Palange, Alessandra; (2022) Islamic education and activism in theory and practice: the case of two online e-learning institutes. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The thesis explores the teaching of Islam online, particularly how Islamic educators formulate political ideas in online learning spaces. The research focused on the biography of the Prophet (sīra) classes at two Islamic institutes dedicated to teaching Islam to adult Muslims online. Inspired by critical discourse analysis and grounded theory methodologies, this study explores the audio lectures and other relevant learning resources over a one-year period. This investigation set out to identify the interpretative strategies employed in these online lectures, that is, how the instructors connect the origins of Islam with contemporary social and political issues to inform contemporary practice. It also aimed to provide a reflection on how different methodological approaches to the study of Islam impact on the potential for political imagination. In the Islamic e-learning contexts, the instructors were critical of a range of epistemological and political ideas and sought to re-conceptualise these ideas using their understanding of normative Islam. The two online instructors often expressed similar concerns about, for example, defining the role of critical thinking, the modern sciences, premodern Islamic scholarship, contemporary Muslim education, and activism. The lecture content at times relied on ambiguity to coherently incorporate opposing ideas: critical thinking and obedience, political activism and quietism, religious pluralism and supremacy, and democracy and autocracy. In both contexts, despite some differences, activism was defined as daʿwa (commonly translated as Islamic propagation but employed in the online lectures to refer to the education of Muslims) and ʿibāda (worship – particularly its public expressions). Because of the association of Islamic education with daʿwa and activism, the research findings suggest that the practice of education is perceived as instrumental to the construction of an epistemic hierarchy that informs ideas about social, economic and theological justice and a theory of social change inspired by the Prophet’s life.

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