7 - The Indonesian Madrasah: Islamic Reform and Modernization of Indonesian Islam in the Twentieth Century

Summary

The madrasah is one of the important Islamic educational institutions in Indonesia. Emerging in the late nineteenth century, in the early period of its development the madrasah tended to compete with the Dutch education offered by the colonial government and became a symbol of Islamic reform. The madrasah is an Islamic institution of education which teaches both Islamic and secular subjects, uses a grading system, and offers a certificate to its graduates. In the Indonesian context, the madrasah is located between the pesantren and sekolah (public school). According to the Ministry of Religious Affairs (Education Management and Information System (EMIS, 2003), the number of madrasahs in Indonesia is 37,363. They have 5,698,143 students. This chapter discusses the madrasah and the influence of the educational policy of the Indonesian state on its development. It deals with the negotiating process between people representing madrasah education and the state about the time allocated to secular subjects in the curriculum and draws attention to the emergence of salafi madrasahs and the Sekolah Islam (Islamic School) in recent years.

INDONESIAN ISLAMIC REFORM AND MADRASAH

In the late nineteenth century, Indonesian Islam began to create a new centre of learning later called madrasah. The emergence of the Indonesian madrasah cannot be separated from two important events. The first one is the Dutch Government policy to build modern schools, volkscholen, which were designed to provide basic education for indigenous Indonesians, in line with the changing colonial policy that began to be concerned with the welfare of the people of the Netherlands Indies, the Ethical Policy. The second concerns the Islamic reform movement that emerged in Indonesia as a result of intensive contacts between Muslims in Indonesia and the Middle East (Van der Mehden 1993; Azra 2004). The growing number of Indonesians who performed the pilgrimage and studied in Mecca and Cairo is one good example to indicate the close relation and interaction between the two regions. Such a connection encourages cultural exchanges between Indonesia and the Middle East.