitate understanding of how to be true to oneself and one’s beliefs while also analysing power play, especially for all women in a society that is still patriarchal and sexist. We believe that women and men are equal and different and that it is a constant struggle to establish and maintain any sort of parity for women. If this is true, it is useful to examine feminist movements, and it becomes a necessity to establish new forms of feminism: a woman who refuses to try and exercise her full moral autonomy may well damage her sons and her husband as well as her daughters and herself by not taking responsibility for what she knows to be right. One of the great strengths of women’s groups and movements is the collective ability to analyse the social pressures that are exerted on women, informally and with mutual recognition of each other’s worth. Aspects of the world remain constant, yet other aspects are constantly changing: as a general rule, in all communities, patriarchy does not change fast enough, yet the demands made upon us and our families require women to develop a capacity for thinking beyond patriarchy towards critical self-reflection and the possibility for critical self-transformation. Through being aware of philosophical writings, we can also analyse gender relations and issues of gender subordination. Amy Allen considers Michel Foucault’s depiction of power as an inescapable truth of our human lives, such that there is ‘no outside to power’: we cannot escape power relations; they are an integral part of all our lives.11 If we accept this, we can also become aware of the role that power, exerted by others, plays in the development

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of the gendered female self. If we socialize a girl child to be quiet and obedient and a boy child to be lively and active, these are forms of normative socialization that will perpetuate a certain form of gendered identity. The girl cannot then enjoy normative reciprocity, but accepts a subordinate role, which can lead to social degradation as justified in the veiling of the voice or, in secular culture, the girl as sexual object. Nor can she enjoy mutual recognition with the males in her life; in order to enjoy their love, she will be recognized as submissive or at least ‘less equal’ and sometimes even ‘invisible’, for example in being excluded from or not being allowed to worship in many mosques. Yet what many women want is normative reciprocity and mutual recognition, a society in which boys and girls respect each other for different yet mutually enhancing ways of understanding the world. In this wider world, Seyla Benhabib proposes a model of interactive universalism which presupposes the possibility of equality between the sexes; despite the attractiveness of this model, Amy Allen believes that Benhabib downplays the power that gendered stereotyping exerts to reduce the possibility of women having agency and autonomy and being agents of change. If we accept, as Allen does, that ‘power is an ineradicable feature of human social life’, then we are being realistic and can still aspire to mutual recognition between the sexes.12 Education of men and women towards this goal is vitally important. Current Islamic Studies provision in Britain does not always do this: our research indicated that at institutions that teach girls and women, the curriculum can often be less detailed than for boys; the curriculum also tends to reinforce a domestic and less social role for women; courses are typically shorter; girls and women feel that their studies are much less valued by society and when they complete their studies they have far less authority than male scholars do. One of the major dilemmas facing all women today is about how to function in the public space: this is identified by Habermas as basically rational, dependent on the belief that humans will be accorded respect when they speak publically with reason on their side. Habermas is challenged by Amy Allen on this, for possibly unreliable optimism; women know there are issues about how much of her body and her intellect a woman may show and how much movement she is allowed to make. Can a woman debate with a man face to face on an equal footing? Can she play football? Can she become the conductor of an orchestra? Yet there are women who do move out into the public space to pursue truth: the Egyptian activist women of the 2012–2013 Arab uprisings are a case in point. In one of the most contested areas in the world, the occupied territories of Palestine, in 2014 the governor of Ramallah was a woman – Dr Laila

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Ghannam – as was the mayor of Bethlehem – Vera Baboun. We know that women have the capacity to feel righteous anger, but also to calm the rage of men and proceed along constructive and conciliatory lines in many world conflicts as well as in the home. There are also Muslim women who, in the face of such conflicts, may not believe that they can take comfort in their religion, or find answers to their problems in the faith laws, but who believe they would like to be respected for their own approaches. The struggles of Muslim women may not be described in exclusively feminist or rights-based terms; rather, these struggles must also be understood as being grounded in Islamic theology, Muslim cultures, Islamic feminisms and, in many but not all cases, women’s understanding of what Allah has ordained for them. Most Muslim women – whether feminist or not – agree that in their own ways they are reclaiming their faith from certain types of patriarchal interpreters who hijack its egalitarianism and from similar types of secular interpreters who hijack its pluralism. Their struggles, activism and scholarship may lead them to paths that seem more secular or alternatively more religious; in either case, women are reclaiming a space and a religious identity where, in the feminist sense, they are treated with rights and respect. And as their struggles are informed and inspired by their readings and interpretations of Islamic foundational texts, it seems that in furthering their struggles Muslim women are engaging with and living through a debate about the nature of Islamic education in a ‘modern’ Western context. They are critically engaging with Islamic texts, challenging patriarchy and building bridges between religiosity and secularism. This chapter will attempt to unpick this debate about feminism for our readers, exposing tensions, contradictions and fault lines to better craft an Islamic educational feminism.

A brief history of Muslim women’s Islamic education In this section we briefly look at the historical opportunities that have been available to women to acquire Islamic knowledge. Have women always been ‘invisible’ in the annals of scholarly pursuit? We go back to the prophetic era and look at the evolution of schools where women could study the Quran: in doing so, we demonstrate the centrality of women’s Islamic education and their scholarly contributions to the history and praxis in the formative years of Islam.

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The lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad During the lifetime of the Prophet, the Hadiths13 indicate that, in a format that is the opposite of contemporary practice, men and women shared the same space, usually in the mosque, to learn the Quran. The first example of what may be understood as an Islamic studies school specifically for females, albeit perhaps for women and not just girls, can be traced back to a Hadith which states: Some women requested the Prophet to fix a day for them as the men were taking all his time. On that he promised them one day for religious lessons and commandments. Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 1, Book 3, No. 101

What is significant in the above Hadith is that women learnt from the Prophet himself. Aisha Bewley,14 a Muslim scholar and translator of the Quran, also notes that the Prophet Muhammad, after asking the women of the Ansar to gather in one house, sent his companion Umar ibn al-Khattab to teach women the basis of Islam.15 These early Quran schools illustrate that education was a priority in early Muslim communities, not just for men, but also for women, and that facilities existed – some more organized as in the two instances mentioned above, and others less formal, such as when individual women directly approached the Prophet or his wives for scholarly advice. Indeed, Aisha, the wife of the Prophet, praised the women of Ansar when she said: Modesty (or shyness) did not prevent them from becoming learned in the deen. Sahih Muslim, Book 3, No. 649

Women from this era were not just involved in learning and memorization, but they also taught, transmitted and disseminated what they had learnt of the Quran and the Hadith.16 We know for example that Zaynab bint Ali, Muhammad’s granddaughter, held regular meetings in Medina to provide an Islamic education to women. This was an era before the corpus of Hadiths was collated and before any kind of formal Islamic Studies was established, yet these early Muslim communities had access to the Quran (not necessarily in the collated form we know), prophetic commentary on the Quran and to individuals who had acquired Islamic knowledge directly from Prophet Muhammad or his companions, people who would later become Hadith narrators. So although this was not Islamic Studies as we in the twenty-first century know it, it may be described as the inceptions of Islamic Studies. And it is important to note

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that in the beginning women were centrally involved. We also know that Aisha’s scholarly leadership meant that she is responsible for the transmission of at least 2,210 Hadiths and that she taught Hadith and Quran to vast groups of men and women:17 During his lifetime, he [Prophet Muhammad] established her [Aisha’s] authority by telling Muslims to consult her in his absence; after his death, she went to be become one of the most prolific and distinguished scholars of her time. A stateswoman, scholar, mufti, and judge, Aisha combined spirituality, activism and knowledge and remains a role model for many Muslim women today. Myriam François-Cerrah18

While this is the generally accepted view of most Sunni Muslims, it is significant to note that most traditional texts would not bring to the fore Aisha’s abilities as a stateswoman or as a lawmaker. Many texts tend to focus on her piety or modesty. This particular quote by a woman demonstrates the difference in narrative when women speak for themselves.

Early Islamic history So during the Prophet’s lifetime and in the years following his death, women and their scholarship were visible in most aspects of Muslim society. They had access to education and the authority to provide fatwas or scholarly opinion on religious matters. They were also educators who taught other women and who also taught some of the most eminent male scholars of Islam (Roded 1996). As early Muslim communities grew, there was an increased need for educational facilities. Usually, centres of learning, as in the Prophet’s time, were attached to mosques. It is not clear whether there were separate facilities for males and females, and it seems that usually males and females continued to share the same space. Furthermore, a number of references can be found in biographical sources about individual Muslim women who pursued both Quran and Hadith studies under their fathers and other scholars, and who became scholars and teachers themselves.19 However, there is little mention of specific schools for women or, indeed, for men. In 859 CE, partly due to the efforts of Fatimah bint Muhammad al-Fihri (d. 880 CE), a centre of learning was established at the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fez, Morocco, which became the foundation of what is recognized as the first formal school of Islamic studies, including the study of the Quran (the modernday University of Al-Karaouine), and where there were special facilities for

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women to listen to scholars. Bewley further mentions the al-Andalus Mosque, also in Fez, set up by Fatimah’s sister Maryam, which became a branch of the Qarawiyyin Mosque and also a centre of learning. Here, both male and female students were taught by a female teacher, Aliyya bint al-T ̣ayyib (circa tenth century), and specific times were allocated for students to attend classes – after the asr (evening) prayers for women and before the dhuhr (afternoon) prayers for men.20 Around this time, more organized facilities for teaching and learning Islamic Sciences began to evolve, and terms such as madrasa began to be used more frequently. In the late Abbasid period, Nizz ̣am al-Mulk (1018–1092), a Seljuk vizier, founded a number of schools that later came to be known as Madrasa Nizz ̣amiyyah. During the Fatimid and Mamluk periods, schools flourished under royal patronage. However, there are considerable lacunae in recorded history around this period and, although a number of female scholars and Hadith transmitters can be traced back to this period, it is difficult to recreate an accurate picture of the facilities that existed for girls to study the Quran. Quran schools for girls continued to develop in various formats, often under the patronage of female scholars and or female members of various royal families. For example, in fourteenth-century Cairo, Fatima bint alAbbas al-Baghdadiyya, a S ̣ufi scholar and poet, established an all-female institute, the Ribat al-Baghdadiyya, which also offered women social support. In the fifteenth century, Umm Abdullah taught mixed classes of ‘more than fifty students’ in Damascus, and, in Cairo, Fatima bint Muhammad similarly taught men and women. Ghalayana, a Moroccan scholar who lived in the seventeenth century, is reported to have included many women and girls among her students.21 In China, also around the seventeenth century, schools were built for the Islamic education of Muslim women. The practice of nu ahong, or female spiritual leaders, continues to be widespread in Chinese Muslim communities.22 Another women’s education movement, Yan Taru (‘those who congregate together’ or ‘sisterhood’), was established by the scholar and daughter of the founder of the Sokoto caliphate (in Nigeria), Nana Asmau, in the eighteenth century and still exists in the early twenty-first century. Asmau trained older, more mature women to become teachers or jajis, who taught the Quran and Islamic studies to their local communities, sometimes through the medium of poetry. Such examples indicate the historical continuity, geographical spread and richness of Islamic studies and opportunities for girls and women in the Islamic

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world that continued in various forms through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For example, Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam (1838–1901) introduced many educational reforms in her state of Bhopal (modern-day India),23 and, more recently, Farhat Hashimi’s organization for women, Al-Huda International (established in 1994), has enabled women to set up study circles in their local communities aimed at studying the Quran and Islam.

So … invisibility? So historically women seemed to have had access to Islamic education. This may not have been universal. Often, the provision of such practice was led by women who were from the elite classes. These were women who gave royal patronage and set up institutions for women to study their religion. These institutions were often set up in big cities, so women in rural areas had no access to Islamic theology, other than the basic provision offered by the local mosque, which was aimed at providing information about the rituals and practices of faith rather than creating scholars. Furthermore, both Aisha Bewley and Akram Nadwi report a reduction in the number of female scholars over the last 300 years.24 In Bewley’s bibliography of significant Muslim women, this drop is clearly evident. So what may be the reasons for this drop? Bewley mentions colonialism and a need felt by Muslim men to protect ‘their’ women, which led to women’s confinement to domestic spheres, which reduced their ability to engage with scholarship. Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, in his essay ‘The Cultural Side of Islam’,25 describes ‘the strict zenana system’, which meant that women were secluded to a part of the house. According to him, because of this system, ‘women in upper class of society, instead of playing the frank and noble part which she had played among earlier Muslims, became a tricky and intriguing captive’.26 In describing his life in India, he concluded that women were emphatically not given the rights that Islam assures them – a crime for which he asserts that the Muslim community will have to face increasing social degradation. Finally, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries also saw the rise of more literalist forms of Islam, which reduced further the visibility of Muslim women in some societies. For example, the book Purdah and the Status of Woman by the Pakistani scholar Abul Ala Maududi27 prescribes a limited and narrow role for Muslim women based on the author’s interpretations of foundational Islamic texts. As a traditionally trained scholar and the founder of the political party Jamaat-i-Islami, Maududi’s views are influential, particularly in the

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Indian subcontinent and Indian-Pakistani-Bangladeshi diaspora communities. According to Maududi, women may not go out of the house except if essential. Women must wear the niqab which covers their face and they must practice purdah – or lead secluded lives.28 More recently, the so-called Wahabbi/Salafi movement emanating out of Saudi Arabia is having a similar limiting impact on women. Women both study and transmit these teachings in Saudi Arabia and beyond. In a sense, some women co-opt patriarchal authority to carve a leadership space for themselves. The influences of such a stance are epitomized in the writings of a Pakistani woman, who is known only as the ‘wife of Zarif Ali Thanvi’, who professes that women may not leave their homes even to seek religious education!29 This is the complete antonym of what foundational Islamic texts say – that one may even go to China to seek knowledge. Interestingly, this Hadith says nothing about the gender of the seeker of knowledge, implying the seeker could be either male or female. Due to the colonial history of Britain, the largest proportion (67 per cent)30 of the British Muslim population has ethnic roots in the Indian subcontinent, and in moving to Britain brought with them some of the patriarchal interpretations discussed above. In the following section we discuss the impact of South Asian Islam on Islamic educational opportunities for British Muslim women and how Muslim women are challenging and reshaping the opportunities available to them.

Challenging invisibility: What do these women say? Throughout our research, access to women who have studied or are studying Islamic education in traditional Muslim seminaries has been problematic. There have been practical issues around gatekeeper access; however, more significantly, we have experienced an attitudinal and linguistic personification of the invisibility of Muslim women (which is discussed in the previous section). Policy-makers, academic researchers and community leaders (of various forms) all perceive the normative Muslim voice in Britain to be male, so that the concerns, opinions and aspirations of Muslim women remain unheard and unaddressed. In our research, often simply through dogged determination but also through perspicacious negotiation, through building relationships of trust and through innovative ethnographic strategies we managed to speak to a number of women who were studying Islamic Sciences including many who were either trainee or trained alimahs. We met women in seminaries where they studied or taught, in mosques and in community centres.

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So what did these women say about their experiences of Islamic education? Young women who are studying to be alimahs or Muslim faith leaders say they derive spiritual and intellectual strength from their training and have great aspirations to use their knowledge for the well-being of their families, communities and their nation, even if they know that their own group and wider British society may not grant them the autonomy to work effectively in their communities or indeed outside their communities, as ambassadors for Islam: This training is fulfilling my needs as a Muslim woman to help me understand my duties/faith and responsibilities towards my family and community. This institution fills the gap that was not fulfilled by other education institutions. An alimah from London

… But not all alimahs There is a need here also to distinguish between the different forms of Islamic education and women’s engagement with these. In Chapter 2, on mapping the provision, we demonstrated that Islamic education can take various forms, ranging from very basic madrasa education to courses in applied theology. Muslim women engage with Islamic Studies at all these various levels. In madrasas and maktabs, female students either memorize the Quran to become hafizahs, that is, someone who has memorized the complete Quran, or they may simply study Arabic reading and basic Islamic principles around prayer. Women may undertake more scholarly study in seminaries to become alimahs or scholars. In Shia communities, women may study at a h ̣awza to become muballighah. But this is formal religious study. We have previously discussed the informal forms of Islamic education: in study circles or halaqahs; groups meetings in peoples’ homes and in cafes; courses run by groups that are religious but fall outside of the religious establishment, such as women’s and young people’s groups; Islamic societies; and online on forums, blogs and websites. These informal sources of Islamic education are particularly significant for Muslim women, for whom a regular seminary or university course may seem impractical or inaccessible. Although quantitative data for this are not available, our research indicates that many women prefer such courses both for convenience and for content. Women read and engage with Islamic foundational texts and theological doctrine in their own time, significantly without any qualification, but definitely gaining understanding of matters that are important to them. So, for example, a group of women in their late twenties/early thirties – who were all friends – told us how they met once a week to study the Quran. Their

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teacher was one from among their own group who had studied under a female scholar. The dynamics within this group were very interesting as traditional hierarchies between teacher and student did not exist; the women were happy to learn from her, but also challenged her when they disagreed with what she said. After their studies, the women had an informal meal together, so that they combined their education and their social life. When asked why they had convened this group, the women replied that they otherwise did not have the opportunity to learn about their religion. Men regularly went to the mosque, but the women could not due to childcare or work commitments or difficult access due to distance of the mosque from their homes or because the mosque had limited or no facilities for women, so these informal sessions were their only chance. And they managed to have some fun too! A more organized approach is exemplified in the courses run by Shaykha Halima Krausen under the auspices of the An-Nisa Society. An-Nisa translates to ‘The Women’, and the society describes itself as follows: The An-Nisa Society was established in May 1985 by a group of young British Muslim women who wanted to respond to the needs of Muslim women and their families, whilst identifying themselves as Muslims. Hitherto services had been provided on the basis of race and ethnicity alone. A multi-ethnic British Muslim identity was not recognised, so the fact that Muslims needed faith to be taken into account when delivering services had been overlooked. The Society found a community that was socially excluded and rife with disadvantage and deprivation caused by a misunderstanding and neglect of Muslims and their needs. Over the last 25 years, the organisation has been working to achieve its mission of promoting a ‘positive British Muslim identity by promoting societal change and personal growth’.31

The An-Nisa Society is an excellent example of the kinds of Islamic education and activism taking place outside both the organized religious and organized secular sectors – it is neither a seminar nor a university. Shaykha Halima Krausen is an important scholar, particularly in European contexts. Her talks enable both men and women to engage to challenge patriarchal interpretations and rediscover egalitarian reading of Islamic foundational texts. She also discusses interfaith dialogue and pluralist living. This is an example of women coming together to fill a gap in their access to scholarship – scholarship by, for and with women, and men! Courses and talks run by organizations like the An-Nisa Society address the real ‘everyday’ issues that women have to grapple with as they traverse their religious–secular lives.

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The final venue where Muslim women are acquiring an Islamic education is the World Wide Web – the Internet. This is often perceived by the people who use it as a ‘safe’ and anonymized place where anything can be discussed. The Internet, through a plethora of relevant websites, blogs, forums and online course providers, has become a space where women can ask questions that are unaskable elsewhere. Furthermore, courses and reading material online can be studied and read at a pace and time convenient to the women who use these resources. However, in using Internet resources, it is important to note that there are risks: first, anonymity is no longer a correct assumption – technological developments mean that users can be traced – and second, the information available online may not always be the most accurate and in some cases may be misleading. It is important to note here that, as also discussed in Chapter 2 on mapping the provision, all the forms of Islamic education opportunities mentioned here, except university courses, are not validated by the mainstream education system, so any qualifications/certificates received are not recognized outside Muslim communities. However, within their respective communities, courses are considered valuable based on the scholarship and leadership of the course providers. So, for example, Halima Krausen has been given ijazah by her own shaykh and is respected within the German Muslim community. So women may seek Islamic knowledge in a wide range of places, from traditional seminaries to the Internet; we now look at what are their reasons for doing so.

Why an Islamic education? Muslim scholars and leaders frequently talk about the significance of a mother in bringing up her children and in their education.32 Danièle Joly reports, in her research on the British Muslim community, how male scholars she spoke to considered young women and girls to be the ‘mothers of tomorrow’ who would transmit ‘a proper Muslim way of life and values to children [of generations] to come’.33 The Muslim woman’s Islamic education was and is important to ensure the perpetuation of Islamic tarbiyyah (nurturing, education and cultivation), akhlaq (morals) and adab (manners). The Muslim women we spoke to agreed that this is an important and significant aspect of religious and intellectual transmission and a social role and duty; however, there was more to their decision to study Islamic Sciences. By themselves acquiring and transmitting

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Islamic knowledge to future generations of Muslims, many Muslim women aspired to develop their own understanding of their faith that they could use to sidestep patriarchy and advance women-friendly interpretations of Islam within their families and communities: Islamic education is becoming more popular in every field. Girls and women are training more as alimahs, as doctors, etc. Girls need to be educated. In the Pakistani community, the woman spends a great deal of time with her children; she can educate her children. An alimah who trained in Nottingham

However, there are other aspects to British Muslim women’s aspirations to Islamic scholarship than good parenting. British Muslim women live, work and study in a multicultural environment, which includes people of different faiths and of none, and so also play a much wider role in pluralist society. Their lives therefore have both secular and religious elements. Muslim women in the West are positioned at a visible cusp between secularism and religion: By living at this cusp, between seemingly tangential aspects of their realities and through their balances between the two, Muslim women challenge the secular–religious dichotomy and exemplify the reconciliations that are possible.34

Many women are training in what are considered to be ‘mainstream’ or ‘secular’ professions – law, medicine, science and philosophy. They say they need access to Islamic theology so that they may harmonize the religious and secular aspects of their lives; for example, one young British muslimah35 who is now a science teacher sees herself as a ‘scientist and a firm theist’.36 It is this balance that the British Muslim woman seeks: We study Islamic theology to gain a deeper spiritual understanding; changing yourself, self-reformation, with the hope to provide spiritual guidance. It’s not separate from everything else. There are twenty of us alimahs who go to my mosque. We meet every other Sunday to do Hadith teaching, and every Tuesday we run a revert session as reverts need support in the mosques; they do not understand the cultural stuff. An alimah from Gloucester

Young Muslim women are seeking Islamic knowledge to better understand and reconcile the religious and secular aspects of their British Muslim identities. Young women (and indeed young men) told us about how they were different from their parents’ generation, in that they seek to critically engage with their

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faith: so Muslim women, for example, discussed their choice of wearing or not wearing the hijab or the headscarf. Whatever their ultimate decision, many women described a journey where they read through the texts and tried to arrive at their own understanding of what the purpose of the hijab was and whether or not they should be wearing it. Was the hijab an important signifier of their relationship with God? Or was their personal relationship more important than outward appearance? Whatever their destination, this journey was part of their Islamic education – either by self-study online, through books or by attending courses. Finally, our research indicates that Muslim women are seeking Islamic knowledge in order to undertake a feminist reclamation of their faith: in doing so, young Muslim women in Britain are questioning cultural practices that can interfere with their life choices. Often their knowledge of and adherence to Islamic principles are their strongest allies in contesting patriarchal interpretations and representations of Islam. Muslim women’s religiosity, which is a source of strength for many women, can also become a cause for suspicion when caught in the secular-versus-religious debate. Muslim women from many different educational, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds hence want greater access to Islamic knowledge, so that they may be able to voice their opinions on feminisms and women’s rights in a theological framework that does not compromise their faith.37 These women recognize that foundational Islamic texts contain divinely ordained rights for women; however, they are also aware that in many Muslim communities, patriarchy denies women these rights. Indeed, patriarchal voices use their own interpretations of the same foundational texts to ratify their denial of women rights. Michèle Le Dœuff writes about how women’s marginalization is perpetuated by their absence from systems of knowledge.38 Muslim women are therefore seeking to reclaim their rights and roles by reinstating themselves within the knowledge systems that create and disseminate interpretations of Islamic foundational texts. In doing so, they are reclaiming their voice. A young alimah had this to say when she started her seven-year Islamic Sciences programme: ‘We were excited to go … We will be able to have a voice.’ In our research, we came across women who were studying or had studied different forms of Islamic Studies. When asked ‘why?’, they all had different reasons: however, a common factor across all of them was a desire to understand their faith better. Yet, it would be incorrect to limit their aspiration to selfimprovement – another common factor of women’s narratives was transmission of their faith. For the most traditional this was transmission from mothers to their

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children, and for others this was about transmission to their communities. For yet another group of women, their acquisition of Islamic Studies extends beyond a perceived need for self-improvement or for knowledge transmission and entails claiming religious agency and authority by becoming part of the systems of Islamic knowledge. In a context that is perhaps overshadowed by patriarchy and patriarchal readings, they want the ability to reinterpret foundational texts and enable a reading of them that is by and for women.

Traditional Islamic Theology curricula for women and girls In madrasas and maktabs, girls study the same curriculum as boys, and when young (up to the age of eleven) boys and girls may study together. In seminary courses, girls usually study at different institutions, and there is a concern surrounding the difference in the curriculum that is taught to boys and girls, although the subjects taught generally remain the same (as discussed in Chapter 2). The curriculum taught at girls’ institutions varies, but it has been observed that it does not always have the same level of detail, intellectual rigour and prestige as the curriculum taught to young boys. The girls’ courses are shorter and explore Islamic theology in less depth, with the girls studying fewer books than their male counterparts. There are also concerns that some books suggest a role for women that limits them to domestic spheres, discouraging them from playing a wider role in pluralist society. Alimahs, like alims, have strong bonds of respect for their teachers, who are usually male. This can perpetuate patterns of male dominance in the knowledge they acquire and their future lives. For example, the Behisti Zewar was written in Urdu by Maulana39 Ashraf Ali Thanvi in the early 1900s40 as a means to acquaint women with Islamic knowledge. This book is significant within South Asian (Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi) Muslim communities, which in Britain form two-thirds of the Muslim population,41 and is taught at most Deobandi darul ulooms in the UK. It presents an encyclopaedic account of Islamic history, laws, rules and regulations, directed exclusively to female readers, and deals with various mas’ala (routine problems/matters) and their solutions. It is criticized for its very pedantic details about various mas’ala, prescription of the niqab (face covering) for all young women and furthering of a social role that limits women to the domestic sphere. In her work, Bokhari examines how British Muslim women are reinterpreting and re-translating this book in their new British contexts, negotiating its relevance and also challenging it.42

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There is need for more research that explores in detail the Islamic Studies curricula that are taught to girls and women. There is clearly a need for more alimahs and female scholars to be involved in processes of scholarly writing and curriculum development and teaching which can lead to more educational opportunities for women that are led by women. Many young women, when asked, said that they were satisfied with the theological aspects of what they were taught. However, during interviews with Muslims, both male and female, it was also evident that more needs to be done to give Muslim girls and women increased access to religious training of the same calibre as boys and men. This apparent contradiction may result from a discrepancy between women’s aspirations and their limited access to Islamic knowledge. They may have a sense of loyalty to institutions and teachers on the one hand and their career ambitions and a desire to be contributing members of British society on the other. Women do not always have access to religious training, so when they do get the opportunity, it is appreciated, and because they have nothing to compare it with, they may be uncritical. While there is provision for Islamic education for women, there are concerns that alimahs tend to ‘vanish’ from mainstream society and do not practise as faith leaders in society. The reasons for this include non-existent career pathways/ routes into HE, cultural milieux within the Muslim community that resist women’s leadership and personal circumstances of the women. These women constitute qualified human resources, who can perform pastoral, counselling, teaching, chaplaincy and leadership roles that are lost to individual communities and society as a whole, which will have wider ramifications within the Muslim community and beyond. These roles are not limited to women, and men may be teachers and chaplains if they wish to, and indeed many men and women currently undertake these roles. Yet, if women are excluded from these roles or if they are absent, then society bears a loss of valuable resources on multiple fronts including a lack of female Muslim role models, loss (including economic losses) of the skills and knowledge that these women hold and a lack of service providers who are specially placed to meet the needs of women and young people, in a way that men may not be able to.

The role of the alimah in the community The Islamic education that some Muslim women have often gives them religious authority and reasonable influence within their communities, particularly among the womenfolk. While they are sometimes unsure whether they can give

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religious advice in particular contexts, the alimahs we interviewed described themselves as providing a good service to their communities, yet also being constrained by social traditions that they respect and accept but may not always believe to be necessary: Men also, not only women ask for advice. My brother comes to me for advice, for example, gestures regarding prayers; his friends have asked taqlid also, questions about faith itself. He comes to me; then his voice is my voice. He takes it back to the friend who has asked for advice; this way I am not talking directly to men, which is a problem for other Muslim men. This used to be a big issue (for women); her voice is part of her beauty. I advise as an alimah and as a British Muslim. An alimah from Leicester

An alimah can influence her community with her views: I believe we must let women go into the workplace – we need women doctors, GPs, dentists etc. What’s the point, the men ask – I say, you have a wife, she may need a doctor, but there may not be a woman doctor. An alimah from the Midlands

Some alimahs are already providing pastoral ministry, making important contributions to their local communities. Men and women often seek their advice from an Islamic perspective on various life experiences. The alimahs we met taught in faith leader training institutions or Islamic schools; others helped manage these schools, worked as chaplains and ran informal religious classes/support groups in the mosque, community centres or their homes. They understand the significance of their training and the need that the community has to seek advice on various matters. An alimah we spoke with told us how she became a role model for her community and the pressures this brings: If anyone needs any type of advice they know they can come to me. Alimah, speed dialling, they know you are an alimah. You are seen as a role model, because you can either guide or mislead, and they tend to think everything you do is right. An alimah from Leicester

Towards a pluralist future To begin this chapter we asked whether current paradigms of scholarship recognize Muslim women’s intellectual contributions – Muslim women have historically contributed to the development of Islamic scholarship and

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civilization, and have been scholars and teachers. Often, their scholarship has been supported and encouraged by men in their families and communities. However, as normative narratives of Islamic knowledge over-represented male and patriarchal voices, Muslim women’s scholarly contributions gradually became invisible. We postulate that there is a need to recover these contributions from Muslim women. Furthermore, as we progressed through this chapter, we also recognized a need for Islamic scholarships that is led by women and which encourages Muslim women to study and work with Islamic theology. So what may such a scholarship look like?

Islamic theology by and for women This scholarship must include new content and methodologies that incorporate women’s opinion, their complex roles in pluralist Western societies and their aspirations. In this regard, there is ample precedence in foundational Islamic texts and in the biographies of Muslim women personalities. However, there is a need to reclaim such woman-friendly theologies which gradually seem to have disappeared along with Muslim women’s reduced stake in scholarship. According to the French feminist philosopher Michèle Le Dœuff, this situation is not unique to Muslim women; rather, all women have been displaced by dominant male voices from the processes of knowledge creation and dissemination, leaving their voices and opinions marginalized.43 Through an emphasis on women’s theologies, such work may challenge this marginalization, reclaiming women’s histories and contributions to the initial development of Islamic studies and its sustained growth in contemporary contexts. For example, although Khadijah, the first wife of Prophet Muhammad, is a well-known figure, she is usually described as a wife and as a mother, which we agree are admirable skills for any woman. However, our point of dissent with such narratives of her life is that very little is mentioned of her independence, her career as a businesswoman and her role as a benefactor for early Muslim communities and also as a counsellor to Prophet Muhammad during the early days of prophet-hood when he lacked self-confidence and was unsure about himself. The latter are clearly skills that would resonate with the needs of modern-day Western Muslim women. There is an urgent need to reclaim Islamic historical narratives, rewriting them to fill in all the blank spots left by missing women. Aisha Bewley alludes to a need to achieve this by challenging patriarchal narratives: ‘it is time to re-examine the sources and re-assess how

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Muslim women in the past acted so that we can escape the limiting perspectives which have come to be the norm’.44 This new approach needs to be researched, written and then taught by and to women and also taught to young men. Both young women and young men, future leaders and citizens, need to be aware of the continuing contributions of female scholarship to the compendium of Islamic knowledge. Awareness is perhaps the first step to a society that is equitable and respectful to both genders. Islamic feminists and Muslim women are beginning this process of reclamation of intellectual agency: agency that is by and for women and which is supported and recognized by men. Such partnerships between the genders may lead to social change.45 In her research on women’s interpretations of the Quran, Naguib examines ‘the limitations which arise from constructing Quranic hermeneutics on the basis of binary oppositions in which interpretations of gender in the Qur’an are either modern feminist and egalitarian, on the one hand, or traditional, male and misogynistic on the other’. She concludes that women’s reclamation on intellectual agency must constitute a ‘double reading’: the double reading allows for positioning women’s readings of the Qur’an in the Muslim hermeneutic tradition and, consequently, for displacing the operative binaries that subvert opening it up. By critically and creatively engaging with this tradition, perhaps not only the blind spots and sites of repression may come to be revealed but also the sites therein, such as its affirmation of the original purity of humanity where a new reading could be grounded.46

Such reclamation of Muslim women’s stories is leading to a genre of Muslim woman scholarship including exegetical studies of Muslim religious scripture,47 pedagogies to empower Muslim women,48 explorations of religious and historical roles of Muslim women,49 Muslim women sociological studies,50 Muslim women geographies51 and the feminisms of Muslim women.52 We hope such woman-focused approaches into Islamic theology and Islamic Studies may address another issue faced by many Muslim women: that of their being doubly marginalized by patriarchal vestiges in Muslim communities and by secular society’s suspicions of their religiosity.53 As discussed earlier, Islamic knowledge empowers women to challenge patriarchy. By incorporating comparative aspects so that women are studying different theologies as well as the secular value systems of those who do not have religious beliefs, we hope Muslim women can be further empowered to challenge and address issues surrounding the role of religion in secular social frameworks. Thus, by working within and across theologies, we have explored and developed educational interventions that will

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enable women to challenge the double marginalization we earlier mentioned and to function as fully contributing members of British society. This will lead us to the feminisms of Muslim women and how they balance their ‘femininity’, their ‘modesty’, their ‘modernity’, their ‘piety’ and their ‘agency’ and how all of these are perceived in Muslim communities and in wider pluralist settings. It is issues like these surrounding being and perception which influence the development of Islamic feminist philosophies and their application to ‘everyday’ situations and which in turn become relevant to this research project. This feminism is usually grounded in the Islamic beliefs of these women54 and at the same time is underpinned by the Western socio-cultural milieux of many Muslim women, as is the case of Muslim women living in Britain.55 This feminism seeks to challenge patriarchy and patriarchal understandings of faith yet these ‘Islamic feminists’ constantly achieve their goals and rights through partnerships with men. They also challenge stereotypical imagery of Muslim women and seek to replace this with images of Muslim women as contributing citizens in a pluralist world. Thus, this feminism is a dual struggle against vestiges of patriarchy in Muslim communities and against widely held secular suspicions of visible religiosity. This understanding of Islamic feminism often remains unarticulated but is nevertheless observable in Muslim women’s difficulties, struggles and indeed successes in their quest for rights and equity in Britain. This Islamic feminism draws its strength from Muslim women’s knowledge and understanding of Islamic theology, which enables them to challenge patriarchal interpretations of faith with other women-friendly interpretations.56 Religious symbolism such as women’s practice of hijab becomes part of this reclamation of religion, and their wearing of the hijab gives them authority and agency.57 In Western pluralist societies, the hijab may also become an instrument of dialogue signifying the wearer as a representative of her faith.58 It is also vital to acknowledge the cultural aspects of clothing: there are devout Muslim women who do not find it culturally necessary to wear the hijab. Feminisms can and should be understood as providing a sort of worldwide women’s sisterhood: all women are visible and must function (in different ways) in a world in which the man is still the norm – this is not confined to Islam. However, women’s social realities, their feminisms and their relationships with feminism differ in many ways – with women from diverse backgrounds either embracing, eschewing or remaining neutral on the issue of feminist thinking. On the one hand, in ‘secular’ Britain, young women (including young Muslim women) are rejecting feminism because they think all battles on the

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gender front have been won, or because a re-emergence of patriarchal systems makes it dangerous or simply ‘uncool’ to assert one’s feminism, yet gender discrimination continues not just in corporate boardrooms, churches and universities, but also in workplaces, streets and social venues.59 On the other hand, in British Muslim communities, women are rejecting feminism because they see it as incompatible with their faith (just as many feminists would consider religious faith as incompatible with their feminisms). This is not limited to Muslim women: women of other faiths also similarly struggle with the feminist–religious divide. Yet, it is significant that feminist epistemologies include tools that are relevant to facilitate recognizing marginality, giving and taking of voice and ethical practice. These tools have evolved in response to diverse women’s contexts and thinking and are therefore useful in diverse struggles of women and indeed men. In a world mired in conflicts fuelled by identity politics, feminism can create a space where differences can at least be discussed. In some cases, feminism may also allow for common cause to be found in giving voice to the marginalized. In the case of Islamic education, it can allow for an understanding that not just Muslim women but all women are marginalized from the systems of knowledge. Feminism is not one monochrome philosophy; rather, it recognizes and represents myriad ways of living. It can therefore allow for women and men of different backgrounds to work together to address shared issues, to find common ground and also to understand and celebrate their differences. We therefore believe that in this sense of providing pathways to recognize and respect diverse voices, feminist philosophy could be a valuable addition to applied Islamic Studies curricula. In doing so, Muslim women’s enduring contributions to Islamic Studies may be revealed and recognized. We recognize that the terms ‘feminist’ or ‘feminism’ are viewed with suspicion not just in Muslim theological institutions but also in theological institutions across most faiths, so this inclusion of feminist philosophies may only be possible if it is made clear at the onset that there are many forms of feminism, including religious feminisms, and that many men are very much part of the discourse and activism. The form of feminism we suggest does not seek to challenge foundational religion – it only challenges patriarchy and patriarchal culture that often masquerades as religion. While at first the suggestion to include feminism may seem radical to traditional practitioners, we believe that the inclusive forms feminism we propose may be perceived as a return to traditional Islamic philosophies, which encourage and celebrate the emancipation and rights of the marginalized whoever they may be – slaves, orphans or women.

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Islamic education and enhanced career choices for women? Some young women drop out of the career market either out of a conviction that they must lead sheltered lives or because they do not have access to career guidance about job options that are culturally and religiously sensitive to their needs. It may be possible to achieve this through recognizing and empowering older women who have trained theologically and who have carved out jobs and social roles to be role models/mentors to provide advice to younger women. For example, an alimah may want to teach, but may not have access to information about teacher training or qualifications that allow her to meet the entry requirements for a teacher training course. Muslim women and girls need access to career guidance that can clarify the various pathways to qualifications and enable them to achieve their aspirations. There is clearly a need for the expertise that alimahs have to be recognized in Muslim communities and in pluralist British society. Clearer, culture-sensitive career pathways need to be made accessible to them so that their participation in society can be enhanced. From 1999 to 2002, for example, an initial teacher training course was established for British Muslim women, based at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education. It was called Association of Muslim Schools Initial Teacher Training; AMSSCITT. This was groundbreaking work by Scott-Baumann and Khan-Cheema and combined learning how to teach the National Curriculum with pedagogy that was both religiously valid and educationally useful.60 Each trainee teacher (due to popular demand, we accepted male and female) undertook two placements, one in a mainstream school and one in a Muslim school. The initial teacher education training was based at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education, with support from expert staff in the University of Gloucestershire Initial Teacher Education course. By such means, they learnt the strengths and weaknesses of both systems and were able to act as ambassadors for Islam and for mainstream education, respectively. The inspection regime imposed upon such courses by the government proved unable to measure the innovative aspects of the course and its value to societal cohesion, so after three years the course was closed by the course leaders. There are wider social roles that Muslim women can play. Young women themselves already recognize and are trying to prepare themselves for more education. Sectors such as teaching and counselling, pastoral care as well as chaplaincy in hospitals, prisons, universities and other education institutions are obvious areas where alimahs may be able to use their theological education, if they are given the appropriate professional training. In current arrangements, alimahs, and alims, have strong theological expertise, but they do not have a

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qualification that is recognized, which would meet entry requirements and allow them to pursue higher education and/or professional training. This is the most significant barrier that most theologically trained young Muslims have to overcome. Some overcome this by studying part-time at a university; however, we suggest that a better way to enable access to professional training may be through collaborative partnerships (which we discuss in further detail in Chapter 6). Students’ theological studies could contribute to entry requirements, and studies may be undertaken either at an Islamic seminary or at a partner university. Access to professional training that values and contextualizes their theological qualifications is the key to alimahs’ career development and to real inclusion in the British workforce. Individuals within Muslim communities who have developed these skills themselves can be involved in designing and facilitating such training programmes. An alimah describes how her position of respect in society puts her in a stronger position to influence public opinion on culturally stigmatized areas – she mentions mental health: Going into depression is an interesting area where I can help; if you say you are depressed the community will mock you. The person may end up being hospitalized and given drugs; the community members will visit and criticize. Psychological or psychiatric help may be necessary, and could be seen as acceptable; with my help this may influence the community a little bit. An alimah from the Midlands

She displays a mature understanding of the cultural stigmas associated with mental health problems both within the Muslim community and in wider society. Her religious knowledge and cultural awareness give her an understanding of the ways in which an individual may be helped from a religious perspective. Professional training in social work or counselling would clearly enhance her skills and enable her to utilize her theological training either as a social worker building awareness about mental health issues in Muslim communities, or as a counsellor helping Muslims to get over mental health problems, through counselling that incorporates faith perspectives. Understanding the religious beliefs can enable counsellors to empathize with patients in different ways; for example, Koenig reports that ‘religion is an important psychological and social factor that may serve either as a powerful resource for healing or be intricately intertwined with psychopathology’. He concludes that religion can have positive or negative effects on the mental health of a patient and suggests a range of interventions that practitioners should consider when treating patients, including taking a history of their spiritual journey, supporting

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healthy religious beliefs, challenging unhealthy beliefs, praying with patients (in highly selected cases) and consultation with, referral to or joint therapy with trained clergy.61

Conclusion: The way forward for women and Islamic education Muslim women study traditional Islamic Studies for various reasons. Some Muslim women choose to study Islamic Sciences to acquaint themselves with their faith and not because they want to become faith leaders. Others want to be better citizens. Many use their Islamic education as a tool for social empowerment and emancipation and are grateful for the opportunities that they have to study their faith. All of them however are making important contributions to British Muslim society as ‘mothers of the future generations’ and in myriad other roles as chaplains, community workers and British citizens. It is important to recognize their contributions to British society and also their potential to do much more within their local communities as teachers and as representatives of Islamic faith: There are so many imams working in the mosques, and women can also play a huge part in the mosques. There should be chaplaincy training for women to work in the mosques. It would be good to put Muslim women chaplains into support groups with Anglican women ministers too. An alimah in Gloucester

In our discussions with young women who were involved in Islamic education, we uncovered challenges that they faced that are problems across the sector and that are faced by both young men and women. They often study Islamic Sciences for years with no prospect of gaining qualifications and share concerns about validation of courses and career with their male counterparts. There are other deeper gender-specific concerns to do with the quality, calibre and fitness of purpose of the curricula taught to girls. The young women we spoke to would like their theological training to equip them for life in modern Britain. Life skills like counselling and pastoral care from an Islamic perspective would open career pathways for them. Detailed knowledge of Islamic rulings and British legal positions on problems like drug abuse and teenage gang crime would help them to serve their communities better. Young Muslim women, like men, want to train in their faith for various reasons, sometimes just so that they can be better human beings. They want greater access to training opportunities but they also want validation for their

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courses and a greater voice for women. A young trainee alimah sums up the debate: I would like this course to carry on and go forward for the younger generation. For it to be recognized … Also more Muslim women should be encouraged to come forward and participate.

Change can enhance growth, and while being necessary, we have to balance change with staying constant to our beliefs so that we are still the same person. This can only be approached by being able to reflect rationally upon the conditions that have made us who we are, as well as being able have the motivation to change by searching for better educational possibilities.

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Universities and Muslim Colleges: ‘Collaborative Partnerships’ in Higher Education

Please tell the government, ‘Providing opportunities to learn Islam in universities will reduce the opportunities for students to find information about Islam online. As you know there is too much incorrect interpretation of Islam on the web.’ Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) workshop delegate 2013 There are already a few Islamic colleges that teach Islam at university level (like the Markfield Institute of Higher Education (MIHE) and seek to offer viable alternatives to overly dogmatic approaches to Islam: The MEd course was a very rewarding teaching experience. Based on this exciting and stimulating experience, I can confidently say that most of the students showed clear signs of questioning the limitations of foreclosed religious and educational identities. Dr Abdullah Sahin on teaching a MIHE MEd course1

Yet this chapter demonstrates the obstruction of such initiatives through the hegemony of administrative bureaucracy in mid-twenty-first-century higher education and educational goals that are measured in a narrow positivist epistemology. In contrast, in 1963, Lord Robbins described the postHumboldtian modern university as embodying and facilitating ‘academic freedoms’ that needed to be protected.2 Moral values such as human rights, freedom of speech, inter-religious harmony and equality of opportunity were subsequently adopted and advanced by the university sector. In this chapter, we will examine the health of these ideas in the twenty-first century, and our evidence will be filtered through the idea and the practice of ‘collaborative

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partnerships’: this focuses on the ability of the now rather large HE sector to provide course accreditation for groups that are defined as different either by themselves or by others. Collaborative partnerships can involve religious groups like the Salvation Army or niche training groups such as Norland Nannies. In the context of this book, we will focus on Muslim provision. There are benchmarks and systems in place in all UK universities to permit collaborations whereby all sorts of non-university institutions without degree-awarding powers can obtain validation and accreditations of courses that they themselves deliver, set out in the Quality Code for Higher Education.3 This code requires that the host university must bear the ultimate responsibility for all academic studies and for all learning opportunities provided. Contractual arrangements between two institutions engaged in this sort of arrangement must be robust, student rights must be safeguarded and quality assurance arrangements must be clear and well implemented by all concerned. There are other risk factors that we explore here, such as the governmental narrative about universities allowing radicalization to take place on campus. As exploratory justification, we frame and assess the current situation according to several theoretical models that offer an epistemology of human relations: contact theory, social capital and Ricœurian philosophy. These risk factors and other issues that we will explore in this chapter show that justification is indeed necessary to support collaborative partnerships, as these are minority groups whose pedagogy or ideas may seem to go against the grain of the secular campus. Indeed, there are fewer Muslim colleges and British universities at the time of writing in 2015 than there were in 2010 at the time of our government report, within the context of what seems to be an increasingly fractured and neoliberal-driven higher education system. It is also worth considering that, contrary perhaps to rational predictions, democracies may not necessarily support minorities as well as one may hope, partly because of the tension created between universal laws and religious liberties. We suggest that the religious voice has a valid and important contribution to make to debates about modern universities, yet we question whether anyone knows how to broker discussions between groups who believe they are very different from each other, and we seek solutions. Our research demonstrates how difficult it is to develop collaborative partnerships between UK universities and Muslim institutions in Britain. As a result of our projects, we will find the ‘roadblocks’ and propose how they could be dismantled. Existing successful partnerships and our ESRC research of 2013 show how such partnerships can provide an opportunity

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to develop cultural mediation that will facilitate intercultural and interfaith understanding. Increasingly, however, the expression of Islam on university campuses is associated with a subversive form of religion and a dangerous ‘radicalization’ among students. There is growing concern that Muslim university students are developing extremist views on campus and are thereby prone to intolerance, offensive behaviour or even religiously sponsored violence. In a context that remains in the shadow of 7/7 and the global ‘war on terror’, British universities have come under the spotlight as places where radical ideas may go unchecked with frightening consequences, although there is little hard evidence to demonstrate the link.4 Clearly, such perspectives on university life sit uncomfortably alongside long-standing ideals of intellectual freedom and the Western image of the university as a safe context for experimentation, free thinking and social protest. Muslim institutions experience different problems, as they find it difficult to be taken seriously as educationally viable. This predates even 9/11 by years and could almost be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy: being rejected can lead to further isolation and misunderstanding, and in this context we will consider Nietzsche’s concept of the master/slave dialectic.

Tensions around Robbins’ academic freedoms Yet tensions also exist and are growing within the British HE sector, and all collaborative partnerships are vulnerable as part of a wider pattern of conformity and efficiency: neoliberal pressures are challenging the European tradition of Humboldt’s university as part of the enlightenment project, once seen as an open and safe setting for experimentation and now challenged by economic and political pressures. An increasingly managerialist approach to the organization and operation of British HEIs, stimulated by various reforms since the end of the binary divide in 1992 that created some new universities, has been given added impetus by the 2010 Browne report,5 which was clearly premised on the basis that universities have an economic duty to produce a trained workforce. In intellectual terms, Collini protests this sullying of the freedom to develop academic expertise. In political terms, the Quilliam Foundation regularly expresses concern about radicalization on campus. Reports by the Centre for Social Cohesion (2010) and the Quilliam Foundation (2010) portray universities as places of potential danger as a result of the reported radicalization activities on campus.6

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Collaborative partnerships and Islamic Studies Islamic Studies is also taught within the Muslim community, in Muslim colleges like MIHE and Islamic College, and in madrasas, darul ulooms, jamias and hawzas.7 This education usually contains an element of confessional study and is perceived as the pious study of the faithful believer. It is also usually perceived, by those outside, as lacking in criticality and as being inadequate in current contexts. Some of the seminary students and certainly their non-seminary counterparts suggested to us that they could benefit from adding secular components to their study. This can be achieved as a result of a partnership with a university, of which two such partnerships currently exist (MIHE with Newman and Islamic College with Middlesex). So the majority of these seminaries do not have validation for the higher levels of their courses (although their students take GCSEs and A levels at school level). Given the lack of ‘mainstream’ recognition for such courses, students do not have the employment and further education opportunities that university students have. Islamic education is not presented in an atmosphere of critical and comparative learning, so that young Muslims are seeking education online. Currently, in 2015, two collaborative partnerships exist, as discussed in Chapter 2. Each partnership is guided by their university – Islamic College with Middlesex University and Markfield with Newman University. The university provides training for research methodologies, thereby building criticality and self-critique into the curriculum and the pedagogy. Quality assurance is constant and ongoing, bound by detailed bureaucratic processes. A third institution, Cambridge Muslim College, has no official partnership, but has many strong, informal links at Cambridge University. However, the quality assurance process is not present in Cambridge Muslim College in the same way as with Islamic College and Markfield. Cambridge Muslim College has control of its own academic standards, but has no approved course qualifications.

Islamic College and Middlesex University As discussed briefly in Chapter 2, at Islamic College, a Shia foundation, the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels and professional doctorate courses in various aspects of Islamic Studies are validated by Middlesex University. These comprise Islamic Studies and Comparative Philosophy, and more are being developed, for example, Islamic banking and finance, and also Muslim Civilization and the Culture of Dialogue. The hawza studies provide ministerial and pastoral as well

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as theological training and offer qualifications which are all being developed for validation: the two-year diplomas in Muslim Chaplaincy and in Shia Studies. There is also a complete ministerial and pastoral programme of Hawza Studies which is validated by Middlesex University. The Hawza Studies degree programme can lead towards master’s and doctoral qualifications in other associated Islamic Studies programmes. This Hawza Studies programme is validated academically by Middlesex University, and the theological training provided can give students the same level of validation as that received from Shia international seminaries such as Islamic College. The authenticity of the Islamic Studies programmes permits students on completion to become either Muslim clerics or academics involved in future research in issues relating to Islamic culture and values. College teachers believe that the Hawza Studies course represents the jurisprudential opinions of contemporary religious authorities, since students who aspire to study on this course are usually followers of different present-day fuqaha (religious authorities). The religious standards are set by lecturers and religious personalities who are familiar with the hawza curriculum. However, the framework defined by Middlesex University enables the hawza programme to be appropriately balanced with the religious requirements of such a programme. Obviously, the time frame defined in a BA programme shortens the overall period of studies at such a level within the hawza environment. This shortfall is filled by extra-curricular activities through seminars, discussion groups and appropriately designed religious supervision and mentoring.

Markfield Institute of Higher Education (MIHE) and Newman University As also discussed briefly in Chapter 2, the other collaborative partnership is that between MIHE, a Sunni institution that welcomes all students, and Newman University, a Roman Catholic foundation with a similarly open application policy. Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral studies are offered, including Islamic finance and banking. The Islamic Banking, Finance and Management programme hopes to develop students who take a critical and analytical approach to economics, banking and management. Their study is informed by an Islamic perspective and provides awareness of Islamic values and principles: the curriculum includes critical reflection on Islamic perspectives and ways of applying them in management and financial institutions. The Master’s course in Islamic Education provides an opportunity to consider Classical Islamic Theology in the modern context. Students are

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challenged to contextualize their faith within the modern world, and this approach is enhanced by the student intake, which includes students from many parts of the Muslim world. MIHE runs a unique chaplaincy course, which was validated by Newman in 2015 to run its first Masters cohort in September 2015. As described in Chapter 2, the chaplaincy course is successful and provides a bridge for students to develop understanding of other faiths. MIHE also runs classes for converts to Islam and has good relationships with local interfaith groups.

Other collaborative partnerships By 2010, three years after the Siddiqui report, the situation was slightly improved on 2007.8 In all, there were four partnerships in England and Scotland. Several universities already had appropriate and active expertise for Islamic teaching (the most outstanding provision in terms of depth and breadth was at Edinburgh, SOAS, Oxford, Birmingham and Exeter). At that time, three formal partnerships existed between universities in England (Gloucestershire, Middlesex and Winchester) and those offering Muslim faith leader training courses (MIHE, Islamic College and Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheri Muslim Community, respectively). Al-Maktoum College in Dundee, Scotland, had a partnership with Aberdeen University. There was also a considerable amount of creative activity: various groups and institutions were seeking to support British Muslims in their efforts to gain qualifications and promote multicultural understanding and to make our country more harmonious and productive.9 As this chapter shows, we see variable indications of the active and focused effort being made to bring theological and practical life skills together and believe that more work is required to record good practice in this area and to consolidate it, not least because there is plenty of robust, anecdotal evidence of good initiatives that have been successfully launched and have then faltered or failed.10 By 2013, there was only one such partnership left secure (Islamic College with Middlesex University), and by 2015, a second one had re-secured its future by making another partnership to replace one that had been severed (the new partnership is between MIHE and Newman University, instead of University of Gloucestershire). The history of these partnerships is often varied, with a university adopting and then after some years rejecting a college. The model critiqued by Siddiqui in 2007 is still largely unmodified: Islamic Studies in the UK is taught very differently within universities and Muslim institutions, with very little interaction, if any, between these providers.

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We were successful in applying for ESRC funding to explore how this situation persists, by inviting students and staff from colleges and universities to come together and talk, as well as community groups. This follow-on fund project was led by Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, supported by Professor Alison ScottBaumann. Our ESRC-funded project enquired after the reasons for this lack of interaction, explored the potential of collaboration and made suggestions for increasing collaboration between HE and Muslim education.

ESRC-funded project 2012–2013 ‘Collaborative Partnerships between Universities and Muslim Institutions: Dismantling the Roadblocks’11 In 2012–2013, our ESRC-funded follow-on project developed and disseminated research findings about the benefits of collaborative partnerships between British universities and British Muslim colleges (research from 2010, 2011 and 2012), focusing particularly on ways to forge a more cohesive society for Muslims and other Britons and perceiving the university sector to be a driver for change. In this project we ran four regional knowledge exchange seminars and two academic conferences, to disseminate our findings and to seek advice about how to proceed, bringing together academics, practitioners and employers in an environment that we hoped would be conducive to sharing expertise. Delegates had the opportunity to engage with the findings of our research, debate our previous findings and present their own expert opinions and experiences. The following questions were addressed: 1. What are the practical implications of collaborative partnerships between Muslim colleges and British universities? 2. What good practice exists in current linkages that can inform and sustain future partnerships? 3. What are the perceived benefits and drawbacks of such partnerships? 4. What are the roadblocks to such integration? 5. What are employers’ needs, and how can these be accounted for in collaborative curriculum development? 6. What are the long-term benefits of such courses for inter-religious and inter-community dialogue, social cohesion and the Big Society agenda? This process of knowledge sharing led to enhanced understandings of good practice and also suggested solutions to potential obstacles. Through these consultations we have achieved a critical mass of information that may encourage

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increased collaborations and benefits for all stakeholders involved. Delegates identified five roadblocks to developing collaborative partnerships between universities and Muslim colleges: 1. Reaching key people: Key people from within universities, Muslim educational providers and relevant government departments are not sufficiently engaged with the need to facilitate collaborative partnerships between Muslim institutions and universities. 2. Making institutional links: Little contact exists between UK universities and Muslim institutions, causing ignorance on both sides. Popular rhetoric around terrorism increases prejudice, suspicions and the distance between these important educational institutions. Each institution has its own institutionalized and cultural habits; these are difficult if not impossible to alter, not least because they are not even noticed as particular and different by the institution itself. 3. Enhancing the curriculum: The curricula at Muslim institutions need to be contextualized to be relevant to the lives of young Muslims in pluralist Britain. Islamic Studies curricula in universities need an epistemological shift from the study of Islam as external to British contexts towards inclusive models that incorporate the opinions of the different other. 4. Validation: Islamic Sciences courses offered in Muslim institutions are not recognized as ‘mainstream’, and therefore graduates from these institutions do not have access to employment or further educational opportunities. 5. Funding: In order to dismantle the above roadblocks and to facilitate the changes required, universities and Muslim institutions need funding. This is the final and major roadblock: the funding issue. Universities look to partnerships as an income stream, either directly through the fees charged for validation, etc., or indirectly as a means of recruiting students on to their own top-up or higher-level courses. This could be explored further – for example, how Islamic colleges and their students could better access funding. The delegates at the research events did not feel that any of these roadblocks were insurmountable. Indeed, they stated that as both British Muslim communities and pluralist discourses matured, organic changes in educational systems are inevitable. Our evidence suggests that the system has actually become more rigid over the last decade, due to a combination of quality assurance demands and security fears.

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The roadblocks and proposals to dismantle them Delegates at our regional workshops identified how crucial it is to reach key people: few powerful people in the university sector are engaged in the need to establish collaborative partnerships with Islamic institutions. It was felt that more opportunities are needed to bring together university staff and representatives of Muslim community groups and educational establishments. There seems to be a pattern as to why such partnerships begin and end. The QAA requirements are perceived by the university sector to be increasingly demanding, and that may cause all collaborative provision at a university to be reduced or even closed.12 On both sides there may also be unrealistic motives; for both the university and the partner, there is a desire and a need to make money out of such partnerships, yet this seldom happens as they are expensive to maintain. Each institution would also like to influence its partner, but this is one-sided; the validating host has considerable influence because of quality assurance requirements. Making institutional links is vitally important. Lack of contact causes ignorance and prejudices on both sides. It is necessary for university management to work with Islamic student societies at the university to involve youth. Students suggest that they themselves can form groups of ‘ambassadors’ or ‘expert witnesses’ who will explain each group to the other, for example, students to interpret the nature and conduct of the university to Muslim visitors from a darul uloom (Muslim seminary) or Muslim college and vice versa.13 There is an urgent need to arrange visits across the divide, so that university staff and policy-makers can visit Muslim seminaries and Muslim seminary staff can visit mainstream universities. Moreover, working with university chaplaincies across faiths is valuable, and where mechanisms for collaboration between university and community already exist, such as in the public engagement manifesto, they should be used.14 The role of the university is challenged also when new ‘values’ are brought in, as in this case neoliberal managerialism, with financial and skills targets being constantly measured and checked against intellectually flimsy but potent benchmarks. University vice chancellors are under pressure from central government to improve the academies within a neoliberal framework for higher education, and to focus upon improving academic results in order to improve the long-term state of the economy. There is precedence for this: Milton Friedman (1912–2006) was an economist who espoused a macroeconomic policy of monetarism: this was based on a free market economic system with minimal intervention and was influential in the 1960s. Friedrich von

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Hayek (1899–1992) was known for ‘ordoliberalismus’: this supports economic liberalism, as well as demanding a proper legal environment for the economy and a healthy level of competition. These neoliberal ideas influenced Keith Joseph and the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s, and, since then, government has often taken neoliberal approaches to education. Stephen Ball, in his work on education, sees neoliberalism as involving the ‘transformation of social relations and practices into … the market form, with the effect of commodifying educational practice and experience’ and reshaping social relations to subordinate moral and intellectual obligations to economic ones.15 At its best, the secular environment provides a wonderful setting for open discussion, yet the campus often seems overtaken by the sort of consumerism that Conrad calls ‘the relentless creation of the new’ in his 2014 book How the World Was Won: The Americanisation of Everywhere.16 Enhancing the curriculum was identified by delegates as a pressing need. Our delegates mostly felt that curricula in Muslim institutions do not prepare young Muslims for life in the secular world. For example, students agree that shariah law is an important aspect of their studies, yet feel that the curriculum as it stands does not adequately contextualize shariah in their British contexts.17 However, in our interviews, young Muslim students felt that they would also benefit from the social sciences. Modern secular society also rests upon laws about universal rights, equality of opportunity and the presumption that all will use their universal suffrage to vote in government choices. Of course, Arabic should form an integral part of Islamic Studies, as set out in Chapter 4. Delegates and several speakers were clear about the need to teach young religious scholars how to apply theology to daily life and to provide courses on ‘soft skills’ such as counselling and psychology and social skills, in order to equip scholars to deal with domestic and community-related issues. However, support from universities and also policy-makers such as the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) is urgently needed to enable development and implementation of such courses that incorporate elements of applied theology. Participants observed that there is a need for greater and active acknowledgement from within senior levels in Muslim seminaries of the need for new teaching methods, pedagogy and curricula. Students and younger members of staff recognize the need for a curriculum that is underpinned by ‘British Islam’ and understandings of the lived experiences of Muslims in Britain. It is necessary to work with a wide range of pedagogies too: private education funders like Islamic Circles are providing Islamic education that is not available

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elsewhere and builds bridges with secular thought. Islamic Circles provides discussion that goes beyond what prayerfulness looks like, to the ways in which faith and secularism can cohabit, communicate and develop new ideas for joint problem-solving. Through these courses many young adult male and female British Muslims are seeking knowledge and understanding about Islam from beyond the darul uloom or the mosque. Islamic Circles and other groups provide debate about Islam in the modern world, both online and through heavily oversubscribed lively weekend courses that enable young people to access discussions about modernity and classical ideas. This could be provided by universities and lead to qualifications. Islamic Circles is attractive to smart young urban Muslims, to whom Ricœur’s view on world power networks would not be a surprise: the market economy permeates Islam just as it has permeated our own society; as a result Islam is also confronted with the universalism of the market economy, which is a product of modernity proper to Christianity. In the course of its process of decomposition, Christianity has produced the ideology of the market economy, which captures Islamic societies from behind or from beneath – if only because of the oil. In this way, they are in the world economy and also in the international political community, through wars, through international law and, so, through the ideological minimum contained by the coexistence of states.18

Also, it is worth exploring what courses/subjects are offered within these partnerships – for example, at MIHE, not just Islamic Studies, but also Muslim Studies, Islamic Banking, Finance and Management, and Islamic Education. This makes MIHE attractive as a partner, because it offers both religious and secular courses. Islamic finance, for example, has been adopted in many big city banks. Other subject areas have been considered for development – for example, in the humanities, and this could effect real cross-fertilization – but again only in one direction, that is, from the university to the Muslim college and not vice versa. Validation can be achieved for faith-based courses: a number of UK universities validate Christian and Jewish confessional theology/ministry training courses; however, only two universities validate Islamic religious courses. To increase validation and partnerships, existing good practice (Middlesex University and Islamic College) must be built upon. Muslim educational establishments must be made aware of QAA guidelines and must be given the practical guidelines for adhering to them: QAA staff may provide workshops. The QAA also implements a ‘Review for Educational Oversight’ (REO) process, which enables colleges to gain enhancement status.

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Both Muslim institutions and the universities could examine other faithbased links and learn from this precedence of successful and long-standing partnerships that exists for Christian and to a lesser extent Jewish religious training provision in Britain, particularly around Church ministry training and Christian confessional theology as validated by British universities. It is worth recognizing that the need for confessional religious education is not a Muslim issue alone; as Britain and Europe become more plural, all faith groups will need religious leaders who are trained in European contexts. In this regard, there is an urgent need for dialogue across all European faiths.

Who are the possible partners to collaborative partnerships? This path towards inter-religious dialogue is indeed difficult: is it possible to reconcile the secular university campus with confessional practices? Let us consider first what the confessional provision is like, and then what the university provision is like.

The darul uloom As a test case for intercultural and interfaith understanding, let us consider the position of the Muslim organization that seems to be the furthest away, the most different from the secular university campus: we need first to remind ourselves of the situation regarding the darul uloom (the traditional single-sex religious seminary) as we discussed it in Chapter 2 and first and foremost as the Siddiqui report recorded it in 2007: These institutions offer traditional courses on Qu’ranic interpretation, hadith, fiqh (jurisprudence) and kalam (theology). The subject matter is typically presented in an atmosphere of reverence, not critical scepticism. Nevertheless, these institutions are important resources for Islamic Studies and, one way and another, play a significant role in the life of the Muslim community in England. The universities have paid little attention to the needs that these institutions are catering for. Darul ulooms are keen to develop a bridge to degree level studies with universities. A small number of ulama [plural for alim, religious scholar] have completed MPhil/PhD courses in Islamic Studiesrelated subjects. Co-operation between a university and a madrassah or dar al-‘ulum has yet to be tested out. Such providers and disseminators of ‘Islamic Knowledge’

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in Muslim communities have functioned independently and validated their work by their own criteria. What is required is a clear formal link between such institutions and higher education qualifications. It is essential that these qualifications enable opportunities in the job market.19

These seminaries (darul ulooms, hawzas) are inspected by Ofsted as they are all registered as charities providing education. Their inspection reports are available online. However, apart from Ofsted and Bridge Schools Inspectorate, they have relatively little contact with other educational establishments: although many of them seek it, they report being rebuffed by local schools. These seminaries offer adult courses in Islamic Studies, which in nature and content differ considerably from the university courses. In preparing such a course for university validation, additions of more secular curricula would need to be made: in 2007, a proposal was developed in detail by Ebrahim College with University of Gloucestershire. It was designed to provide validation for Islamic Studies, and to create a fusion of curricula and of ideologies, such that the Islamic curriculum would be complemented by modules on conflict resolution, pluralism and study of world religions and of Western society by means of historical and sociological approaches.20 Most of the seminaries are for boys and young men. There are some registered girls’ establishments, such as the ones in Burnley and Lancaster, but there are also some girls’ and young women’s establishments that do not appear on any lists as they are un-registered, and monitored by the community alone. All such initiatives are motivated by the desire to protect the young from the contamination of the West and to provide a pure version of the cultural and religious inheritance of the parent culture. This is what many parents desire for their young, yet it may be counterproductive to reject the majority culture: acceptance of mainstream education permits controlled access to secular behaviour and thought, and could well serve to inoculate adolescents against the excesses of the secular culture that surrounds them online and on the street and that they will need to understand and deal with as adults. The young Muslims we spoke to had diverging opinions of the current provision for Islamic Studies at university. Some rejected university courses for having no focus at all on the insider voice and for taking an orientalist approach that studies Islam as the ‘different other’ rather than as an integral aspect of British society. Others valued universities’ courses as a way of learning more about their faith while also achieving a recognized qualification. As we discuss in this book, especially in Chapter 2 and the conclusion, there are reasons for this that should be considered.

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Islamic Studies at university In modern Britain, the Islamic Studies provision was last surveyed in 2010 by Bernasek and Bunt, who were analysing the statistics available and concentrating mostly on the university sector. Their work complements Siddiqui’s work from 2007, in which he interviewed staff from both universities and Muslim institutions, whereas theirs was a desk report. The combination of these two reports demonstrates the persistence of the separation of confessional and social science approaches to Islam. Bernasek and Bunt found more provision for Islamic Studies in pre-1992 than in post-1992 universities, and also the modules on Islamic Studies are taught in a wide range of different university departments. However, Islamic provision is concentrated in relatively few universities. In 2010, fifteen universities offered more than twenty Islamic Studies modules, with the top four (SOAS, Oxford, Birmingham and Exeter) offering over seventy. In the university setting, Islamic Studies is obliged to function within Western academic frameworks of critical thinking, secularity, rigid quality assurance and structured assessment, and are perceived as ‘mainstream’. Students who achieve such a validated Islamic Studies degree have access to employment and further education opportunities. Students who attend Muslim colleges do not have access to approved qualifications and validations, beyond GCSEs and A levels. A university partner is needed to provide quality assurance, pedagogic advice, curricular benchmarking of subjects and assessment criteria, which, if satisfactorily executed to national standards, will lead to the validation of certificates or degrees. This is a costly business for both partners, with considerable effort and time-consuming administrative labour required at all stages. In addition, the QAA makes demands upon the rigour of the university’s own procedures. Finally, there are ideologies at stake, with secular campuses being seen often by all parties to the discussions as incompatible with confessional lifestyles. In a study focused on Christian students, Guest, Aune, Sharma and Warner (2013) point out how differences in institutional university culture shape how religion is perceived, received and challenged at different universities. They found that Christian students often choose to conceal their faith on campus, but are not comfortable in doing so. Our Muslim research interviewees often expressed the view that the secular campus is frightening. This fear may not be restricted to religious students. In 2012, the National Union of Students (NUS) published a report called That’s What She Said on the ‘lad’ culture at university, a commission undertaken by Phipps and Young of Sussex University. Fifty per cent of

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interviewees reported sexual harassment or social difficulties engendered by sexist behaviour. The NUS expressed concern about the gendered difficulties on campus, for women and also for men. Given that the NUS are themselves students, their concern surely indicates a real problem and not one fabricated by the elderly. Yet, from the twentieth century onwards, there is plenty of research evidence that endorses the attempt to bring people together who have little contact, in the interests of improved understanding: as a start, Allport’s contact theory can be cited as a historical justification for undertaking such work. Whereas Ricœur is a useful interlocutor as a philosopher and a man of faith who also provides a critique of Western culture, Allport is useful in a specific sense, because he developed contact theory to demonstrate the value of bringing different individuals and groups together.

Contact theory Allport’s work from 1954 was persuasive in proposing that increased contact among those who may be prejudiced against each other will improve mutual understanding and may even bring about positive change in their relationships. His definition of prejudice was an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization, and his assumption was that humans are capable of rational thought and will therefore be prepared to set aside their prejudices when they have access to more accurate information. Allport identified five conditions that needed to be met for his contact theory to be effective: equal status, common goals, inter-group cooperation, support of authorities, laws or customs and personal interaction.21 Paolini, Harwood and Rubin developed this further with the negative contact theory: they found that increased exposure to those whom one distrusts may actually make continued distrust more likely.22 Taken together, these research findings suggest that there is no room for complacency about positive outcomes: bringing people together may improve relationships, yet may simply reinforce existing negative stereotypes. Effects can be complex depending on people’s background, attitude towards faith and level of education, to name only three of those considered by Novotný and Polonský.23 Indeed, from 1998 to 2015, we have evidence of this, where university staff have spent months working with staff from Muslim colleges and, despite developing a good working relationship, the university has ultimately refused partnership. Reasons are often not given, but one may conjecture that quality assurance and funding issues are significant

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reasons as well as caution arising from Islamophobic trends in the media. It is better to arrive at a university for a validation meeting dressed in a Western suit than in a kurta. This has been experienced by Al-Maktoum, Ebrahim College, Islamic College, Muslim College, MIHE and others.

Social capital Yet the stakes are even higher than those that are demonstrated in Allport’s and Paolini’s research: our work is about developing dialogue to explore the richness of different religious and cultural traditions and how each one prepares for the good life. We have discussed how important it is to acknowledge and even understand those who think differently, and an acceptance that competing groups will make claims to the universality to which each group stakes sole ownership. We know this can be addressed through educational partnerships: it is possible to develop collaborative partnerships between UK universities and Muslim institutions in Britain and thereby provide a more varied higher education sector and greater higher education opportunities for all British citizens Such partnerships can provide an opportunity to develop cultural mediation that will facilitate intercultural and interfaith understanding. Bourdieu’s ideas about social capital do indeed seem useful (1972): resources can be magnified and multiplied when they are actually or potentially linked to networks of individuals who know each other or know about each other.24 This proposal appears to assert that humans function more effectively and efficiently when they work together than when they function in isolation. Putnam develops Bourdieu’s ideas into practical assertions about the networking aspect of social capital to suggest that it is characterized by two directional mechanisms: bonding and bridging.25 ‘Bonding’ is characterized by the way in which a group or movement consolidates their existing bonds inwards by cooperation and by paying increased attention to each other’s activities. ‘Bridging’ is understood as an outward movement, reaching out from beyond one’s core group to other groups in order to forge new alliances that will benefit both the core group and the satellite groups. We can see that social capital, when defined in this way, is an attractive idea that has great potential for strengthening social groups in a positive way, with reciprocal acts of kindness and exchanging of knowledge and skills. This is how Putnam sees it in his book Bowling Alone. Yet, both bonding and bridging may also, some would argue will inevitably, exclude others, as we can observe in any sort of class system, caste system, religious or ideological grouping or association based on concepts of

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a core group. If, as we believe, Islam has been nominated to be the alien other, then this must be borne in mind as a possible explanatory factor for difficulties in building bridges between Muslim groups and the university sector and one that needs to be understood if we are to move the discussion on.

Ricœurian philosophy Contact theory and social capital theory both, despite their best efforts to be positive, offer us a picture of human nature that is contradictory and proves to be ambivalent at best about its own behaviour and motivation, demonstrating that both contact theory and social capital can map out counterproductive behaviours just as much as productive ones. Both are descriptive models, and therefore neither has the depth or intellectual strength to help us explore and analyse these uncomfortable ambiguities and contradictions that seem to be at the heart of the human condition. If they cannot offer an adequate analytical approach, we need to try a more complex model: Ricœurian philosophy has existential, phenomenological and hermeneutical components and can be defined as the search to locate and interpret the underlying meanings that humans create, develop, share and protect in order to understand their lives. Existential thought involves thinking very carefully and consciously about how to act, in the belief that our actions make a difference, even as single individuals: we can and should engage personally with the ‘other’. Phenomenological thought involves being aware of how we respond to sensory information: we can and should think about why we are often disproportionately influenced by the clothes people wear and try to overcome that. Hermeneutical thought is an attempt to understand our lives by looking at what happens beneath the surface, a form of interpretation and translation. When combined, such thinking thus, with Ricœur, offers guidelines for practical behaviour and is compatible with comparative theology and the attempt to ‘read’ the other, which we see as providing a possible solution to bringing together the separate pathways described in this book. The discipline of hermeneutics comes originally from a tradition of interpreting religious texts and is now a strong strand within continental philosophy, manifested for example in Nietzsche’s assertion that there are no facts, only interpretations. Of immediate relevance in the context of Islamic education in Britain is Nietzsche’s original development of the master–slave dialectic, which he developed from Hegel. In his Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche presents us with a model of resentment which describes how we may resent those whom we believe to be holding us back or in some way denying us our

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full development: at first glance that can easily be applied to Muslims. We can argue that the British Muslim was subjugated during colonial times and has been presented subsequently with repetitive examples of non-recognition in the form of racism when living alongside the old master race in post-colonial times. We propose that a key element in the treatment of Muslims in Britain, which has led, among other things, to the neglect of Islamic education, is the distorted sense of injustice that is harboured and nurtured deep within the nonMuslim population, with the supposed master morality of superiority over the immigrant. Supposedly democratic governments in the UK and across Europe are encouraging their populations to feel that they are the master race and should feel bitter about and frightened by Islam. In order to analyse and explain this, we need to remember Ricœur, with his depiction of the self as absolutely dependent upon an understanding of the other; we can see the pathological version of this when we see the distorted, Islamophobic depictions of Islam that appear daily on our screens and in our media. Yet, as a society, we cannot blame the media; it gives us what we have come to expect and want to hear more about: denigration of Muslims. Indeed, we believe that this resembles Nietzsche’s description of the slave morality: ‘slave morality says ‘No’ to that which is outside, to the other and to the ‘not itself ’. And this “No” is its creative act.’26 However, if we are to make a difference in collaborative partnerships, we need a hermeneutic model that facilitates positive action: the choice we make here is not Nietzsche’s approach, nor Heidegger’s depth hermeneutics, nor Gadamer’s historically nuanced version of hermeneutic (in which he asserts that we are held within our historical understanding and cannot think beyond it), but that of Paul Ricœur. His work is helpful in the current debate about Islamic education for several reasons: he lived in the modern world of the twentieth century and also critiqued the modern world, finding it unjust that, according to secular rulings, a Muslim schoolgirl in France would be forbidden from covering her head, when her peers are allowed to show their buttocks.27 Ricœur’s hermeneutics begins with an assertion of our fallibility and our inability to be the strong, powerful individual we wish to be; we want what we cannot have, we seek to be different to how we really think we are and we wish we could act in ways that are not possible for us. So the contradictory nature of human action and thought is clearly presented as a given. Ricœur’s hermeneutics are, however, not pessimistic – rather, they are provisional: he believes we must accept the negative within ourselves in order to challenge it – at which we will fail – and then still try to be able to live well

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with and for others in just institutions.28 This acceptance of the negative may at least help us to identify what is going on, even if there can be no possible final clear solution. Certainly, hermeneutics in the modern philosophical sense (i.e. not restricted to religious texts) gives us more analytical depth than previously mentioned approaches. Ricœur, in his book Oneself as Another, prepares us for the necessity of trying to understand those who are not us; we will fail and yet we must try, and this will in fact be the only way of getting to know ourselves.29 Moyaert discusses ‘moving towards’ the other as the best possible human position, although, or perhaps because, faulty and provisional and open. Perhaps we will find that ‘moving towards’ is not a weak position, but offers workable solutions if we can tolerate the unacceptable – that none of us are the only ones who are right. As we discuss in the concluding chapter, reading texts from other cultures can provide us with some of the insight we require. If we can develop the skill of ‘reading’ another person, this is what really gives us the potential to move towards the other by developing educational partnerships that may allow us to balance delicately between universal laws and cultural relativism, which means trying to understand that others have a valid point of view. To this end, inter-religious dialogue becomes ever more important, yet also extremely difficult. Our goal is always to make it possible to provide understanding of the rich cultural life of Islam, including the Arabic language. It is also necessary to develop transferable skills of conflict resolution and the capacity to function pragmatically in a pluralist society. In his hermeneutical approach, Ricœur recommends a ‘third secularism’, secularism intermediate between that of abstention (refusing the state education system, and forced abstention by being denied it at higher education level) and that of confrontation (governmental absorption in a terror narrative).30 Collaborative partnerships between universities and Muslim institutions may offer a viable approach, but evidence shows that this is not a popular model.

Islam on campus We can use Ricœurian interpretation to see how the terror narrative is widening out from being used to characterize the Muslim community and is now becoming an integral part of the university’s identity. Dialogue and collaboration may need support in order to succeed if an atmosphere of fear persists, as promoted loudly by Glees and others:

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Universities allow milieus to be constructed in which recruitment to terrorism and extremism can very easily take place, within British society but also conveniently hidden from it.31

Glees’ fears have now been overtaken by widespread concern about Internet extremism. Yet Glees’ views about campuses are still widely held, even though there is little evidence for causal relationships between being a university student and becoming a radical terrorist. The views of Glees and others make it seem unwise and unsafe for Muslim colleges to put themselves in the way of possible radicalization on campus by developing partnerships with universities. Similarly, it may seem undesirable for universities to complicate the situation even more by showing an interest in Islam and thereby demonstrating guilt by association. A major underlying belief to these radicalization debates is that universities function as communities that have the opportunities and the structures to influence students detrimentally: we see an example of this when the Quilliam Foundation reported in 2010 that City University’s Muslim students union was controlled by fundamentalist Muslims. Some pundits found it attractive to deploy the inductive fallacy by extrapolating from one students’ union to suspect the whole sector of harbouring extremism: these include online activities such as ‘Student Rights’ – an online forum which announces that it ‘exists to counter the long proven encroachment onto university campuses by extremist elements across the United Kingdom’.32 The link between universities and Islamic terrorism has been postulated since 9/11 and specifically in the case of the former University College London (UCL) student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called ‘underpants’ bomber, who attempted to blow up a US plane on Christmas Day 2009. Ensuing claims about wider involvement in acts of terrorism were made against Islamic student societies (ISOCs) in 2010.33 Muslim speakers who express radical political views were named in several reports which continue to inform preventive security policies.34 In 2011, anticipating publication of the government’s antiterrorism strategy, UK Home Secretary Theresa May accused universities of ‘complacency’, suggesting they had not been ‘sufficiently willing to recognise what can be happening on their campuses and the radicalisation that can take place’.35 This followed a report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Homeland Security, which described campus extremism as a ‘serious problem’36 and triggered the establishment of a website, run by Universities UK, intended to resource universities in responsibly implementing the government’s antiterrorism ‘Prevent’ agenda within campus contexts.37 In 2013, as a result of the

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murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby by Muslim radicals who had connections with the University of Greenwich, Theresa May made a commitment to investigate Muslim activities on university campuses, and in June of the same year, a government process was initiated to examine radicalization in mosques, on university campuses and in prisons, with an emphasis upon security fears about universities and ‘hate preachers’ (27 May 2013, Guardian). This is ongoing at the time of writing, with fears expressed that thousands are at risk of ‘radicalization’ (2 July 2014, BBC).38 It is difficult to counter the vehemence with which these perceived links are drawn between university campuses and terrorism. Yet there is no causal evidence. Nothing suggests that attending university radicalizes Muslims (and here we have the pathologizing of Islam, as the accusation is only made against Muslims, never against fascists or racists or other religions). Empirical research into Islam in Britain has grown and addressed relevant issues of youth, inter-generational value transmission and the cultural drivers behind the emergence of radical or extreme beliefs. In a longitudinal quantitative analysis of Citizenship Survey data, Scourfield et al. found that Muslims in Britain were much more likely than non-Muslims to retain the religious traditions in which they were raised.39 Those with limited formal education were especially successful at passing on their religious beliefs. Kashyap and Lewis compared British Muslim youth with Christians and the non-religious of the same generation, and found that ‘higher levels of education and employment are related to lower religiosity and more liberal social attitudes’.40 This research by Scourfield, Kashyap and Lewis may suggest that the experience of university can moderate, not intensify Islamic belief systems. Moreover, contrary to popular perceptions of Muslims as religiously introverted, recent research has highlighted the engagement of UK Muslim youth in public debate and democratic forms of social activism. Yet, government announcements and public narratives about Islam and Muslims do not make use of this research and tend instead towards simplistic and negative representations of Islam.41 In addition to these research approaches, there are various different types of debate around Islam on campus: at the university level, there is a duty of care discussion and also an equal opportunities discourse; at the academic level, there is much religion and belief research; at the governmental level, there is a great deal of anti-terror policy; on the Internet, there is a huge variety of online sources, and also some counter-narratives that challenge any or all of the above; and finally the legal aspects. Political discourse can speak louder than most. In 2011, the UK government argued for and conducted a review

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of Prevent Strategy, the government security initiative, of which a major focus was university campus activities and the perceived vulnerability of university students to radicalization: More than 30% of people convicted for Al Qa’ida-associated terrorist offences in the UK between 1999 and 2009 are known to have attended university or a higher education institution.42

The role of the university in all this is not clear, and the university sector has not taken a public position on such accusations. Nor is it easy to identify what is happening, perhaps at least partly because, as Linda Woodhead demonstrates, many universities have secular identities that preclude open debate about faith matters, and this is not exclusive to Islam: Guest, Aune, Sharma and Warner show that the faith of many Christian believers is nearly invisible on campus, and this, although rather a negative point, could become a really powerful meeting point of interfaith dialogue (2013).43 This trend towards accusing the universities of being responsible for radicalization makes it all the more important to build bridges. It is true that within Britain there are indeed demands for better inter-religious understanding, especially with regard to Islam in the West. Debate often polarizes the secular and the Islamic as mutually exclusive and antithetical to each other as in Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations (1993). However we can provide evidence for strong synergies between the two and possibilities for collaboration, as long as different groups can accept that each group has a contribution to make that is culturally, religiously and historically important. Our research demonstrates the possibilities within the British higher education system for collaborative pedagogies – higher education is where young British citizens, Muslims as well as others seek transferable skills that can lead to employment and give them the opportunity to contribute to a vibrant, mixed British society. We see the need to create bridges between Islamic institutions and UK universities, to combine the different skill sets available in each, as discussed in Chapter 2. Within British Islam itself there are debates about traditions and authenticity, on religious and moral authority, and upon the need for authenticity – which may privilege attempts to adhere closely and literally to the holy texts. The counterweights to such debates, which arguably give such debates more power, are the secularization of the university campus and the postulated degeneracy of modern Western culture generally. All these are important points that deserve consideration and must also be seen in the context of the renaissance of religion and other belief systems in Western civil society.

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Celebrating inter-religious differences and difficulties In comparative theology, faith seeks understanding, and we have asked elsewhere in this book whether this begs the question about those of no faith – is it much easier for a person of faith to empathize with another of faith, even if the faiths are different? There is evidence in both directions, and we also believe that everyone has a set of beliefs, even if they are not adherents of a religion. This may range from a wide variety of spiritualities to an atheism or/and a secularism that may give the impression that it is not a set of beliefs at all, but simply a set of lifestyle choices. In taking inspiration from comparative theology, we suggest that collaborative partnerships between universities and Muslim institutions provide excellent frameworks and opportunities for considering and trying to understand the other: within a partnership, the ‘other’ becomes an individual known to me who is part of my university campus and even, ideally, studies alongside me. In this way, I have the opportunity to see this person as different from me, yet not so strange as to be off-putting: and this is how Muslims can perceive secular others, as well as the other way round. In our concluding chapter, we return to the issues of ideology and utopia and how they can contribute to the situation. More direct and visible impacts of such partnerships can be increased in employable skills, recognized qualifications and routes into higher education and career pathways for students who study traditional Islamic Sciences. Wider implications of the project include policy impacts around community cohesion and preventing violent extremism, intellectual cross-fertilization, income generation for universities and an enhanced skills pool for employers. Beneficiaries of such developments would include the following: 1. Academics involved in Islamic Studies or sociological studies of Muslim communities 2. Muslim institutions involved in the teaching of Islamic Sciences/Theology 3. Employers who require religion-based skills such as chaplaincy and pastoral care 4. Students who will have recognized qualifications and employable skills 5. UK universities that may benefit intellectually and also from income streams created by collaborative partnerships However, not all these groups of beneficiaries were equally represented at our workshops, despite contacting thousands of individuals and groups. The government, by its own choice, was represented at each workshop by members of

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the Prevent team, although there was no connection to terrorist activities in any of our work. These counter-terror employees attended, chatted, checked on who was present and then left. University uptake was limited, apart from individual academics who were active researchers in Islamic Studies or Islamic pedagogies. Muslim colleges were reasonably well represented as were interfaith workers, for example, Council of Christians and Muslims (CCM), Muslim employers and private companies. There were enthusiastic and committed postgraduate and doctoral students at each venue. A wide range of Muslim traditions – Shia and Sunni (and within Sunni traditions both Deobandi and Barelwi movements) – were well represented at research events.

Conclusions These ESRC-funded workshops demonstrated the value of bringing people together who would otherwise not meet, and yet who, once they meet, find that they share goals that outweigh differences and that they can work together well. Delegates understood a challenging view of partnership, by considering the possible difficulties involved when a university and a Muslim college work together. Yet they believed that this work has great potential for improving community cohesion, for offering a broader higher education for all and for validating Islamic theology courses within the UK quality assurance system. Delegates at each seminar demonstrated how important it is to develop collaborative partnerships between UK universities and Muslim institutions in Britain and thereby provide a richer higher education sector and greater higher education opportunities for all British citizens. Despite Stefan Collini’s general despair about many aspects of the modern UK university, synergies can be found. However, those secular voices that suggest some sort of synergy will be mocked both for their naivety and for being downright irresponsible. Ricœur acknowledged that ‘our secularism can be perceived by Muslims only as a crazy idea stemming from a false religion’.44 Muslim voices that propose dialogue between faith and secularism, such as Tariq Ramadan, are often rejected as inauthentic by other Muslim scholars, and also rejected by mainstream education systems, drowned out by the narrative of radicalization, securitization and Islamophobia. Moreover, those who critique secularism’s worst excesses as they appear in the form of gross consumerism and promiscuity will be told that they are missing the fundamental British values that are at the core of it all:

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freedom of expression, of choice and of gender equality. In this way, the extreme voices of the debate appear to collude with each other to refuse reconciliation of views, which leaves out in the cold the groups of undergraduates who are told at the ‘fresher fair’ that they may have one of the high alcohol content drinks lined up in a row on the table, but only if they have had sex with someone in the last forty-eight hours. What is at stake here is the nature of universities within Western democracies: we must ask whether manipulating, controlling or delimiting moral conduct or the exchange of knowledge can be justified, either under moral codes perceived to be outdated, or the auspices of consumerism or a reductionist form of quality assurance. We believe that the securitization aspect of this debate around Islam as a pathology is an assault on the human dignity of the majority of Muslims, and also an assault upon the university itself. It also detracts from equally important debates about freedom of action and freedom of speech that need to be considered. If debates about moral conduct, and also about Islam and the modern world often cannot take place at university, where can young people have these discussions? Issues about modern morality and the state of the nation are being elided by counter-terror rhetoric. There is potential for celebrating inter-religious differences and difficulties. Development of collaborative partnerships will also provide opportunities for universities to develop new courses and attract new student groups at a time when the higher education sector is confused and concerned about its purpose, its place and its customer base in our pluralist society. This demands accommodation by all involved parties. Our previous work indicates that there is scope to create ‘bridges’45 and ‘permeable membranes’46 between Muslim communities and their pluralist societies living in the West, particularly in Britain. Nevertheless, differences within and between communities remain, and such differences need to be understood, faced and discussed, even if full understanding is impossible. We believe active collaboration can indeed make a difference: collaborative partnerships between universities and Muslim colleges have possibilities for improving community cohesion, for offering a broader, more vibrant higher education for all and for validating Islamic theology courses within the UK quality assurance system. This can be achieved by means of links between British universities and Islamic colleges. Yet the response of the higher education sector indicates that such big claims require justification: despite sending out thousands of invitations, only a few of those academics who were personally invited showed interest in attending. On the other hand, Muslim colleges and

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community groups were well represented and are clearly interested in such partnerships. Such collaborative partnerships within higher education are in the interests of a fair, vibrant, diverse and economically robust Britain. We believe that these partnerships provide resources and social and cultural capital for Britain and we therefore postulate the need for increased collaborative partnerships between universities and Muslim institutions that allow for cross-fertilization of expertise, skills, pedagogies and knowledge between the two. Even more importantly, such partnerships are predicated upon the potential for debate between secular and religious epistemic approaches. This will create opportunities to shape the future of young British Muslim citizens as they live, work and contribute to pluralist Britain, and have as much influence upon young non-Muslim Britons who wish to explore alternative approaches.

Conclusion: New Paradigms for Islam in Education

In this book we have set out first where Islamic Studies, as a subject, is in Britain, second where we believe Islamic Studies needs to go and third what our contribution is through our research. ‘Where we are’ is in a world in which Baroness Warsi describes how Islamophobia has passed the ‘dinner table test’; in other words, it is considered both reasonable and respectable to denigrate Islam and Muslims.1 Yet many positive contributions by the Muslim world are fully woven into Western society, and conscious knowledge of this would help British society to understand itself better. ‘Where we need to go’ is to propose that there is a place for Islamic education in Western democracy, and that there is a place for Western forms of education in Islamic education. ‘Our contribution’ is that we hope this book will initiate a process of change through talking, through mediation, through bearing witness and translating ourselves to each other and through continuing dialogue. This is necessary even when – and often precisely because – mediation and translation demonstrate that there are some irresolvable differences of opinion as well as non-negotiable similarities between secular and religious thought.2 Secular thought requires this rethinking too. In this conclusion we will summarize the main findings of our research, in terms of the thematic structure: Islamic Theology, Islamic Studies and collaborative partnerships; the rhetoric and reality of being a Muslim faith leader; opportunities to learn Arabic; and the current educational and career possibilities for Muslim girls and women. Each of the chapters on these topics contains suggestions for improvements, based solidly on empirical research evidence. Here, we will also push on further, demonstrating the need to consider educational paradigms that may not have been attempted yet, or that have been tried and abandoned perhaps prematurely. To help us imagine a better future, we will, again, make use of Ricœur’s ideas and investigate comparative theology, as well as the possibility of combining these approaches in order to propose the ways in which we can attempt to ‘read’ each other for differences and – of

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paramount importance – similarities. The negative aspects of the binaries we create can be productive in metaphors. A metaphor helps us think afresh about a phenomenon by telling us what it is not: we cannot actually read another person because they are not a book, yet the idea of this impossibility can help us imagine how to do it.3 We can use our sociological and philosophical imaginations to make the term ‘religious literacy’ come alive and ask ourselves what we know about ourselves that would determine why someone would choose to act in a certain way: what is there about my life as a Western Muslim woman that enables me to understand why some women can feel comfortable revealing most of their body? Similarly, what is there about my life as a Western Christian woman that helps me understand why some Muslim women wear the niqab and cover their entire body? There are different ways of engaging in this debate that contextualize different ways of believing and of experiencing spirituality. There is always the middle path, the people who are not extreme and who dwell in a middle ground where commonality is more easily found – women who are Muslim and who are not, who both challenge objectification that either completely exposes or hides a woman, not just her body. We will suggest ways of developing this technique more, later, of balancing the universality of human experience against the voiced particularity of individual groups. This sort of debate can surely dispel the epistemic question that we posed at the start of this research: the presence of Islam can actually help in so-called post-societal situations, when moral values may seem vulnerable. The normative idea of religion may indeed be thought to be disintegrating under the pressure from ultra-religious groups on the one hand and extreme secularism on the other. However, that view is sustainable only when Islam and other organized religions are denigrated, not when they are seen as possible approaches to discussions about problems that face all people: this requires that Islam is treated seriously and also as a faith that, together with secularism, needs to develop new vocabulary, new approaches and new ways of communicating with these problems.

British Islam John Esposito writes about not one Islam but many Islams.4 These ‘Islams’ retain loyalty to the same foundational texts; they have the same basic beliefs and similar religious practices to each other. Yet, there is a lot of diversity in their everyday lived experience of religion. Throughout this book we have spoken about British Islam. Here, we summarize what we think British Islam looks like.

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While travelling across the country undertaking the research that informs this book, we came across ‘British Islam’ at the mosques, seminaries and communities that we visited. The most significant aspect of British Islam is its diversity. British Islam is comprised of different languages, cultures, ethnicities and denominational groups. This diversity and the relative proximity within which these diverse elements live is unparalleled. Here the Pakistani Barelwi must coexist with the Turkish Sufi, the Iranian Shia and the Saudi Arabian Wahabi. Although each of these groups tends to be aware of how they are different from each other, living as a minority, they also need to be aware of how similar they are. These differences are exemplified in the different languages, cuisines and dress codes within these communities. When these cultural differences are reflected in religion, different Islams emerge: so, for example, different mosques may offer qutbahs or sermons in different languages, or women from different communities who wear hijabs may do so in culturally unique ways. The differences may also run deeper than this and include different interpretations of shariah, diverging views on the foundational history of Islam and acceptance or not of mystical practices. The second aspect of British Islam is its history. Throughout this book we have referred to aspects of this history. As a result of academic research, we are beginning to know more about early British Muslims like Abdullah Quilliam and Marmaduke Pickthall. However, more needs to be done to rediscover English and British Muslim heritage. Initiatives like the Muslim Museum project5 and Islam in British Stone6 aim to uncover and preserve these histories. This brings us to the final aspect of British Islam: its youth. British Islam is young, with 68.75 per cent being under the age of thirty-five.7 Many of these young are second- and third-generation immigrants, people who were born here and who have been through British educational systems. These young people are imbued with British values and, unlike previous generations, they are aware of British civil systems and social practices. They are educated, culturally savvy and confident. Ogilvy Noor, the Islamic branding corporate leader, calls them the futurists – Muslim consumers who have the buying power and tastes to have an impact on sales, marketing and branding strategies of large multinational companies.8 It is these young people who are shaping British Islam, who are running the history projects mentioned in the previous paragraph and also other initiatives aimed at clarifying the everyday lived experience of British Islam. The 2014 ‘poppy hijab’ campaign is an example of bridges that young Muslims are building between their religion and their nation. This united two images of

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British identity: fabric was printed with a poppy design for commemorating the war dead of Empire and worn by Muslim girls as hijabs to show fusion.9

Identifying preconceptions Yet preconceptions persist. We hope, having written this book, that many voices will engage in a sophisticated public debate to develop new paradigms for Islam in education. Before we could attempt this, we needed to acknowledge where we are: the project which this book initiates will be difficult because religion and secularism are often presented as the two great binary and contradictory universal narratives. This project is made even more problematic by current attitudes towards Islam: if, for example, we use the phrase ‘the politics of iconoclasm’, it is easy to conjure up the destruction by Muslims of the Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan in 2001 or the Imam Abbas Mosque in Karbala in 2007; the former demonstrates the failure of ‘interfaith’ relations and the latter demonstrates the failure of ‘intra-faith’ relations. Noyes in his book on this subject tells us of these acts of violent and symbolic destruction, and also of others, in order to show similarities among groups in using destruction as a way of forging new identities. He describes the Christian Calvinist policy of iconoclasm and that of the anti-clerical French Revolution, thereby reminding us of the importance of destruction of places and objects for other groups than Islamic ones and indeed the role that such iconoclasm has played in the development of the modern nation state.10 The Christian Calvinists and the French revolutionaries both used the destruction of images and objects to develop their own new identity. If we accept a degree of universality in such actions that are often exclusively ascribed to Muslims, it should then also be possible to question other positions about Islam and to concede that there is an urgent need to conduct dialogues between Muslims and others: maybe we are all more similar than we care to acknowledge and maybe it is counterproductive, yet attractively easy, to define ourselves by what we think we are not, rather than by what we are.11 Yet, despite the availability of balanced analyses such as that of Noyes, we see distorted, Islamophobic depictions of Islam, which appear daily on our screens and in our media. Such ritualized denigration leads to a distortion of the self that does our society a great disservice for several reasons: it is factually inaccurate, it provides a ready-made scapegoat who can be blamed for many failures for which

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society then does not need to take responsibility and it perpetuates a stubborn insistence upon misunderstanding motives and actions of Muslims in Britain. We have considered some of these in this book with regard to education: and indeed Nietzsche saw lack of education and ignorance of the other as the causal factor that leads both master and slave to resent the other. We can also request of Muslim communities that they reject the images we project of ourselves as decadent and contaminating … but of greater importance, because it gives us considerable power, is our free and easy use of the inductive fallacy: ‘There are some Muslim terrorists, therefore all Muslims are on the brink of becoming terrorists.’ This pathologizing of Muslims creates an acid reflux movement back into the soul of those who believe themselves to be, in Nietzsche’s terms, the master race: we are disabling ourselves, contaminating our own potential to live equably with others, by our insistence upon unfounded hatreds. Even if there is similar acidity in certain Muslim quarters, the power differential is significantly in favour of one group. Such hatred precludes sensible educational initiatives being taken to incorporate Islamic theology, Arabic, women’s studies and applied theology into the British higher education system, despite good templates already existing for these subjects. In fact, as Francis Robinson suggests, it is important for ‘all those in government and public life who deal with the Muslim world’ to question the loudly voiced views of those like Tony Blair who excoriate ‘political Islam’ as a ‘radicalised and politicised view of Islam … which is spreading across the world’.12 Instead, Robinson suggests that we take a long view, consider the evidence and seek to have a more positive debate. If such debate is to be possible, the louder voice needs also to concede some necessity for self-evaluation and self-critique: Western democracy would have been considered an unsound model for a state by the ancient Greeks because it rests on universal suffrage and therefore, potentially, the will of each and every one has to be accounted for. The Greeks allocated powers to an elite group of men. More recently, Churchill also critiqued democracy, although he believed it to be better than anything else tried so far – and it certainly requires high and constant maintenance of all its mechanisms, such as the right to universal suffrage; this is becoming distorted in the twenty-first century, with increasing numbers of low-income people feeling and being disenfranchised. There is an urgent necessity for all of us living in Britain to talk openly and honestly with those whom we think of as dangerously different from us – and this is reciprocal in both non-Muslim and Muslim communities: there are macroeconomic and political reasons for this that we cannot address here, such

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as Piketty’s analysis of the apparently ineluctable economic and therefore social inequalities at the very core of the modern democratic state.13 As a bracing challenge from a certain Muslim perspective, Hallaq provides a trenchant critique of modernity and the impossibility of an Islamic state if it were to be modelled on the sort that we know in the West, while also being Islamic.14 Income inequality is so great and increasing that it is destabilizing the world, while capital rests cumulatively in the hands of fewer, unimaginably rich people. In fact, it is possible that modern state political machinery finds it convenient to set us against each other (rich people; immigrants; people who look different; people who have jobs and people who do not; radicalized youth), so that we are consumed by a politics of envy and fear and do not have enough remaining imagination or energy to challenge the political class that is charged with running a fair society, as Coggan argues in The Last Vote.15 Indeed, the growth of the modern state may rest and rely upon these economic inequalities, and it is necessary to view phenomena such as Islamic States in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Boko Haram in this light, that is, arguably more important for what they tell us about economic inequalities and proxy power struggles among countries than what they tell us about Islam. These are problems that we all need to resolve together and are not restricted to Muslims. However, our focus in this book has been, not on politics or economics, rather on education as a democratic right, and its potential to make us all better citizens. We have focused more upon Islamic higher education than upon schools because we believe, following Humboldt, that the university should provide a living, breathing space for thinking experimentally and safely about the society in which it is embedded. Yet, higher education and the society it is part of are both under increasing pressure – economically, pedagogically and in terms of identity. We propose in Chapters 2 and 6 that, in fact, the higher education sector already contains excellent templates and exemplars for responding well to the need to acknowledge Islamic Studies and Islamic Sciences in British pluralist society and the need to hear the religious voice in the secular space.16 To give just two examples, first, the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) offers frameworks for validating partnerships with Muslim institutions, and second, some university chaplaincies include Muslim chaplains.17 If we see the university as a safe space in which crucial issues about human flourishing can be addressed, then we have to agree that this space needs managing if it is to provide energy for future societal improvements. We need to ask whether we are making space for the religious, the uncommitted, the undecided, the atheist and the creationist to explore their differences and celebrate their common goals.

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For all humans there is a tension between the theory and the practice of living. Identifying, establishing, understanding and then trying to adhere to principles that govern our daily lives is a way of both predicting and then justifying our behaviour and that of others. In this book, we have presented the findings of four research projects to demonstrate the ways in which we can use evidence to challenge certain narratives about Islam, both from outside and from within Muslim communities. Another ingredient is necessary in this mix, in order to develop a new vision for Islam in education in the UK. This ingredient is imagination. Many of us deliberately limit our imagination in order to assert that we are right, and that our personal truth is in fact the universal truth; this can be seen in principles about faith, religion, politics, child rearing and football and basically anything about which one may hold an opinion. This phenomenon can manifest itself in a belief that we are each justified in generalizing from our personal beliefs to suggest that we all share the same fundamental truths (pluralism). Alternatively, it can show itself as the belief that my truth is the universal truth, whether it is universally recognized or not, and this can become a form of particularism that allows us to refuse to look for similarities with others. It is also possible to decide that our differences set us apart from each other and that these differences, while interesting and thought provoking, will not influence the course of our thought, because each of us believes we are right and each of us believes we have the truth. This can be seen recently in the postmodern particularism that invites us to accept irreconcilable differences that preclude reciprocity. Moving beyond these two limited positions, therefore, becomes a necessity for living within our contemporary plural societies. In undertaking this journey, as Angus Slater has shown in his doctoral research with his supervisor Dr Shuruq Naguib, religious traditions can come together around shared points of resistance to particularism and reductionism without a concomitant reduction in the strength or attachment to the particularities of their beliefs.18 Rather, resources within religious traditions can be formed into a non-appropriative, non-final and engaged practice of social and communitylevel dialogue. Learning another language or at least negotiating at some level with the meanings of another language is one example of this approach. Learning another language, be it English or Arabic, is liberating. Dynamic approaches to languages and translation are being developed within the unique network ‘Free Word’ and projects like ‘Translation Nation’ and ‘Translators in Schools’ are creating the atmosphere and the thinking processes for offering a new approach to any and all languages and to translation. ‘Translation Nation’

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focuses upon pupils as learners: project leaders take translators into schools with multi-ethnic populations and teach the pupils how to communicate with each other using different languages, and also by inviting older family members to tell their stories in school and by translating children’s story books. This has been done with Arabic by using a transliterated text of a children’s story, having first introduced children to Arabic script. ‘Translators in Schools’ focuses upon adults as learners. Project leaders train adult students to run workshops where the above-listed activities will take place. This has been done with trainee teachers at Goldsmiths, Roehampton and King’s College London, and exemplifies the approach to languages discussed in Chapter 4: the joy of communication, the possibility of thinking like someone else by using their vocabulary and sentence structure and the potential for conflict resolution by demonstrating that it is possible to communicate across apparently insurmountable barriers. Some of these apparently insurmountable barriers, or differences, are cultural. Some of them are religious. Some are historical: take, for example, the historical memories of the British officers and civil servants who served in the Raj, and contrast them with the historical memories of the Indians who served the Raj alongside them. These are significant differences that affect our postcolonial understanding even now, yet we really all have to acknowledge that amnesia is easier. However, while amnesia may indeed be an easier option with regard to the reality of difference within societies, this book and the research contained within it point to the possibility of a different epistemic approach that brings together communities through a stronger focus on the lived reality of our societies. Attempting to ignore, or gloss over, the plurality that is now, and always has been, a feature of societies does not only do damage to the society as a whole, but also acts reductively on the internal conceptualization of religious traditions themselves. Currently in the UK and across Europe, Islam has been nominated as the binary ‘other’ by us – we who believe we are the dominant thinking subject in control of ideas. Anti-Semitism is also on the rise again, and far-right populism is spreading a stain across Europe.19 Representations of Islam are often centred on three phenomena – religiously sponsored violence, misogyny and intolerance – and these are valorized as reasons why certain forms of religion are out of keeping with the values of Western liberal democracies. It then becomes plausible to call Islam the evil that requires defences to be developed against it: we see this in the UK with governmental securitization programmes such as ‘Channel’, which has ‘re-programmed’ hundreds of British Muslims, including children, who were considered at risk of radicalization. It can be argued that

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this way of thinking represents a failure of the imagination, and a triumph of the hermeneutics of suspicion. We believe that it can be improved upon by using devices such as comparative theology and also by redesigning courses and developing partnerships between Muslim colleges and the university sector. Here, in this central section of our concluding chapter, we push further on the limitations of what we have been able to achieve, by proposing developments in research methodology, study of Islam, collaborative partnerships, faith leadership, Arabic, women and comparative theology. All these areas have one aim: to improve our potential for understanding – ‘reading’ – others and accepting some common ground, agreeing to define ourselves by what we share rather than by what we do not.

Intersectional research Intersectionality, as a way of thinking about intersecting oppressions and power structures, has facilitated for us the evolution, over fifteen years, of fieldwork and practice. Such an approach requires constant reiteration and clarification, teamwork, consultation and modification if we are to be able to work honestly with others. This provides a sustained, delicate, practical methodology. As we commented in our introduction, the current climate of opinion that accepts without question the nomination of the Muslim as the dodgy other must be dealt with clearly if the researcher is to be able to enter the research field without preconception. Similarly, the misogyny of certain cultural traditions must be recognized as such – both secular and religious. As a result of our four research projects, we propose the following guidelines for work that is ethically literate. This will form the basis of a new methodology for engagement in cross-cultural and inter-religious contexts. Equally importantly, we propose that these research guidelines can serve as self-reflective practice to guide all our imaginations in our daily contact with others: ●

The researcher must interrogate their own value system and their own ethical literacy in research ethics in order to be able to undertake research; this should form part of initial preparation for any research (we continue to retain bias even when our bias is challenged; for example, from another field of study, we know that rape victims do not seem believable even to well-informed jurors in mock trial situations, or indeed often in actual trials20).

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Relationships of trust must be established both for ethical and for pragmatic reasons, to make good relationships more likely and to facilitate future research (e.g. in the Muslim Faith Leader project, we sent Muslim teachers into the seminaries; they were trained in qualitative research and in interviewing, they were part of the Association of Muslim Schools (AMS) network and they were known to the seminaries). It is necessary to enter courteously and to work carefully in such a highly politicized research field; it is a place where people live and work, and they must be protected (e.g. when we visited seminaries, we took care to explain our understanding of government policy and subsequently sent copies of our findings back to the seminary for their approval). Feedback to communities is more likely to be successful with genuine cooperation and honesty: the researcher should learn to write only that about which they are prepared to discuss with respondents, which requires honesty, courage and tact (e.g. we commented critically upon poor recordkeeping, cold buildings and outdated pedagogy). Self-reflective practice will require clarity about one’s personal position, and this will then affect the ongoing self-evaluation of the research as well as future proposals and affiliations with future funders. Any highly politicized research field is likely to suffer from adverse and destructive media coverage, and a high degree of care and pragmatism is necessary to ensure that reputations of others are not damaged (e.g. we never triggered a situation like that of the ‘Trojan Horse’ episode). Researchers have a responsibility to engage with the groups being researched in a democratic and non-hierarchical manner, so these groups can critically engage with the research process, inform the research processes and finally become empowered to implement research findings to bring about social change for the better in their own lives and for their communities (e.g. five years on, we are still working with some of the seminaries to advise and support innovative practice). In research environments that are diverse, our work insists on the need for research to be inclusive. Research must not focus only on dominant ‘representative’ voices (e.g. in the case of research on Islamic education, it is important to include the voices of women, young people, individuals with different attitudes to faith, individuals from diverse denominational groups – Sunni, Shia, etc. – diverse Muslim religious movements – Deobandi, Barelwi, etc. – and different ethnic backgrounds).

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Language is a conscious component of the researcher’s investigative process: if we can accept how impossible the perfect translatability of meaning from one person to another really is, this helps us to understand the other, because we see how we must make compromises in trying, even if we do fail to understand one another fully. Constant self-reflection that enables researchers to move beyond the rhetoric about preventing violent extremism and radicalization narratives: standard research ethics regarding informed consent, anonymity and the right to withdraw should be robust enough to deal with this type of work, despite the securitization aura it may have in current politicized discourse. The use of collaborative research methodologies (including feminist methodologies) that allow for the researcher and researched to work together and which give voice to all the diverse stakeholders.

The taxi driver, the housewife, the alim and the alimah Islamic Studies and collaborative partnerships We have a ‘twin-track’ system of Islamic Studies and Islamic Theology in Britain. If we wish, we can draw parallels between nineteenth-century colonial activities from the heyday of the British Empire: colonial activities by Western powers created a split between lawyers who were trained in Western legal systems and scholars who were experts in shariah but who received no qualifications and had no externally validated authority.21 Yet the contemporary reality is far less exotic: the male seminary graduate usually becomes a taxi driver and the female seminary graduate usually becomes a housewife. This represents underemployment of British talent, so let us review our findings and see what can be done. In Chapter 2, on mapping provision, we describe the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)-funded project entitled ‘The training and development of Muslim faith leaders: Current practice and future possibilities’.22 Our research included case studies of successful collaborative partnerships and interfaith testimonials, which indicate that both these players – UK universities and Muslim institutions – will benefit from collaborative work and linkages which can lead to cross-fertilizations of pedagogy and intellectual context. This in turn will facilitate courses that bridge a perceived gap between

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confessional and academic approaches to the study of Islam. In the long run, such courses can produce professionals, academics and practitioners who are more aware of the sensitivities required in developing and sustaining integration and social cohesion in pluralist Britain. With regard to the higher education sector, our specific recommendations to government in 2010 were, and still are, as follows:

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A three-year honours degree in Islamic Studies and Sciences which would build on, though not be narrowly dependent on, the traditional Shia and Sunni Muslim syllabi. This would be validated by the host university and requires close collaboration between the seminary and university. Developing a two-year foundation degree, perhaps employment based, in applied Islamic theology, that is courses like chaplaincy that are practical and skills based, covering counselling and pastoral work. Reorienting Islamic Studies programmes at first degree and postgraduate level to make them more relevant for both male and female students who wish to undertake faith leadership responsibilities as teachers, chaplains and scholars. Setting up a senior fellowship or scholarship programme, enabling imams to undertake MBA and other Master’s-level courses in areas such as community development, interfaith relations and social policy. All the above requires an honest debate about teaching Islamic Studies from both a confessional and a non-confessional standpoint and attempting to bring the two together in some ways.

Note: First presented in Chapter 2; repeated here for ease of reference.

Our conclusions in our government research recommended that validation bodies should work in partnership with schools, colleges and universities to create pathways that facilitate licensing, accreditation and validation. In Britain, this already takes place at the level of compulsory schooling: each seminary or darul uloom is registered with DfE and is inspected by Ofsted, like any other 11–16 school. At the higher education level, there are QAA guidelines that lay out quality assurance for universities to follow. The Home Office has powers to authorize the control and investigation of immigration with regard to colleges of higher education, and so there are now companies specializing in inspections of minority faith groups, like Bridge Schools Inspectorate, and they also inspect HE faith institutions, including Muslim ones. Successful grading on such an inspection entitles these institutions to hold a special permit for

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inviting applications from foreign students, who need visas. However, such institutions are not supported in a forward-looking way to create new courses or to collaborate with local universities to seek validation. Nor is it clear yet who should and could provide such support. If they were supported, we argue that this would provide opportunities for practising Muslim students and even alimahs and alims or those who aspire to become imams, or any other related positions, to obtain recognized qualifications, such as diplomas, foundation degrees and external university postgraduate awards.23 Our research therefore endorses that of Dr Siddiqui in Chapter 2 and 6 to show that two completely different approaches exist in Britain towards the teaching of Islamic Studies: one is the established university approach to Islam as a geographical, historical and political entity. The other is the confessional approach that provides theological education for believers. Both demonstrate strengths and insights, yet offer only a partial view. At present neither seems capable of, nor much interested in, using imagination for modifying any of its rules to accommodate any of the other’s approaches, although there are isolated examples of this beginning to happen as shown in Chapter 2 and 6. Consequently, many British Muslims may spend years studying and not have any qualifications to show for it, which prevents career development and precludes them contributing to their own country’s economy, beyond being taxi drivers and housewives. Of course, we can avoid meeting: if we see each other in a public space, it is easy to avoid having a conversation. Perhaps, if we share the same university campus, that may lead to possibilities for meeting, although this too can be avoided. If we study the same course together, this may bring us together and can lead to confrontation and also conciliation: in this book, we argue that if we use our imagination, we can create together a new world of possibilities. One way in which we propose that this is possible is in the development of collaborative partnerships between universities and Muslim institutions. However, in the current climate, there are three major phenomena that make it less likely that universities will use imagination to engage with outside partners, in this case Muslim partners: these possible obstructions are individuals’ consumerism, market forces that influence institutions and systems fractured by neoliberalism. First, the consumerism of individuals invites selfidentification through surface features: for example, ‘you are what you wear’ is an old adage that we currently take very seriously – a woman in a headscarf, especially if it is black, is seen as a handmaid of terror or of oppression and this may well affect perceptions on campus. Second, market forces are pressing hard

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upon a higher education sector that has to take its recruitment targets even more seriously than before and really does not see the economic case for an expensive excursion into collaboration with small fringe groups. Third, with neoliberal thinking, these market forces become the agents for transforming social relations and practices into commodified educational practice and experience. The higher education sector uses private companies to develop university brands and, by many other means, is reshaping social relations to subordinate moral and intellectual obligations to economic ones. These three factors create a glossy, bright climate of carpets and sofas and cappuccinos that brook no individual differences in the campus café culture. Despite or even because of the prominence of negative public debate about Islam in Britain, we can and should nevertheless work towards offering confessional Islamic programmes at university, as is already available to Christian and Jewish students, and towards providing modern humanities, politics and sociology subjects within seminaries. This trajectory requires us to be selfcritical as well as critical of others, in order to create the conditions for open debate. This is extremely difficult to achieve in the current climate, in which Islam is vilified and secularism’s problems go unchallenged. There are other ways in which we can create together a new world of possibilities for university education that includes Islam.

The rhetoric and reality of being a Muslim faith leader In Chapter 3, we wrote about Muslim faith leaders. Here, we reflect on what their role may be in this vision that we hold of a society that is truly pluralist and in enabling society to recognize, understand and value its different component parts. These leaders are caught in a battle between popular rhetoric and their lived realities. The imam is the most visible role, yet research uncovers a multitude of different roles – roles that are more inclusive of women and young people, and roles which reflect the Britishness that is inherent in their lives. These roles are diverse and are constantly moving further away from traditional constructs of an imam – alims, alimahs, chaplains, social workers, teachers, academics, media personalities and businesspeople who, by virtue of being British Muslims, must often, in addition to their ‘official roles’, have to be translators to wider society, explaining who they are and what they do, and also answer more existential questions about why they undertake their roles and what they believe in. Not only do they translate through words, but they must also enact a process of conversation and negotiation. As a society we need to ask

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ourselves two questions: Do we recognize these new faith leaders? and How do we assign authority to these faith leaders? This is a query both to Muslims and to non-Muslims. Do we hanker after particular traditional known forms of leadership? And, in doing so, is it not true that we miss the wider picture and do not recognize the emerging new forms of leadership – young people, women or people in ‘secular’ roles who, by being Muslim, also contribute to society an element of translation and self-reflection. Charity workers, media personalities, educators or politicians who happen to be Muslim and/or who work in Muslim contexts are examples of these new forms of leadership: Baroness Warsi or the former BBC reporter Rageh Omaar – are they faith leaders? What is certain is that they are translators who can demystify their beliefs and cultures. In Islamic contexts, faith leaders’ authority comes from their Islamic education and the ijazahs (awards to celebrate theological learning) that they may have received from their teachers. This is how alims, alimahs and imams are recognized by society as faith leaders. Many of the new leaders of British Muslim communities may not have undertaken formal religious studies, yet they are respected as faith leaders in their communities: a youth worker we met had no other religious qualifications other than him being a Muslim and basic madrasa education he undertook as a child, yet his mentoring of young Muslim men and teenagers is valuable to society, partly because he has become part of a youth worker network with training facilities. We should also consider women like Ingrid Mattson or Sughra Ahmed who have led or are leading large Muslim organizations. We believe that we must move towards new paradigms of authority and authenticity that recognize the need for different forms of leadership and the different routes to achieving such leadership. Gilliat-Ray’s research on Muslim chaplains demonstrates clearly how they are influencing Islam positively in its approach to the modern world.24 Muslim communities must see beyond traditional constructs of the imam and respond to their own need for mediators – community members who understand the British world on the street.

Opportunities to learn Arabic Unlike those philosophers who had difficulties with language because it is rich, messy and ambiguous (like Parmenides, Aristotle, Spinoza and Wittgenstein), Ricœur relished the rich ambiguity and provisionality of language and meaning.25 We hope it will be possible to use Ricœur’s love of the provisionality of meaning, and his belief that language contains and reflects back at us the dualisms that

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we develop, to unpick and unpack the issues around the polarization that faces us at present in this discussion, the polarization between Muslims and ‘the rest of us’. Muslims are portrayed as the negative – we are the positive. Ricœur takes positions on Islamic issues: in Critique and Conviction, he criticizes the French state for censuring Muslim schoolgirls who wish to wear headscarves. During the French war with Algeria, he protested in favour of Algeria’s autonomy and independence. Yet he did not apply his thought in any significant way to Islamic matters, being himself a product of the Judeo-Christian cultural roots of the education system of France that (like Britain) did not and does not view Islamic culture as integral to European thought and therefore not relevant to the education curriculum. How can Ricœur help here if he himself seemed to draw back from serious study of Islam? We believe he can help us with methodological tools, semiformalized thought processes that are applicable to general ethical problemsolving: as humans and as social beings we are characterized by conflict and contradictions and our problem-solving will be provisional, so we can use dialectic and also hermeneutical approaches. He can also offer some specific thinking around the value of translation for attempting to understand the other better – translation from another language and also ‘translation’ within one’s own language makes one face up to finitude, fallibility and humility at being unable to render pure meaning from one person’s idiolect or from polemical language to another form. But the issue is that we live in a secular world in which the very vocabulary of faith and belief is usually elided by neutral terms that avoid value loadings – except when we are asserting that we are morally superior to the other. How then can we achieve such faith- focused readings without the framework of a shared acceptance of the ethical value of language, or of the importance of faith or comparative theology? It is vital for cultures, languages and religions to attempt to communicate with each other directly, in the acceptance that any understanding is hard-won, provisional and constantly in need of reciprocal revision. At the time of writing, summer and autumn 2014, the British Council was working with Qatar Foundation to provide ten schools with Arabic programmes and to train twenty Arabic teachers at Goldsmiths, University of London; this would clearly be a valuable approach if extended to the university sector.26 In Chapter 4, on Arabic, we demonstrate the need to draw Arabic into this discussion; there are many aspects of pedagogy in mainstream education and in Islamic education that could benefit each other.27

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This would facilitate hermeneutical exchanges; the capacity and the will to look beyond surface features for deep meanings that challenge our preconceptions: we see Arabic as the language of terror, using it in films to create an atmosphere of foreboding and fear when the hero is in danger in the souk, and yet it is an ancient and beautiful language whose many feminine forms appear in the Quran to great effect.

Current and future educational and career possibilities for Muslim girls and women Hermeneutics refers to a desire and an ability to delicately probe beneath the skin of speech to question meanings, and becomes part of our thinking when we are sensitive to language use. This is never more useful than when we are working on women’s issues: partly because many jurists believe that in Islam ‘gender relations are the subject of a large and largely settled body of Islamic jurisprudence’, as Tarek Masoud reminds us in his chapter on the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, when discussing conservatism.28 Such conservatism sets rules about the contexts in which a Muslim female may find herself and therefore does not translate to loose social settings such as we find on the modern Western university campus, where many behaviours are condoned. This creates situations that affect females disproportionately, as manifested in the hegemony of the ‘lad’. As discussed in Chapter 6, the National Union of Students (NUS) published a report called That’s What She Said on the ‘lad’ culture at university, in which 50 per cent of interviewees reported that social difficulties related to sexist behaviour (2012). This suggests concern that the girl is a sexual object on campus, a situation which must also pressurize boys and the religious as well – and will discourage the devout Muslim girl from attending university or, if she attends, may discourage her from taking part in campus activities.29 So women exist who choose to be silent or may have no choice but to be silent, and women exist who act in the world and who write as a form of agency: they exist across all religious and ethnic groups worldwide. They can support each other in spite of differences: for example, the gay, Jewish, feminist philosopher Judith Butler, who writes a damning critique of Zionism and its responses towards Palestine, in her seminal 2012 book Parting Ways. Such a text could enhance a course in Islamic education, but would require a paradigm shift in the thinking of Muslims and Jews, in order to make it possible to work together. We continue the discussion about women with Jardim’s work in the next section on comparative theology.

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Possibilities of comparative theology Comparative theology may provide a way forward to help antagonists to work together. Comparative theology combines religious studies with theology and attempts to relate theory and applied practice to each other through sensitive, imaginative attempts to read the texts of other faiths fairly. Comparative theology, strongly presented by Clooney, and further developed by Moyaert, rests on the ability to read text from other faiths with attention and respect as if it can be understood by someone from outside that faith; this may well not actually be possible because one’s own belief system will be rooted in one’s own texts. Such impossibility makes it all the more important to make the attempt and to experience the humility of not being able – or willing – to fully understand the other text.30 Here is one example of comparative theology that has been developed by Georgina Jardim in her book on a female character in the Quran, the woman without a name who challenges authority: the mujadilah.31 In Surah 58:1–4, the woman speaks, challenges and requests rights for herself; having been summarily sent away by her husband, she speaks as an insider who has been cast out and who asks for justice. Jardim explains how she, as a Christian woman, attempts to understand the Muslim text: I have read the mujadilah in the Quran from a non-confessional point of view, seeking to engage with the world in thinking about my own position in the Protestant Christian faith. I have engaged with the mujadilah as a ‘thou’ in thinking through the togetherness of ‘us’ in the quest for a ‘global ethic for a global ecology’.32

We can read Jardim exemplifying the approach encouraged by Moyaert, that is, doing comparative theology, and this has many implications: the mujadilah may be construed as the Other in various debates about power relations. For a nonfeminist consideration, it may be any voice considered to be marginal, such as the poor, children or the disabled. For an intra-Muslim dialogue, it may be the Sunni, the Shia, the Alawite, the Sufi or any other with whom one is sharing the world.33 Jardim looks at the woman who disputes in interfaith ways: she cites the Jewish mujadilah (Numbers 27:1–11 in the Hebrew Bible) – the Daughters of Zelophehad – and also the Christian mujadilah (Mark 7:24–30). Here, there is a debate between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman, about the intent and the letter of the law. She also looks at the woman who disputes in inter-feminist as well as interfaith terms:34

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All Abrahamic feminists may contend that women are scripturally invited to participate in theological endeavour as possibility of revelation. Who are we then to be silent?35

So Jardim presents a new and questioning reading that can make a valuable contribution to the self-perception of women who seek to use their religious texts to determine their own thought and behaviour. Moreover, she achieves this by careful reading of texts outside her own faith and to which she does not herself subscribe: My reading of the mujadilah represents an attempt to communicate with others and establish a relationship with them by imagining myself and others in a new way through the reading of my own and others’ ‘scripture’.36

Here then is an example of the comparative theology that Marianne Moyaert proposes: When I read the work of a comparative theologian like Francis Clooney, who promotes a practice of close, gracious reading and prefers asking questions to formulating definite and final answers, I cannot but be struck by the way this interreligious practice resonates with what Ricœur envisions … what a deep learning across religious borders may entail; and they [Clooney and Ricœur] point us down a road we may want to travel in the future. That this interreligious hospitality is marked by incompletion is, to their mind, a sign of hope.37

Beyond comparative theology: Secular–religious dialogue as a form of comparative theology How can it be possible to develop this approach even further and use ways for the religious and the non-religious to read other people – tentatively – as if they were text with meaning and significance?38 It requires us to try and consider our own individuality and sense of being unique, in order to then remind ourselves that we are not unique; we share many characteristics with each other that can be read in the other person. In fact, understanding, ‘reading’ oneself in order to be aware of who one is and then reading oneself through the other … oneself as another … this all shows us that the only way to understand oneself is through understanding the other. We will see ourselves reflected in the other and also we will see ourselves through what each of us is not. What does it mean to ‘read’ oneself and others as if each human were a text? Can this be translated into action, or does it remain at the level of reading and inwardly changing? We want

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to take this process one step further and personalize it so that we can attempt to read the other person as if they were a text to read. In Ray Bradbury’s novel The Illustrated Man, the narrator meets a man who is a visual text: he is tormented by stories that are imprinted on his flesh and that come alive, leaving him no peace, no rest. The narrator himself is drawn into this constant display of narratives. How can we take this image and render it positive? Paul Ricœur writes persuasively about this; he believes that we can only really learn about ourselves by making a detour via the other person: Oneself as Another suggests from the outset that the selfhood of oneself implies otherness to such an intimate degree that one cannot be thought of without the other, that instead one passes into the other, as we might say in Hegelian terms. To ‘as’ I should like to attach a strong meaning, not only that of a comparison (oneself similar to another) but indeed that of an implication (oneself inasmuch as being other).39

We find ourselves reflected in the other and we learn from the similarities and differences between ourselves and others. There are two related issues here to resolve: first, in terms of the translation of ideas into reality – Ricœur offers us principles and not examples, so we do not learn from him quite how we can put ourselves in someone else’s shoes while remaining true to ourselves. Second, we need to develop ways in which this can become possible in the real world: The path of eventual consensus can emerge only from mutual recognition on the level of acceptability, that is, by admitting a possible truth, admitting proposals of meaning that are at first foreign to us.40

Inter-religious dialogue can help a great deal, and is already developing in, for example, the Cambridge Coexist project.41 We also have examples of major figures who cross boundaries: the Archbishop of Canterbury is a patron of the Christian Muslim Forum.42 There are powerful initiatives in Muslim colleges, such as Al-Maktoum College’s regular open public lectures on issues around Islam in the modern world, with international speakers addressing secularism, the Quran, Islamic women’s lives and interfaith issues.

Mutual recognition It is possible to temporarily set aside one’s personal beliefs if there is a shared belief that somehow transcends our own particularism. As mentioned in Chapter 5, from 1999 to 2002 Scott-Baumann and Khan Cheema demonstrated

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this with an initial teacher education programme. They set up a working party comprising a Christian, a Jew, a feminist, an atheist and several Muslims and ran a unique initial teacher education programme for British Muslim women. This was called Association of Muslim Schools School Centred Initial Teacher Training – AMSSCITT. Each member of the working party also had a different professional role, whether as teacher, teacher educator, university academic or school manager, and thus each brought potentially conflicting sets of priorities, restrictions and demands to the project. Yet this intersectionality led to the development of a course that fulfilled each working party member’s transcendent beliefs about what British education should offer. The course obliged each trainee to teach in both a non-Muslim state school and a Muslim school. In order to qualify for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), the trainee teachers were trained to teach the National Curriculum in Mathematics, English or Science. This, of course, includes teaching theories such as evolution, about which some religions, including Islam, have strong opinions. In 2003, Scott-Baumann wrote43: My scepticism about the concept of religious schools was overridden by the hope that this project would facilitate working relationships between Muslims and others in communities that otherwise proceed, with mutual suspicion, along parallel and rarely intersecting pathways. On a personal level, my experience over the last five years has shown me that Muslim faith schools can, with guidance, train teachers and work well as a means of stabilizing a multi-faith, multi-ethnic community. I learnt a great deal from the moderate, balanced views of many Muslims, Christians, Jews and others who are seeking to resolve the dilemmas that face us all.

The intense inspection security to which the course was subjected was reminiscent of Weber’s rationalization that brings disenchantment and secularization, and of Habermas’ belief that there is a tendency to privilege instrumental action – doing, measuring and managing – over communicative action – being, thinking and talking. We believe that such educational projects, if fully supported by the government, could provide teachers as role models for young British Muslims who seldom see themselves or their history reflected in the school curriculum or staffing. We hope we have shown ways to become aware of one’s own agency as the possibility of acting in a conciliatory or even confrontational way towards the other, but always such that channels of communication are opened and kept open, for the poverty of trying and the richness of failing to understand each other. In order to try and ‘read’ someone else, we need ideally to go beyond hermeneutical

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engagement with texts to meet each other face to face, and face up to ourselves as well! None of that is possible unless we also acknowledge our own experiences: we cannot understand any text without prior experiences of our own.

Reading stories about each other In her doctoral research, Cheruvallil-Contractor used digital storytelling to facilitate interfaith and inter-community understanding, facilitating the production of visible, virtual text for explaining one’s life to another through imagery. This approach is important not only for its potential to speak across faiths, but also to develop conversations between faith and secularism, by making manifest the life decisions that women make in the modern world. Muslim women were briefed to create brief virtual texts with images and to tell stories that fulfilled the objectives of the research – that demystified the women, challenged stereotypes and furthered inter-community dialogue. The content and themes of the stories that women created were surprising. Rather than overtly talk about their faith, women told stories of everyday life. By narrating stories of everyday routine, work–life balances, motherhood and university education, they challenged the stereotypes that they knew existed. When these stories were shared with audiences from different faith and cultural groups, 82 per cent of viewers (as measured by a Likert scale) showed a positive change in attitudes towards Muslim women after the screening of the digital stories. Based on this work, Cheruvallil-Contractor concludes: Siddiqui (1997) describes the essence of dialogue ‘as communicating one’s stand in an assembly … in a sympathetic way to others … and also listening to others … based on mutual respect [and] to operate in areas of packed social and other spheres whereby our common values can be exercised and utilised’ (pp. 56–57). This was evident in Muslim women’s stories – often their stories were not ‘Muslim’ stories but the stories of women who happened to be Muslim. They inherently focussed on their womanhood. The [viewers] picked up these cues of similarity to build a discourse that reflected the pluralistic nature of Britishness and the shared struggles of the sisterhood. As barriers of (in)difference were replaced by attempts to engage with the ‘different other’, the reasons and intentions of the individual were revealed to the community that he or she lives in. Commonality became a lens through which difference was explored and understood. Such difference that is understood ceases to be unidentifiable, and is not looked at with suspicion.44

The next and logical step in this research would be to bring together the women who made the digital stories and the women who watched them.

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Possible other selves So here is one major issue about bringing people together: even when a university develops a collaborative partnership, it is possible for the Muslim students from the college to avoid contact with the university students and vice versa. The university campus is a space where Amin’s micropublics are supposed to take place – the superficial, but socially binding chat, that one has in a queue or on a bus with someone who seems different – but of course it is possible to avoid others on campus, even possible to avoid engaging with others when in class.45 Even when these micropublics happen, they usually stop at the level of superficial interaction, and do not develop into negotiation that actively respects the presence of others. The infantilization of the university student that is implied by government narratives about protecting them from terrorism may even make it less likely that students will see themselves as active citizens, with the agency to create a multi-faith adult life. We need a new pedagogy that consciously and deliberately brings together students who can and do otherwise avoid each other, both by design and by chance. Courses on intercultural and interfaith debate could seek to translate and mediate some of the questions we avoid about how different our lives are really, how similar our lives are really and how we can reduce our fear of being contaminated by the other. Making courses compulsory is inimical to the modern secular university, so this creates a problem and a question: how to create micropublics deliberately and with the conscious understanding of participants? The paradox of the modern democracy is that its citizens, once adult, are supposed to know how to behave ethically, without being compelled to try and understand each other. One solution is to create pedagogies where the teacher has different views to the students. This happens at Cambridge Muslim College and MIHE, where devout, traditionally trained Muslims are taught by tutors from, usually, secular disciplines, and each learns to ‘read’ the other better. Of course we will never be able to read the other like a book – Plato points out that the other person is always ultimately incomprehensible – yet we can come to understand better the incomprehensibility of social differences such as washing and un/covering and cooking, the nature of the non-negotiable aspects of different groups’ belief systems and, above all, the similarities between us. The ultimate challenge is to understand how to interpret the many different manifestations of ‘secular’ culture: this requires challenging a narrative that is not accustomed to being questioned and which assumes that its own hegemonic position in Western democracies is both deserved and valuable. As well as

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developing new leadership models within British Islam, new pedagogies and pluralist paradigms in higher education can help the young to develop shared problem-solving as joint members of the rich multi-faith culture that is Britain. Our research on the four projects provides strong evidence for the four following imperatives. There is an urgent need for girls and women to have a voice in their own communities and in secular society. Muslim faith leadership can be developed beyond narrow preconceptions of the imam’s role, to include women and a wide range of different forms of leadership. Provision of Arabic language teaching should be more widespread at university level; there is great demand for this world language, for reasons of religion, culture and identity. There is a great need for collaborative partnerships between universities and Muslim institutions, to bring these self-defining binaries together socially and pedagogically: this can also demonstrate how the university sector can refute accusations of assisting radicalization and provide safe space for controversial discussions. These practical imperatives demonstrate that non-appropriative, provisional negotiations have to take place in order to explore the possibility that secular and religious world views are not inimical to each other but rather are interdependent, as Asad, Brown, Butler and Mahmood propose.46 We need to release each of these – religion and secularism – from the binary that binds them, with imagination and with a goal that will allow us to move towards coexistence between those of different faiths and those of none.

Afterword Shuruq Naguib

At the heart of Islam is a quest for knowing God and interpreting that knowledge in practice. In light of this Islamic religious knowledge and education since their inception became central for understanding the world and responding to it; their centrality has been one of the few points of consensus amongst Muslims across time and place. It is not surprising then that in the face of the myriad cultural and political challenges of modernity, contemporary Muslim thinkers have all called for reforming Islamic education, the subject of this book that is particularly welcome at this time. In early reform discourses, religious renewal (tajdid) was urgently required to deal with an existential crisis arising from a perceived ‘incompatibility’ between Islam and modernity, a perception propagated by forms of academic orientalism and religious fundamentalism alike has been more recently critiqued as binary. This binary logic, identified by ScottBaumann in the work of Paul Ricœur, conceals other presupposed oppositions between the religious and the secular, the traditional and the modern, the veil and liberation, for example. A more dynamic model for the renewal of religious education has been posited as necessary if such binaries are to be deconstructed and transcended, and if the demands of the contemporary Muslim condition are to be effectively reconciled with the legacy of the past. This is captured in efforts to transform the famous al-Azhar mosque in Egypt, a bastion of the Sunni tradition for over a millennium, into a modern university of the twenty-first century, eventually reintroducing the intra-denominational learning banned since the twelfth century and reopening the gates to women in 1964 after decades of exclusion. The first generation of Azhari women jurists and theologians are well known throughout the Muslim world today and their authority acknowledged by many Muslims. They received a rich grounding in the Islamic tradition infused with al-Azhar’s ethos of reform and moderation. However, unlike their male peers, they are denied formal recognition by the religious establishment and are often more isolated than their male peers from contemporary debates on the modern study of religion and from contact with Islamic thought and activism beyond the Arab world.

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Despite many cultural and structural differences between the Egyptian and British contexts, Islamic education in Britain is to a large extent entrapped in similar forms of intellectual isolation, social marginalization and bifurcated systems of higher education. The problems of Islamic education in Britain are further compounded at the more advanced levels by the lack of HE validation, which leaves the female graduate of an Islamic college more invisible in Britain than in Egypt. She may be called an alimah and may serve as a teacher and adviser of Muslim women but she will neither be perceived as a religious authority formally qualified to impart religious rulings to the community at large (as a mufti would) nor is she a qualified teacher in the eyes of British society (see Chapters 2 and 5). Through analysing these various, interrelated problematics, this book makes a compelling and timely argument towards the need for new partnerships between HE and Islamic institutions. Such partnerships could be of great benefit for both university and seminary, and for empowering Muslim women as producers of Islamic knowledge within the British Muslim community. This is a refreshing conclusion. In the university, Islamic Studies is a small though strategic field attracting a limited number of students and fewer experts. Outside it, there are considerable cohorts of Muslim students within Islamic education who could be better integrated into the field of academic Islamic Studies without compromising university values and standards. This is not new to British HE, where the modern discipline of Religious Studies has many experts with confessional as well as academic commitments. The academic study of Islam could be substantially enriched through such partnerships, a vision which the British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) clearly spells out in its mission statement (www.brais. ac.uk). The potential impact on Islamic education cannot be overstated. Islamic thought and practice always thrived in periods of intellectual and cultural cross-fertilization. In cases where this has been possible in recent times, leading Muslim thinkers such as Aisha Abd al-Rahman (d. 1998; Naguib 2011, 2015)1 and Khaled Abou el-Fadl made extraordinary strides beyond the dichotomies of university–seminary and modernity–tradition. Contact and critical engagement with the disciplines that have invigorated the Judeo-Christian tradition like the (post)modern philosophy of religion, the social sciences and feminist theory will undoubtedly transform the seminary. By gaining competence in the language of modern thought, the validated Muslim theologian will be able to translate Islamic history and theology into a more comprehensible language for British Muslims and non-Muslims, as

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shown in Chapter 4 on Arabic. The authors rightly observe that this may assist the rethinking and reinterpretation of the Islamic tradition, and I agree with them that the validation and potential transformation of the seminary may in addition facilitate self understanding within Western culture itself. The Islamic tradition described by Jacques Derrida as the ‘forgotten relative’ needs to be remembered so that the workings of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic foundation of Western modernity are better understood, something Derrida himself attempts in the Gift of Death (1996). However, without validation, the voices of Muslim theologians will remain marginalized in Western thought and academe, and the danger of reduction and misunderstanding remains not too far from us as evident in Derrida’s misreading of the Islamic narrative of Abraham (Almond, 2007).2 This is particularly salient in the case of academic discourses about gender and Islam in which the Muslim woman is often the subject of knowledge but rarely its agent. Reclaiming the voices of Muslim women in British society is one avenue to which collaboration between university and seminary could be directed. Islamic theology imposes no constraints on women’s participation in knowledge and education. Classical Muslim thinkers such as al-Nawawi (thirteenth century) saw no impediment to women issuing religious rulings (fatwas) and founding their new schools of religious thought (madhhab) in the same manner as early founders of the main Sunni and Shia schools did. Bint al-Shati᾿, a contemporary female exegete of the Quran, renowned for her linguistic method, has also shown how men and women are equally obligated and expected to interpret the speech of God (Naguib, 2015).3 These theological possibilities for Muslim women are never fully realized because of institutional structures in the Muslim world and in Britain. Perhaps the most urgent call that this book ends with is one for developing a collaborative programme that enables Muslim women with theological training to consolidate their knowledge, acquire academic status in British society and break into traditional structures of authority.

Notes Introduction 1 2

3 4

5 6

7 8 9 10 11

12

13

Asad T, Brown W, Butler J and Mahmood S 2013 Is Critique Secular? New York: Fordham University Press, p. xi. Schulze W 2013 ‘On Relating Religion to Society and Society to Religion’ in Samuel M. Behloul, Susanne Leuenberger, Andreas Tunger-Zanetti (eds) Debating Islam. Negotiating Religion, Europe, and the Self. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 333–356. Hallaq W 2013 The Impossible State: Islam, Politics and Modernity’s Moral Predicaments. New York: Columbia University Press. Mukadam M, Scott-Baumann A, Chaudhary A and Cheruvallil-Contractor S 2010 Muslim Faith Leader Training: An Independent Review. London: Department of Communities and Local Government; Scott-Baumann A and Cheruvallil-Contractor S 2011 Encouraging Muslim Women into Higher Education through Partnerships and Collaborative Pathways. Southampton: HEA Islamic Studies Network. Anwar calls this ‘the myth of return’. Anwar M 1979 The Myth of Return: Pakistanis in Britain. London: Heinemann. HM Government 2009 Pursue, Prevent, Protect, Prepare: The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering International Terrorism. London: The Stationery Office. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment _data/file/228644/7547.pdf, accessed 4 November 2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10887976/Trojan-Horse -schools-must-promote-British-values-says-Gove.html, accessed 4 January 2015 The Muslim News, 31 October 2014. http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/newspaper/top-stories/radicalisation-violent -extremism-schools-says-education-secretary/, accessed 3 March 2015 Gale R and Hopkins P (eds) 2009 Muslims in Britain: Race, Place and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 229. Farrar M 2012 ‘Why Has Sociology Failed to Analyse Islam and Develop Curricula about the Lives of Muslims?’, accessed 28 November 2014, www.maxfarrar.org.uk/ max-blog//wp…/Islam-Muslims-sociology-fails1.docx Weller P, Purdam K, Ghanea N and Cheruvallil-Contractor S 2013 Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality: Britain in Global Contexts. London and New York: Continuum. Ibid.

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14 Farrimond H 2013 Doing Ethical Research. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 15 Scott-Baumann A 2009 Ricœur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion New York and London: Bloomsbury and Scott-Baumann A 2013 Ricœur and the Negation of Happiness. New York and London: Bloomsbury. 16 Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, England.

1. British Islam and Islamic Education: Two Approaches 1

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3 4 5

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Reinhard Schulze, 17–18 October 2014, conference at Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. In his talk, Schulze described the shift in emphasis from studying Islam in the setting of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Arabic countries towards the (1) Europeanization of Islam: many texts relate to Christianity in some way and twothirds deal with relating Islam to non-Islamic epistemic orders. (2) Secularism/ Islam and modernity – (a) identity and (b) Islam’s place in current historicity as vital for creating Islamic knowledge – and (3) politics of Islam play a significant role in world events and in academic endeavours. He gave a sense of the above trends: of c.50,000 academic books and papers written in the last twenty years on Islam, 80 per cent in English; of the total, one-fourth are area studies. ‘Trojan Horse: “schools must promote British values”, says Gove’, http://www .telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10887976/Trojan-Horse-schools-must -promote-British-values-says-Gove.html, accessed 4 January 2015 Lean N 2012 The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims. London: Pluto Press. Esposito J 1998 Islam the Straight Path (3rd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 223. Dinham A and Jones S 2011 ‘Religious Literacy in Higher Education: Brokering Public Faith in a Context of Ambivalence’ Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 185–201; Dinham A and Jones S H 2010 Religious Literacy Leadership in Higher Education: An Analysis of Challenges for Religious Faith, and Resources for Meeting Them, for University Leaders. London: RLLP/HEFCE, ISBN 978-0-9565402-2-5. Schulze W 2013 ‘On Relating Religion to Society and Society to Religion’ in Samuel M. Behloul, Susanne Leuenberger and Andreas Tunger-Zanetti (eds) Debating Islam. Negotiating Religion, Europe, and the Self. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 333–356, p. 345. Chakrabarti S 2014 On Liberty. London: Allen Lane; Cheltenham Literary Festival Talk 10 November 2014; ‘Starkey Report’ Preventing Violent Extremism 2010. London: HMSO. Asad et al. 2013. Crouch C 2011 The Strange Non-death of Neo-liberalism. Cambridge: Polity.

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10 Guest M, Aune K, Sharma S and Warner R 2013 Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith. London: Bloomsbury. 11 Ricœur (1974: 182–183) in Political and Social Essays; he saw an extreme version of that in his own country’s secularism. It is the French commitment to ‘laicité’ that is the driving force behind their policy on Muslims in France. Laicité is the definitive anti-clerical separation of Church and state that came out of the French Revolution and underpins policy and legislation. As a member of the Protestant minority in France, he always felt excluded by the Roman Catholic majority, which made him want to create a philosophy that would be accessible to all. He believed that a struggle also takes place within each of us: not only do we tend to define reality in terms of polarities (finite/infinite, good/evil) but we also may have to accept that our belief system, be it religious faith, political partisan positions or a broad secularism, is different from our daily lives. It may be impossible to live up to our personal ambitions. He asked whether self-critical analysis could develop towards some sort of resolution of the tension between the person we are and the person we want to be. Certain aspects of organized religion seek to bring the two together, whereas Ricœur (1998) believed that his faith was different from his philosophy and that his intellectual life was a ‘sort of controlled schizophrenia’. 12 Scott-Baumann 2013. 13 Weller P and Cheruvallil-Contractor 2014 ‘Muslims in the UK’ in Burchardt M and Michalowski I (eds) After Integration: Islam, Conviviality and Contentious Politics in Europe. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. 14 Census 2011 – http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics -for-local-authorities-in-england-and-wales/rpt-ethnicity.html#tab-Ethnicity-in -England-and-Wales, accessed 11 November 2012 15 Seddon M 2014 The Last of the Lascars: Yemeni Muslims in Britain, 1836–2012. Markfield: Kube Publishing. 16 Robilliard St J 1984 Religion and the Law: Religious Liberty in Modern English Law. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, p. ix. 17 Weller et al. 2013. 18 Mukadam et al. 2010: 44. 19 Winter T J 2008 The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 20 Murata S 1992 The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought. New York: State University of New York Press. 21 Abou El Fadl K, Ali T, Viorst M, Esposito J and Mohamad H 2002 The Place of Tolerance in Islam. Boston, MA: Beacon. 22 Winter 2008. 23 Holy Quran 2:269, 3:190. 24 Esposito John 2003 Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press Retrieved 8 April 2010. Oxford Reference Online. http://www.oxfordreference.com

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25 We often perceive history as unbiased. Yet history always reflects the voices and sentiments of the dominant voice. For example, see differences between British and Indian narratives of the colonial Raj. Further reading: Halbwachs M 1941 On Collective Memory. Edited, Translated and Introduced by Coser L 1992. London: University of Chicago Press. 26 Please see discussion about the Cambridge Muslim College in Chapters 2 and 6. 27 Mukadam et al. 2010; Cheruvallil-Contractor and Scott-Baumann 2011; ScottBaumann and Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012; Cheruvallil-Contractor and ScottBaumann 2013. 28 Cheruvallil-Contractor and Scott-Baumann 2011, p. 22. 29 John Dewey, cited in Kloppenberg J 1998 ‘An Old Name for New Thinking’ in Dickstein M (ed) The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law and Culture. London: Duke University Press, pp. 83–129, p. 102. 30 Moyaert M 2014 In Response to the Religious Other: Ricœur and the Fragility of Interreligious Encounters. New York: Lexington, pp. 127–128. 31 Moyaert 2014, p. 128. 32 Lindbeck G 1984 The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. 33 Ricœur 1990 Oneself as Another, chapter 8; Scott-Baumann 2009. 34 Asad et al. 2013.

2. Mapping Islamic Studies Provision in Britain 1 2

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Gleave R 2008 14 International approaches to Islamic Studies in higher education HEFCE publications. Mukadam et al. 2010 The report was submitted to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in October 2010 and is available here: www. communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1734121.pdf, accessed 3 March 2015 Alison Scott-Baumann was not allowed to attend the inaugural parliamentary announcement of this fund as she was told that she had not been cleared by security and could pose a risk. Perspectives 1: 21–22 Higher Education Academy: Islamic Studies Network. See Illustrated London News, 9 November 1889, pp. 590–591. Lambert-Hurley S 2007 Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal. London: Routledge. Wolffe J 1993 ‘Fragmented Universality: Islam and Muslims’ in Parsons G (ed) The Growth of Religious Diversity: Britain from 1945. Volume I: Traditions. London: Routledge, pp. 134–172.

190 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15

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17 18 19 20

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http://www.shahjahanmosque.org.uk/history-mosque/history-mosque-part-1, accessed 17 June 2014 Seddon M 2014 The Last of the Lascars: Yemeni Muslims in Britain, 1836–2012. Markfield: Kube Publishing. http://www.inter-islam.org/Pastevents/darululoom.html, accessed 23 September 2014. www.pathtosalvation.co.uk, accessed 16 April 2015 Birt J 2006 ‘Good Imam, Bad Imam: Civic Religion and National Integration in Britain Post-9/11’ The Muslim World, Vol. 96, pp. 687–705; Birt J and Lewis P 2010 ‘The Pattern of Islamic Reform in Britain: The Deobandis between Intra-Muslim Sectarianism and Engagement with Wider Society’ in Bruinessen M and Allievi S (eds) Producing Islamic Knowledge: Transmission and Dissemination in Western Europe. London: Routledge; Geaves R 2008 ‘Drawing on the Past to Transform the Present: Contemporary Challenges for Training and Preparing British Imams’ Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 99–112; Gilliat-Ray S 2005 ‘Closed Worlds (Not) Accessing Deobandi Dar-ul-uloom in Britain’ Fieldwork in Religion, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 7–33; Gilliat-Ray S 2006 ‘Educating the Ulama: Centres of Islamic Religious Training in Britain’ Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 55–76; Mumisa M and Kessler E 2008 The Training of Religious Leaders in the UK: A Survey of Jewish, Christian & Muslim Seminaries, Seminary Report: Woolf Institute. Retrieved 20 August 2009. http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/ uploads/seminary%20rpt%20final%20june%2008.pdf http://www.islamiccourses.org/about-us/ accessed 7 October 2014. http://www.derby.ac.uk/education/centre-for-society-religion-belief/funded -research/collaborative-partnerships-project/, accessed 12 March 2014 Siddiqui A 2007 Islam at Universities in England: Meeting the Needs and Investing in the Future. London: Department for Children, Schools and Families. In 1636, Archbishop William Laud occupied the Arabic chair at Oxford University; in 1643, Sir Thomas Adams was founder of the Cambridge chair in Arabic. In 2010, Bernasek and Bunt included the Muslim institutions that had validating bodies. They were Al-Maktoum Institute (University of Aberdeen), Islamic College (Middlesex University), Markfield Institute (University of Gloucestershire) and Muslim College (Birkbeck College, University of London). At the time of writing (2014), validated institutions are as follows: Islamic College (Middlesex University) and Markfield Institute (Newman University). Please see Chapter 6 for further details. Bernasek L and Bunt G 2010 Islamic Studies Provision in the UK. Report to HEFCE by the Higher Education Academy HEFCE. Ibid. www.cambridgemuslimcollege.org, accessed 16 April 2015 Jackson R, Miedema S, Weisse W and Willaime J-P eds 2007 Religion and Education in Europe: Devolpments, Context and Debates (Religious Diversity and Education in Europe). Münster: Waxmann Verlag GmbH.

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21 http://www.faithassociates.co.uk/, accessed 7 September 2014. 22 Amin A 2002 ‘Ethnicity and the Multicultural City: Living with Diversity’ Environment and Planning A, Vol 34, No. 6, pp. 959–980. 23 Grove J 2013 ‘Campus Extremism Tackled by New Website (A New Website has been Launched to Help Universities Tackle Violent Extremism and Radicalisation on Campus)’ Times Higher Education, 21 May 2013 http:// www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/campus-extremism-tackled-by-newwebsite/2003998.article, accessed 27 November 2013. 24 Scott-Baumann 2009. 25 Debord G Comments on the society of the spectacle 1988/ 1998, transl M. Imrie. London: Verso.

3. New Narratives of Muslim Faith Leadership 1

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http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fawcett-Equal -Pay-Day-report-November-2014.pdf, http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2013/mar/11/women-maths-professors -uk-universities and http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/26/ government-warned-may-miss-target-on-women-in-ftse-100-boardrooms, accessed 4 November 2014. Cheruvallil-Contractor S 2012 Muslim Women in Britain: Demystifying the Muslimah. London: Routledge. For more discussion about Islam and online spaces, please see Bunt G 2003 Islam in the Digital Age: E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Islamic Environments. London: Pluto Press; Bunt G 2004 ‘ “Rip.Burn.Pray.”: Islamic Expression Online’ in Dawson L & Cowan D (eds) Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 123–134; Bunt G 2009 iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press; and CheruvallilContractor S 2013 ‘Online Sufism – Young British Muslims, Their Internet “Selves” and Virtual Reality’ in Gabriel T & Geaves R (eds) British Sufism. London: Continuum. Cheruvallil-Contractor S and Shakkour S 2015 Digital Methodologies in the Sociology of Religion. London Bloomsbury. Esposito 1998. The five pillars are (1) tawhid or the affirmation of the unity of God, (2) salah or five daily prayers, (3) zakah or charity, (4) sawm or fasting in Ramadan and (5) hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca. Geaves 2008 ‘Drawing on the Past to Transform the Present: Contemporary Challenges for Training and Preparing British Imams’. Thanvi A 1905 Behisti Zewar or Heavenly Ornaments. Revised translation by Saroha M (2000). Delhi: Fahim Publishers.

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8 Birt Y 2006, p. 687. 9 Seddon 2014 and Visram R 1986 Ayahs, Lascars and Princes. London: Pluto Press. 10 Geaves R 2010 Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam. Markfield: Kube Publishing Ltd. 11 Seddon 2014. 12 Ijazah is a virtual or sometimes real certificate used by Muslims to indicate that one has been authorized by a higher authority, usually a shaykh or a murshid, to transmit a certain subject or text of Islamic knowledge. This usually implies that the student has learnt this knowledge through face-to-face interactions ‘at the feet’ of the teacher. 13 Scourfield J, Taylor C, Moore G, and Gilliat-Ray S 2012 ‘The Intergenerational Transmission of Islam in England and Wales: Evidence from the Citizenship Survey’ Sociology, Vol. 46, No. 1, 91–108 (10.1177/0038038511419189). 14 Cesari J 2006 When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 15 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-28892679 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ uk-27989893, accessed 20 September 2014. 16 Imams against radicalization: Statement from Imams Online – ‘British Imams Condemn ISIS’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKjAt6lIlgY and ‘Senior British Imams Response to Isis Recruitment Videos – Imams Online’, https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=TJFOLbSv2wI, accessed 20 September 2014. 17 Excerpt from Imams Online video, ‘British Imams Condemn ISIS’, https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=KKjAt6lIlgY, accessed 20 September 2014. 18 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10841160/Abu -Hamza-trial-London-cleric-found-guilty-on-terror-charges-by-US-jury.html, accessed 12 October 2014. 19 http://www.isb.org.uk/the-organisation/, accessed 12 October 2014.

4. Arabic: The Centrality of a Living World Language 1

2 3

4

French laïcité must be one factor here; we see the separation of Church and state, for example, 1905 laws determining that each citizen has a direct relationship to the state, neutral with regard to any other potential loyalties or identities such as those of ethnicity or faith. translation-nation.herokuapp.com; www.translatorsinschools.org Ricœur P 2006 On Translation trans. E Brennan. London: Routledge, p. 23; Ricœur P 1974 ‘Violence and Language’ in Political and Social Essays. Athens: Ohio University Press, pp. 88–101. Said E 2004 Humanism and Democratic Criticism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 68–69. Greater jihad is the struggle that takes place in the mind to

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overcome evil in one’s life and live a good life. Lesser jihad should be seen as the struggle to overcome injustice and a personal struggle to improve society. The latter may be misunderstood. Lindbeck 1984. Hauerwas S 1985 Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics. San Antonio: Trinity University Press; Willimon WH 2010 The Collected Sermons of William H Willimon. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Darke D 2014 My House in Damascus. An Inside View of the Syrian Revolution. London: Haus: ‘It has a finality to it that goes way beyond anything conveyed by the English term “forbidden” ’, pp. 8–9. Moyaert 2014. This section is based on research commissioned in 2012 by the LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, University of Southampton, in its role as a partner in the HEFCE-funded Higher Education Academy Islamic Studies Network. Views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Higher Education Academy, the LLAS Centre or HEFCE. All case studies in this chapter are used with permission of LLAS, because they come from our LLAS report. In the UK, eleven universities/colleges offer first degree courses in Arabic: Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Oxford, Manchester, Salford, SOAS, Leeds, St Andrews and Westminster. A survey of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UK) (UCAS) website added four more to this list: Birmingham, Aston, Central Lancashire and University College London. This is an estimated total of fifteen. Visit to Ebrahim College – Arabic for religious scholarship: 15 November 2011; visit to Durham University, Modern Languages Department – Arabic as a modern language: 29 November 2011; focus group with GCHQ group – Arabic for professional translation and interpretation: 3 December 2011. There are several types of courses: main Arabic with Islamic Studies (less popular over the last decade) or Arabic with another Modern Foreign Language (MFL). There are joint honours in Arabic with modern European language/theology/business studies, for example. There are also joint honours in business studies and international relations with Arabic as a minor subject. There are Master’s courses in Arabic literature/history/etc. Dr Samar Al-Afandi, University of Leeds; Mrs Ruth Ahmedzai, welovearabic. wordpress.com; Dr Mustapha Lahlali, University of Leeds; Dr Shuruq Naguib, Lancaster University; and Professor Paul Starkey, Durham University. www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1734121.pdf, accessed 16 April 2015 Bassiouney R 2009 Arabic Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. The structure and functions of code switching between standard Arabic and dialectal Arabic: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/18581; ‘Token Level

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22 23

24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31 32

Notes

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Identification of Linguistic Code Switching’: https://aclweb.org/anthology/C/C12/ C12-2029.pdf. Accessed 14 November 2012 Bassiouney R and Katz EG 2012 ‘The Elusiveness of Luġa Wustā’ in Arabic Language and Linguistics. Washington: Georgetown University Press. Census 2011. Interviewee in LLAS Arabic research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajwid, accessed 16 April 2015 APPG chaired by Baroness Coussins; [email protected] UNESCO ‘World Arabic Language Day’: ‘World Arabic Language Day is an opportunity for us to celebrate the language of 22 Member States of UNESCO, a language with more than 422 million speakers in the Arab world and used by more than 1.5 billion Muslims. The most often spoken language is Mandarin Chinese, which is estimated to be spoken by over one billion people.’ (http://www.unesco.org/new/ en/media-services/single-view/news/world_arabic_language_day/#.VRM-dnlybmI), accessed 12 March 2015 Mukadam et al. 2010. The Joint Council for Qualifications gives 2014 entry figures for Arabic as GCE Advanced Level 645 and AS Level 935. For GCSE, between 2010 and 2014, numbers have more than doubled, perhaps due to questions being set in English instead of Arabic, to be answered in Arabic: 2010 1606/01 – 1,575, 1606/03 – 1,575, 1606/04 – 1,575; 2011 5AR01/01 – 3,019, 5AR03/01 – 3,147, 5AR04/01 – 3,037; 2012 5AR01/01 – 3,640, 5AR03/01 – 3,637, 5AR04/01 – 3,503; 2013 5AR01/01 – 3,673, 5AR03/01 – 3,612, 5AR04/01 – 3,786; 2014 5AR01/01 – 3,762, 5AR03/01 – 3,770, 5AR04/01 – 3,769. Personal communications (1 December 2014) with Taoufiq Cherkaoui and also Hannah Chubb, Pearson: www.pearson.com/uk HESA data enquiry reference 36483, 5 October 2014. Interviewee in LLAS Arabic research. Marshall K 2001 ‘General Introduction to Modern Languages in To-Day’s UK Universities’, available at https://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/1392, accessed 16 April 2015 This section is also based upon a summary of LLAS research report of 2011. Bernasek and Bunt 2010: 21. Ibid., 21. Ibid. Surty M 2008 Towards Understanding Qur’anic Arabic: Elementary, a Manual Teaching Arabic through the Qur’an. Birmingham: Qur’anic Arabic Foundation. Palmer J 2007 ‘Arabic Diglossia: Teaching Only the Standard Variety Is a Disservice to Students’ Arizona Working Papers in SLA & Teaching, Vol. 14, pp. 111–122; Palmer J 1996 ‘Andrew Freeman’s Perspectives on Arabic Diglossia’ accessed 20 December 2011 http://innerbrat.org/Andyf/Articles/Diglossia/diglossia1.html

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33 Mejdell G 2012 ‘The Elusiveness of Luga Wusta – Or, Attempting to Catch Its “True Nature” ’ in Bassiouney R and Graham Katz E (eds) Arabic Language and Linguistics. Washington: Georgetown University Press, chapter 11, para 1, quoting Charles Ferguson in his seminal article ‘Diglossia’ (1959). 34 HESA data enquiry reference 36483, 4 October 2014. 35 Entry to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is one choice, yet, as the FCO research analyst Martin Hetherington made clear on the Arabic Day Conference held at British Academy on 15 February 2012, Arabic competence is not a prerequisite for any FCO jobs. However, Arabic is valued highly for recruitment to the security services. 36 Interviewee in LLAS Arabic research. 37 Bernasek L and Canning J 2009 ‘Influences on the Teaching of Arabic and Islamic Studies in UK Higher Education’ Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 3, 259–275 (doi:10.1177/1474022209339954); British Council Languages for the Future, http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/languagesfor-the-future.pdf, accessed 16 April 2015 38 http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/languages-for-the-future. pdf, accessed 16 April 2015 39 Ricœur 2010; Scott-Baumann 2010; Board and Tinsley point out that in Europe 61 per cent of lower secondary pupils study two foreign languages. The European Commission aims to increase that to 75 per cent by 2020. In the UK, ‘we struggle to enable pupils to achieve a basic level in just one foreign language’: Board K and Tinsley T 2014 Language Trends 2013/14 the State of Language Learning in Primary and Secondary Schools in England. London: British Council, p. 121. 40 Of course there may be tensions and cost implications created by using more than one language, which we see for example in Brussels; the home of the European Union policy-making machinery is majority French speaking yet is surrounded by Dutch-speaking Flanders and requires competence in Dutch in order that individuals can be successful in the labour market. This situation creates tensions but is managed by providing educational programmes. 41 In the UK, HEFCE funded, with £7.3 million, the ‘Routes into Languages’ project, 2006–2013, https://www.routesintolanguages.ac.uk/impactandresearch. In Europe, Europe 2020 is a strategy statement that aims to implement the many targets unreached by Lisbon 2012, and policy-makers in Brussels are attempting to take the language aspects of European communication seriously. The UK is a full member of the EU, and these directives may be helpful, as there is a relatively low uptake of foreign languages as an academic discipline in the UK compared to Europe. See Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development/Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD/PISA) report, http://www.oecd.org/pisa/, accessed 15 February 2015 42 Butler J 2012 Parting Ways. Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 17.

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43 Ibid. 44 Ibn Rushd is known in the west as Averroes. See 1974 Averroes on Plato’s ‘Republic’, Translated by Ralph Lerner. London: Cornell University Press, pp. 59–60. Ibn Rushd Commentary (xxv, 6–10) paragraphs 9–10 (commentary on Plato’s Republic 445cd–457a). His Commentary on Plato’s Republic contains explicit critique of women’s position in society. Here, Ibn Rushd is commenting on Plato’s text, and may be using it to critique poor Islamic practices in Muslim Spain, where he may have witnessed regional practices that were at odds with Islam: in Islamic law, women must not be taken for procreation alone, and must not be seen merely as wet nurses in their mothering capacities – it is set out that a mother could indeed demand payment from her husband for breastfeeding, as it is a job. 45 Lindbeck 1984. 46 Scott-Baumann A 2010 ‘Ricœur’s Translation Model as a Mutual Labour of Understanding’ Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 69–85. 47 http://www.gusjohn.com/2014/06/trojan-horse-brings-a-packhorse-of-british -values-into-every-school/, accessed 1 January 2015 48 ‘Trojan Horse Schools Must Promote British Values, Says Gove’, http://www .telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10887976/Trojan-Horse-schools-must -promote-British-values-says-Gove.html, accessed 4 January 2015 49 Ricœur P 1995 Figuring the Sacred. Religion, Narrative and Imagination trans D Pellauer. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p. 47. 50 www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/publications/languages-future 51 [email protected] 52 See for more information https://edinburgharabicinitiative.wordpress.com/ 53 Scott-Baumann A 2007 ‘Collaborative Partnerships as Sustainable Pedagogy: Working with British Muslims’ in Roberts C and Roberts J (eds) Greener by Degrees: Exploring Sustainability through Higher Education Curricula. Available at http://resources.glos.ac.uk/ceal/resources/greenerbydegrees/index.cfm 54 Cheruvallil-Contractor and Scott-Baumann 2011. 55 [email protected] 56 Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. 57 Ijtihad may be understood as the process of exercising independent or original analysis on legal issues. 58 An imam is a figure of religious authority in the mosque community; alim (male) and alimah (female) are religious scholars.

5. Muslim Women’s Voices, Feminisms and Theologies 1

Hasan Z and Menon R 2005 The Diversity of Muslim Women’s Lives in India. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Notes 2

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Richardson 2007 ‘ “Islam” and “the West” – Competing Narratives in the UK Media’ Lecture, Respect for Religious Diversity: Fighting Islamophobia Conference. http://www.shahjahanmosque.org.uk/heritage, accessed 16 April 2015 Lambert-Hurley 2007. Spellberg D 1996 Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ῾A’isha Bint Abi Bakr. Columbia: Columbia University Press. Clyne I 2003. ‘Muslim Women: Some Western Fictions’ in Jawad, Haifa and Benn, Tansim (eds) Muslim Women in the United Kingdom and Beyond – Experiences and Images. Boston: Brill, pp. 19–38, p. 20. Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. Bewley A 1999 Islam: The Empowering of Women. London: Ta-Ha Publishers; Engineer A 1992 The Rights of Women in Islam. London: C. Hurst and Co.; Pickthall M 1926 The Cultural Side of Islam. Chennai: S Muhammad Ashraf. Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. Hilsum L 2013 cited in: Appignanesi L, Orbach S, Holmes R (eds) Fifty Shades of Feminism. London: Little, Brown Book Group. Allen A 2013 The Politics of Our Selves. New York: Columbia University Press. Ibid., p. 179. Narratives of actions and sayings from the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad. Please see Chapter 1 for further discussion. Bewley 1999. Ibid., p. 9. Nadwi M 2007 Al-Muhaddithat; the Women Scholars in Islam. Oxford: Interface Publications; Bewley 2004 Muslim Women – A Biographical Dictionary. London: Ta-Ha Publishers. See also Geissinger A 2004 ‘The Exegetical Traditions of A’isha: Notes on Their Impact and Significance’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1–20. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/17/muhammadaisha-truth accessed 26 September 2014. Nadwi 2007. Bewley 2004, p. 16. Ibid. Reiser E 2011 “Between Expectations and Ideals: Hui Women Finding a Place in the Public Sphere through Islamic Education”, http://islaminchina.info/between -expectations-and-ideals-hui-women-finding-a-place-in-the-public-sphere -through-islamic-education, accessed 12 November 2013 Lambert-Hurley 2007. Nadwi 2007 and Bewley 2004. Pickthall 1926. Ibid., p. 29.

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27 Maududi A 1972 Purdah and the Status of Woman in Islam. Lahore: Islamic Publications. 28 It is important to distinguish the term ‘purdah’ from the term ‘hijab’. Hijab, on the one hand, consists of modesty guidelines for males and females as derived from the Quran and the Sunnah. The hijab as a concept includes dress code and also behavioural guidelines that Muslim men and women must adhere to. In contemporary society, the word hijab is used to describe the headscarf worn by Muslim women. Purdah, on the other hand, is a term that is exclusively used for women to refer to their seclusion (Esposito 2003). Women are encouraged to cover their faces and almost exclusively limit the movements and activities to within their homes. And if a woman must venture out, she must be fully covered. This is an extreme interpretation of the hijab that is practised in some communities in the Indian subcontinent. 29 Wife of Zarif Ahmad Thanvi 1999 Instructions of Shari’ah for Women. Karachi: Darul Ishaat. 30 Census 2011. 31 http://www.fbrn.org.uk/project%20profiles/nisa-society, accessed 25 September 2014. 32 Al-Hashimi M 1996 The Ideal Muslimah: The True Islamic Personality of the Muslim Woman. Translated by Al-Khattab, Nassrudin. Riyadh: International Islamic Publishing House; Khan W 1995 Women between Islam and Western Society. New Delhi: Goodword Books; Thanvi (1905) – Some sources suggest that this final book was first published in 1905. I refer to the English translation by Masroor Khan Saroha (2001). It does not mention the date of original Urdu publication. However, for convenience, I will henceforth refer to this book as Thanvi (1905). 33 Joly D 1984 Making a Place for Islam in British Society: Muslims in Birmingham – Research Papers in Ethnic Relations. Coventry: Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick, No. 4, pp. 17. 34 Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. 35 Muslim woman. 36 Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. 37 Ibid.; Hoodfar H 2003. ‘More Than Clothing: Veiling as an Adaptive Strategy’ in Alvi Sajida, Hoodfar Homa and McDonough Sheila (eds) The Muslim Veil in North America – Issues and Debates. Toronto: Women’s Press, pp. 3–40. 38 Le Dœuff, Michèle (1998). The Sex of Knowing. Translated by Kathryn Hammer and Lorraine Code (2003). London: Routledge. 39 Honorific title (Esposito 2003). 40 Thanvi (1905). 41 It is used as part of the alimah (female Muslim scholar) training in these communities. 42 Bokhari R 2009 ‘Places and Perspectives: Gujarati Muslim Women in Leicester’, in Krause W (ed.) Citizenship, Security and Democracy: Muslim Engagement with the West. Surrey : Association of Muslim Social Scientists; Bokhari R 2013 ‘Bihisti

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Zewar: A Text for Respectable Women’, in Llewellyn D and Sawyer D F (eds) Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred. Farnham: Ashgate. Le Dœuff 1998. Bewley 1999, p. 6. Le Dœuff, M 1989 Hipparchia’s Choice – An Essay Concerning Women, Philosophy, Etc. Translated by Selous Trista 1991. New York: Columbia University Press. Naguib S 2011 ‘Horizons and Limitations of Muslim Feminist Hermeneutics: Reflections on the Verse of Menstruation’, in Anderson P S (ed.) New Topics in Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Contestations and Transcendence Incarnate. Amsterdam and New York: Springer Books, pp. 33–49. Bakhtiar L 2007 The Sublime Quran. Chicago: Kazi Publications; Barlas A 2002 Believing Women in Islam – Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Quran. Austin: University of Texas Press; Wadud-Muhsin A 1992 Quran and Woman. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Fajar Bakti Sdn. Bhd. Barazangi, N H 2004 Woman’s Identity and the Quran – A New Reading. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Bewley 2004. Samie S F 2013 ‘Hetero-Sexy Self/Body Work and Basketball: The Invisible Sporting Women of British Pakistani Muslim Heritage’ South Asian Popular Culture, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 257–270; Bullock K 2003 Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil – Challenging Historical & Modern Stereotypes. Herndon: The International Institute of Islamic Thought; Ahmad F 2001 ‘Modern Traditions? British Muslim Women and Academic Achievement’ Gender and Education, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 137–152. Ghazi-Walid F and Nagel C (eds) 2005 Geographies of Muslim Women. London: Guilford Press. Badran M 2008 ‘Between Muslim Women and the Muslimwoman’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 101–106; Badran M 2005 ‘Between Secular and Islamic Feminism/s – Reflections on the Middle East and Beyond’ Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 7–28; Badran M 2002 ‘Islamic Feminism: What’s in a Name?’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Issue No. 569, accessed 27 January 2010, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/569/cul.htm; Ali, Azra Asghar 2000 The Emergence of Feminism among Indian Muslim Women 1920–1947. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Al Farūqi Lamyā 1991Women Muslim Society and Islam. Indianapolis: American Trust Publications; Moghissi Haidah 1999 Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis. London: Zed. Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. Fernea E 1998 In Search of Islamic Feminism: One Woman’s Global Journey. New York: Anchor; Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. Ibid. Scott-Baumann A 2011‘Unveiling Orientalism in Reverse’ in Gabriel T and Hanan R (eds) Islam and the Veil. New York and London: Continuum; Cheruvallil-Contractor

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S 2011 ‘Marginalisation or an Opportunity for Dialogue: Exploring the Hijab as a Discursive Symbol of the Identity of Young Muslim Women’ in Gabriel T and Hanan R (eds) Islam and the Veil. New York and London: Continuum; CheruvallilContractor 2012; Hoodfar 2003; Mahmood S 2005 Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/oct/10/10-thingsfemale-students-face-university-misogyny-banter, accessed 16 October 2014. Scott-Baumann A 2003 ‘Teacher Education for Muslim Women’ Ethnicities, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 243–261. Koenig H 2007 ‘Religion and Mental Health: What Are Psychiatrists Doing and Should Do?’, www.nzhealthcarechaplains.org.nz

6. ‘Collaborative Partnerships’ in Higher Education 1 2

Sahin A 2013 New Directions in Islamic Education. Markfield: Kube, p. 236. The Robbins Report 1963. London: Her Majesty’ s Stationery Office, p. 235, available at educationengland.org.uk, accessed 16 April 2015 3 www.qaa.ac.uk, accessed 16 April 2015 4 http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/02/anti-terror-bill-making -radical-ideas-crime-campus?CMP=share_btn_fb, accessed 5 December 2014 5 Browne J 2010 Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education: An Independent Review of Higher Education Funding & Student Finance (Browne report), accessed 5 December 2014, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-browne-report -higher-education-funding-and-student-finance. 6 Centre for Social Cohesion 2010 ‘Radical Islam on campuses. Comprehensive list of extremist speakers at UK universities’. London: Centre for Social Cohesion, accessed 27 November 2013. Available from: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/ files/1292336866_1-1.pdf; Quilliam Foundation (2010). Radicalisation on British University Campuses: A Case Study. London: Quilliam Foundation. 7 Literally, a house of knowledge but by extension refers to a school that provides an in-depth course on Islamic sciences, popularly known as the Alimiyyah syllabus. Deobandis usually use the term darul uloom and Barelwis jamia for this type of institution. Shias use the term hawza. 8 Siddiqui 2007. 9 For example: NIDA Trust, www.nidatrust.org.uk; The Dialogue Society, www.dialoguesociety.org; Solas Foundation, [email protected] 10 Winter 2013 discussions with Dr Siddiqui and see also Scott-Baumann (2003). 11 In our government imam training report (2010), we had demonstrated that partnerships between universities and Muslim institutions were proving to be productive. Success can be measured by the validation of degree courses and

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doctorates, to increase the numbers of devout Muslims who have internationally acknowledged qualifications. One reason for this success is that only universities have the authority to award higher qualifications, and through quality assurance processes. Another reason is that the modernization of Islamic teaching can be brought about by bringing together pedagogy found at universities with Islamic expertise found in Muslim institutions. www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/…leeds-met…/418297 Of course there are darul uloom teachers who have attended British universities, but many have never visited one. Similarly, most university admissions tutors have never visited a darul uloom or hawza. www.publicengagement.ac.uk/support-it/manifesto-public-engagement, accessed 4 November 2014 Ball S J 2013 Foucault, Power, and Education. New York: Routledge, p. 139. Conrad P 2014 How the World Was Won: The Americanisation of Everywhere. New York: Thames and Hudson. The Quran contains only about ninety verses directly and specifically addressing questions of law. Islamic legal discourse refers to these verses as God’s law and incorporates them into legal codes. The remainder of Islamic law is the result of jurisprudence (fiqh), human efforts to codify Islamic norms in practical terms and legislate for cases not specifically dealt with in the Quran and Sunnah. Ricœur P 1998 Critique and Conviction. Cambridge: Polity, p. 134. Siddiqui report 2007, pp. 9–10. The Ebrahim College course was not validated, despite having the full support of the Bishop of Gloucester. Allport G W 1954 The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Paolini S, Harwood J and Rubin M 2010 ‘Negative Intergroup Contact Makes Group Memberships Salient: Explaining Why Intergroup Conflict Endures’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 36, pp. 1723–1738. Novotný J and Polonský F 2011 ‘The Level of Knowledge about Islam and Perception of Islam among Czech and Slovak University Students: Does Ignorance Determine Subjective Attitudes?’ Sociologia, Vol. 43, No. 6, pp. 674–696. Bourdieu P 1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Putnam R 2000 Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Nietzsche F 2000 Genealogy of Morals, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche. New York: Modern Library, p. 472. Ricœur 1998, p. 135. Scott-Baumann 2013. Ricœur P 1992 Oneself as Another. Translated by K Blamey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ricœur 1998, p. 134.

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31 Glees A and Pope C 2005 When Students Turn to Terror: Terrorist and Extremist Activity on British Campuses. London: Social Affairs Unit, p. 108, available at www.physics.wisc.edu/undergrads/courses/206-f07/…/Glees_text.rtf, accessed 3 July 2014 32 www.studentrights.org.uk 33 See, for example, ‘Selected Bibliography’ in the Prevent Strategy review by the Secretary of State. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97976/prevent-strategy-review.pdf, accessed 10 January 2015 34 See Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-theuk/8558499/Universities-complacent-over-Islamic-radicals-Theresa-May-warns. html, accessed 11 February 2015 35 See Times Higher Education (THE): http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/ campus-extremism-tackled-by-new-website/2003998.article, accessed 16 February 2015 36 http://www.safecampuscommunities.ac.uk/, accessed 15 February 2015 37 Ibid. 38 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-28123699, accessed 15 February 2015 39 Scourfield et al. 2012, pp. 91–108. 40 Kashyap R and Lewis VA 2013 ‘British Muslim Youth and Religious Fundamentalism: A Quantitative Investigation’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 36, No. 12, pp. 2117–2140. 41 Easat-Daas A and Ounissi S 2013 ‘European Muslim Youth and the Rise of the Far-Right Anti-Muslim Narrative’, ed. Brussels, Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisation, p. 54. Available at: http://www.femyso.org/media/ articles/RP-29-09-13 p. 31, accessed 21 October 2014 42 HM Government 2011 Prevent Strategy, Cm 8092. London: Home Office, accessed 27 November 2013, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/97976/prevent-strategy-review.pdf 43 Guest et al., 2013. 44 Ricœur 1998, p. 134. 45 Scott-Baumann & Cheruvallil-Contractor 2011. 46 Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012.

Conclusion 1

Daily Telegraph 12 October 2014, p. 34. For Sayeeda Warsi, the challenge is tackling the normalisation of anti-Islamic views among some, an Islamophobic mind-set she referred to in 2011 as having ‘passed the dinner table [sic] test’; she also believes

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that ‘the issue is how will Islam evolve and overcome an atmosphere of mistrust and misunderstanding towards it’. See Chapter 4 on Arabic. Ricœur P 1978 The Rule of Metaphor. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, ScottBaumann 2013 The Negation of Happiness. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Esposito 1998. http://muslimmuseum.org.uk/ http://www.islaminbritishstone.co.uk/ Census 2011. Please see Ogilvy Noor 2010 ‘Brands Islam and the New Muslim Consumer – Executive Summary’, accessed 2 July 2012, http://www.slideshare.net/OgilvyAsia/ brands-islam-and-the-new-muslim-consumer-executive-summary ; Ogilvy Noor 2010 ‘Why Islamic Branding?’, accessed 29 September 2012, http://www.ogilvynoor .com/index.php/why-islamic-branding http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29832912 Noyes J 2013 The Politics of Iconoclasm: Religious Violence and the Culture of ImageBreaking in Christianity and Islam. London: I.B. Tauris. Scott-Baumann 2013. Robinson F 2014 ‘Long View’, Times Literary Supplement, 10 October, pp. 11–12. Piketty T 2014 Capital in the Twenty First Century. Trans. A Goldhammer. Harvard: Harvard College; Meek analyses the ways in which our assets as a nation have been sold off to foreign concerns: Meek J 2014 Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else. London: Verso Books. Hallaq 2013. Coggan P 2014 The Last Vote. London: Penguin. Inaugural annual Coexist lecture at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, 11 October 2014, http://www.christiantoday.com/article/rowan.williams.dont.let.secularists. drive.religion.out.of.public.life/41562.htm, accessed 25 November 2015 Gilliat-Ray S, Ali M and Pattison S 2013 Understanding Muslim Chaplaincy. Farnham: Ashgate. Angus Slater 2014 doctoral thesis, Supervised by Dr Shuruq Naguib, Lancaster University ‘The Place of Inter-Religious Dialogue in Radical Orthodoxy: Necessity, Model and Practice’. Accessed 7 December 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/07/ antisemitism-rise-europe-worst-since-nazis Ellison L and Munro V ‘Examining Jurors’ Deliberative Processes in a Mock Rape Trial’, paper presented at Jury Research Symposium 2010, held 25–26 March 2010 in Glasgow, UK, http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/ellison-munroon-examining-jurors-deliberative-processes-in-a-mock-rape-trial/, accessed 10 January 2014

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Notes

(pp. 169–176)

21 Abou El Fadl K 2014 ‘The Shari’ah’ in Esposito J and El-Din Shahin E (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 7–26. 22 Mukadam et al. 2010 The report was submitted to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in October 2010 and is available here: www. communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1734121.pdf 23 http://www.international.ac.uk/media/2346832/guide-to-uk-he-and-partnerships_ web_final.pdf http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/quality-code-B10. pdf, accessed 12 February 2015 24 Gilliat-Ray et al. 2013. 25 Scott-Baumann A 2013 Ricœur and the Negation of Happiness. New York and London: Bloomsbury. 26 www.britishcouncil.qa/en/programmes/education/arabic-language-culture, accessed 2 September 2014 27 In the girls’ seminary in Burnley in 2012 during an inspection, two Arabic classes were being taught side by side in adjacent classrooms: one was GCSE Arabic and the other was Quranic Arabic for religious use. The GCSE Arabic was at a low and simple level, with interactive pedagogy; the Quranic Arabic was complex and sophisticated, with traditional and very demanding pedagogy. Fusion of the two techniques, standards and teacherly expertise would be of great advantage to all parties, raising standards and teaching. Alison Scott-Baumann inspection notes. 28 Tarek Masoud 2013 ‘The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’, in Esposito J L and Shahin E E-D (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 475–502, p. 490. 29 To unpick these rulings we need hermeneutical approaches that can help us to see conservative and also ‘secular’ impulses at work in language use. With another example from Egypt, Masoud also demonstrates how women can unwittingly become objects in a wider game: he cites the complaints from more ‘liberal’ quarters about part of the draft post-revolutionary constitution on women’s rights, which was then completely removed by more ‘conservative’ thinkers in response to these complaints, thereby leaving a vacuum in the legislation. None of this is a surprise, and injustices are perpetrated against women at all levels, sometimes at a legislative level, in the sense that in many countries assault and rape charges often do not come to court. This discrimination also happens in less challenged ways: few, if any, of the authors of the Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics are Muslim women. 30 Moyaert M 2014 In Response to the Religious Other: Ricœur and the Fragility of Interreligious Encounters. New York: Lexington, pp. 157–188. 31 Jardim G L 2014 Recovering the Female Voice in Islamic Scripture. Women and Silence. Farnham: Ashgate. 32 Ibid., p. 207.

Notes 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43

44 45

46

(pp. 176–185)

205

Ibid., p. 208. Ibid., pp. 205–216. Ibid., p. 216. Ibid., p. 216. Moyaert 2014, p. 195. Castelli M 2012 ‘Faith Dialogue as a Pedagogy for a Post Secular Religious Education’ Journal of Beliefs and Values, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 207–216. Ricœur 1992, p. 3. Ibid., 289. Inaugural Annual Co-exist lecture at Cheltenham Literary Festival http://www. christiantoday.com/article/rowan.williams.dont.let.secularists.drive.religion.out. of.public.life/41562.htm, accessed 11 October 2014. www.christianmuslimforum.org Scott-Baumann A 2003 ‘Teacher Education for Muslim Women: intercultural relationships, method and philosophy’ Ethnicities, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 643–661, p. 250. Siddiqui A 1997 Christian-Muslim Dialogue in the Twentieth Century. London: Macmillan. Cheruvallil-Contractor 2012, p. 155. Amin 2002 storage.globalcitizen.net; Ho C 2011 ‘Respecting the Presence of Others: School Micropublics and Everyday Multiculturalism’ Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 603–619. Asad et al. 2013. Clarification of this area has been and still is being pursued by the Muslims in Britain Research Network ( MBRN), the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), joined now by BRAIS.

Afterword 1

2 3

Naguib S 2011 ‘Horizons and Limitations of Muslim Feminist Hermeneutics: Reflections on the Verse of Menstruation’ in Pamela Sue Anderson (ed.) New Topics in Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Contestations and Transcendence Incarnate. Amsterdam and New York: Springer Books, pp. 33–49. Almond I 2007 The New Orientalists: Postmodern Representations of Islam from Foucault to Baudrillard. London: I.B. Tauris. Naguib S 2015 ‘Bint al-Shāt ̣i᾿’s Approach to Tafsīr: An Egyptian Exegete’s Journey from Hermeneutics to Humanity’ Journal of Qur’anic Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 45–84.

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Index Note: Locators followed by the letter ‘n’ refer to notes. Abou el-Fadl, Khaled 21, 184, 188 n.21, 204 n.21 Abrahamic religion 12, 171 al-Hakimi, Shaykh Abdullah Ali 35, 69–70 Allen, Amy 108–9 Al Maktoum College of Higher Education 49, 138, 148, 178 applied theology 23, 39, 116, 142, 163 Arabic viii, x, 1–2, 9–10, 23, 27–9, 33, 35 and darul uloom 43–4 and Islamic colleges 47–53, 83–104, 167, 174–5 and madrasas 39–40, 116 and universities 44–5 Association of Muslim Schools School Centred Initial Teacher Training (AMSSCITT) 128, 179 bearing witness 3–4, 8, 38, 175 Behesti Zewar 63, 121, 191 n.7, 199 n.42 Bewley, Aisha 111, 113, 114, 124, 197 n.8, 197 n.16 Birt, Yahya 66, 190 n.12 British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) 33–4, 184 British Islam / British Muslims 2, 3–4, 11, 14–17, 55, 62, 75–6, 90, 103, 154, 160–2, 172 British Muslim history 17–19, 68–70 Butler, Judith 98, 196,198 Cambridge Muslim College ix–xi, 24, 38, 46, 53, 136, 180 Census 2011 14–17, 75, 188 n.14 christianity 7 and chaplaincy 59 and Islam 7, 61, 65, 143 and Lindbeck 99 and Quilliam 69 and Schulze 10 and Weller 7

comparative theology 27, 100, 155, 159, 167, 176. See also Moyaert and Jardim 176–7 and Ricœur 149 contact theory 134, 147, 149 Darke, Diana 86 Dars al-Kharij 43, 66, 72 Darse Nizami 42, 43, 46, 61, 62, 66, 71 Darul uloom 32, 35, 40, 44–6, 48–9, 86, 141–5, 155, 170 Debord, Guy 56 digital religion 60, 191 n.3. See also online Islamic courses; Muslim leadership in online spaces digital / online social contexts 60, 145, 152 digital storytelling 179–80 misinformation 10, 133 Ebrahim College 145, 148, 193 n.11, 201 n.20 extremism, violent 3, 5, 58, 80–1, 155, 169 Faith Matters 38, 53, 54 feminism / feminist 4, 108, 110, 120, 124, 125–7, 175, 176–7 and education 105, 110, 184 research methodologies 169 Foucault, Michel 108 Geaves, Ron 69, 190 n.12, 191 n.3, 191 n.6, 192 n.10 Gilliat-Ray, Sophie 173, 190 n.12, 192 n.13 Habermas, Jürgen 109, 176, 179 hadith 20, 21–2 study of 20, 21–2, 119, 144 and women 90–1, 96, 111–14, 115 hawza 35, 43, 47–8, 72, 136–7, 200 n.7

Index hermeneutics 27, 104–5, 149–51, 175. See also Ricœur hermeneutics of suspicion Naguib 125 imam 2, 33, 35, 37, 57–81, 172, 196 n.58 challenging radicalization 80–1 continuing professional development / training 32, 50, 51, 170–1 role 39, 60–8, 72 Shia imam 66–7 ‘Super imam’, 66–7 imamate (Shia) 22, 59 inter-community understanding 1, 56, 139, 179–80 interfaith 2, 21, 24–5, 31–2, 74–5, 78–9, 117, 135, 138, 144, 162, 179, 180 imams 65–6, 70 partnerships 144, 148 in universities 154–6, 169–70 intersectionality 14, 167 Islamic College and Middlesex University 37–8, 47–8, 54, 136–8, 148. See also Muslim chaplaincy Islamic Sciences definition 31–3, 37, 42, 47, 61, 80, 93, 140, 155, 164, 170 and Classical Islamic Theology 21–2, 24 and women 113–15, 118, 130 Islamic Studies ix–x, 1–3, 9, 19, 23–5, 29, 31–56, 67, 71, 77, 87, 159, 170–1 and Arabic 87, 90–1, 93–7, 104, 109 and collaborative partnerships 136–8, 143, 169 and the darul uloom 144–5, 155 at university 146, 155, 184 and women 109, 111–13, 116, 120–2, 124–5 Islamic Studies Network (ISN) 33 jamias 11, 23, 31, 37–8, 42, 93, 136 Jewish faith 86, 143–4, 172, 175, 176 Khan Cheema, Akram 128, 178 Krausen, Halima 117, 118 Le Doeuff, Michèle 120, 124 Lindbeck and languages 27, 85–6, 99–100 Markfield Institute of Higher Education (MIHE) and Newman University

217

133, 136–7. See also Muslim chaplaincy Moyaert, Marianne 86, 151. See also comparative theology comparative theology 27, 100, 176–7 murshid / murshidah 65, 70, 71, 73–4, 192 n.12 Muslim chaplaincy 38, 47, 50, 137 Muslim leadership in online spaces 60–1, 63, 79, 80–1, 192 n.16, 192 n.17. See also digital religion; online Islamic courses mutual recognition 108–9, 178–9 Nadwi, Akram 114, 197 n.16 Naguib, Shuruq 34, 49, 125, 165, 183–5 Nietzsche and Hegel 149 master-slave 135, 149 online Islamic courses 38, 41, 116, 118, 120, 143. See also digital religion; Muslim leadership in online spaces particularism 5, 26, 30, 36–7, 81, 165 and Lindbeck 99 post-liberal 26–7 Pickthall, Marmaduke 17, 114, 161, 197 n.8 pluralism 3, 5, 10–11, 21, 25–7, 30, 36–7, 74, 81, 99, 110, 145, 165 prevent strategy 100, 152, 154, 156, 186 n.6, 202 n.42 Quilliam, Abdullah 17, 34, 35, 69, 70, 161, 192 n.10 Quran and Arabic 30–40, 48, 87, 89, 90–1, 92, 94, 104, 175 on law 22 study of 21, 110 translation by a woman 199 n.47 and women 111–14, 116, 125, 176–7, 185 radicalization 5, 11 radical 135, 152–3, 200 n.6 religious literacy 40, 160, 181 and Dinham and Jones 12 research methodology 4–6, 7, 23–5, 43–7, 167, 184–5

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and four projects 27–34, 57–82, 83–104, 105–32, 133–58 intersectional 167–9 politicized 3, 5–, 7 Ricœur, Paul 8, 27, 134, 147, 149–51, 159, 177 and hermeneutics of suspicion 8, 55–6, 80, 167 and Islam 143, 151, 156, 174 and language as ethical 84, 97, 101, 173 and oneself as another 27, 151, 178 secular-religious 13, 151, 156 (see also secularism) and structuralism 85–6 and translation 86, 97–100 Said, Edward 84–5 Schulze, Reinhard secularism 12, 187 n.1 secularism x, 6–7, 11–13, 36. See Schulze and religion 162, 177, 181 and Ricœur 151, 156 and secular society 52–3, 74 and women 119 securitization 2, 156–7, 166, 169

Shariah 20, 22, 35, 65, 73, 90, 142, 161, 169 Shia 47–8, 59, 76, 116 Shia and Sunni 10, 14, 21–3, 32–7, 42–3, 53, 61, 64, 72–4, 80–1, 156, 170, 176, 185 Siddiqui, Ataullah 179 and chaplaincy 50–1, 94 report 44–5, 94, 138, 144–6, 171 social capital 134, 148–9 Sufism 20–1, 34, 41, 65, 69–70, 191 n.3. See also murshid/murshidah Sunni 112, 137, 183 terrorism 31, 57–8, 76, 97, 140 Debord 56 and universities 152–3, 180 translation 165 and Arabic 165 Translation Nation 165–6 translators in schools 165–6 Weller, Paul 7, 25 Winter, Tim ix–xi, 46