The battle for Muslim education
Out in August!
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Lost in the Middle Eastern fog of war is a struggle that is as much about geopolitics as it is about shaping future generations in a swath of land that stretches from the Gulf states and the battlefields of Gaza and Lebanon to Houthi schools in Yemen and jihadist seminaries in Indonesia.
It’s a rivalry of competing worldviews in textbooks designed to shape education in the 21st century in Muslim lands. The players run the gamut from jihadists and religious militants to autocracies that propagate a socially more tolerant but politically repressive interpretation of Islam.
The Middle East, conditioned by the Gaza war and geopolitical rivalries, is the focal point of competing approaches toward education.
Even so, a comparison of changes in textbooks in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen and Indonesian seminaries run by Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian Islamist dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia reveals stark differences in militant ranks.