a review of religion and media
by Alex Thurston The MNLA and Ansar al Din have dominated the headlines about Mali this spring and summer. But how have other Malian Muslims reacted to the crisis in the north, and to the partial “Islamization” of the conflict by Ansar al Din? Continue Reading →
by Abhimanyu Das The Church of England inhabits a unique place in this busy trafficking of religious stereotypes. They’re the Church that’s known for being, well, not that religious. Continue Reading →
Ok, so it’s not always daily. But it is more than links. Continue Reading →
By Ashley Baxstrom
The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is, you talk about Jesus at Fight Club. Continue Reading →
We do not know what the first blasphemer said. We do know that he was a stranger who came among the Israelites. Continue Reading →
By Nathan Schradle
The Revisionaries, a documentary about the Texas State Board of Education, debuted at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Continue Reading →
By Austin Dacey The Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards was meeting to address “gaps” in an international human rights treaty on racism and racial discrimination. Continue Reading →
Joe McKnight: Mark Oppenheimer’s explanation of liberation theology underscores the theology’s fundamental principles which are often wholly overlooked or deliberately maligned by President Obama’s detractors. Continue Reading →
By Alex Thurston
This is the fourth post in a series on Islamic education in Northern Nigeria. The first post gave an overview of the series, the second discussed Qur’anic schools, and the third talked about “traditional” advanced Islamic education, noting that traditions change over time.
This post examines “Islamiyya” schools, a format that combines elements of the traditional curriculum with educational models inspired by Western and Arab models. That there has been outside influence on the Islamiyya movement does not mean that Islamiyya or “Nizamiyya” (a term that comes from the Arabic nizam, “system”) schools are “imports” from outside Northern Nigeria; rather, they represent interactions between local and global, new and old. Islamiyya schools are found by different names elsewhere in West Africa; in former French colonies such as Senegal and Mali, one finds many “Franco-Arabe” (French-Arabic) schools, highlighting the important role that languages play in questions of education. Islamiyya schools have not necessarily replaced “traditional” schools; many students attend both kinds, just as many teachers teach in both. Islamiyya schools do compete directly with secular primary and secondary schools, and feed into the same system of universities, but between these two models there is overlap as well. Continue Reading →
Ashley Baxstrom: In case you missed it – we’ve already covered that Catholic nuns are having a hard time of it of late, what with the Pope calling them radical and all. But we just wanted to shine another spot of light into all that darkness. Good news under the general heading of “nuns”!
“General” because we’re not talking about Catholic nuns – sorry ladies – but Buddhist nuns, anyway! Continue Reading →