Here are my notes from the Teaching Islam Panel. Please keep in mind that this is a stream of consciousness capture of my interpretation of what they had to say. (sorry for the terrible formatting – no time to fix it right now)
diane moore
- bio
- facilitator
- ordained minister
- position at harvard
- teacher at andover
- need to create a religious literacy
- same approach in sectarian and non-sectarian approaches
- 3 hardest subjects to teach for her at graduate, undergraduate,
and secondary levels - marxism
- christianity
- islam
- because of the deep
seated cultural assumptions that cause an illiteracy - can’t expect that journalists will be our primary educators
- we need to educate the public and those that
will become journalists - what is the role of muslims themselves in this debate?
- promote public understanding of religion in
general and islam in particular - shouldn’t only come from muslims themselves
louis cristillo
- bio
- muslims in nyc project coordinator
- columbia phd
- worked in morocco as educator and director
of educational program - participant at first islam in america conference
- how are muslims responding to teaching islam and what are some of
the pedagogic approaches that bear mentioning - associate that with classrooms
- focus on private muslim day schools
- what aspects of islam are being taught?
- what methods are being used to teach muslim
students? - curricular content and pedagogy focus will
ignore other places where “education” is taking place - tarbiyya (socialization
process) -
where identity will be formed and how people will react on that identity - how one community has adapted the teaching of islam to their
environment - in their school proper
- extend the tarbiyya to connect with the
traditional sites of islamic education - home
- mosque
- C7 through early C19
- education of islam looked very different
- how do you teach a way
of life - 1890’s reform
- late ottoman empire was
instituting radical educational reforms across the empire - teaching of islam is
taking a modern approach - objectification of islam
- compartmentalization of knowledge
- textbook production
- uses of new media
- not just a way of life, now it’s an object
of study - forces essentialization
- C7 C19
- this was deemed
unnecessary because Quran and Hadith were the foundation of the
curriculum - education was taking
place wherever the transmitter of knowledge was -
sheikh, mu’alim, imam, father, mother, elders - day school problem
- how do you teach islam
and still nurture and islamic identity - curricular great divide
- muslim day schools, like jewish and catholic
schools in NY, are mandated to teach the mandated curriculum - English is mandated as the language of
instruction - students must parse the different elements
of secular and religious curriculum - part of the link
- you’re a good muslim,
if you get good grades - academic achievement is
equated with religiosity - creating an islamic environment
- subjectification of islam
- their way of life
- muslims in the US 5-7 million
- 2/3 foreign born
- 1200-2000 mosques
- 200 schools
- NYC
- mosques 140
- schools 14
- 600,000 muslims
- diverse communities
- economic base for schools comes from
individuals who fund mosques and sometimes sit on boards of schools - day school enrollment 3500-4000 students
- 102,000 in nyc public schools
- curriculum and structure is greatly
influenced by state - 70% of this particular school faculty are
arab - children in this school
are mostly lebanese, palestinian, egyptian, yemeni - children are predominantly 2nd generation
who started in public schools - creation of tarbiyya
- morning assembly with du’a
- after lunch, ablutions and prayer
- imam is school principal
-
gives a qutba - islamic studies 4/5 afternoons
- day is mostly secular, but surrounded by
religious elements - hours by topic
- quran and hadith 51.2
- faith and worship 24
- history18.4
- ethics and morals 6
- arabic as lingua sacra
- issue of gender
- classes and lunches are segragated
- social interaction is done gender specific
- no gender restriction on teachers,
professional context isn’t an issue, only when socializing is going on
Marcia Hermansen
- bio
- phd UChicago
- professor of Theology
- several publications
- article how to put the genie back in the
bottle, identity, culture, . . . . - degree in area studies (arabic and islamic)
- american muslim
- teaches religious studies curriculum
- ideas in the academy
- take 10 years to get to high school
- a generation to trickle down to general
population - teaching Islam, the “academy”
- defining the academy
- undergraduate and
graduate public and private institutions - representation of islam in programs
- muslims are there, but the content isn’t
representative - places where covered
- religious studies / theology departments
- humanities and social sciences
- area studies
- professional schools law, business, medicine
- issues
- 1. representation
- insider/outsider
-
who is teaching it and what kind of perspective are they teaching? -
sunni muslims are disproportionately underrepresented at her institution - who and where
-
loyola -
8% of student population -
virtually no academic representation - cultural resistance
- 2. faith
- is the academic study
of religion inimical to faith? -
should it be avoided? -
will it protect muslims from radical influences - the secular paradigm an
alternative worldview? -
academy or public schools will socialize people into a secular world
view - confusion between the
study of religion vs. theologizing or proselytizing - 3. epistemology models
- 1. madrasa
- in
this country typically a short term thing - is
this an epistemological place? -
not implying particular madrasa, but the idea of
authentic islamic knowledge as one would find in a madrasa -
de-territorialized -
free from culture -
“pure” islam (obviously doesn’t exist my input) - 2. the
traditionalist/perennialist -
sayyed hussein nasser -
anti-modern, anti-secular, conservative -
takes truth claims of religions seriously - in
general, in religious studies this is marginal - 3. phenomenological
- 4. historical/critical
secular -
anthropological -
multiple islams - 5. polemic
- further elaboration
-
muslim academic discourse 1975-2000 -
fazlur rahman -
modernize islam -
controversial during his time -
seyyed hossein nasr -
invoke “tradition” -
ismail faruqi -
islamize knowledge -
they worked on texts -
they were strongly influenced by western philosophy - interesting
contributors in 2000 -
khaled abou el-fadl -
liberize islam -
universal norms -
sherman jackson -
culturalist, shari’a norms -
respect specificity -
african american -
share background in islamic law, but doing cultural theory -
book history after 9/11 - 4. knowledge and power
- role of state policy
- politicization fo field
- study of islam between
“right” and “left” - are madrasa academic?
- should title 6 studies
be closer surveyed - university textbooks
- daniel brown
revisionist/historical -
new daniel brown says that the qur’an is later - jamal elias social
scientific/anthropological - fred denny
phenomenological -
study muslims using their own terms - karen armstrong
ecumenical - john esposito pluralist
- david waines
perennialist - william chittick hard
perennialist - fazlur rahman modernist
-
assumes background knowledge - syed maududi islamist
- theory building will be interesting
- academics will need to speak the language and be able to
challenge conventional wisdom - ayoub question
- why should we draw a distinction between teaching muslims and
non-muslims? - religious ignorance of the general population
- book marshall hodgson’s the venture of islam
Karim H. Karim
- journalists and their education around Islam
- 2nd largest global faith
- 2nd largest faith in America and other
western countries - are journalists adequately trained to report
on islam - media’s performance
- crisis coverage and negative circumstances
- good news is no news
- something that goes wrong with muslim
involvement will be reported - approach the media and their discourses as a
competition - not 100% disparraging
- people thinking about this subject usually
have their minds made up - think of training of journalists, task at
hand - classic media research indicated that the
closer a group acts in accordance with their group’s stereotype, - the more likely that
they will be on the front page - some core stereotypes about muslims in the
west have been around for hundreds of years - violence
- sex
- barbarism
- greed
- interplay between cultural classics and
daily media - reinforces and
buttresses stereotypes - basic lack of knowledge
- European journalists tend to be educated in
the field - Elaine Scolino is a good example of someone
who takes the time on this side of the ocean - most journalists tend to be deficient
- ex. journalist who
didn’t know what salaam alaykum (used as signature) meant -
called the person Mr. Alaykum because he signed his letter that way - exasperated editor
-
put his foot down -
standard spelling of iraq, with a q or an n - ignorance spreads to christians and jews
- secularist nature seems to dissuade
meaningful engagement on religious subjects - often hostility to religious
- often non-believers
- journalism skills focused on technical
skills for gathering and imparting - specializations on religion in journalism
are very rare - most don’t see the study of religion within
their purview - suggestions for training of journalists
- journalists need to admit their ignorance of
the role of religion in contemporary societies - need to understand the value of religious
symbols in human communication - myth of journalistic objectivity
- technical side, without understanding the
moral turmoil, seems to be the only priority - how to assess the broader dynamics is not
being covered in journalistic curricula - other departments have a lot to contribute
- why are muslims and jews fighting over the
temple mount? - they don’t understand
- what is the significance of the babri masjid
in india? - understand the weight of history
- understanding of exploitation of religious
symbols - muslims as exotic people?
- take me to your leader
syndrome - not understanding
diversity or debates going on - issues of faith are central to society
- mainline and
fundamentalists are all affected - the public deserves a much more sophisticated mode of
understanding - teresa wattanabi is a good example
- LA Times
- covering Abou el Fadl
- secular vs. secularism
- public sphere of state
- anti-stance toward religions
- response of muslim communities to this media issue
- will we look at careers that do these things?
- how will a muslim sitcom be received by
muslims, let alone with non-muslims - to survive, we’ll have to be creative
- controversial inside
and outside of the ummah - north americans in general are open to humor
and new perspectives - muslims need to be
appropriately bold - unteneble situation for journalists
- two sources of religious knowledge
- sectarian views
- media
- no larger context in which to gain a sophisticated understanding
- journalists are where we focus because they’re our main source of
education - maybe this is the problem
- there is a dominant discourse
- look at it as a competition of discourses
- even when the story is responsible, the accompanying headline or
picture is alarmist and contrary