The Modern Glimpses of Madrassah Curriculum (A Contextual Analysis)

Abstract

Madrasah education is generally blamed for fomenting extremism, fundamentalism, indoctrination and violence. Although it is true that Madrasah curriculum still has many shortcomings like any other curriculum of government or private schools, but this does not absolutely prove that such curriculum is the main source of breeding extremism. Instead, the Madrasah curriculum has been characterized as one of the means of promoting harmony, cultural values and Islamic ideologies, and shared values of peace, conflict resolution and human rights. The content of Madrasah syllabus has some challenges in application especially in the application of fiqh. And this difference has occurred due to the gap between the contexts of time. When these books were compiled, their context was politically in favor of Muslims. Therefore many laws made about many phenomenon, which might be of little relevance in this period of time, are present in the texts books of Madrasahs. Thus missing links have left Madrasahs’ students far behind to understand the current context and prevailing trends. Along with these shortcomings, there are some peace contents which favor modern rights in society. The combination of different concepts consequently makes the Madrasah’s students confused and limits their roles in the society.