IslamExpertEducation · Educating Islamic experts in Western Europe: Between traditional and academized forms of knowledge formation and authority
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-05-01 → 2021-08-20
- EU contribution
- €177,599
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Educating Islamic experts in Western Europe: Between traditional and academized forms of knowledge formation and authority
In a context of increased securitization of Islam and European deradicalization policies, with an intensified desire to supersede the influence from former home countries, European policy actors express the need for domestic imam-education programs to educate ‘home-grown’ Islamic religious authorities. However, one of the major challenges of these programs is their legitimacy in the Muslim communities concerned. This research project sought to understand the processes of legitimate and trustworthy authority formation in Western Muslim communities oriented around knowledge. Three research questions were distinguished: 1. What is/are the kind(s) of authority figures at stake? What are the differences between ‘traditional/shaykhist’ and ‘academized/professorial’ forms of authority according to the Muslim stakeholders concerned? 2. What kind of knowledge allows for which kind of legitimacy? Who is able to transmit 'sacred knowledge', and how does it differ from ‘profane knowledge’? 3. How is trustworthiness or certainty attained in a context of internal divergence within the Islamic tradition? Based mostly on depth interviews with key Islamic actors in Belgium and The Netherlands, the aim was to comprehend why (in)formal imam education programs in the Low Countries often remain vague aspirations, or, when created, have difficulties surviving. This has a high societal relevance, since it concerns complex processes of Islamic religious authority formation; the governmentality of Islam in secular surroundings; intra-traditional debate on ‘apt’ authority and knowledge; and inter-traditional epistemic negotiation on what kind of educational program should deliver which kinds of Islamic experts.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Europe-wide, both Muslim and non-Islamic (policy) actors express the need for domestic ‘imam-education programs’. In most cases, however, a top-down approach is applied in thinking about its implementation; preferably in Western, formal institutes (whether it be universities, private institutions or seminaries) based upon an officially recognized curriculum of ‘descriptive’, ‘Islamic’ and ‘secular’ sciences, which ought to prepare candidates for future religious and civic leadership. However, one of the major challenges of these educational programs is the acquisition of sufficient legitimacy in the Muslim communities concerned. Therefore, bottom-up research is needed in order to understand the internal processes of legitimate and trustworthy authority formation oriented around knowledge. This constitutes the object of the proposed research project, which seeks to understand these topical concerns from an anthropological perspective in Brussels and Den Haag; with a focus on the needs, aims and desires of the people and communities concerned. Through interviews with students and teachers, as well as the organization of workshops and focus groups, I try to answer the following three research questions: (1) What is/are the kind(s) of authority figure(s) at stake? What are the constructed, presumed or perceived differences between 'traditional' and 'academized' forms of authority? (2) What kind of knowledge allows for which kind of legitimacy? More specifically, how is 'sacred' knowledge envisioned or conceptualized by both Muslim students and teachers? Who is able to grasp and transmit it, and how does it differ from, what is called, ‘profane knowledge’? (3) What allows for a sense of trustworthiness or certainty in a context of internal divergence? How is legitimacy attained in a reality of far-reaching internal divergence, for instance, regarding the different madhāhib (juridical schools)? How do students negotiate or deal with this pluralism?
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN · LeidenCoordinatorNetherlands
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union