MODERNIZATION AND ISLAMIC EDUCATION: MUSLIM WOMEN’S IDENTITY IN BRITAIN

Abstract

In a traditional Britsih Muslim family in Britain, particularly within the South Asian community, there is a belief that the behaviour of females needs to be controlled in order to preserve male honour. Within this traditional context, education for women has often been seen as detrimental to the family’s izzat (honour). This has produced a great deal of debate, with some reformists asserting that such attitudes are cultural so and no part of the Quran and Sunnah. The main aim of this study is to explore the provision of Islamic education for Muslim girls and women in Britain. Despite public images of docility and victimhood they are actively negotiating the boundaries of cultural tradition in the context of emerging British Muslim identities. This research argues that Muslim women in Britain nowadays have begun seeking out good quality Islamic education for themselves and for their children, a process which is slowly resulting in more ‘modern’ interpretations of Islam that challenge the cultural values adopted by traditionalists.This finding can be concluded that British Muslim women’s education is not limited to modernist and reformist Muslim institutions, with many traditionalists (such as Barelwis and Deobandis) now also rejecting the ideology that women should stay at home, and the notion that education can harm their izzat and sharam (without any shame) . In fact, this perception is no longer justifiable in a modern society, whilst it also contravenes widely held interpretations of Islam, which consider women’s rights to an education to be equally strong to those of men.