Education, Middle East

This article presents an overview of educational developments in the Middle East from 1450 until the early twentieth century. It considers traditional Islamic education, the emergence of modern schools, the influx of missionary education, and the educational, cultural, and political impact of these developments on the Middle East. From the early modern period until World War I (1914–1918) the main sovereign states of the Middle East were the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Morocco. In 1517 the Mamluk Empire was conquered by the Ottomans. After 1811 Egypt became semi-independent, and in 1830 the autonomous Ottoman province of Algiers was occupied, and subsequently turned into a French colony. In 1881 the autonomous Ottoman province of Tunis became a French protectorate, and the following year Egypt was occupied by Britain. Morocco, the only independent state left in North Africa, entered French protection in 1912. By 1914 the Ottoman Empire and Iran were the only sovereign countries left in the Middle East. Thus, nineteenth-century educational modernization in the Middle East took place under varying social and political conditions. This article discusses the similar as well as differing patterns of educational reform in the above-mentioned regions. For countries such as Iran, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, the period stretches to the mid-twentieth century. As in most premodern societies, traditional education in the Middle East was based mainly on religion. From the eleventh century onward Sunni Islamic orthodoxy dominated the region. It was during the period of Seljukid domination (eleventh through twelfth centuries) that religious colleges (madrasas) expanded in Baghdad and else-where in the Middle East. Following the collapse of the Shiite Fatimid caliphate, the Al-Azhar madrasa in Cairo, originally founded in 975 as a Shiite religious college, turned into a Sunni institution. Another intellectual impetus promoting religious instruction came from Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), who insisted on the metaphysical superiority of religious knowledge over experimental and rational sciences. When the Ottoman principality turned into a full-fledged bureaucratic empire in the early fifteenth century, the intellectual resources it could rely on for the development of cultural life were conditioned mainly by orthodox Sunni ideology and Sufism (Islamic mysticism). A consequence of the Ottoman expansion in the Middle East during the course of the sixteenth century was the transformation of the Ottoman Empire into the main Sunni Islamic power of the world. The only remaining independent Sunni state in the region was Morocco. Iran, under the Safavids, became a Shiite power. The fact that Shiism was considered by the Sunni orthodox Islamic majority as heresy affected Iran's position within the Islamic world, turning this state into an "outsider," and a religious adversary of the Ottomans. During the process of educational reform in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, characteristics peculiar to Shiism, such as the rather independent position of the Shiite ulama vis-à-vis the government, would lead to developments different from those found in Sunni societies.

TRADITIONAL EDUCATION PRIOR TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The Ottoman state from late fifteenth century onward acquired a Sunni Islamic identity based on the Hanafite legal school, but its population consisted of non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Though political authority was in the hands of the Muslim ruling class, cultural issues such as religion and education were left to individual religious communities. In harmony with this arrangement, school networks were maintained by communities themselves. Muslim institutional education was supported mainly by pious foundations (vakif). Basic education was provided by Quranic schools (mahalle mektebi, kuttab), often located within mosque compounds, and administered by lower Muslim clerics (hoca, fiqî). In North Africa, Quranic schools were mostly attached to Sufi convents. The main aim of this education was to have students memorize the Quran in classical Arabic, and to inculcate them with religious precepts. Those pupils who were able to memorize the entire Quran were considered to have succeeded in their basic education. Most graduates of Quranic schools did not acquire the basic elements of literacy as it is defined in the modern era—including proficiency in reading and writing as well as rudimentary mathematical knowledge.

Non-Muslim parochial schools serving Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities displayed traits parallel to those of the Quranic schools. They were attached to local churches or synagogues and administered by the priest or rabbi. Reading of the Bible and other basic religious texts constituted the main part of education. The language of instruction was often the liturgical language of the church, not the vernacular of the local population.

Male graduates of Quranic schools either had to select their profession or craft themselves, or had it picked for them by parents or other relatives. Those who decided to continue institutionalized education went to madrasas and became member of the ulama stratum. The remaining ones entered professional life, and received practical education as apprentices.

Madrasas were religious colleges financially supported by pious foundations and usually located within a mosque complex. They were organized, within the Ottoman Empire, according to a hierarchical order, and in coordination with the central authority. Lower-level madrasas offered courses in basic subjects of Islamic scholastic knowledge such as Arabic grammar, Aristotelian logic, theology, rhetoric, geometry, and astronomy, followed by intermediate-level theology and jurisprudence. Graduates of these lower-level madrasas could become the kadis or muftis of small towns. Higher-level madrasas were located mainly in Istanbul. In these the main concentration was on Islamic jurisprudence and Quranic exegesis. At the top of this hierarchy were the Sahn-i Seman and the Süleymaniye madrasas. Graduates of the higher-level madrasas could be appointed kadis or muftis to major Ottoman cities—that is, they became government officials. Madrasas in the classically Islamic lands, governed until 1516–1517 by the Mamluk regime of Egypt, suffered from Ottoman rule due to their subordination as peripheral provinces. At least in the case of Egypt, higher learning declined due to the transfer of major amounts of money to Istanbul. In peripheral Ottoman lands such as Tunis and Algiers, the curricula of madrasas in major centers were readjusted to conform to the religious doctrines of the official Ottoman Hanafite legal school. Outside these centers the Malikite legal school remained dominant in madrasa education. In southern Iraq, with its mainly Shiite population, the Shiite madrasas remained outside the Ottoman educational network, and in close contact with the Shiite ulama of neighboring Iran.

The Safavids' political takeover in Iran (1501) constitutes a turning point in that country's history. During the period of Safavid rule, the Iranian population became converted to Shiism, and education became directed toward the expansion and enforcement of Shiite religious precepts. Shiite madrasa education consisted of three levels: At the primary level, the Arabic language and grammar, rhetoric, logic, and basic Islamic law were taught. At the intermediate level, students encountered the philosophical texts of Avicenna, Mullah Sadra, and Hâdî-i Sebzevârî, while studying Islamic jurisprudence. At the advanced level, the main concentration was on Islamic law. Shiite madrasas constituted a network of their own, but without any coordinated relationship with central authority. The Shiite ulama exerted immense social and political authority over the government as well as over the population—far more than the ulama in Sunni Islamic societies, who never played the role of an alternative authority.

Under the Almohad (1147–1269) and Marinid (1269–1465) dynasties, Morocco, at the far west side of the Middle East, had enjoyed a flourishing culture. Following the reign of the Marinids, however, the country increasingly suffered from political instability and tribal revolts, which had an adverse effect on the cultural life of the country. Though the Sharifi Alawite dynasty reestablished political order (1660), an efficient central administration was not developed until the French protectorate period. Moroccan madrasas, not surprisingly, existed as loose bodies, without being a part of an educational network. Two major Moroccan madrasas were the Qarawiyin madrasa (in Fez) and the Yusufiya madrasa (in Marrakech).

As far as educational opportunities outside the madrasa framework were concerned, the general tendency was that boys without special aptitude for religious sciences either entered trades or crafts, or, if they had a personal connection to the bureaucracy, they might be admitted to the scribal service. A special type of educational institution in the premodern Ottoman Empire was the palace school (Enderun Mektebi), which admitted mainly promising Christian subjects from Balkan villages. Here boys were trained in the arts of war and weaponry as well as Islamic sciences, mathematics, geometry, geography, literature, and poetry. Those who reached the top educational levels acquired high administrative or military rank.

Individuals also had the opportunity to receive literary and artistic education within certain Sufi convents. In fact, members of nearly all social classes in the Ottoman lands belonged to one or another Sufi order. Religious life was no longer governed by the simple tenets of Islam but rather by the various Sufi interpretations of religious law and texts. While the details of ritual, prayer, and daily Islamic behavior were to a great extent determined by the sheikhs of Sufi orders, learned people devoted much time to the reading and writing of Sufi literature, which consisted mainly of poetry.

MODERNIZATION AND EDUCATIONAL REFORM: AN OVERVIEW

All Middle Eastern countries (the Ottoman lands, Iran, Morocco) encountered the phenomenon of a European military threat to their territorial integrity and independence, which in many cases led to colonization. The core Ottoman provinces faced this threat as early as 1683 to 1699, followed by Egypt in 1798 to 1801, and Iran in 1803 to 1815, while the social effects of the French invasion of Algiers in 1830 were felt both in Tunis and in Morocco. In the course of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and to some extent Tunisia, all of them equipped with central bureaucratic apparatuses, undertook comprehensive educational reforms. Iran and Morocco, on the other hand, lacked efficient bureaucracies, and thus were unable to introduce major educational modernization. In Iran, in addition, the Shiite ulama consistently opposed educational reforms. In Algeria and Morocco educational modernization was introduced through French colonial administration, whereas the British protectorate of Egypt and the French protectorate of Tunisia preserved to some degree their own educational institutions and traditions, created through previous internal educational reforms. Turkey and Iran survived World War I without being colonized. All these distinct developments, combined with varying internal sociopolitical conditions, led to the emergence of different patterns of educational modernization through-out the Middle East.

In most Middle Eastern countries the process of educational modernization underwent the following identical phases: At the beginning, as an outgrowth of attempts to build up military strength, some selected students were sent to Europe to study modern military technology. The next phase was the founding of a few military and naval engineering schools, to train able military officers or naval engineers. The immense cost of building a new army and navy created a need for a more efficient provincial administration and tax collection. This need led to the third stage of educational modernization: the setting up of schools that aimed to produce well-educated civil servants in order to form an efficient bureaucracy. At the same time, the expansion of basic education was understood as a necessary precondition for socioeconomic development.

At this stage of educational modernization, Middle Eastern countries encountered a crucial problem: the apparent conflict between religious values, represented by traditional education, and secular values, represented by modern schools. Or, considered at the institutional level, the issue can be framed as a conflict between two different school networks. The varying responses to this conflict also represent the different outcomes of educational modernization in Middle Eastern countries. In all Sunni Islamic societies there emerged a movement known as Islamic Modernism, which stressed that Islam and modernity are not mutually exclusive. This movement integrated a sizeable part of the ulama into the process of educational modernization. In the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria the ulama compromised in order to retain a dominant role in the modern school network. Morocco did not experience this issue in terms of a dichotomy: traditional schools and the modern educational network were able to function together, without an apparent conflict. In Shiite Iran, however, Islamic Modernism did not influence the ulama establishment as happened elsewhere. The ulama remained outside of the process of officially directed educational modernization.

The colonization of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco also forced traditional and modern elites to face the conflict between Islam and modernization. In these countries, civil initiatives emerged to develop private school networks devoted to educational modernization and the promotion of Arabo-Islamic culture in the face of an ever more pervasive European colonial cultural presence. The aim was often to integrate Islamic values with the values and goals of secular education.

Another aspect of educational change was the foundation of foreign and missionary school networks. These networks were sponsored either by organizations supported or encouraged by certain European countries, or were created by purely missionary bodies driven by millenarianist or other religious motives. Whatever the motives behind them, these networks were crucial in spreading knowledge of modern foreign languages such as French and English among some urban segments of the Middle Eastern population, and they thus opened channels for the diffusion of modern ideas. At the same time, these networks also created friction and confrontation in the region, either through the breaking up of local Christian communities as a consequence of active proselytizing, or through the introduction of critical reasoning to students, who then began to evaluate their own society and political system in a critical way.

THE OTTOMAN-TURKISH EXPERIENCE

The earliest steps toward educational modernization in the Middle East occurred within the Ottoman lands. Ottoman military decline and territorial vulnerability in the face of rising powers such as Russia and Austria led the Ottoman government to promote modern education for the sake of military modernization. In 1718 through 1719 an Ottoman mission visited France with the aim of acquiring useful information in order to strengthen the empire. One result of this mission was the foundation of the first Turkish printing press in Istanbul (1729). First in 1733, then in 1773, naval engineering schools were opened. With the goal of founding a new army, Selim III (r. 1789–1807) launched the Nizam-i Cedid reforms. To supply this new corps with a body of trained military officers, another military engineering school was instituted in 1795. Following the abolition of the Janissary Corps in 1826, Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) founded the Military Medical School (1827) and the Military Academy (1834).

Educational institutions devoted to raising competent civil administrators emerged from 1821 onward, starting with the Translation Bureau, which was founded to teach European languages to civil servants. In 1839 two primary-level specialized schools were opened with the aim of training future civil servants. These schools offered courses with a worldly perspective, including French language classes. The prevailing conception of educational reform as a tool for raising competent civil servants lasted until 1856. Between 1847 and 1856 a series of secondary-level schools, called rüşdiyye schools, were set up in the main provincial centers of Anatolia and the Balkans. In 1848 the first teachers, seminary was opened. These schools were supervised by the Directorate of Public Schools (1849), which was attached directly to the Sublime Porte.

Primary education, being the core part of public education, was still considered to belong to the realm of religion, and traditional Quranic schools served this purpose. However, the insufficient literacy level of Quranic school graduates became a concern, and the Sublime Porte undertook attempts to reform these institutions. Because Quranic schools were autonomous bodies attached to religious foundations, and also because of the ulama's resistance, these reform attempts proved futile.

The Crimean War (1853–1856) and the admission of the Ottoman Empire into the Concert of Europe led to dramatic legal and social changes. The Reform Edict of 1856 guaranteed full equality to non-Muslim subjects of the empire. This guarantee implied that the traditional division of labor based on religious affiliation ceased to exist and non-Muslims could enter the bureaucracy and army. These developments created a qualitative shift in the prevalent notion of education, from a limited understanding of educational reform to a belief in the necessity of an all-encompassing system of modern public education. The Ministry of Public Education was founded in 1857, and in 1869 the Regulation of Public Education stipulated the setting up of government primary schools (ibtidai schools) and an improved type of secondary school (idadi schools). In 1858 first female rüşdiyye schools were opened in Istanbul, and the Teachers' Seminary for Girls began to function in 1870. Between 1856 and 1871, the ruling elite consisted of secular Ottomanists, who aimed to create one Ottoman nation with a supra-identity encompassing Muslims and non-Muslims. This project, foreseeing the mixed education of Muslim and non-Muslim students, required the secularization of public education. However, this goal was achieved only at the level of higher education (medical schools, engineering schools, various professional schools) and at the elite lycée Mekteb-i Sultânî (1868). The reasons for this limited success included the strong presence of members of the ulama as schoolmasters or instructors at rüşdiyye schools due to the scarcity of competent secular teachers to replace them, the inability to reduce the number of course subjects with an Islamic content, and the reluctance of non-Muslims to send their children to secondary-level government schools.

After 1871 a general political and economic crisis occurred, leading to internal instability as well as separatist revolts in the Balkans. The various diplomatic interventions that ensued led to the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877 to 1878, as a result of which the Ottomans lost a major part of their Balkan possessions. The autocracy of Abdülhamid II (1876–1909) emerged as a reaction against the Ottomanist policies of the past and pursued a policy of Islamicization. Religion was used as an ideological glue to keep Arabs and Albanians loyal to Istanbul. While government schools of all levels expanded throughout the empire, the curricula became a blend of Islamic and natural scientific courses. Similarly, the faculty consisted both of members of the ulama and secular officials. In 1900 Istanbul University was opened.

The Young Turk Revolution (1908) considered the Hamidian attempt to synthesize modernism and Islam a failure and introduced a general secularization of the curricula. The traditional madrasas of Istanbul were reformed into one single modern madrasa, with modern course subjects. In 1924, following the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, all Quranic schools and madrasas were closed down, in realization of the Kemalist principle of the "Unity of Instruction." After 1949 Muslim clergy began to be produced at specialized imam-hatip schools or theological faculties. Late Ottoman ulama with modernist tendencies became members of the theological faculty of Ankara. The prohibition of Sufi orders, however, led their adherents, until recent liberalization, to practice prayers and pursue education in a secret manner.

The crucial characteristics of the Ottoman-Turkish experience are the presence of a strong bureaucracy, the integration of the upper levels of the ulama into the process of educational reform, and the limited direct cultural impact of the West. The number of Ottomans educated in European schools was minimal, and government schools were far from being copies of European counterparts—they were redesigned according to local needs, though perceived as being "European" institutions. In fact, Ottoman elites with modern educations had their own perception of the Western world, and while they tended to consider themselves as being like Westerners, they generally had no close contact with the West. Thus, Ottoman intellectuals were probably more indigenous than they actually realized and did not conceive modernization and Westernization as a colonial experience, in contrast to Egyptian, Algerian and Moroccan elites.

EGYPTIAN, TUNISIAN, AND MOROCCAN REFORMS

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, Egypt's powerful governor, Mehmed Ali Pasha (r. 1805–1849), embarked on a vigorous program of military and economic modernization, with the aim of making his country independent. In 1809 he sent a group of young men to Europe to study the military sciences, and in 1816 a military academy was founded in Cairo. New military schools were set up in Cairo (1820) and also in Aswan and Farshut, near Qina (1822). A printing press was set up in Bulak (1822), and a medical school and hospital were founded in Cairo (1827). These were followed by other technical schools, including a School of Agriculture and Administration (1829), and a language school (1835). Medical institutions and the polytechnical school were founded by Frenchmen in Egyptian service. After 1835 primary-level military schools expanded in the provinces, in Syria in particular. These local schools aimed at producing low-level army officers with basic education to supply the army.

Civil education emerged from the 1840s onward. The first modern civil school was set up in Cairo in 1843, based on the Lancaster system. In 1847 eight new Lancasterian schools were founded in Cairo. However, the new governor, Abbas Hilmi Pasha (r. 1848–1854), closed down these government schools (1849). Following an interval of nearly fourteen years, educational reforms were resumed by Governor İsmail Pasha (r. 1863–1879). In 1863 the Ministry of Education was founded, and the Organic Law of Education (1868) provided a legal framework for the Egyptian primary school network. This law aimed at integrating Quranic schools into the state school system. In 1871 a teachers' seminary was set up to train Al-Azhar madrasa students as government schoolteachers. The first government girls' schools were inaugurated in 1873 and 1874.

After 1882, during the British protectorate period, the expansion of government primary schools reached the village level. Primary schools were established for both sexes. Despite these reform measures, there were only nine higher-level and three secondary government schools in Egypt around 1900; the remaining educational institutions were all either Quranic schools or madrasas. The Egyptian educational system, after 1882, increasingly served British colonial interests. The emerging native Arab Egyptian intelligentsia insisted on the need to found a modern university. Despite British resistance, this project was realized in 1908, in the shape of the University of Cairo.

In contrast to the Ottoman experience, Egyptian reforms are marked by discontinuities, such as the closures in 1849, and the British protectorate period. Also, early reforms were undertaken by a Turko-Circassian ruling elite, who were considered foreigners by the Arab masses. The outcome of these reforms was a division between elite and traditional education. This social cleavage lasted until the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser (1952–1970). Comprehensive reforms covering the majority of Egyptians were only undertaken after 1952. Another contrast to the Turkish experience is the continuing importance of the Al-Azhar madrasa, which is now a full-fledged university. In other words, the ulama still continues to exert its influence in the social and political affairs of Egypt.

In Tunisia, military reforms were launched under the rule of Governor Ahmed Bey (r. 1837–1855). Previously, traditional higher education had been entrusted to the madrasas of Zeytouna and Kairouan. But developments such as modernization efforts in the Ottoman capital, the French threat after the invasion of neighboring Algeria (1830), and the Ottoman occupation of Tripolitania (in Libya, 1835) forced the Tunisian ruling elite to undertake efforts to modernize its army. In 1840 a military academy, the first modern school in Tunisia, was opened in Bardo. Early graduates of this school later played a considerable role in the modernization of Tunisia. In 1860 the first printing press was set up. During the government of Khaireddin Pasha (1873–1877) Quranic schools were taken under centralized government supervision with the aim of reforming them into modern primary schools (1874). In 1875 a civil high school, the Collège Sadeqi, was founded. This high school adopted the French lycée curriculum, and the language of instruction was French.

The French occupation of Tunisia in 1881 and the declaration of a French protectorate created a discontinuity in educational reform. Though the local government continued to exist, it was not in a position anymore to initiate reformist steps. From 1896 onward, reform initiatives emerged from civil society groups. The factors that compelled educational initiatives from below were twofold. On the one hand, the acceleration of French cultural influence among the Tunisian urban elites was reinforced through the Collège Sadeqi, the expansion of French schools, and the Jewish Alliance Israélite Universelle network. Muslim graduates of these institutions seemed increasingly to become alienated from the Arab-Islamic culture, which, under the French protectorate, appeared to face the threat of extinction. At the same time, traditional madrasas proved incapable of reforming their curricula and pedagogical methods.

A group of Tunisian intellectuals with modernist Islamic tendencies founded the cultural association Jâmia al-Khaldûniyya (1896). This association, in contrast to the fully-French Collège Sadeqi or the traditional Zaytuna madrasa, offered Arabic-language courses on natural sciences and modern subjects. This initiative was followed by other similar non-governmental ventures, which offered courses to adults on practical subjects such as mathematics or hygiene, opened special classes to expand literacy, and organized public lectures in Arabic or French on scientific topics, literature, and history. They also provided scholarships to students who aimed to further their education in France. In the 1930s the Jâmia al-Khaldüniyya already had become a full-fledged educational network of its own, reaching from primary-level schools to college-level courses and issuing graduation diplomas; it also provided industrial education and literacy classes for adults. In 1946 the Jâmia al-Khaldûniyya included institutes for Islamic studies, law, and philosophy. Following the full independence of Tunisia in 1957, this institution was replaced by the University of Tunis. The Zaytuna madrasa was reformed into a modern theological university.

Tunisia suffered from colonial disruption more severely than did Egypt. While previously created modern schools such as the Collège Sadeqi continued to function, French authorities did not allow local government to take further reform initiatives. As a consequence, civilian Tunisians had to launch educational initiatives, which proved to be successful. This success even over-shadowed the Collège Sadeqi as well as traditional madrasas. Similarly to what had occurred in Turkey, it provided a basis for President Habib Bourguiba to declare an educational policy based on the "Unity of Instruction" and to institute the reformation of traditional schools. The ulama in modern Tunisia, as in Turkey and in contrast to Egypt, does not have any political influence.

Morocco under Sharifi rule emerged as a territorial state with relatively stable borders, but it was unable to establish a fully functioning centralized bureaucracy and impose its authority over tribes. The lack of a comprehensive countrywide civil administration prevented the development of a government-initiated school system. From the 1840s onward, European intervention in Morocco became frequent, and European educational activities in Morocco increased. The first modern schools in Morocco were foreign schools, initiated by Franciscans, Protestant missionaries, and the Alliance Israélite Universelle. As a reaction to these developments, Moroccan elites began to promote the revitalization of Islamic society by reemphasizing Islamic values, while accepting useful European innovations.

During the reign of Sidi Muhammad bin Abd ar Rahman (r. 1859–1873) steps were taken to reform the existing madrasas. Subjects such as mathematics, engineering, and astronomy were introduced, even though at a basic level. In 1865 the first printing press was set up in Fez. Religious scholars were sent as students to schools in Paris, Cairo, Mecca, and Istanbul for modern education. Similar policies were continued by Moulay Hasan I (1873–1894), and those scholars who returned from abroad were offered government posts. But these measures were not accompanied by steps such as founding modern government schools.

The French protectorate over Morocco (1912–1956) did not pursue a policy of destroying traditional public institutions, but rather of developing more powerful French institutions alongside the traditional Moroccan ones. Thus, traditional Moroccan education, supported by religious foundations, and the two major madrasas remained intact. Traditional scholars, graduated from these madrasas, were indispensable as intermediaries between French officials and rural notables. Meanwhile, for the children of Moroccan elites, the colonial administration built new schools that were the exact copies of French institutions. Graduates of these schools were offered positions in colonial administration. This development destroyed the public esteem of the madrasas. In the 1920s some Moroccan intellectuals set up "Free Schools." This was a significant development in terms of the emergence of a local movement pressing for educational modernization. These institutions, which were independent of French-controlled schools, applied modern pedagogical methods, included modern subjects, and taught in the Arabic language. But these schools failed to become influential within Moroccan society and could not compete with the French-controlled schools. As a consequence, a new generation of Moroccan elites arose during the French protectorate that was educated in, and experienced modernity through, the French language.

A national school system was established in Morocco only following its independence (1956). Due to the predominance of French linguistic influence, national education initially was provided mainly in the French language. On the other hand, Quranic schools and madrasas continued to use Arabic as the medium of instruction. From 1968 onward, Quranic schools were reformed through the inclusion of modern subjects into their curriculum. Madrasas have acquired the function of special religious colleges. At present, both French and Arabic are used as languages of instruction in secondary as well as higher education.

Morocco, in contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, was never an Ottoman province. However, the weakness of central authority hindered any indigenous steps toward educational modernization. Because educational modernization appeared first through foreign schools, then through French colonial institutions, modern culture in Morocco became Francophone. During the protectorate period, civil educational initiatives to promote the use of the Arabic language remained a failure. On the other hand, traditional schools and madrasas enjoyed continuity, despite some curricular and institutional reforms. At present, members of the ulama still act as kadis for legal issues concerning personal status. Overall, Morocco represents a model of educational reform in which revolutionary modernization has not taken place, but instead evolutionary development.

ALGERIAN MODERNIZATION

In contrast to Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco, Algeria did not "enjoy" protectorate status but was subjected to direct colonization. The cultural agenda of France was to turn the country into a "French Algeria." The main obstacle to this agenda was the institution of Islam. Thus, the long-term French policy became to eliminate Islam, and to settle Algeria with French colons. As the traditional school system deteriorated, either due to negligence or the hostility of the French administration, Algerians traveled to Tunisia or Morocco for their education. Tunisia's madrasas offered religious and other kinds of instruction to students and scholars from Algeria. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Tunis functioned as a publishing center for Algerian scholars seeking to print religious works, which French-controlled printing presses in Algeria did not allow. The French administration founded a modern school system for French colons, the University of Algiers (1881). Muslims were initially only allowed to enter primary schools, and later secondary schools in certain specified towns.

One reaction to this cultural subjugation was a tendency among Suf is toward withdrawal from worldly life. As a consequence new Sufi orders, such as the Rahmaniyya, emerged. During the second half of the nineteenth century convents of this order (e.g., Tulqa Zawiya, Al-Hamil), located in the remote south, became important educational centers. Not only religious and mystical subjects were taught, but also courses on natural sciences. At Al-Hamil in particular, hundreds of students and scholars engaged in educational activities. Funding for these schools derived largely from the donations of the thousands of pilgrims who traveled to see the convent sheikhs each year.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century colonial rule in Algeria became more tolerant, as new francophone Muslim generations emerged. In 1894 the Association of Francophone Muslims was founded, with the aim of promoting Arabic culture. In these years Arabic works on the history of Algeria began to appear, and a bilingual newspaper was published. Thanks to these improved conditions, the reformist ulama of Algeria began to organize themselves. In 1931 Abdülhamid bin Badis founded the Association of the Algerian Muslim Ulama with the aim of reforming Islamic education in line with the principles of Islamic modernism. This association set up a network of reformed madrasas. Similarly, another organization, the People's Party, set up madrasas devoted to popular education. French colonial authorities did their best to prevent these movements, but in 1947 they were forced to acknowledge Arabic as the language of education. These madrasas were crucial in developing Algerian national consciousness, and the ulama cooperated closely with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) organization.

Following independence in 1962, Algeria became a socialist country. The leaders of the FLN were staunch secularists, which led to the dissolution of the Association of the Algerian Muslim Ulama and the prohibition of Sufi orders. In this respect Algeria followed the examples of Turkey and Tunisia, and the policy of "Unity of Instruction" was applied. The French colonial presence of more than a century left a strong linguistic imprint on Algeria. Not surprisingly, French continued to serve as a language of instruction along with Arabic. In order to overcome this colonial legacy, a policy of Arabization was applied to public education. Due to the lack of qualified Arabic-speaking teachers, instructors were imported from other Arab countries, particularly Egypt. By the year 2000, all institutions of higher learning had adopted Arabic as the language of instruction.

Among all Middle Eastern countries, it was Algeria that experienced colonialism to the most intensive degree. For Paris, Algeria was not a colony, but a core region of France. Prior to independence, numerous well-educated Algerians came to consider themselves Muslim French citizens. This phenomenon represented a crisis of identity among Algeria's urban strata. Indeed it was the traditional Sufi orders and the ulama who resisted French cultural domination and established alternative educational institutions. By the time Algeria became independent, the language of the urban population had become French. It is questionable to what extent the program of forced Arabization has really succeeded. Islamism rather than Arabism seems to have become the national identity of Algerians, as the developments of the last decade have shown.

IRANIAN EXPERIENCE

As with the Ottomans, modernization efforts in Iran were conditioned by military defeats at the hands of Russians (1803–1815). But in Iran these steps were taken by a provincial government and not by the central authority (the Qajar regime, 1797–1925). The governor of Azerbaijan, crown prince Abbas Mirza, launched military reforms from 1807 to 1815, with the help of French, then British experts. However, these efforts did not include the foundation of schools. This same governor sent students to Britain for technical education (in 1811 and 1815). One of these students set up a printing press in Tabriz and published the first Iranian newspaper (1837).

The first centrally initiated military reforms were undertaken during the reign of Mohammad Shah (r. 1834–1848). In 1836 British officers were engaged to form a new Iranian army. Between 1843 and 1847 new students were sent to European countries for training in a variety of technical fields. Amir Kabir, the reformist prime minister serving under Naser al-Din Shah (r. 1848–1896), hoped to establish an efficient bureaucracy, staffed by well-educated civil servants. Thus, he took the major step of setting up a modern higher educational institution. His polytechnic school (Dar al-Fonun, 1851) was the first educational institution outside Shiite ulama control. Instructors were brought from Austria and Italy, and the language of instruction was French. The school offered courses ranging from military sciences to medicine. In 1860 the Ministry of Sciences—a forerunner of the Ministry of Education—was founded. Between 1851 and 1870 the number of Iranians studying abroad increased. During the period of 1870 to 1875, three specialized secondary schools were established to produce civil and military officials. But outside these ventures there was no state policy of setting up a system of modern public education, in contrast to the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.

This educational void was filled, to a very marginal extent, by foreign and missionary schools. French, American Protestant, and Jewish school networks were visited by Iranian students. Modern education for the wider Iranian public was provided for the first time by these institutions. The lack of modern public schools was strongly felt by the Iranian intelligentsia, and from 1888 onward civil initiatives emerged to found modern private schools, in Tabriz, Tehran, and Mashhad. The institutions that resulted were modeled after the Ottoman rüşdiyye schools, but met fierce ulama resistance, even to the level of physical violence. During the more liberal reign of Muzaffar al-Din Shah (r. 1896–1906), the civil organization Society for Education (1897) coordinated the increasing number of private schools. Due to the lack of a teachers' seminary and textbooks, many of the teachers and much of the teaching material was provided by the Alliance Française, and at some schools the language of instruction was French.

The Qajar period was characterized by a weak administrative infrastructure and lack of centralization. As a consequence, centrally coordinated reforms aimed at developing public education were not initiated. It was only under the authoritarian modernist regime of the Pahlavis (1925–1979) that all provinces were incorporated into an administrative network. A modern public school network was set up during the reign of Reza Shah (r. 1925–1941) and expanded under the rule of Mohammed Reza Shah (r. 1925–1979). The University of Tehran was founded in 1934.

The Shiite ulama was not incorporated into this process of modernization and remained as a social body apart from the officially directed developments. Though their official role within Iranian society was diminished as a consequence of administrative, legal, judicial, and educational reforms, the ulama stratum still continued to exist. In fact, between 1941 and 1961, Mohammed Reza Shah was anxious to keep good relations with the senior members of the clergy. During this period the city of Qum became the main center of religious education (hawza). Shaikh Abdülkerim Khairî in the 1920s and 1930s, and Ayatollah Burujerdî between 1946 and 1961 promoted the development and reformation of the madrasas of Qum. Burujerdî supported a school network, with primary and secondary levels, in which religious as well as secular subjects were taught. This network was directed by Association of Islamic Education. As a consequence, educational life in Iran remained deeply divided, as there was no meaningful relationship between the two alternative school networks.

The cordial relationship between the shah and the ulama broke down with the White Revolution (1963). The most important element of this series of reforms was land reform. Huge tracts of land, until then under the control of religious foundations, were taken over by the state authority. Thus madrasas lost their financial basis. Simultaneously, madrasas were put under political pressure, and many of them were closed down. The ulama lost its control over madrasas, which were handed over to the secular Organization of Endowments. These developments may seem to be similar to the closure of the madrasas in Turkey (1924). However, the Ottoman madrasas had already lost their raison d'être due to institutional decay throughout the previous century, and the Turkish ulama had, to a major extent, been incorporated into the public school system. In the Iranian case, however, the ulama emerged as a major source of discontent and opposition. Due to the close ties between the ulama and the conservative community and merchant stratum (bazarîs), the Shiite clergy was able to present itself as the representative of the masses, in opposition to the Shah and his administration.

see also Islamic Modernism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arasteh, A.Reza. Education and Social Awakening in Iran, 1850–1968. Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1969.

Clancy-Smith, Julia Ann. Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800–1904). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Heyworth-Dunne, J. An Introduction to the History of Education in Modern Egypt. London: Luzac & Co., 1938.

Eickelman, Dale F. Knowledge and Power in Morocco: The Education of a Twentieth-Century Notable. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Fortna, Benjamin C. Imperial Classroom. Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Irbouh, Hamid. Art in the Service of Colonialism: French Art Education in Morocco, 1912–1956. New York: Tauris, 2005.

Kazamias, Andreas M. Education and the Quest for Modernity in Turkey. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966.

Léon, Antoine. Colonisation, enseignement et éducation: étude historique et comparative. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1991.

Mitchell, Timothy. Colonizing Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Nucho, Leslie S., ed. Education in the Arab World. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: Amideast, 1993.

Ringer, Monica M. Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran. Costa Meza, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2001.

Sayadi, Mongi. La première association nationale moderne en Tunisie: al-Jam'iyya al-Khaldunniya (1896–1958). Tunis: Maison Tunisienne de l'Édition, 1975.

Somel, Selçuk Akşin. The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire 1839–1908. Islamization, Autocracy and Discipline. Köln: Brill, 2001.