Defending Islamic education: War on Terror discourse and religious education in twenty-first-century Morocco

Abstract

How does War on Terror discourse impact religious education curricula in Muslim societies? How do supporters of Islamic education defend the subject in light of intense local and international scrutiny? What do initial reforms to public school curricula suggest about the long-term impact of the War on Terror on the state's role in the transmission of Islamic knowledge? This article examines these questions in the case of Morocco, where in 2003, members of Salafia Jihadia bombed multiple sites in Casablanca. Following the violence, the Moroccan monarchy called for the reform of the religious field, singling out the country's Islamic education curricula as in need of renewal. Several constituencies resisted the call for reform, including Islamic education teachers and associations. Though they showed deference to the monarchy, they also argued that the curriculum did not cause violence, but rather ‘vaccinates’ youth against terrorism. Through interviews and archival research, this article reconstructs the defence of Islamic education marshalled by its supporters and assesses its impact on resulting curricula. I find that the Ministry of Education acted with deference to the Islamic education teachers' demands, accelerating reforms already underway, rather than rewriting curricula. Unexpectedly, the Ministry made more substantial changes to ‘secular’ school subjects. The Moroccan case suggests that War on Terror discourse influences educational policy in Muslim societies, though these processes are shaped by pre-existing reforms and the activities of local activists.

Keywords:

• Islamic education
• War on Terror
• Morocco
• curricula
• discourse

Acknowledgements

Rhonda Yousef and Lina Benabdallah provided helpful research assistance. The author acknowledges valuable comments provided by Matthew Buehler, John Entelis, Spencer Segalla, Alexander Thurston, and two anonymous reviewers. The article benefitted from discussions at the 2013 Project on Middle East Political Science Junior Scholars Book Development Workshop. The author takes full responsibility for any errors or omissions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Bergen and Pandey (2005) capture the lack of empirical support for this link in their editorial ‘The Madrassa Myth.’

2. Nayyar and Salim (2005), Yehoshua (2005) and Doumato and Starrett (2006) also examine the politics of religious education in public schools. Starrett (1998) examines the politics of public religious education in Egypt prior to the War on Terror.

3. See Table 1.12 in World Bank (2008).

4. Interview with Islamic education specialist Khalid Samadi, July 2011, Tetouan, Morocco. According to Samadi, he travels yearly with the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to different countries to do Islamic education trainings with teachers. Moroccan textbooks are also in demand in many Muslim countries.

5. The full name is the Ministry of National Education and Professional Formation.

6. For a video of the declaration, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76h6OGZmQ5E

7. There are multiple examples of this formulation. See, for example, the quote from President Barack Obama in Tran (2009).

8. The author applauds Omid Safi's thoughtful reflections on the omnipresence of this question in its rebirth with the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq (Harbin 2014):

  I wonder what that says about our preconceived notion of a majority of Muslims worldwide secretly being complicit regardless of what they do, regardless of what they say, and regardless of how many of their leading scholars, imams, experts are denouncing the practices of ISIS.

9. In English the title of the newspaper would be Renewal.

10. Makhzan means “storehouse” and is a colloquial expression to describe the advisors that surround the Moroccan monarchy.

11. For the French translation see Royaume du Maroc Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (1999).

12. Ibid.

13. Those interested in Moroccan educational policy towards private institutions of religious learning will benefit from consulting Al-Markaz al-Maghribī li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Abḥāth al-Muʿāṣira, Al-Ḥāla Al-Dīniyya fī-l-Maghrib, 2007–2008. Rabat: CEMERC (2009, 61–66).

14. In Morocco, many political parties have their own newspapers. Readers are accustomed to each newspaper choosing stories of interest to its constituents and presenting information in a favourable light to its respective party.

15. For references to the idea of Islamic education as a vaccination in the Moroccan press, see Ṣābir (2004) and Slaoui (2004).

16. A complaint mentioned by an Islamic education teacher in an interview in Fez in July 2011.

17. Paper given at the launch of the Arab Institute for Intellectual Modernization Conference in Beirut, Lebanon, April 2004. Translation of conference title from Adnan Badran's CV available at https://www.uop.edu.jo/download/PresidentFiles/badran-longcv.pdf; Conference reported in the press here: http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=19&article=232031&issueno=9289#.Uta15_YbLjM

18. The paper was later republished in English. See Lakhdar (2005).

19. Biographical information available on Tayeb Bouzza's Facebook Profile available at https://www.facebook.com/DktwrAltybBwzt/info; Accessed 18 January 2014. For the editorial, see Bouzza (2004).

20. ‘Man Yasʿā Majdīdan ilā Iḍʿāf al-Tarbiya al-Islāmiyya Khilāfan li-l-Taʿlīmāt al-Mālikiyya.’ Al-Tajdeed (24 May 2004).

21. For a complete biography see Mohamed Slaoui. Facebook. Available at https://www.facebook.com/mohamedadibslaoui/info; Accessed February 2014.

22. For more on Arabisation see Boutieri (2011).

23. This section builds on a study completed by a Moroccan think tank affiliated with the Islamist party, PJD: Al-Markaz al-Maghribī li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Abḥāth al-Muʿāṣira (2009, 266–267).

24. Ibid.

25. I observed this focus on inheritance in Islamic education classrooms in Morocco in 2011.

26. Interviews with Islamic education teachers at high schools in Fez, Morocco, in 2011.

27. This section, on the changes made to the Arabic language curriculum, are based on an article published by Mustapha Bnan in 2008 in the publication Furqan, cited in Al-Markaz al-Maghribī li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Abḥāth al-Muʿāṣira (2009).

28. This section is based on a study conducted by Foudhil El-Asri in 2007 and discussed in Al-Markaz al-Maghribī li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Abḥāth al-Muʿāṣira (2009).

29. Interview, June 2011, Fez.

Additional information

Funding

The author gratefully acknowledges funding from the Boren Fellowship, which facilitated the fieldwork for this project.