san4 wrote:
It's true that Wahabbism is not Islam, but is there a muslim country with official textbooks that are more tolerant? I would be pleasantly surprised to see that.
Look at
Tunisia.
Unlike Islamic curricula in some Arab states, the Islamic curricula in Tunisia consist of a compilation of articles and book excerpts from a variety of original sources. For example, the 11th-grade textbook on Islamic thought is a compilation of articles by 29 authors - including excerpts of books and essays by renowned scholars such as 14th-century North African scholar and historian Ibn Khaldun, 9th-10th century Iraqi theologian Abu Al-Hasan Al-Ash'ari, and luminary Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, alongside Muslim reformist thinkers from the modern period, such as Rifa' Al-Tahtawi, Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani, Muhammad 'Abduh, Ali 'Abd Al-Razeq, 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Kawakibi, Muhammad Rashid Rida, and Sa'd Al-Din Ibrahim.
An examination of the 11th and 12th grade schoolbooks shows that they focus on three aspects: the separation between religion and politics, individual freedom, and tolerance for the other.
In addition, the schoolbooks do not limit themselves to discussion of any one religious stream, but rather highlight the different schools within Islam. Thus, although Tunisia is overwhelmingly Sunni, the Islamic schoolbooks devote much space to Shi'ism.
This report examines two textbooks on Islamic thought for the 11th and 12th grades in Tunisia, and provides a general overview of some of the books' major themes: secular versus religious rule, the necessity of avoiding religious conflict, the need for education in order to attain freedom and harmonize between religion and modernity, the value of the European Enlightenment, and the importance of consultation, tolerance and dialogue.
In essence, the Islamic education curricula in Tunisia represent a continuation of the spirit of the early salafiyya (Islamic reformers). While in contemporary usage the word salafi has become a near-synonym for "radical Islamist," many of the original salafiyya, including those whose writings are included in the Tunisian textbooks, promoted a moderate form of Islam and openness to modernity. The movement was later largely subsumed into both Arab nationalism and Islamism, with Muslim liberalism being progressively relegated to the sidelines. Historically, Tunisia has been something of an exception to this trend, and this is reflected in the schoolbooks discussed here.
At the same time, some of the books' subject matter - like the chapter on knowledge as a remedy to despotism, or readings such as the one titled "Freedom is the Basis of Power" - may seem to be at odds with political realities in contemporary Tunisia under the autocratic Ben Ali regime, and one may wonder why they are still in use. This can be explained by the fact that the schoolbooks were written during the presidency of Habib Bourguiba, the founder of modern Tunisia, whose rule was both more popular and more liberal, if not entirely democratic, and whose reformist orientation remains the official ideology of the current regime.
EDIT: I would like to point out that (despite the assertions of some on the forums here) Islam isn't one monolithic entity. Like any religion it absorbs the particulars of whichever culture it encounters. Extremism is particularly rare in some of the North and West African countries (in this context, Algeria and Sudan are rare, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, etc. are much more the norm).
Last edited by Masques (2007-04-22 19:58:58)