Is the civilian character of madrasas an advantage or a problem?

The madrasas, which emerged, developed and diversified entirely through civil initiatives, withdrew underground especially in the history of the Republic and established a serious line of resistance against the homogenizing cultural hegemony. By trying to prevent the Islamic sciences from disappearing altogether, they ensured that the basic Islamic sciences survived within a minimal curriculum. In this respect the madrasas performed a vital breathing space for a Muslim society waging a life-and-death struggle.

However, to expect this institution, which by its nature is entirely civil and has no official recognition, to develop itself in such a way as to answer the scholarly needs of the whole Islamic society, and to think through and carry out a reform it would need, would first of all be an injustice to the madrasa itself. It has not been able to; it could not have.

Even at present, although all are works of great value and sincerity, there is serious variety, difference and lack of standardization among them. Perhaps this very characteristic in one respect constitutes its strength. The personal quality of the teachers, the environment they are in and the capacities of the students, their studentship, the support they can get from society, all of these together come into play as factors that determine a madrasa’s performance and make it unique. In an age when standards are given great importance, this contingency of the madrasa may not be sufficiently appreciated and may also constitute a problem. But there is always, with good faith, the possibility of looking at the positive side of the matter.

A PRACTICAL MODEL FOR KURDISH-LANGUAGE EDUCATION

Especially the madrasas in the East have a dimension in which, in addition to the pressure of the Tevhid-i Tedrisat on religious education, they also resisted the prohibition on Kurdish-language education. Thus the institutional practice showing that Kurdish-language education was very well possible, a concrete model in which a very meaningful organic relationship between the madrasas and the people can be traced, has been formed.

Throughout the history of the Republic, while in the beginning this model was attempted to be destroyed and suppressed entirely, after the fifties, even if its sociological existence was appreciated, it was officially ignored. The path of benefiting from them was not taken. For the first time in the past 10-12 years, the Diyanet, by allocating positions to “mele”s within certain criteria, created an environment in which this model can reproduce itself under more comfortable conditions. Thus the general-purpose curriculum and educational practices of the madrasas were in a way officially recognized.

However, here the need to achieve a harmony between the educational curricula and practices of the imam-hatip schools and the faculties of theology has also always stood in the middle. The student admission system, the qualifications of the teachers, accreditation and so on are not as easy as supposed. Because it is difficult to articulate wholesale a system that is run civilly and still has no official acceptance and standard. Officialdom demands openness to everyone, transparency, auditability and a certain guarantee of quality. In an organic relationship with civil society this guarantee comes through the people’s own appraisal, but in state recognition it is imperative that it be tied to rules and criteria.

THE STRONG AND WEAK SIDES OF THE MADRASAS

Nevertheless, it is seen that in many faculties of theology and imam-hatip schools an attempt is being made to arrive at a synthesis by benefiting from certain madrasa practices and curricula. Besides those madrasa teachers or students who undertake undergraduate, master’s and doctoral work at the faculties of theology, the faculties of theology’s own interest in the madrasa curriculum can of course close the gap between the institutions.

Essentially, in terms of general educational practices, one can dwell on quite inspiring and attractive examples of madrasa practices.

For instance, as I wrote earlier in another article, the hierarchical teacher-student relationship, the system that makes everyone both teacher and student from the very first stage, the process organized in a way reminiscent of the classical Midrash educational system, stands before us as a ready practice for the discussion of educational philosophy. In the madrasa educational system a student, by passing on at once to others what he has learned within a short time, acquires at a much earlier stage the faculty of being able to share what he has learned. Thus, as soon as he learns something, he gains the experience of at once passing on what he has learned to another. This both ensures that knowledge is better consolidated and means that teaching experience begins to be gained at once. In today’s modern university system, the teacher cannot give lessons, cannot gain experience of giving lessons, until he finishes his doctorate and is appointed as a faculty member. Thus knowledge cannot be internalized very much, and the teacher’s pedagogical faculties have not been developed sufficiently in time.

On the other hand, the muhtasars, that is, the summaries, of the books that are read are memorized. This method, despised by the modern understanding of education as “rote education,” can in fact, when examined well, be the most important guarantee of the soundness of education.

Today one of the matters we suffer from most as university teachers is that students cannot carry any acquired knowledge of what they learned the previous year. Because of anti-memorization approaches, a ground is encouraged that is conducive to the student’s learning practically nothing or forgetting in a short time the things he has learned. Yet someone without a certain memorization also has no store on which he can reflect or with which he can think.

Memorization of the muhtasar, from whichever side one looks, is in my view very necessary for learning to work in a healthy way. Today, especially in Arabic and fiqh, it can easily be said that the instruction given in these madrasas is far more lasting. But it cannot so easily be said that what is memorized has the same advantage in finding a suitable field of application.

Even so, a difficulty of the system that cannot be ignored is that, as in many other fields, because of the excessively sanctified meaning attributed to the style or method of education, it cannot be made the subject of any revision, amendment or change.

This situation also keeps the system far from seeking a mechanism that would carry out its own evaluation. Sanctification works against an environment open to criticism not only in the content of the curriculum but also in the teacher-student relationship. In an environment where the Seyda is seen as semi-mystical and a kind of infallible, innocent imam, it is, if not impossible, very difficult for the system to feed itself back, to criticize and renew itself. Greetings to the many sincere efforts made against all these difficulties.