Date of Award

11-1-2008

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

Josef Korbel School of International Studies

First Advisor

Karen Feste, Ph.D.

Keywords

Islamic religious education, Jihad, Azherite schools

Abstract

This thesis examines the connection between Islamic religious education and terrorism. It looks at the curricula of the Azherite religious schools in Egypt. It examines how the curricula view the three themes of Jihad which are offensive Jihad, defensive Jihad, and Jihad for the purification of the soul in addition to the relations of Muslims with non-Muslims. Books which are used by violent jihadist groups for membership acquisition and cadre training are also studied for Jihad themes and relations with non-Muslims.

The analysis shows that the curricula are, generally speaking, a peaceful one in its principal direction, since it obviously calls for defensive Jihad and not offensive Jihad. Often, it deals with important concepts of Jihad within the confines of such subjects as the Jihad for the purification of the soul [the Greater Jihad]. Some textbooks included lessons on "Peace in Islam" and advocated the fact that peace is the origin in Islamic Shari'a and war is the exception and it is fought only for defensive reasons. This orientation in the curricula very much coincides with the themes of conflict resolution The comparison between the Azherite schools' textbooks and the books used by violent jihadist groups for membership acquisition and cadre training shows that they are in total contrast in relation to how they view the topic of Jihad and relationship with non-Muslims.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Babikir F. Babikir

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

135 p.

Discipline

Political Science

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