Westerners and progressive “Muslims” who have been clamoring for an Islamic reformation can salivate over this recent tidbit from the BBC. I am not going to talk about how a so-called reformation is the surest path to destroying Islam as it has Christianity in Europe. Others have done so and they’ve done it better than I could. Also, it doesn’t take a genius to easily discredit this Turkish government project. Apparently since Islam cannot be obliterated by the Kemalist government, the next best thing is to alter it to fit their desire to “modernize.” Observe:

the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernize, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam.

One of the very foundations of Islam is obscuring the original values of Islam. Brilliant. According to astrolabe.com the adviser to the project, Felix Koerner, is a Jesuit priest. Take from that what you will. Aside from the obvious negative implications of such an ideologically transparent program as “editing” classical hadith texts using “Western critical techniques and philosophy” the really dangerous phenomenon is not readily apparent.What Muslims might not easily recognize, is the dilemma of modern institutionalized Islamic education. Often Muslims like to flaunt the idea that they were the first to produce universities and that al-Azhar is the oldest one in existence (which isn’t true, it’s not the oldest). Such declarations are unsophisticated and really confuse the reality of the situation as these universities are historically very different in character from what passes as a university today. A bit of history is in order.

Late in the Abassid caliphate, back when the Seljuk Turks were the reigning Sultans of the Middle East, there was the real threat of Shiite insurgency. They were seen as the opposition party calling for just rule and an end to corruption via installing the descendants of Ali (ra) to the Caliphate. This resonated with many people as well as opportunistic rebellious tribes and helped swell the ranks of the Shia as people who were dissatisfied with the government would find their movements attractive. Around the same time al-Azhar was founded by the Fatimids who were an Isma’ili Shiite dynasty in Egypt. Under the Fatimids, it was not known for its scholarship at all. It was actually a state sponsored center for Isma’ili Shiite propaganda, which really did not take off as the Fatimids were not much for scholarly pursuits. (Only much later, when the Ayyubids took over Egypt did Salah ad-Din convert it finally into a Sunni madrasa.) All of this was obviously quite threatening to the state, to counter this something had to be done …

An important fellow named Nizam al Mulk, a giant of a statesman in the history of Islam, took the madrasa model which was developing on a small scale in Central Asia and established it throughout the Middle East. This was the Sunni answer to al-Azhar. Prior to the madrasa Islamic education was transmitted informally with students sitting in the majlis, or teaching sessions of knowledgeable shaykhs, usually in mosques, public areas or homes. The madrasa was supported by waqfs or endowments from the government or wealthy individuals. It was an institution with paid positions for teachers and stipends for students. The purpose that Nizam al-Mulk had in mind was to combat Shiite propaganda by promoting Sunni Islamic learning thus guarding the state from Shiite rebellions. However, despite the proliferation of government supported madrasas the traditional model of the majlis remained popular and since many madrasas where in masjids, usually there were plenty of other scholars running their own majalis (pl. of majlis) in the same masjid at the same time. If you were to walk into Azhar in medieval Egypt you would find a couple hundred majalis going on with only about 40 of the teachers actually on the payroll and this is in a large madrasa. This was the beginning of systematic governmental regulation of education.

What was the character of these madrasas? Aside from the paid positions there was little difference between the majlis and the madrasa. Ijazas, or licenses certifying that a student had completed their learning satisfactorily under their teacher, were issued personally by individual shaykhs. What was the real difference? In essence, the building of mosques to house madrasas and having a cadre of state supported scholars in strategically placed and influential areas of the Caliphate insured the legitimacy of the state. Seen supporting Islam and backed by a class of pro-government scholars, the Sultans boosted their image and had their shaykhs policing theological boundaries and de-legitimizing the Shia by attacking their core beliefs not just their politics.

The combination of Nizam’s brilliant statesmanship, charismatic scholars like Imam al-Ghazaly and a serious investment in the madrasas lead to a strong Seljuk state and the dominance of Sunni Islam. But state involvement in education is a double edged sword. Which brings us to the crux of the matter. If we rewind time and visit the era of Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal we see the possible ill-effects of the state’s interference in education with not just the promotion of the heretical Mu’tazilite sect but the attempt to forcibly impose their beliefs on the entire Ummah. What is frightening is the near success of the Caliphate in imposing it’s will upon the ulema. Only Imam Ahmed stood against them and survived. But how was the power of the state overcome? The staunch, unyielding resistance of Imam Ahmed and people power. The people came out in droves, led by students of knowledge, in support of the Imam until the Caliph relented fearing the direction that this popular stand would go. Can Muslims today mobilize that kind of people power?

This sort of grassroots organizing is the result of the informal nature of Islamic education; institutions carried no weight while the influence of the personalities of the ulema was a potent societal force. Islamic education, even within the Nizamiyya madrasas, still revolved around the personality of the shaykh, ijazas were issued by the shaykh and not by any institution or the madrasa. And there’s the rub which brings us to the Turkish scenario. Interestingly enough, the Turks have a long history of institutionalizing Islamic education, going far beyond the traditional madrasa model. During the Ottoman empire, the government co-opted the ulema by formally certifying students in state-controlled madrasas in order to qualify them for civil service. This process of institutionalization continued and intensified during later Ottoman modernization programs under the Nizam e Cedid. Today, while the Kemalist Turks do not depend on the ulema classes in civil service the Imam Hatip schools are the only legitimate madrasas for the training of Imams in Turkey and issuing ijazas. Regardless of where one’s Islamic training was received no one can become a government paid Imam unless they were certified at an Imam Hatip school. The flavor of Islam is thus carefully controlled by the government.

The earlier madrasa system was more of a social contract between the ruling class and the ulema classes, whereby the state would support the spread of Islamic education and safe guard Sunni Islam while the ulema would support the legitimacy of the state. The model arising since the preeminence of the nation state, however, is the absolute control and regulation of religion by the state where the ulema are not partners but subordinates of the state.

This creates a problem when the “street cred” of the independent ulema is as eroded as it is today. Independent scholars have lost their credibility with Muslim elites, most notably in places like Turkey and Pakistan. This lack of influences translates into the inability to effectively counter determined efforts to promote heretical beliefs and philosophies. According to the article,

As part of its aggressive program of renewal, Turkey has given theological training to 450 women, and appointed them as senior imams called “vaizes”.

One can imagine pompous “Imams” traipsing around Turkey telling progressive “Muslims” what they want to hear regarding Islam. The rural sectors of Muslim populations will more likely be immune to this brand of arrogant reformist Islamic da’wa because of their traditional social networks and informal hierarchies. Outsiders without the endorsement of their local leaders trying to teach them about their religion would be seen as obnoxious and illegitimate. But the Kemalists really don’t care about the village folk the struggle is to win over the coming urbanized, highly educated youth who are unwilling to compromise on their Islamic identity. Recognizing that the rejection of secularization and the assertion of Islamic values by the youth is a sign of the Kemalist’s failing agenda, the new strategy is to change Islam itself. Do the urbanized mainstream Muslims in Turkey have the ability to resist?

The question we need to ask is how do we prevent or respond to the institutionalization of Islamic education and neutralize the influence of the state in determining what is or is not legitimate. While throwing the power of the state behind a religious ideology or theology that you agree with may seem beneficial, more often than not the modern nation-state seeks to use religion for it’s own purposes and thus distorting Islam for it’s own benefits is not something that is above it. Giving this sort of power to the state may seem expedient during a benevolent administration but such power will also be retained and abused by a tyrannical authority. Often enough the state knows only one theology and it has nothing to do with religion.

The biggest problem is that Muslims have become accustomed to institutionalized education. Rather than acquiring an ijaza from a professor, teacher or shaykh, it is often granted by an institution, which is an entity that really doesn’t have the right to determine whether or not you have learned anything. But what this has the effect of doing is granting legitimacy and influence to that institution. So now in the modern era institutional fatwas seem to carry the same or greater weight than fatwas that rely on the reputation of an individual scholar. Institutional approval has also gone so far as to legitimize “Islamic” products with an “approved by so and so University” label. Once Islamic learning shifts from a model based a network of scholars to one based on institutions that’s when severe and widespread corruption of Islam will take place. The question is … how do we fight back?

See also MuslimMatters.org and their discussion of the issue.