Institutional Roots of Muslims’ Educational Choices in 19th Century Lebanon by Hania Abou al-Shamat
Institutional Roots of Muslims’ Educational Choices in 19th Century
Lebanon
byHania Abou al-Shamat
Arab Region late-19th century
• Background: 19th C. Educational reform and Expansion/ Modern Education Introduced
• Puzzle: While Christians attended the new schools to receive modern education, Muslims continued to enroll in traditional Islamic schools
Distribution of Population and Pupils by religious communities
Year City % Population % Pupils
Muslims Non-Muslims
Muslims Non-Muslims
1882 Jerusalem 67 33 10 90
1882 Aleppo 78* 22* 21 79
1882 Beirut 31 57 21 79
1907 Egypt** 92 8 48 52
*Population percentages for Aleppo are for 1840s.** Egypt here includesSources: Bowring, John (1973). Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria. New York: Arno Press, p. 3; Courbage, Youssef and Philippe Fargues (1997). Christians and Jews under Islam. (Translated by Judy Mabro). London: I.B.Tauris, p. 88; Diab, Henry and Lars Waehlin (1983). “The Geography of Education in Syria in 1882, with a Translation of ‘Education in Syria’ by Shahin Makarius, 1883.” Geografiska Annaler, 65 B, 2: P. 117, 120 & 121; Landau, Jacob (1969). Jews in 19 th Century Egypt. New York: New York University Press, p. 6 & 72.
Conventional Explanations I
1. Access to Missionaries: Genesis of Modern Education
2. Early Indigenous Christian Schools: Early attempts to spread new schools
Counterarguments for 1 & 2:- Mainly Religious, basic education
- Timing: why not pre-19th century?
**Missing: Structural Changes in the Job-market
Conventional Explanations II
3. ‘Ulema’s Resistance to Change: Vested Interests prevented change*Counterargument: - ‘Ulema divided front- Christian clergy resisted reform
4. State Neglect: curb Arab nationalism* Counterargument - Long history of private provision of education
- Arab nationalism: cross religious trend
According to 3 & 4: Islamic schools relied upon for elementary education
** Missing: Islamic schools were in demand
Conventional Explanations III
5. Christians more prone to westernize (shared same religion); Muslims were defensive
• Counterarguments:- Historical evidence: Christians equally put at defensive- Urgency to reform among Muslims
** Missing: Difference in institutions
The Missing Element
• Common Elements in conventional explanations
- Top-down reform (lack of agency for individuals)
- Supply side (necessary, not sufficient)
• Missing: Demand for Education
- Evidence of active demand
- Quantitative & Qualitative impact on education
• Focus on Demand (motives and incentives)• Challenges in capturing demand • Approach: reconstruct the job-market to derive skills
needed
Why 19th century Lebanon?
• Geographic Area: Vilayet Beirut & Mount Lebanon
• Leader in Educational Reform• Religious Diversity – compare and contrast
educational choices• Job-market analysis extends to Egypt
(migration effect)
Table 1.2. Av erage Percentage Distribution of Population by Religion
Region Muslims Christians Druze
Beirut 37 57
Mount Lebanon 7 81 12
Tripoli 83 17 ---
Saida 87 12 ---
Source: Leila Tarazi Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth Century Beirut (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), ch.5; John Spagnolo, France and Ottoman Lebanon (London: Ithaca Press, 1977) p. 24; Rafiq, Muhammad and Muhammad Bahjat, Wilayat Bayrut, vol. 2 (districts of Tripoli and Latakia), 3rd edition. (Bayrut: Dar Lahd Khatir, 1987), 212; Rafiq and Bahjat, Wilayat Beirut, vol.1, 302-303.
Table 4.1: Percentage distribution of Syrian Protestant College graduates (1870-1900) by
country of migration
Region Lebanon Egypt Rest of the
Arab World
United States
Turkey Others
Percentage 35 28 45 7 8 5
Source: AUB Directory of Alumni 1870 -1952. (AUB archive). Out of 468 studen ts who graduated b etween 1870 and 1900, inform ation was available on 347. Percentages are taken from known population.
Lebanon Early 19th Century
• Socio-economic structure: feudal• Social stratification: kinship and landownership• Limited Social mobility• Beirut: small city• Economy: mainly agricultural• Job-market
- Administration: judges, scribers, bookkeepers, accountants
- Education: religious
- Judiciary: religious codes
- Trade: internal
- Education needed: basic and religious
Factors Altering the Old job market
• Socio-economic effects of the silk industry - Economy: silk cash crop, external trade- Socio-economic system: emergence of middle class- Social stratification: property, social mobility- Beirut: major port city- Job-market: External trade & New financial & Commercial services
- Muslims’ absence from (Christian dominance over) external trade & new financial services
Muslims’ share in external trade and related businesses
Profession Year Muslims Total Percentage
Merchants with Europe
1826 6 34 17
Merchants with
England 1848 3 29 10
Merchants 1889 12 89 13
Silk Exports
1911 5 67 7
Wool exporters
1914 29 80 36
Bankers 1889 2 13 15
Insurers 1914 7 18 38
Shipping agents
1914 3 12 25
Source: Boutros Labaki. “The Christian Communities and the Economic and Social Situation in Lebanon,” in Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of t he Future, ed. Andrea Pacini. (Oxford: Calendon Press, 1998), p . 238; Thomas Philipp, The Syrians in Egypt 1725-1975 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Ve rlag Weisbaden GMBH, 1985), 99; Leila Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 97-8.
Table 4.4. Percentage of Christian Translators at Foreign consulates in Beirut and Egypt
Year Region Christians Total Christians’
% Share
1878 Beirut 54* 64 84
1889 Beirut 17 18 94
1902-1908 Beirut 10 13 77
1905 Egypt 12 16 75
Sources: Issawi, “The Transformation of the Economic Position of the Millets in the Nineteenth Century,” in Christians and Jew in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, vol. I, ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1982), 278; Al-Jami’ aw Dalil Bayrut for 1889, 22; Al -Aswad, Ibrahim Bek, Dalil Lubnan (Be’abda: Al-Matba’a al-‘Uthmaniyya, 1906), 88 -89; Dalil Suriyya wa Misr al-Tijari, (1908), 19 -20; Thomas Phillip, The Syrians in Egypt, 1725-1975 (Stuttgart, 1985), 121.
Islamic Legal Institutions: Muslims’ Absence from (Christians’ dominance
over) external Trade I
Conventional explanations: Co-religion, and Europeans’ bias against Muslims
Factors overlooked: 1. Islamic law: higher transaction cost- Individualistic (lack of collective entities, corporations)- Dominance of oral testimony (limited transactions’ longevity)- Europeans’ avoidance of Islamic law and courts
Islamic Legal Institutions: Muslims’ Absence from (Christians’ dominance
over) external Trade II
2. Legal Pluralism: Choice of law- Christians’ benefits from being Protégés - Supremacy of Islamic jurisdiction lack of motives for the job
Long Term (unintended) consequences1. Statistical discrimination against Muslims2. Lost opportunities to gain new skills
Military Conscription
• Measures of service: Muslims’ opposition• Exemption:
- Fee payment- Attendance of Islamic Schools- Special occupations: civil servants, judges, muftis.
• Consequence: 1. Increased demand for Islamic schools 2. Limited access to higher education
Table 4.2: Distribution of major professions in 1908 Beirut
Muslims Christians Total Occupation
# % # %
Physicians 7 23 24 77 31
Pharmacists 5 20 12 70 17
Dentists 1 12 8 88 9
Lawyers 3 17 15 83 18
Bankers 2 11 16 89 18
Commissioners 4 21 15 79 19
Source: Dalil Suriyya wa Misr al-Tijari,(1908), 28-31.
Administration Expansion
• Attractiveness: stability, social mobility, social status and power.
• Pre-Tanzimat: - Administrative service restricted- Requirements: basic education, apprenticeship• Post-Tanzimat:- Specialization: Muslims (both ranks)
Christians higher ranks- Requirements: lower ranks basic education higher ranks new education• Muslims ‘Mixed’ education
Parallel Institutions
Courts
Three types of courts:
1. Shari’a:
Islamic education
2. Nizamiyyeh (later national):
old and new education
3. Mixed:
new education
Schools
• Old Education: Islamic schools, public schools, private tutoring, private Islamic new schools
• New Education: Foreign, missionary, Christian private schools, private tutoring
Summary
• A network of institutions rewarded Islamic education and maintained its demand by:
- Directly increasing demand for old education
- Preserving the old job market, the arena for graduates of the Islamic schools
- Creating new jobs whose required skills were met by Islamic education
- Preventing new job opportunities that feedback on new education
Women’s Education• Marriage institution
- Emigration & civil strive 18601. Tightened marriage market for Christians
2. Increased competition- Christians undergoing westernization- Education as social investment and positional good
• Job Market- female workers in silk factories: altering patriarchal authority - mechanization: challenging traditional female jobs- Migration and civil strife: women left behind bread winners- Education as economic investment (mainly captured by missionaries)
Rhetoric in Muslims’ Newspapers
• Thamara>t al-Funu>n (1870s) criticizing quality of kuttabs and madrasas, praising quality of Christians’ schools, calling for modern education for the Muslims
• al-Fajr al-S}a>diq (1879): declining conditions of Muslim schools (Compared to Christians’)
• al-Mana>r, Rashi>d Rid}a> (1890s): called upon Muslims to learn from the Syrian Protestant College example of modern education
Two Potential Routes to Provide new education among Muslims
1. Reform of Islamic schools: Study effect of waqf institution on Islamic education
2. Establish new schools: Compare to Christian schools to detect problems faced
Reform of Islamic schools
A. Effects of waqf: Static perpetuity, evidence of change
B. Approach: Analyze system’s structure, agents’ incentives to change. Agents of change: qadis (judges), muftis (jurisconsults), and teachers
C. Findings: Large scale reform hindered by: (1) Individualistic structure of Islamic institutions confined frequency & scale of change
(2) legitimacy within Islamic Institutions held reform to what existed/discouraged innovation
Founding new schools in the 19th century
Approach: Compare Muslim & Christian schools
Findings:(1) Limited incentives to found new charitable waqfs (2) Lack of Collective Legal entity Limited
resource pooling
(3) lack of central management lack of flexibility
Contributions I1. New approach to revisit an old puzzle
- Shifting focus to the individual by analyzing demand- Linking demand and supply to a network of institutions
2. Comprehensive two-sided explanation:
- At the demand side, a set of institutions kept Islamic education (Journal of Islamic Studies 20, 3 (2009): 317-351)
- At the supply side, institutions hindered Muslims’ ability for resource pooling (Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, under submission)
Contributions II
3. Transplanted institution does not guarantee internal demand. Institutional networks shape the dynamics of institutional transplant (Policy implication: reform comes in packages)
4. Framework of analysis useful in addressing current issues in the Arab world
Reframe Institutional Transplant
• Determinants of successful transplant
- Competitiveness of transplanted institution
- Compatibility with indigenous culture
- Origin of transplanted institution
- Process of the transplant
- lock-in effect cause of institutional stagnation• Implications
- Efficacious institutions will take over (not necessary)
• Missing:
- Indigenous Demand for the transplanted institution
- Role complementary institutions play
Effects of Legal Transplant
• “The Effects of Legal Reform on Muslims’ Commercial and Financial Performance in Egypt, 1883-1949,” Islamic Law and Society, forthcoming
• Conclusion: legal change necessary, not sufficient- Complementary changes needed- Socio-economic and political context
Islamic Schools in Arab and Islamic World
• Recommendations: invest in modern schools in the area
• Overlooked is internal demand and he complementary institutions that support it
• Example: Islamic schools in Lebanon/Egypt
Old job market
New job market
New education
Old education
Dndn Do
do
Do: Old Job market skills demandDn: New job market skills demanddo: individual’s demand for old educationdn: individual’s demand for new education
Schools and Students in various parts of Lebanon in 1882
Locality Schools Students population
Beirut 101 12 452
Mount Lebanon 190 5 850
Tripoli 15 1 152
Sayda 15 887
Sur 10 520
Baalbek 5 433
Source: Henry Diab and Lars Waehlin, “The Geography of Education in Syria in 1882, with a Translation of ‘Education in Syria’ by Shahin Makarius, 1883” Geografiska Annaler 65 B, 2 (1983): 126.
Christians’ and Muslims’ Reactions
Christians- external trade- New financial services- Administration: top ranks- Teachers: indigenous
Christian and missionary schools
- Liberal professions- Need for new education
Muslims- internal trade- Old financial services- Administration: all ranks- Teachers: Public and
Religious Schools- Old education suffices
Table 2.2: Number of Kuttabs and students by city and year
Year Area Number of Schools Number of Students
1870s Beirut 8 225
1893 Vilayet Beirut 205 ---
1917 Tripoli 37 ---
1930s Lebanese Republic 34 961
Source: Abdul Latif Tibawi. American Interests in Syria, 1800-1901: A Study of Educa tional, Literary and Religious Work (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966),181; Martin Strohmeier, “Muslim Education in the Vilayet of Beirut, 1880-1918” in Decision Making and Change in the Ottoman Empire ed. Caesar E. Farrah (Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993), 222; Muhammad Rafiq and Muhammad Bahjat. Wilayat Bayrut. vol. 2 (districts of Tripoli and Latakia), 3rd edition (Bayrut: Dar Lahd Khatir, 1987), 192-3; and J.A. Babikian, Civilization and Education in Syria and Lebanon (Beirut: s.n., 1936), 174. For the curriculum in these schools check Margaret Doolittle, “Moslem Religious Education in Syria,” The Moslem World XVIII, 4 (1928): 374-380.
Table 2.5: Muslim Girls’ schools and Students, numbers and Percentages
Year City Schools Students
# % # %
1882 Beirut 3 8 452 8
1882 Saida 1 20 60 25
1908 Tripoli 7 41 --- ---
1910 Beirut 5 14 --- ---
Source: Shahin Makarious, “al-Ma’aref fi Suriyya” Al-Muqtataf 7 (February 7, 1883), 291; Muhammad Rafiq and Muhammad Bahjat, Wilayat Bayrut. vol. 2 (districts of Tripoli and Latakia), 3rd edition (Bayrut: Dar Lahd Khatir, 1987), 193; and Muhammad Kurd ‘Ali, Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd ‘ Ali: A Selection, Translated by Khalil Tatah (Washington D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1954), 51-52.
Education Providers
• Old Religious Schools: Madrasas, Kuttabs, Dayrs
• New Indigenous Schools (by sects)• Missionary Schools• Public Schools• Private Tutors
Islamic Schools
Madrasa: Higher education
• Origin: Formal 11th century due to: expansion of Islamic state (need to systematize Islamic law). Number of students increased ---> Khans. To ensure full time students ---> waqfs to provide for their living and accommodation
• Form and shape affected by:- Traditionalist-rationalist/ Shiite-Sunni struggle
- Job market needs: expanding administration + judicial needs ---> Law and its sciences
- 19th century: private, waqf supported, small, founder-teacher
Elementary Schools
• Muslims: Kuttabs: Elementary education
- mainly informal
- Expansion due to job market demand
- Waqf-founded kuttabs for poor and orphans
- 19th-20th century kuttabs
• Christians: Dayrs
- informal, basic education
- more formal at higher education, after church’s reform
Education Providers
• Religious schools:
- Madrasas:
• ajhflahf
Thesis
• While supply of new schools was necessary for educational modernization, it was not sufficient. A matching demand had to coexist for educational modernization to take place.
The relative efficiency of the new schools was not enough to create internal demand. A network of institutions shaped Muslims’ demand for old education and kept it from changing.
Table 1.1. Average Percentage Distribution of Population in Beirut by Religion and Sect, 1850-1920
Religion Sect Percentage Total Percentage
Muslim Sunni 37 37
Orthodox 28
Maronite 21 Christian
Catholics 8
57
Jews 1-3 Others
Foreigners 1-3 2-6
Source: Leila Tarazi Fawaz. Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth Century Beirut (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), ch.5
Table 2.4: Percentage share of Muslim students and schools in Beirut city
Students Schools Source Year
# % # %
Hassan Za’rour 1870 900 38 16 38
Makarious 1882 2170 32 21 32
Al-Jami’ aw Dalil Bayrut 1889 2000 23 21 32
Vital Cuinet 1896 2160 32 23 35
Heny Jessup 1909 4462 34 36 28
Moh’d Kurd ‘Ali 1910 ---- --- 25 38
Sources: Hasan Za’rur. Bayrut: al-Tarikh al-ijtima’I, 1864-1914, (Bayrut : al-Markaz al-Islami lil-I`lam wa-al-Inma, 1991), 42; Shahin Makarious, “Al-Ma’aref fi Suriyya” Al-Muqtataf 7 (February 7, 1883), 291 ; Vital Cuinet, Syrie, Liban et Palestine, Géographie Administrative, Statistique, Descriptive et Raisonnée (Paris: E. Leroux, 1896), 60; Al-Jami’ aw D alil Bayrut Li ‘am 1889. Collected by Amin al-Khouri (Bayrut: al-Matba’ah al-Adabiyyah, 1889), 31; Henry Jessup, Fifty-Three years in Syria, II, (New York : Fleming H. Revell Company, 1910), 815; and Muhammad Kurd ‘Ali, Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd ‘Ali: A Selection, Translated by Khalil Tatah (Washington D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1954), 51-52.
Job Market: Structure and Changes
Pre-19th century
• Administration: judges, scribers, bookkeepers, accountants
• Education: religious• Judiciary: religious
codes• Trade: internal• Educational needs:
basic and religious
Since 19th century
• Enlarged administration• Education: foreign,
missionary, public• Judiciary: new ‘secular’
courts• Trade: external trade
expanding• Educational needs:
basic, higher, ‘secular’
Christians’ and Muslims’ Responses
Christians
- External trade- New financial services- Administration: top ranks- Teachers: indigenous
Christian and missionary schools
- Liberal professions- Need for new education
Muslims
- Internal trade- Old financial services- Administration: all
ranks- Teachers: Public and
Religious Schools- Old education suffices
Table 4.3. Distribution of Top Civil Servants in Beirut in 1908
Muslims Christians Total
Civil servants 22 41 86
Port 5 5
Investment 3 14 18
Ottoman Bank 4 4
Source: Dalil Suriyya wa Misr al-Tijari lisanat 1324 H, Al-Muwafiqa 1908 M., 15-17
Number of students in Maronite schools by year
School Year Number of students
‘Ain Waraqa 1736 8
‘Ain Waraqa 1858 100
Mar Maroun ~1810 10
Rayfoun ~1810 10
Each of top 4 schools 1844 25
All top 5 schools 1884 177
Source: Iliya Harik, Politics and Change in a Traditional Society Lebanon, 1711-1845. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. P. 164-165; Salamah, Bashir. Al-Ta’adud
al-Madrasi wa Takawwun al-Mujtama’ al-Ta’ifi” ??
Graduates from two Maronite schools
School Years Number ofGraduates
Number ofYears
Graduates peryear
‘Ain Waraqa 1789-1818 50 29 1.7
Kfayfan 1808-1874 260 66 3.9
Source: Iliya Harik, Politics and Change in a Traditional Society Lebanon, 1711-1845. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. P. 164-165
Table 2.1: Distribution of schools and pupils by sect in Beirut in 1883
Sect Boys’
schools Girls’
schools Students
boys Students
girls Students
Total % students by
religion
Muslim 21 3 2,170 452 2,622 21%
Greek Orthodox
5 3 900 500 1,400
Maronite
10 1 1,280 55 1,335
Greek Catholic
3 --- 400 400
Jesuites
4 1 690 200 890
Sisters of Charity
--- 4 --- 1,324 1,324
Nuns of Nazareth
--- 1 500 500
Mar Mansur
2 --- 250 --- 250
Capuchins
1 --- 50 --- 50
Assyrians
1 --- 70 --- 70
Italian
1 --- 50 --- 50
Protestants
12 22 671 2450 3,121
75%
Jews
5 1 350 90 440 3.5%
Total
65 36 6,881 5,571 12,450
Source: Shahin Makarious, “al-Ma’aref fi Suriyya” Al-Muqtataf 7 (February 7, 1883), 391.
Distribution of female pupils and their schools across religious communities in Beirut 1889.
Community Number of students Number of schools Muslims 500 3
Greek Orthodox 310 3 Maronite 55 1
Greek Catholics - - Jesuits 200 1
Nuns of Charity 2000 4 Nuns of Nazareth 500 20 (?)
Italian 120 1 Jewish 90 1
Evangelican 2390 20 Source: Boutros Labaki, Education et Mobilite Sociate Dans la Societe Multicommunataire du Liban. Deutsches Institut Fuer Internationale Paedagogische Furschung, 1988. Table 80, P. 187.
Hania Abou Al-Shamat, USCHania Abou Al-Shamat, USC
The Nature of the Educational Divide
• Revisiting the existing data: InconclusiveMore Christians attended ‘modern’ schools than
Muslims did. Qualitative not necessarily quantitative difference
• Old typology: traditional vs. modern schools (criteria: religion)- Missionary schools: ‘genesis’ of modern education, yet religious- Private ‘modern’ schools: Religion and modern sciences
• New typology: old vs. new (new skills, mainly foreign languages)
Limited change and adaptability
• Evidence: opportunities not fully pursued (flexibility and innovations limited and dispersed)
• The process of change not built into the system, exceptionally practiced by judges and teachers to overcome inefficiencies
• Question: why small change did not accumulate into large-scale transformations?
• Approach: Analyze the system’s organization/structure and examine agents’ motives/incentives to change. Agents of change: qadis (judges), muftis (jurisconsults) and teachers
Effects of Waqf• Centrality of Waqf for social services: (mosques,
zawiyas, madrasas)• Static Perpetuity: Inflexibility & Stagnation
- Founder’s stipulation power of law
- Inflexibility & Stagnation
• Consequences
1. procedural stagnation ruined madrasas
2. Contextual stagnation (curriculum)
• Potential Flexibility:
- Procedural: Two legal devices to overcome inalienability: istibdal (exchange of property) & long-term leases (cases in Beirut and Sidon court records)
- Potential Contextual flexibility
Two Factors Limited Scale of Change within waqf
• individualistic structure of Islamic institutions
- limited impact and transmission
- Potential for dismissing innovation
• criteria of legitimacy being linked to the past
- Importance of chain of knowledge
- Reputation based on mastery of classical religious works, conformity to traditions
- Fitting changes into religious doctrine, rather than changing the doctrine
Founding Schools in late 19th Century
• Large-scale waqf founder’s motives altered (centralization policies)
(1) wealth shelter motive altered consequence (madrasas left with old waqfs)
- Beirut, 12 mosques and zawiyas supported by pre-19th century waqfs.
- Madrasas at the al-Mansouri mosque in Tripoli dated back to the 17th century.
(2) Political patronage decreased
• Alternative approach: resource pooling/small waqfs
• Maqased (1878) vs. Zahrat al-Ih}sa>n (1882)
Institutional Roots for differenceMuslims
• Lack of collective legal entity: waqfs small and atomistic- Madrasas at the Grand Mosque in Beirut (1843) supported by 203 waqfs, Fractions of apartments and revenues from small shops. - Maqa>s}id Schools (1878) small waqfs, revenue 100 qurush, fractions of apartments
• Lack of central manager
- Mosque (dependant)- lack collective flexibility
• Judicial limitations for innovative fund raising
Christians• Judicial Autonomy:
different waqf law: larger and collective waqfs- ‘Ain Waraqa school (1789) family-founded waqf- Zahrat al-Ihsan (1882) co-founders of waqf
• Central manager for community’s waqfs- Church (corporate body)- ‘Ain Waraqa (1789)- al-H}ikmih (1874)
• Innovative tools of funding
(life insurances)
Institutional Roots for Limited Provision of Modern Education
• Waqf Increased the cost of change, without blocking it
• Individualistic organization of Islamic Institutions confined frequency & scale of change
• Structure of legitimacy within Islamic Institutions Holding reform to what existed
• Lack of Collective Legal entity blocked resource pooling
• Central Management Lack of flexibility
Comprehensive two-sided explanation for an Educational discrepancy puzzle
1. At the demand side, a set of institutions rewarded Islamic education, kept it in demand (Journal of Islamic Studies 20, 3 (2009): 317-351)
1. At the supply side, Islamic institutions hindered Muslims’ ability for resource pooling, and institutional reform (Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, under submission)
Christians’ and Muslims’ Responses
Christians
- External trade- New financial services- Administration: top ranks- Teachers: indigenous
Christian and missionary schools
- Liberal professions- Need for new education
Muslims
- Internal trade- Old financial services- Administration: all
ranks- Teachers: Public and
Religious Schools- Old education suffices
Factors Affecting Muslims’ Choices
• Islamic Legal Institutions:
1. Muslims’ limited external trade
• State’s Reform policies:
2. Military conscription
3. Administration
4. Coexistence of Parallel Institutions
Why Study Educational Institutions & Reform in the Arab World?
• Central for economic & human development• Political indoctrination• Suggested scenarios for educational reform in the
Islamic/Arab world:
- increase funds to found new modern schools
Assumption
- transplant ‘American’ college institution
Question: Would these work?