Revisiting the Madrassa Question in Pakistan: Worlding Lived Religion and Religious Education in Urban Spaces

Abstract

The association of madrassas as “breeding grounds for terrorists” is problematic, exacerbated by a lack of understanding of how Islamic religious schools function and contribute to cities and urban social life. Our article provides an interpretative examination of the so-called madrassa question by explaining the urban-spatial embeddedness of madrassas and emphasizing the heightened sense and deployment of religious identities in the quotidian “worlding” of “lived religion” and “lived religious education” of research participants in two madrassa communities in Islamabad, Pakistan. Positioned within the growing research on urban sociology and geographies of the intersections of religion and education, this article examines lived religion and religious education within urban spaces. It discusses ethnographic findings on the performance and reproduction of spatially grounded extrareligious roles, identities, and practices in city-based madrassas. We emphasize the religious and nonreligious meanings people attach to these identities and practices, and how these are manifested, represented, and experienced in urban community spaces. We demonstrate madrassas’ connection to people’s place-making practices and meaning-making as historical processes and purposeful action. Urban landscape, quotidian religious practices, and extra-local political economy are important to linking place, human aspirations, and lived religion in reframing the madrassa question in Pakistan.

Keywords

religion madrassa faith-based organization urban development Islam Pakistan

Personal Reflexive Statement

This article was produced in the context of a former supervisor–graduate student relationship. Omer was raised Muslim in a predominantly Muslim city in Pakistan; Nora as a Catholic in a peri-urban village in the Philippines with a Muslim minority population. As secular academics interested in intersections of social justice, community, spirituality, politics, society, and institutions, we came to Canada as international students—Nora at Queen’s University; Omer at the University of Toronto, and then the University of the British Columbia in Vancouver where we met. We have been disturbed, like many, by the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments since the post-9-11 “global war on terror” and U.S. immigration and foreign policy directions under Donald Trump. As educators and community development planners of color, we often encounter religious and racially charged discussions and incidents inside and outside the classroom, much of which have to do with confusion over Muslim, Arab, and Middle Eastern identities. These conflations and ensuing controversies suggest problems with our current understanding of Islam and its religious educational institutions, of Muslims, and the cities and countries where they live. This article is an attempt to remedy gaps in popular and academic understandings and interpretations of madrassas and urban life. How do madrassa community members understand transcendent forces (e.g., God, markets, democracy, English) in relation to broader social contexts? Within the distinct urban social spaces they occupy, how do madrassa students and graduates live their daily religious lives grounded in the city? What meanings do they give their lives and placemaking within these urban spaces as they interact with the city and community? What further research and policy-relevant action can be undertaken?

Introduction: Reframing the Madrassa Question

Understanding Islam and its related institutions, particularly madrassas, has become more significant in light of growing Islamophobia, the rise of anti-Muslim neoconservatives and populist global right movements. While the salience of religion in people’s lives was not lost on researchers exploring the spatial roles and implications of culture and religion in urban spatial development (e.g., Kong 2001, 2010; Yorgason and della Dora 2009), the sociocultural embeddedness of religious educational institutions (particularly Islamic ones) in urban centers in both the industrialized and the developing world remains misunderstood.

This article is informed by studies on human geographies of religion, often “forgotten,” treated as “an object of empirical study” or “conflated” and “confused” with “race” (Hopkins 2007:165; Kong 2001:212, 2010:769), particularly geographies at the intersections of religion and education (e.g., Collins 2007; Dwyer and Parutis 2013; Hemming 2011a, 2011b, 2015). Interests in “world religions,” “religious-scapes,” and the secular work of faith-based organizations (FBOs) have led to studies of Christian and Buddhist charitable or development work (e.g., DeTemple 2006; Hefferan 2007). Immigrant ethnic churches and mosques in multicultural European and North American “melting pot” cities and rural areas have been studied for their urban service provision (e.g., Bondi 2013; Ley 2008), community-building (e.g., Warner and Wittner 1998), discourses of “invisibility” in rural landscapes (e.g., Jones 2010), informal “worship expressions” among youth (Mills 2012), and everyday subjectivity production and identity negotiation (e.g., Gökarıksel 2009; Hatziprokopiou and Evergeti 2014; Naylor and Ryan 2002; Phillips 2006). Focusing on mosques and churches, these studies tend to neglect other types of FBOs, including madrassas. Madrassas are faith-based educational institutions at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels run by Islamic religious leaders and teachers, which may or may not be state-funded or spatially tied to a mosque. The grounded spatial ethnography and urban embeddedness of madrassas and other Islamic religious educational institutions are relatively understudied compared to mosques in city spaces, owing perhaps to underdeveloped contributions of urban social geographers within international comparative religious and educational studies. We reexamine the “madrassa question” within particular localities and demonstrate how a more nuanced focus on the “everyday” in religion and schooling in urban spaces can augment claims often made about Muslim religious subjects.

The “madrassa question” refers to the problem of how to critically view madrassas and their complicated multiple roles in Muslim cultural communities. This question is significant in light of madrassas’ assumed role in social reproduction of terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, and “religious nationalist subjects” (Juergensmeyer 1993). The madrassa straddles between a faith-based charitable or development organization, which funds and manages programs to address poverty or social exclusion by mobilizing support from the faithful, and a faith-based sociopolitical organization, which promotes faith-based identities and practices by organizing communities for religious education (see FBO typology in Clarke 2007:840). Religion and its assumed opposite, secularization, are more than simply a category of geographic or social analysis, or the product of modern social differential processes which transfer politico-spatial authority and legitimacy from (quasi) religious to secular public institutions such as the state. We share previous analyses of anti-theological political ideologies of the communist, nationalist, or fascist variety as “quasi-religious” (e.g., Sopher 1967) and readings of secular spaces as infused with religious and sacred meanings and functions—from earlier urban anthropological works (e.g., Wheatley 1971) to contemporary works of Kong (2001, 2005) within geography, and Knott (2000, 2005) within religious studies. Our interest is neither the analysis of hybridization of grounded religious and secular theologies within contemporary urban spaces nor the strategic or practical rejection of their ontological claims. Instead of contributing to the study of religious urban social geographies, or how urban spaces and cities are suffused with theological meanings and practices, we position our research within urban social geographies of religion, particularly city-based religious schools’ performative reproduction of spatially grounded extrareligious roles, identities, and practices. Extrareligious means those functional, boundary-creating, and identity-affirming practices of meaning-making and placemaking that are simultaneously secular, religious, and theological; sacred and heretical; traditional and modern; and political and spiritual. Following Knott’s (1998, 2000, 2005, 2009) works, inspired by Massey’s (1992, 1994, 1995, 1999) analyses of space, we emphasize studying religion within localities using spatial methodologies that recognize the contexts and influences of globalization. In contrast to previous studies on officially recognized “sacred” places (e.g., Sopher 1967), “new” geographies of religion (e.g., Hopkins, Kong, and Olson 2013; Kong 2001, 2010; Stump 2008) deal with situational and contextual differentiation in varieties of religions and quasi-religions at different scales.¹ While transmigrating hybrid religious practices occur at various scales, our interests are in the individual and local scales, where quotidian worlding and lived religion of madrassa goers are experienced, expressed, and theologically constituted, amid modern symbolic markers and trappings of urban geographies, typical of cities like Islamabad.

Argument and Methodology

The concept of “lived religion” popularized by religious studies scholars (e.g., Hall 1997; McGuire 2008; Orsi 2002) has developed into a holistic ethnographic framework for understanding “everyday thinking” (Hall 1997:vii) or beliefs, practices, and experiences of people who are religious, spiritual, or connected with religious institutions. An ethnographic study of urban Muslim spaces in Stuttgart, Germany, suggests that dense transitory encounters in transient or temporary and semipermanent spaces among urban Muslims helped consolidate over time “flexible topographies” within shared urban Muslim sociocultural geographies in settler cities (Kuppinger 2014). Following Johnson and Wilson’s (2006) plea to connect people, places, and purpose, our analysis explores how the sociocultural spatial is “put together” by madrassa community members who are conscious of their own humanity and place in the wider global society. How people experience religion and madrassa education in urban spaces frames our inquiry around what people know about their quotidian religious lives, what they do everyday, and how they express knowledge and action on their own terms. We emphasize the heightened sense and deployment of religious identities in urban spaces, madrassas’ sociospatial contexts, and quotidian lived religion and religious education of madrassa goers (e.g., students, imams, staff, parents) whose beliefs in transcendent theologies and the eternal, as opposed to the immanent and ephemeral, are spatially and sociologically constituted in the ordinary and everyday. As Orsi (2002:xxxviii) notes, the meanings of religious practices must be understood in relation to experiential cultural practices of people using those spaces. We argue that current incomplete, sometimes inaccurate, understandings of madrassas overemphasize their political contributions rather than broader social-spatial dimensions and embeddedness within urban spaces where the institution and members perform significant extrareligious roles. Embeddedness here refers to the physical location of madrassas and their spatial emplacement within their urban environments which shapes their institutional norms, spheres of activities, and social relationships. Urban landscape, quotidian practices, and extra-local politics and political economy are important to linking place, lived religion, education, and human aspirations of Pakistani Muslim subjects. This helps reframe the madrassa question in light of combined tension-filled skepticism, striving, becoming, and aspiring for piety and social cohesion (Khan 2012). We highlight follies in globalist discourses that attempt to reinstate secularism, informed by U.S. foreign and security policy in the Muslim world (Mahmood 2006), by eradicating indigenous institutions such as madrassa communities. Madrassa members living their religious habitus coconstruct faith-based form of “bonding social capital” (Narayan 1999) and transcendent theologies essential to their communities’ survival.

We argue that the “madrassa question” must be reframed not as a political geography question (e.g., global war on terror, “terrorist” subject formation, reproductive politics of Islamic fundamentalism) but as a question of social–cultural geography of religious education or how the intersection of religion and education within urban spaces and placemaking shape the habitus, human aspiration, and lived religion of madrassa inhabitants. We emphasize religious and nonreligious meanings people attach to madrassas and how these are manifested, represented, and experienced in quotidian urban community spaces.

Pakistan’s “madrassa question” must be reframed, away from its association with terrorism² to questions on what quotidian religious spaces madrassas and their patrons occupy in contemporary society, how they “live” and “world” their religion and religious education, what they do within these geographic spaces, and what appropriate forms of interventions are needed to facilitate change that resonate with local aspirations. We argue that more sound judgment and appropriate policies can emerge from an alternative understanding of madrassas as significant, spatially embedded institutions in populous urban places with human actors who make meanings out of the emotionality of their collective memories and experiences as a people. They share a common religious identity, belief in and understanding of transcendence, the transcendent, transcendent being narratives, and quotidian life within their close association with madrassas.

As we “allow religion” to “speak back” (Yorgason and della Dora 2009), we explain the complex and particular ways Islam is lived by madrassa participants and how they understand transcendent forces (e.g., God, markets, democracy, English) in relation to broader social contexts. What distinct urban social spaces do madrassas and their students and graduates occupy? How do we explain their lifeworld or habitus as they inhabit religious institutions, enact religious practices, and live their daily religious lives in cities? What meanings do they give their religious education, urban placemaking, and interactions with the broader city and community? What room for further research, potential accommodation, and policy-relevant action do the findings suggest?

To address these questions, the second author, who is fluent in Urdu, conducted fieldwork in Islamabad between May and August 2009, at a time when the Pakistani army attacked Taliban strongholds in the Northern regions, resulting in large population displacements to urban centers. Qualitative methods in institutional ethnography (Smith 2006) were used to uncover social relations structuring the everyday lives of madrassa community members. Two residential madrassas, one offering a religious curriculum³ and another offering secular education alongside religious curriculum, were chosen based on their proximity to residential houses, markets, and businesses to understand their broader community relations. Although gender-segregated, only madrassas for male student were chosen for optimal data access, given the primary field researcher’s male gender identity. Questions have been raised regarding modernity and attitudinal and values acquisition, especially for female madrassa students (Bano 2010a). Madrassas in other countries (e.g., Bangladesh) were found to be aligned with democratic values, particularly with greater exposure to female and younger teachers (Asadullah and Chaudhury 2010). However, comparisons of gendered experiences of male and female madrassa students, as well as teachers and administrators, are beyond the scope of this study.

Both madrassas provide daily religious instruction to resident and nonresident students, as well as weekly instructions to children from surrounding neighborhoods. Data collection methods included participant observation, surveys, narrative analysis, mapping, and semistructured interviews; divided into “community participants,” for example, current madrassa students (n = 4), their parents (n = 4), recent graduates (n = 5), city residents (n = 2); and “expert participants,” for example, teachers (n = 3), administrators (n = 5), and nonprofit agencies working with madrassas (n = 1). While students and teachers embody the interplay between institutionalized religion, religious education, and civic education, we also interviewed parents who are very influential decision makers in schooling choices. Considerable time was spent sitting in classrooms, libraries, playgrounds, and courtyards to record personal observations, interviews, and informal discussions with madrassa community members. We take a constructionist interpretive discourse analytic approach to triangulate the visual, verbal, textual, and quantitative data collected and examined against the background of Pakistan’s political economy. In demonstrating concrete and detailed specificities “producing new forms of experience, modes of practices, and senses of the world,” we contribute to exploring how “religion ‘speaks back’ to geography; ways in which religion blends, for example, categories such as sacred and secular, transcendent and mundane” (Yorgason and della Dora 2009:631).

Both madrassas studied are registered with the Wafaq ul Madaras Al-Arabia, Pakistan’s largest madrassa accreditation board which commands mainstream popularity and acceptance. It is aligned with the revivalist Sunni Islam Deobandi sect, influenced by anti-imperialist ideologies during British colonial rule. This board affiliation conditions the two madrassas’ struggle to maintain control over a singular and “pure” form of Islamic scholarship. They follow the eight-year long standard Dars-i-Nizami syllabus, which has changed little since its formation in early eighteenth-century India. Any attempts at revisions are often viewed with skepticism as adulterating the essence of Islamic teachings. The Dars-i-Nizami syllabus includes subjects such as Tafseer or the explanation of the Quran, Hadith or Prophetic Traditions, Arabic grammar and Fiqh or Islamic Jurisprudence, and “nonreligious subjects” such as logic and philosophy. Generally, admitted students must have passed matriculation (grade 10 equivalent) from the national curriculum, although exceptions are sometimes made in the admissions process. Entering students are on average 17 years old or older, with no age limit. Both madrassas also accept students for Hifz (Quran memorization),⁴ who tend to be younger, aged 8–15, with a grade 5 equivalent. Both madrassas are residential, and students are housed either in classrooms or in more dedicated dormitory-styled housing, depending on available facilities. Students studying the Dars-i-Nizami syllabus are required to stay on premises and Hifz students are free to live off campus.

The Madrassa Question and Pakistan’s Political Economy

Contemporary discourses frame the madrassa question within the broader question of why religion, conceptualized as a residual force in capitalist development, still survives in secular society. Secularization under modernity, as a process and as an outcome, has been viewed in political–cultural and theological terms or given quasi-theological interpretations. Many social scientists (e.g., Tse 2014; Wilford 2010) have explained why religion and theology hold much social, cultural, economic, and political value despite secularization attempts. The resurgence of religion is interpreted as responses to “widespread crisis in secular materialism” (Thomas 2000:38), as reactionary forces to secularization (Juergensmeyer 1993:2), or results of “dissatisfaction with the project of the postcolonial secular state and conflict between religious nationalism and secular nationalism” (Thomas 2000:49).

Islamabad’s madrassas must be understood in the context of Pakistan’s political economy and religious–cultural history. Although Pakistan’s population is 97 percent Muslim, there is no single Pakistani Islamic culture due to linguistic, ethnic, and religious diversity (Zia 2003:165). Islamic education has not achieved the same level of respectability as Western-style secular education in Pakistan, unlike other Muslim countries (e.g., Malaysia, Indonesia) where religion is well-incorporated in everyday socialization. This is because of antagonism between the Pakistani state and religious organizations and the state’s inefficacy in integrating Islamic education into development ideals. This is partly due to the state’s interpretation of what makes a “modern” nation-state, the historical role of colonialism in stunted institutional development (Ragab 1980), and successive authoritarian military regimes (Qureshi 1980; Zaidi 1999). The dual system of education (secular versus religious) and language of instruction (English vs. Urdu) has also enhanced social stratifications based on worldview, class, and language (Rahman 2004:307, 308). The privatization of education under neoliberalism is also a secularization move, revealing the Pakistani state’s secular theological assumptions, but remains a theological actor in its own right, similar to Saba Mahmood’s astute observation of the Egyptian (2004) and American neoimperial states (2005). Indeed, state interference in the religious sphere has become the new norm since post-9-11 politics (Mahmood 2006).

The full story of neoliberalism’s contribution to privatization of religion alongside broader desecularization, resecularization, and postsecularization processes in Pakistan is beyond the scope of this research. Following Pakistan’s pursuit of neoliberal economic policies by the 1980s, madrassas became popular and accessible to lower socioeconomic groups most affected by social expenditure cuts. Policies associated with Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)—privatization of utility companies, increased taxes and prices of basic commodities, user fees in health and education, and decline in farm subsidy—led to deteriorating living standards, especially for lower-income women (Zaidi 1999:317–328). The gendered effects of SAP are particularly significant as educational choices and decisions are also made in gendered contexts. SAP-induced income inequalities (Kemal 2001) crippled the public education system and rejuvenated the madrassa system amid dwindling education and welfare opportunities.⁵ Described as Pakistan’s largest nonprofit service providers (Pasha, Iqbal, and Mumtaz 2002; Pasha, Jamal, and Iqbal 2002), and one of the world’s largest nongovernmental organization (NGO) network, madrassas provide a “basic education safety net, socialisation to certain norms of proper behaviour and knowledge, and an awareness of an Islamic identity” (Park and Niyozov 2008:332). Empirical evidence provided by several authors (i.e., Bano, 2010a, 2010b; Rao and Hossain 2011; Tawil 2006) shows that madrassas have expanded to meet the needs of poor populations. Their functions in urban settings require contextualization within broader changes such as shifting public morals, economic instability, and global Islamic resurgence.

Pakistan is the world’s sixth most populous country; estimated population in 2017 is at 212 million. In 2005, half of its population was below 18 years old, at a time when the national education system was considered “dysfunctional” (Burki 2005:15, 18). Critics warned that unless overhauled, the system would continue to produce large numbers of unemployable young people (Hathaway 2005:3). Madrassas operate in this context of increasing pressures to provide quality public education in the midst of high unemployment, underemployment, and social inequality.

Interest in madrassas peaked in the post-9-11 era, sparked by a hypothesized correlation between madrassa students, militancy, and terrorism (Dwyer, Shah, and Sanghera 2008; Riaz 2005, 2008; Sikand 2006). Studying “overlooked historical narratives,” McClure (2009) has shown that “Western media often presents enrollment figures based on guesswork, misinterprets the curricula, ignores the history, and oversimplifies the political realities dictating madrassa education” (p. 334). Madrassa enrollments are estimated between 40,000 (Stern 2000:119) and 2 million (Candland 2005:151). One national household survey showed only 2.6 percent of all children (3.8 percent of school-going children) aged 5–9 years attended madrassas, compared to private (5.7 percent) and government schools (2.8 percent), and that there was little gender gap in madrassa enrollment (0.4 percent; Cockcroft et al. 2009). Similar low madrassa enrollment patterns have been found in Bangladesh (Cameron 2011). Low enrollments can be partially explained by perceived poor-quality outcomes of madrassa education (Singer 2001:5).

Policy circles and international media often refer to madrassas as the “poor man’s school of choice,” or as community-based, nonformal educational networks, which insufficiently educate students (Etzioni 2006:14; Schmidt 2008:29) but represent a vehicle of change, hope, and inclusion for the country’s disillusioned. Since madrassas became a policy concern for the American and Pakistani governments, recent policy interventions have included steps to centralize religious schools, update curricula, and develop madrassa infrastructure, alongside public school reforms. The religious community has rejected most of these interventions, exacerbating conflicts between madrassa and government authorities, while demonstrating identity contestation and struggle to regain access to the national educational policy agenda.

Madrassas are not antimodern institutions, but rather their grounded and performative placemaking are shifting in urban centers where they are deeply embedded. They proactively “appropriate modern concepts and pedagogies to suit their respective religio-political aspirations” and are genuine places of “transformation, and social mobility for the marginalized” (Park and Niyozov 2008:324). Pohl (2006) demonstrates that madrassa education in Indonesia has a strong orientation toward community development, human rights, political socialization, and raising critical awareness. Similarly, Milligan (2006) highlights how Philippine Islamic schools conceptualize the meaning of a “good Muslim” in creative and moderate ways. Tan and Abbas (2009) show the adoption of new student-centered pedagogies in Singapore’s madrassas, recalling rich pedagogical practices which Islamic educators have developed over the years. Another important goal for madrassas is the Islamization of knowledge informed by secular disciplines (Milligan 2006), thus catalyzing internal debates about Muslim identities within Muslim and non-Muslim societies, while providing a basic social safety net, education, and socialization to those marginalized by globalization processes (Park and Niyozov 2008:324, 332).

Worlding Lived Religion and Religious Education

Why do madrassa students and their parents value religious education in an increasingly secular society? Several authors (e.g., Berkey 2007; Blanchard 2008; Husain and Qasim 2005; McClure 2009) have linked madrassa enrollment with lower socioeconomic conditions. However, our two school cases demonstrate that not all enrolled students are underprivileged, and religious parents often view madrassa education quality as superior than public schools. Parents compare and negotiate between education cost and quality when deciding where to enroll their children. School choices include the public education system, low-cost private schools, expensive elite private schools, madrassas, and other religious schools.

In rural communities where available schooling is often of poorer quality, some parents may opt for madrassas. Our research shows not all madrassa students are enrolled because of financial reasons, but affordability is certainly an important factor. Administrators prefer urban location for madrassas because of close proximity to affluent, charitable neighborhoods. Majority of students in madrassas, including the two in this research, come from villages far away from city landscapes. Urban madrassas and the perceived better-quality educational services they offer in city centers are popular in a context of low literacy rates and fewer educational choices in rural areas. Statistics indicate severe shortage of educational facilities in primary “home” regions of students in our research sites (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Selected Data on Educational Provision in Representative Home Regions of Students Enrolled in Our Selected Madrasas in Islamabad.

Sample Home Districts of Enrolled Students	Population	Adult Literacy Rates (15+; %) Total Male\|Female	Number of Government High Schools (Grades 9 and 10) Total	Number of Government High Secondary Schools (Grades 11 and 12) Total
Pakistan (2011)	192 million (2013)	57	26,664	4,480
Pakistan (2011)	192 million (2013)	69\|45	26,664	4,480
Islamabad district	1.7 million (2011 figures)	87	250	75
Location of study sites	1.7 million (2011 figures)	87	250	75
Battagram district (Azad Jami and Kashmir; 2005)	361,000	18.31	25	1
Battagram district (Azad Jami and Kashmir; 2005)	361,000	29.40\|6.48	25	1
Chitral district (Khyber Pakhtun Khwa; 2004)	378,000	40	60	4
Chitral district (Khyber Pakhtun Khwa; 2004)	378,000	45\|24	60	4
Haripur district (Khyber Pakhtun Khwa; 2005)	803,000	53.7	100	12
Haripur district (Khyber Pakhtun Khwa; 2005)	803,000	63.6\|37.4	100	12
Kohistan district (Khyber Pakhtun Khwa)	500,000	11.1	15	2
Kohistan district (Khyber Pakhtun Khwa)	500,000	17.23\|2.95	15	2
Manhsera district (Khyber Pakhtun Khwa; 1998)	1.15 million	36.6	107	19

Source: AEPM (2013); Federal Bureau of Statistics (2007); Government of Azad and Jammu Kashmir (2009); Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2018); Population Census Organization (1998); United Nations (2007); World Bank (2013).

Most madrassas are typically registered with a wafaq (education board). Education boards set the syllabus, administer examinations, and issue certifications/degrees and are also responsible for ensuring educational standards and assessing the quality of registered institutions. Currently, Pakistan has five major education boards (see Table 2). Each board is aligned with a particular Muslim sect and incorporates religious interpretations unique to that school of thought within its syllabus, marking the madrassa and its curriculum as spaces for contestations over legitimacy and ownership of “true” Islamic knowledge and scholarship.

Table 2.

The Five Major Madrasa Accreditation Boards Operating in Present Day Pakistan.

Name of Madrasa Board	Associated Muslim Sect	Date Established
Wafaq ul Madaras Al-Arabia	Deobandi	1958
Tanzim ul Madaras	Barelwi	1960
Wafaq ul Madaras (Shia)	Shia	1962
Wafaq ul Madaras Al-Salafia	Ahl-i Hadith	1978
Rabita ul Madaras Al-Islamia	Jama’at-i Islami	1986

Source: McClure (2009:335); Rahman (2004:311).

Worlding, Placemaking, and Urban Embeddedness

Worlding, or creating a lifeworld that one values, is linked to placemaking, the artful practice of creating living and “lived” spaces within public places. Place-based worlding is performative and ritualistic, a form of emplacement that must be explained in social, geographic, and religious terms. The two madrassas’ locations, although in very different regions, show their spatial embeddedness and strategic geographic positions within populous city neighborhoods surrounded by basic amenities and key institutions (see Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1.

Map of Islamabad showing the approximate locations of the two study sites. Location A corresponds to Jamae Omer Anwarul Quran and location B corresponds to Institute of Islamic Sciences. Source: Google Maps (2017a). Used in accordance with publishing guidelines set by Google Maps.

Figure 2.

Spatial location of Jamae Omer Anwarul Quran emphasizing the urban context in which it is embedded. Source: Google Maps (2017b). Used in accordance with publishing guidelines set by Google Maps.

The first site, Jamae Omer Anwarul Quran (JOAQ),⁶ is a modest residential madrassa situated in a relatively affluent neighborhood in Islamabad. It is part of a unified public mosque complex, built in 2002 by a prominent industrialist as an act of industrial piety and charity.⁷ The building is divided into two stories: a ground floor and a basement. The ground floor has the main prayer hall, an outdoor courtyard, a wudu (ablution) facility,⁸ and a small room called the “Darul Iftah” (center of issuing Fatwas). The Darul Iftah is the madrassa’s community interface where anyone is allowed to come and ask an expert specific questions usually regarding religious matters, evidence of madrassa’s attempt at maintaining its social relevance. The distinct brick building completes with traditional minarets (towers) and a decorated central dome is embedded within a network of shopping plazas, surrounded by banks, a private hospital, clothing stores, travel agents, and other fixtures of the bazaar/market system. Given its prominent location within the bazaar system, JOAQ is accessible to city residents and bazaar employees who frequent the mosque during daily congregation prayers (five prayers spaced throughout the day). The faithful’s numbers increase during Friday afternoon congregation prayers, given its added cultural and spiritual significance. The large numbers of mosque attendees spill into madrassa facilities that inconspicuously blend in with mosque facilities shared between mosque patrons and madrassa students. Regular access to the madrassa premises is open and outsiders are free to interact with and observe the educational rituals of the school.⁹

During prayer times, particularly on Friday afternoons, the parking lot is full beyond capacity and worshippers are forced to park their vehicles in questionable parking spaces, adding inconvenience to everyday urban life and contributing to the materiality of madrassas’ urban embeddedness. Viewscapes of the madrassa/mosque complex are accompanied by familiar sounds from loudspeakers mounted on the minarat, which broadcast the “azan” (call to prayer) five times a day, including Friday khutbas (sermons). Urban experience in any Pakistani city is incomplete without these familiar viewscapes and soundscapes.

The JOAQ mosque madrassa complex is conspicuous yet unassuming, in accordance with the customary association of religious piety with charity. It attracts alms-seekers, mostly women¹⁰ and children, the elderly, and disabled people who congregate outside the mosque madrassa complex during congregation prayer timings, especially on Fridays. Alms-seekers are mostly poor, illiterate female, and child migrants from rural areas, who may have physical or mental disabilities or experienced a drastic change in family fortunes, such as widowhood, parental death, or abandonment. They add to the mosque–madrassa viewscape and soundscape by their physical presence and active pleas for money, invoking mosque frequenters’ generosity via calls for help and oral testimonies of their despondency. Many mosque patrons complete their spiritual experience by dropping a few coins or folded currency into outstretched hands on their way out of the mosque. A few alms-seekers might attract the attention of NGO workers, generous city folk, or mosque–madrassa staff who may provide them temporary shelter or work, or worst, the attention of drug dealers, human traffickers, and other crime syndicates.

To partake in capital circulation facilitated by the madrassa–mosque’s urban embeddedness, street vendors selling corn-on-the-cob and popcorn aggregate outside JOAQ, particularly after Friday afternoon prayers. JOAQ management has also set up a modest stall across the marbled entranceway, selling religious texts; CDs; DVDs; tiny ittar bottles (nonalcoholic perfumes); religious accessories such as prayer beads, skull caps, and miswaks (tree branches for cleaning teeth); and local magazines, books, and community newspapers, which are “grapevine” forms of communication linking local communities to the madrassa.¹¹ Occasionally to attract onlookers to the stall, a stereo plays Islamic-themed lectures. Like street vendors, the stall’s primary customer base are mosque worshippers, madrassa staff, and students. Dedicated Islamic bookstores are difficult to find in the city and are often attached to religious schools, making it easier for JOAQ and other students to obtain their textbooks and reference materials.

In contrast to JOAQ, the Institute of Islamic Sciences (IIS) is situated in Islamabad’s peri-urban fringes in the vicinity of smaller residential plots, typically owned by residents who cannot afford to buy a house within the city proper. IIS is not too far from a variety of commercial plazas which house refueling stations for cargo trucks, small carpentry studios, and wholesale shops. Its embeddedness in the peri-urban milieu is different from JOAQ’s city center location. The purpose-built IIS campus, surrounded by high walls, deliberately separates the institute and the outside world. While the facility is publicly marked by a signboard bearing the institute’s name, web page, and phone number, entry is strictly guarded. An elderly man guards the entrance and only lets visitors with appointment and only after verification of their identities.

Despite their differences, the roads, shops, and entrances leading to JOAQ and IIS, and their religious character, are shaped by both secular and sacred purposes, as well as the local faithful’s bodies moving, seating, kneeling, begging, prostrating, and praying in urban spaces that are also (re)created to accommodate various people whose embodied identities mark urban religious localities. People’s behavior, beliefs, meanings, and place-making practices render madrassa localities and communities as productive spaces for examining the faithful’s lived religion, religious education, and urban life.

Worlding Lived Religious Education and Madrassa-community Linkages

Madrassas’ emplacement within the broader city and community is not just about creating spaces for religious and educational congregation but also about people making choices and preference for religious education. People go to mosque–madrassa spaces as part of worlding their lived religion as they congregate voluntarily for camaraderie, friendships, fellowships, livelihoods, network building, volunteering, and philanthropy. Worshippers can be spotted sitting in circles after the completion of prayers, talking to one another, exchanging details of daily events, and catching up. Shopkeepers, itinerant vendors, Imams, and teachers make their living within the madrassa–mosque complex. Resident students, teachers, and staff make and call it their home, albeit temporarily.

Madrassas and the broader communities where they are embedded are mutually dependent on each other’s fortunes and shared views of transcendental forces. Both JOAQ and IIS primarily depend on donations, viewed simultaneously as duty, gratuity, charity, call for mercy from transcendent forces, and symbolic markers of social status and class generosity. JOAQ does not charge fees for tuition, room, or board, unlike IIS that charges minimal user fees. To facilitate collection, an alms or donation box is located at JOAQ’s main entrance. Inside the building, three more “alms” boxes are separately marked for madrassa operations, utility bills, and scholarly publications. These alms boxes target bigger denominations, including dollars and other foreign currency, compared to smaller amounts given to street beggars. Occasionally, the Imam makes public announcements seeking donations for outstanding needs, especially during Ramadan, which marks the beginning of fiscal and academic year, when Muslims are encouraged to be charitable and engaged with the outside world.

JOAQ members share a broad understanding of the institution’s goal and strategic vision. Despite different articulations of this institutional vision, interviewees share common values around preserving Islamic knowledge, spreading Islam, encouraging people to do good, and preventing them from doing evil (Interviews with Haider, July 20, 2009; Qadir, July 15, 2009; Qureshi, July 15, 2009). There is also a desire to overlap the goals of the madrassa with those of national development to achieve a synergistic relationship: “[We want to] create a good individual for society, where one may work as a Khateeb,¹² as an Imam, as a Qari or in a madrassa, but could also come to good use for the country” (Interview with Qureshi, July 15, 2009). They view JOAQ as ultimately positioned to serve humanity and provide social space and opportunities for Muslims to link with God and realize their Islamic values. They claim that JOAQ graduates are trained to be selfless spiritual guides, and graduates are expected to permeate society while keeping people’s welfare in mind.

Students spoke of their decision to come to JOAQ with a deep sense of pride and achievement. As the first student from his village to have made it to a madrassa, Shafiq chose JOAQ because of the outstanding reputation of the Khateeb and its teachers. JOAQ has no formal website, prospectus, or any formal mode of advertising and relies on informal communication grapevine to market itself to prospective students. In his seventh year of education, Shafiq feels that the madrassa has guided his journey of self-realization and admits that since his family depends on him as a breadwinner, he could not afford the tuition fees for even a public university.

Like Shafiq, Anwar too is the first person in his immediate and extended family to have entered a madrassa. After finishing his primary school, he wanted to join a local mosque school for Hifz. However, his parents recommended that he should at least complete his matriculation certification. After passing grade 10, he spent four months with the Tablighi Jammat (a grassroots organization concerned with disseminating information about Islam to local and far off communities), applied for admission at JOAQ and got accepted. He was always passionate about religion which was partly because of the prominent religious atmosphere in his household. His parents and his villagers always hoped that he would become a religious scholar. Anwar believes that every household should send at least one child to a madrassa and that if one is really motivated, then it is possible to excel in both religious and secular education. His village near Chitral in Northern Pakistan has scarce local educational opportunities. The two madrassas near his village, both managed by the government,¹³ have poor education and quality of teachers and they were not respected by the community. Azam fondly recalls when he was a young boy in his village, he would see madrassa students return home from Islamabad for the holidays:

When I was in school, then at that time some of our companion friends who used to study in madrassas [in Islamabad] would come to the village…[their mannerism and etiquettes], the way they would conduct themselves, meet and greeted others compared to the rest of us was very sober [and impressive]. Other than that, they would lead prayers for people and lead Tarawih.¹⁴ So, I thought I should also go and understand the Quran, learn the Quran and acquire religious education. (Interview with Azam, July 26, 2009)

In his small Chitrali village, which has little infrastructure, almost no public facilities, and low household incomes, madrassa graduates stood out as educated, polished role models and represented a bright and attainable future for Azam and his two brothers who are also enrolled in various madrassas in Islamabad.

The poised urban etiquette, cosmopolitan outlook, and worldliness among madrassa students are remarkable. Kaleem, a graduate of JOAQ, came to Islamabad simply because it was the capital city. Sitting in his village in Mansehra, Islamabad symbolized opportunity for him and his extended family in Islamabad. While he admits that Mansehra has a few good madrassas, he complains about the public school system’s poor teaching quality, unfair admission policies, ethnic discrimination, and personal enmity between the school headmaster and the villagers. It is not easy to get an education in his village. So, students have to travel considerable distances to the next nearest school which takes hours. Faced with these adversities, Kaleem felt he made the right choice of shifting to a madrassa in Islamabad:

Children have the motivation, they have the capabilities, but they go with a slate and bag in their hands [in search of education], wander in the dirt and then come back home…. My younger brother studied [in the government school in/near our village] there. His name is Omer, he studied there for five years. Till Grade 5, he did not even know how to write his name. He failed fifth grade. I brought him to a madrassa in Islamabad. There he turned out to be so smart that in a short period of time he was able to memorize the entire Quran, very quickly. After Hifz, there is a madrassa in Islamabad which offers a special class for children who have not been to school. It is equivalent to fifth and sixth grades. He performed very well there then [he went back to the village] and secured a very good position in Grades 7 and 8. And then he did his Matriculation, believe me…children’s early education is very crucial. (Interview with Kaleem, July 25, 2009)

Kaleem thinks free public schools in Mansehra are of extremely poor quality and majority children drop out, fail, or transfer: “I put my own nephew in a private school [of better quality than the free government school] and I paid Rs.1200 a month for him. Majority of the people cannot afford that” (Interview with Kaleem, July 25, 2009). At least 15 other youths from his village came to study at various madrassas in Islamabad. He says that the choice is not really about which madrassa to enroll in but whether to actually move to the city or not. Kaleem believes that most parents in his village, including his own, do not put too much thought into their children’s educational choices. They do not necessarily consider deeply how having a madrassa education will specifically impact their children’s life:

Youths from villages come to madrassas in increasing numbers because now days there is at least some buzz around education, but my father or our elders, they never attended school. In their time, there were no schools and the feudal lords who were an oppressive class did not let the poor people study. There was no awareness [about education] amongst people and there is little awareness even now. Those people are aware who have been to the cities and have seen that without education there can be no system. Then they encourage other children to also go to madrassas in the cities. (Interview with Kaleem, July 25, 2009)

Azam completed his Dars-e-Nizami from JOAQ in early 2009¹⁵ and is studying for a BA (in Islamic and Arabic studies) on his own and hopes to appear as a private candidate at the University of Malakand. Along with his studies, he is also serving as a temporary Imam for a small mosque/prayer room in a high-rise apartment building near JOAQ. Although he already has a Dars-e-Nizami degree which is equivalent to an MA in official policy, no employer actually considers it as a master’s equivalent. Since Dars-e-Nizami is much more comprehensive than a BA in Islamic and Arabic studies, madrassa graduates are awarded transfer credits and only required to take a few additional exams to obtain a BA. The BA degree will help him bridge the gap between his madrassa education and mainstream employment opportunities. According to Azam, a BA from Malakand University is extremely easy, and its passing rates are much higher than that of the madrassa board exams. He hopes to pass his BA and get a good job. He believes, a job with a decent salary would allow him to continue his Islamic scholarship, perhaps as an Arabic or Islamic studies teacher at a government high school in his hometown as he thinks his BA will not be sufficient for a comparable job in Islamabad. At least 32 jobs were advertised for Arabic teachers in government middle and high schools throughout the province and many of his seniors are currently teaching. He is confident that he is more than qualified to teach Arabic and Islamic studies at government schools. JOAQ graduates have entered careers in the armed forces, police services, and madrassa education.

Azam’s friend Kaleem, also a graduate of JOAQ, is teaching at a newly opened Hifz school in Islamabad. He gets paid Rs. 5,000 a month. Most madrassas and Hifz schools pay teachers a monthly salary Rs. 3,000–Rs. 5,000.¹⁶ He is less optimistic than Azam about employment opportunities for madrassa graduates. According to him, some take-up side jobs mostly labor work to make ends meet. He himself works part-time in construction and dry-wall painting. As Kaleem possesses neither a BA nor MA, minimum qualifications for professional jobs, he is concerned about his dreams and apparent gaps in capabilities:

I want to work towards the development of this country and want to bring forth truth and justice, but I am helpless [incapacitated]; I do not know how to speak English, I can’t guide someone properly, and even though I do have the passion to do something for this country, for my village—I don’t have matching capabilities. (Interview with Kaleem, July 25, 2009)

IIS students hold similar cosmopolitan aspirations and views of a madrassa education as JOAQ students. Naseer is a grade 11 student at IIS and has been at the Institute since 2006 (Interview with Naseer, June 14, 2009). He finished memorizing the Quran when he was 12 years old and resumed his schooling shortly after. His biggest motivation for coming to IIS is his father, a government employee who took adult education classes at IIS and encouraged him to become a religious scholar. He considers IIS a “modern” madrassa, an ideal place for him since IIS formally taught the national curriculum along with the Dars-e-Nizami. He will graduate from IIS with both a Dars-e-Nizami certification and a BA in economics (Interview with Naseer, June 14, 2009). He wants to take political science courses, but IIS does not offer any. He is interested in Islamic banking and dreams of helping Pakistan move from an interest-based banking system (interest being forbidden in Islam) toward an asset-based system of Islamic banking that can help overcome Pakistani class stratification. Like many of his classmates, Naseer wants to obtain an MA in Islamic banking from the Islamic International University in Islamabad. He believes that most religious scholars are unable to effectively communicate with the masses, especially the educated segments, and he wants to bridge this growing communication, intellectual, and language gaps.

Jamil is a grade 11, residential student at IIS. He had previously attended IIS for a few years as a Hifz student and then returned to a privately owned “public” school in Rawalpindi before returning to IIS again.¹⁷ As a child, Jamil would travel with his family from the North–Western parts of the country to Rawalpindi and pass IIS on the way. Passing the campus made him excited just because it looked so grand unlike any other madrassa he had ever seen in his life. His father always sensed his excitement and encouraged his son to take on the challenge of obtaining admission at the institute. He became the only one in his immediate and extended family to attend a madrassa as two of his cousins also applied to IIS but were denied admission (Interview with Jamil, June 14, 2009).

Junaid, an IIS graduate, joined the madrassa when he was 13 years old after finishing his Hifz from a local madrassa in his home city. His parents wanted him to become a medical doctor but during the Hifz process, he developed an interest in studying Islam. Two of his nephews also studied at IIS and would recommend IIS for other student, depending on their goals and aspirations:

First I would ask them a few basic questions. What are your goals? If someone wants to be a doctor then obviously this institution cannot prepare doctors, this institution cannot make engineers. If someone wants to gain a religious education then I will recommend this [institution] to him. (Interview with Junaid, June 13, 2009)

Close family and social networks influence decisions to study and teach at a madrassa and thus help in the social reproduction of this institution. Khalid chose IIS because his cousins recommended this madrassa to him. He came here when he was just 10 years old as a Hifz student (Interview with Khalid, June 15, 2009). Syed, IIS principal and alumnus, said that his motivation for teaching at IIS was the growing realization of how incapacitated typical madrassa graduates are and that their survival depends on acquiring both secular and Islamic knowledge (Interview with Syed, June 13, 2009). He recommends IIS to his family members. Hussnain, IIS vice president, did not have a Dars-e-Nizami but chose to work in a madrassa (Interview with Hussnain, Vice President of IIS, June 13, 2009). After his high school, he completed his Hifz from a madrassa in Multan. He has a BA in sociology and education from Karachi University. He initially came to IIS to work as a Hifz teacher but eventually moved into administration since they were short of qualified people. Hussnain came to IIS just because he wanted to get away from the bustling life of metropolitan Karachi. Two of his three children are studying in the same institute, and the third newborn child will also attend IIS.

Students’ Lived Religious Education and Community Interaction

Madrassa–mosque goers’ performative placemaking makes sense only in relation to meaning-making in their everyday lived religion and religious education. Madrassas typically rely on community support. Unlike JOAQ’s limited budget, IIS has an annual operating budget of US$244,600. The institute has 120 full-time and part-time staff members who are often not paid on time due to resource scarcity (Interview with Junaid, IIS graduate and teacher, June 13, 2009). A few years ago, IIS was in deep financial crisis and levied an annual fee of US$20.38 per student in 2009. Almost 70 percent of students dropped out until a sliding scale fee was introduced. Of 650 enrolled students in 2010, only the parents of 100 students were willing to pay full fees, highlighting the IIS students’ socioeconomic profiles. The IIS president planned a European fund-raising mission to raise donations from overseas Pakistani Muslim community for books, teachers’ salaries, and health services (Interview with Hussnain, IIS Vice President, June 13, 2009).

As a fully contained campus, IIS houses a small dispensary and an ambulance which can rush patients to nearby hospitals. The IIS principal maintains personal contacts with two major city public hospitals that promises IIS students special consideration (Interview with Syed, IIS Principal, June 13, 2009). In contrast, JOAQ sends its sick students to a nearby charitable hospital, or when they contract protracted illnesses like tuberculosis or cholera, they are simply sent back to their homes. Both JOAQ and IIS are not “complete communities” since they lack their own shopping, health, and recreation centers, but they make their larger urban community space their “home” and lifeline.

Students’ routine at JOAQ and IIS revolves around five daily prayers spaced throughout the day. The long study and regular prayer schedules, from 5:30 a.m. to 7:45 p.m., suggest success in integrating religious practices in education. JOAQ students, administrators, and teachers interviewed (Interviews with Haider, JOAQ Principal, July 20, 2009; Qadir, JOAQ teacher, July 15, 2009; Qureshi JOAQ Director of Education, July 15, 2009) share a common understanding of the institution’s strategic vision, centered on preserving Islamic knowledge, spreading Islam, and encouraging people to do good. There is also a desire to integrate madrassa goals with national development goals to achieve synergy. As one respondent said: “[We want to] create a good individual for society, where one may work as a Khateeb (public lecturer), an Imam (preacher), a Qari (reciter of the Quran) or in a madrassa, but could also be of good use for the country” (Interview with Qureshi, JOAQ Director of Education, July 15, 2009). One interviewee considers JOAQ is well-positioned to serve humanity, as it gives students opportunity to simultaneously strengthen their relationship with God and develop empathy (Interview with Haider, JOAQ Principal, July 20, 2009). Like JOAQ, IIS is also very clear about its organizational vision. According to its vice president, IIS trains students to become Rujlul Asar (Arabic for “man of the day or for modern times”). Students are expected to become experts in religious disciplines and excel in secular education so they can “communicate in the language of current times.”

Students are encouraged to choose secular careers that remain committed to Islamic teachings and practices. The IIS principal summed up the motivation behind its dual curriculum: “No individual can become an Islamic scholar unless he fully understands the ways [and sensibilities] of modern times” (Interview with Syed, IIS Principal, June 13, 2009). At the time of fieldwork, Azam, a recent JOAQ graduate enrolled in a bachelors program in Arabic at the University of Malakand, was applying for teaching positions in the national schooling system and municipal police services (Interview with Azam, JOAQ alumni, July 26, 2009). Similarly, Naseer, an IIS graduate was pursuing a master’s degree in English and was looking into doctoral programs (Interview with Naseer, IIS alumni, June 14, 2009). Fellow IIS graduate Jamil was pursuing a graduate degree in research methods and had just won a scholarship to study Islamic Banking and Finance (Interview with Jamil, IIS alumni, June 14, 2009). All three madrassa graduates were confident that in their chosen career paths, they would be able to live up to the ideals of an Islamic education while positively contributing to society.

The urban location and community embeddedness of madrassas also facilitate external relationships and extra-local networks. Since JOAQ is affiliated with a public mosque, its students are employed as local tutors in religious and secular subjects. Both madrassas offer weekly public lectures and topical study circles encompassing daily life matters, current affairs, and national politics rooted within an Islamic framework of equity and social justice. Attendance typically ranges from a handful of people to large crowds. Students and instructors often go out into the community and initiate discussions on everyday topics pertaining to Islam (Interview with Qureshi, JOAQ Director of Education at, July 15, 2009). This often happens organically during individual home visits or informal conversations in the market bazaars with shop clerks and workers. Students and instructors also regularly interact with young people outside the madrassa, especially at night after completing daily lessons. They initiate playing pickup cricket with workers in adjacent shops or with other students from a nearby hostel (Interview with Anwar, JOAQ student, July 25, 2009). Anwar, a current student at JOAQ, recalls how he made numerous friends during these games and enjoys the camaraderie of other youngsters in his age-group (Interview with Anwar, JOAQ student, July 25, 2009).

Transcendent beliefs and faith in God, friendships, and fortunes increasingly blend with realizations of other transcendent forces in their lives, such as neoliberal markets, democracy, and prejudice. Madrassa students interviewed describe their experiences of growing intolerance from other community members due to their madrassa affiliation (Interview with Anwar, JOAQ student, July 15, 2009; Interview with Shafiq, JOAQ student, July 25, 2009). Shafiq, a JOAQ student, is sometimes called a “terrorist” or “fundamentalist” by other youngsters. He complains that society is becoming intolerant toward religious community members: “The whole world is bent upon labelling us as terrorist even though we are peace-loving people” (Interview with Shafiq, JOAQ student, July 25, 2009). Khan and Javed, two Islamabad residents who live near JOAQ campus, often notice madrassa students (made distinct because of their beards and skullcaps) in parks and occasionally in the bazaar (Interview with Khan, resident of Islamabad, August 2, 2009; interview with Javed, resident of Islamabad, August 2, 2009). Social interaction between madrassa students and outsiders is mediated by factors such as religiosity, gender, and class (Aijazi and Angeles 2014) but organically occurs often in the shared use of public spaces.

IIS is a more self-contained community. Due to safety concerns, students are allowed off campus only eight times a month for personal trips, such as shopping and haircuts (Interview with Hussnain, IIS Vice President, June 13, 2009). IIS enjoys cordial relations with surrounding residents. Several IIS students lead prayers and tarawih (Ramadan night prayers) in community mosques. Some locals employ students as tutors for their children in religious and secular subjects. Students and teachers also periodically go out in the community to impart basic Islamic education (Interview with Syed, IIS Principal, June 13, 2009). While madrassa students and teachers are the embodiment of the institutionalized religion–education–civics dialectic, parents of students are often overlooked as madrassa-connected actors whose theological beliefs, emplacement, and networks within the urban communities are critical to the very survival of madrassas.

Parents’ Transcendental Aspirations and Perceptions of Madrassa Educational Outcomes

Parents’ understanding of transcendent forces (e.g., God, markets, wars) is grounded in immanent processes of culture-making, political boundary-making, and social identity negotiations. The everyday thinking, faith, and beliefs of parents who send their children to madrassas oil the steady flow of enrollees and donations to ensure the survival of this religious educational institution. Voices of parents are examined here to demonstrate how their lived religion and aspirations come alive in their quotidian experiences.

Fatima enrolled both her daughters and one of her two sons in a madrassa (Interview with Fatima, mother of madrassa students, August 1, 2009). Her second son is studying at an open access university. A widow whose late husband preferred the madrassa education, Fatima herself never attended school but believes in the quality of a madrassa education. She feels her fourth child who is in public school is not talented enough to “survive the rigor” of the madrassa.

Aisha enrolled three of her four children, including one daughter, in a madrassa (Interview with Aisha, mother of madrassa students, August 1, 2009) and deemed her fourth child as not suited for its academic rigor. When all her children were attending public school, she feared the onset of antisocial behavior, recalling worries over her daughter’s safety and company in public school. But now, she feels at ease. Aisha and her husband are practicing middle-class Muslims who can afford to educate their children elsewhere. They hope their children will develop excellent Islamic morals and become exemplary citizens with good economic futures provided by a madrassa education. Aisha firmly believes that Islamic morals should permeate society, “otherwise Pakistan would only get corrupt political leaders.”

The quality and affordability of an alternative education and religious orientation are two factors shaping parents’ choice. Religious households are more inclined to enroll their children in a madrassa regardless of financial circumstances. The two mothers interviewed felt that public education quality is substandard compared to madrassas. Their brightest children are enrolled in madrassas, contrary to perceptions that typical madrassa enrollees are unfit for public schooling.

Our parent interviewees favorably viewed their children’s ability to get a well-rounded education in madrassas that prepare students for the real world. As gleaned from our interviews, madrassa students seem to possess strong social consciousness extending beyond religion. They express concern for the city and the immediate madrassa community, making linkages between corruption, poverty, and apathy with public loss of Islamic morals. They feel that by disengaging from religion, and the social cohesion and sensitivity it provides, people are not motivated to work toward social change. They believe that the privilege of Islamic education comes with the responsibility of working toward social justice and building respectful bridges between the religiously oriented and those who are not.

Still, there are noticeable differences between the two madrassas’ educational outcomes, differences that might not be evident even to most parents. IIS graduates tend to possess more “soft” skills than those from JOAQ, revealing a better quality of secular education for IIS students who show more ambition and willingness to take broader social roles than those at JOAQ. Graduates and students of both institutions have internalized an adherence to Islam, which shape their career choices and commitment to incorporate Islam into their everyday lives, resist social ills, and maintain an Islamic social system. IIS students and graduates are more hopeful about their future and financial stability, believing like their parents that their madrassa education equips them well for various careers. Their JOAQ counterparts see roadblocks ahead, resulting from their own perception of inadequate secular education and preparation to gain formal employment outside madrassas. IIS also provides better transferability of credits to other postsecondary institutions for its graduates and more diverse career choices for its students, compared to JOAQ.

Madrassa students highlight the importance of English, another transcendent global force, for meaningful employment outside the madrassa (Rahman 2004, 2005), as it is seen as the preferred language of professional and business communication in Pakistan. Since Urdu is the language of instruction in both madrassas, lacking English fluency is cited as a common social and career impediment. Both institutions face similar problems: unreliable revenue streams and shortage of qualified teachers to teach English and other subjects.¹⁸ IIS retains many of its graduates as teachers while JOAQ hires graduates from other madrassas.

As one of the largest nonprofit service providers in Pakistan, madrassas are not isolated from macroeconomic and political changes and local micropolitics. The global financial crisis triggered by the subprime mortgage fiasco in 2008, overt military operations, negative media coverage, and alleged associations with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have reduced levels of community donations to madrassas (Interviews with Hussnain, IIS Vice President, June 13, 2009; Haider [male], JOAQ Principal, July 20, 2009). IIS and JOAQ were unable to pay teachers’ salaries for three months during the research period (Interviews with Haider, JOAQ Principal, July 20, 2009; Khalid [male] IIS graduate and teacher, June 15, 2009). As economic conditions worsen, parents tend to put their children to work (Interview with Hussnain, IIS Vice President, June 13, 2009). Madrassas require strong “bonding” and “bridging” social capitals and stable economic and political conditions to thrive. Location and place do matter in madrassas’ survival and in the transcendent worldviews of madrassa-connected actors.

Conclusion: Empathy, Religious Education, and the Madrassa Question

This research contributes to the urban social geography of lived religion, a subfield that rarely tackles the study of religious educational institutions such as madrassas. We demonstrated that urban spaces and placemaking shape both the lived religion and aspirations of madrassa community members who interpret and (re)construct their religious spaces and beliefs against and midst secular and (globalized) religious discourses about madrassas. Madrassa-connected people’s transcendent beliefs are grounded in place-making and meaning-making practices that are part of historical processes beyond one individual’s control. They are also the result of purposeful action, which, in combination with state social policies, provide agency, mobility, and opportunity within urban spaces where they are embedded.

Empathy, or seeing and feeling from someone else’s perspective, a well-explored concept in the social and neurosciences (e.g., Decety and Ickes 2009; Iacoboni 2008; Trout 2009) and studies of “emotional geographies” (e.g., Davidson and Milligan 2004; Maddrell 1994), means nothing without continuously reexamining preconceived notions, normative claims and assumptions, and avowed “truths,” not only of researchers and policymakers but also secularists and religious subjects. In this article, we privilege local knowledge and voices of madrassa-connected people over other forms of expertise to uncover their quotidian lived experiences by interpreting the meanings and emotions madrassa community members attach to their school, city, religion, and community of choice. This hermeneutical-interpretive understanding intends not just to counter typical madrassa-related stereotypes but also help build accommodations for policy and action. Madrassas’ multiple roles need recognition from the state, civil society, and international agencies, as they reach out to both the poorest and upwardly mobile and ambitious religious middle classes. They also need attention from multidisciplinary scholars studying social geographic spaces relevant to the grounded theologies of religious-educational institutions.

Urban sociologists and cultural geographers studying religious-educational institutions have much to contribute to examining the spatial and scalar opportunities for policy, planning, and governance in such institutions that can speak to other geographies, such as geographies of labor markets for religious college graduates, geographies of work-learn transition educational programs, and geographies of educational reforms in the context of decentralization or the “global war on terror.” Proposals for madrassa reform, emanating from internal and external forces, are already being implemented in Pakistan and other countries with varying success (see Milligan 2006; Park and Niyozov 2008; Pohl 2006; Rao and Hossain 2011). Rather than making specific recommendations to address complex and contentious issues surrounding educational reforms, we appeal for more in-depth case studies similar to this research in order to scale-up the findings based on the voices of madrassa-connected social actors, their collective memories, lived experiences, and complex networks of interaction within and outside the cities of their emplacement. Multiple case studies of locally grounded religious education in rural, peri-urban, and urban geographies can help better understand madrassas’ diversity, spatial contributions, and acceptance as an alternative and viable path to schooling, not as a regressive and inferior religious substitute to modern secular education. They might also help us understand the local and spatial resurgence of religion, religious education, and spirituality, amid globalist and moralist reassertions of secularist visions as we reframe the madrassa question from the lens of humanistic social sciences, not geopolitics.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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