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Middle East Review of International Affairs
Moving From Salafi to Rationalist Education
by Lafif Lakhdar
*
Abstract
How Islam is taught to students—especially those preparing to be future important clerics—is an issue drawing increasing scrutiny. This article shows the sharp contrast between the methods used in Tunisia and those employed in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It includes a large portion of the student guide to courses and readings used in the Tunisian Islamic university as well as an exam given therein to demonstrate practical ways of teaching moderate interpretations of Islam.
Full Text (PDF, 15 pages, 94.6 KB)
Note *: Lafif Lakhdar was born to a family of poor peasants in Tunisia in 1934. He attended al-Zaitouna University, then the Law Faculty. A lawyer between 1957 and 1961. He worked in Algeria with that country’s first president Ahmad Bin Bella. Leaving after Bin Bella was overthrown in a coup, he lived mainly in Amman and Beirut where he published a number of books whose main theme was the critique of traditional religious thought. During this period, he was very close to the Palestinian movements and especially to Nayef Hawatmeh of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He left Beirut in the mid- 1970s and has been living in Paris ever since.