Muslim education policies and epistemologies in african tertiary education

Abstract

The scholarship on Islamism as a political ideology has largely been intertwined with sociological investigations into either terrorism around the globe, or sociopolitical upheavals in Islamic majority countries where Islam is the dominant religion. However, there still exists an epistemic gap regarding the orientations and foundations of Islamism, as well as the ways and means by which it is transmitted and (re)produced. This chapter will argue that the popularization of the Islamist epistemology and the recruitment of new protagonists in the Sudan mainly take place in their Islam-oriented universities. This argument will be cemented by ethnographic data that have been collected from the University of the Holy Qur’an and Islamic Sciences (UHQIS), Omdurman Islamic University (OIU), and the International University of Africa (IUA). The chapter will problematize Islamist education policy and examine which agencies and actors within the context of ideologically Islam-oriented universities serve to popularize the Islamists’ epistemic orientation, recruit new members to their ideology, and thus mobilize the wider society to empower the Islamist movement. The chapter will further investigate how these Islam-oriented universities function and uncovers the learning practices followed there. It is imperative to undertake a thorough examination of their internal bureaucratic functionalities as well as the regulations that govern the curriculum and the enrollment of students to understand how educational policy is negotiated in practice. The chapter will also examine the pedagogical practices within these universities as well as the content of their curricula and its rationale.