Form and Content

The goals of contemporary religious education at the primary level are set out in the introduction to the first grade religion textbook, which reminds teachers that “religious education [al-tarbiya al-diniyya] is not material restricted to classrooms, but rather is a complete life curriculum, including the classroom milieu with all its activities and information and knowledge. It also includes the home environment, and society as a whole.” ^[11]

The classroom portion of this curriculum has several distinct goals: the planting (ghars) of Islamic morals and values in the psyche of the child, along with a grasp of the five pillars of Islam; the development of faith in God; acquainting the child with the biography of the Prophet; memorization of some verses and suras of the Qur’an; and knowledge and practice of the process of ablution and prayer. The authors explain that religion is related to other school subjects “like the Arabic language or science,” and that their selection of Qur’anic extracts “benefit[s] from the fact that the Qur’an can be understood at many levels.” They highlight a variety of instructional methods like the use of pictures and drawings, which help impart the meaning of abstract concepts and make the process of learning more enjoyable and attractive, “increasing [the pupil's] desire to learn.” ^[12] And finally, they draw attention to two developmental and social issues:

The importance of satisfying the needs of the pupil in this grade level for freedom in expressing his abilities and his reliance on what he touches and sees and hears at this stage of his life, and [his] proper response to life situations at home and in school and in society. [And] the importance of the social environment in which the pupil lives, in such a way that religious education has a role in the advancement and development of this milieu [tarqiyya tilka al-bi’a wa tanmiyyatiha].^[13]

These themes are carried through in texts for the higher grades, which provide pupils with “Islamic religious information appropriate to their ages, springing forth from the glorious Qur’an and the noble traditions of the Prophet.” ^[14] These later books emphasize proper public recitation (tilawa) of Qur’anic extracts and urge teachers to have students memorize and explain designated passages, “extracti[ng]…the values and principles to which they point.” ^[15] Finally, they direct that children be taught diligence in their work, compassion for others and good manners in public places, for adab is part of “an integrated view of Islamic education that presents the meaning of Qur’anic verses and Prophetic traditions…through life situations” familiar to the child.^[16]

By the end of the fifth grade, the industrious Egyptian schoolchild will have read hundreds of pages about Islam in her textbooks, memorizing most of them for repetition on year-end examinations. Teachers and principals place a great deal of confidence in their students' ability to memorize, a fact I learned firsthand, with a great deal of embarrassment, at the Nasr School, when I asked if they had spare copies of the textbooks. Pulling all but the fifth grade book out of a storage cabinet, Mme. Hala told me they didn't seem to have an extra there, but she knew where to get one. Leaving the room, she returned with the book two minutes later. Unlike the others, this one was well-worn and covered inside with penciled notes. She had simply gone to the fifth grade room and asked who had finished memorizing their book already, choosing one student among the three that raised their hand. Horrified, I insisted that she return the book to the student, who would certainly need it to study. “No,” she replied, pointing at her head, “she's already knows the whole thing.” She refused to let me return it.

The religion textbooks contain five broad categories of content: Qur’an and hadith; qawa‘id al-islam (the pillars of Islam); usul al-din (theology); sira (biographies of the prophets and famous Muslims); and adab (rules for behavior in public and private). These are crosscut by different media of presentation. Texts make use of direct quotations from the Qur’an and hadith; tafsir (consisting of definitions, explanations and clarifications of Qur’anic or traditional material in the voice of the text's authors); durus (sing. dars; or lessons, narrative presentations of material in the voice of the text's authors); anashid (sing. nashid; poems, songs, or recitations to be repeated aloud in unison); munaqashat (questions or topics for discussion); tadribat (activities such as matching exercises); tamthilat (short plays or dialogues for students to read or act out); and finally, pictures and drawings.

Most lessons use more than one format, combining pictures with narratives, discussion questions and anashid, for example. Pictures are meant to stimulate discussion or to be used as part of an exercise, but occasionally serve merely an illustrative function. Qur’an and hadith are both subject matter and media because each book contains, in addition to verses cited to illustrate the point of a lesson or ground it in scripture, a section of Qur’an to be memorized by the student for its own sake.

Table 3 shows the proportion of space devoted to each of the five subject categories in the primary-level religion textbooks used during the 1988–89 school year.^[17] While the space allotted to basic theology and Prophetic biography rises and falls unpredictably throughout the years, the remaining categories show more definite trends. That devoted to Qur’an, hadith, and adab increases fourfold between the first and the fifth grades, while the volume taken up by the pillars of Islam declines by more than 60 percent. Including longer passages from the Qur’an is a function of the child's growing capacity for recitation and memory work, while moving from basic elements of faith and worship to the application of Muslim values to life reflects the growing importance of explicit moral training as children enter their second seven years of life and begin facing responsibility for proper behavior and the performance of religious duties.