islamic education

The Art of Memory:Islamic Education and itsSocial ReproductionDALE F. EICKELMAN

New York University

Far from being immutable, humanity is in fact involved in an interminable processof evolution, disintegration and reconstruction; far from being a unity, it is in factinfinite in its variety, with regard to both time and place. Nor do I mean simply thatexternal forms of life vary. . . . Rather I mean that the fundamental substance of[men's] way of conceiving the world and conducting themselves in it is in a constantstate of flux, which itself varies from place to place (Durkheim 1977: 324).

The study of education can be to complex societies what the study ofreligion has been to societies variously characterized by anthropologists as'simple,' 'cold' or 'elementary.' Recognizing this potential, sociologists andsocial anthropologists have recently indicated a renewed interest in thestudy of how schooling, especially higher education, implicitly defines andtransmits a culturally valued cognitive style, 'a set of basic, deeply interior-ized master-patterns' of language and thought on the basis of which otherpatterns are subsequently acquired (Bourdieu 1967: 343; see also Cole,Gay, Glick and Sharp 1971). To place such a concern in the context of moretraditional anthropological interests, Bourdieu compares the cognitivestyle implicitly learned at the Sorbonne to that transmitted by Bororoelders. He sees the verbal manoeuvres learned by students in preparing forthe lecon at the Sorbonne as furnishing 'a model of the "right" mode ofintellectual activity' for the French context. The dualistic method of thelecon, in which the traditional 'two views' on any subject are established, is

I wish to thank Jon Anderson, Thomas O. Beidelman, Karen Blu, Christine Eickelman,Clifford Geertz, Raymond Grew, Roy P. Mottahedeh, Najmi Muhammad and Martin Trowfor comments on an earlier version of this paper, written in 1976-77 at the Institute forAdvanced Study, Princeton. Field research in Morocco from October 1968 to June 1970 andin the summers of 1973 and 1976 was made possible by grants from the Social ScienceResearch Council. With the exception of titles of books, the transliteration is of colloquialMoroccan Arabic. Arabic names and terms are generally transliterated in full upon their firstoccurrence only. Unless otherwise noted, only the singular form of Arabic glosses is indicated,with -s added for plurals. The phrase 'the art of memory' in the title is borrowed from Yates(1966), the most thorough discussion of the implications of 'mnemonic culture' in theEuropean context of which I am aware.

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subsequently applied to the discussion of a wide range of intellectualproblems to the exclusion of alternative, less culturally valued approaches.Bourdieu compares this cognitive style to Bororo cosmology as interpretedby their dominant elders to form the pattern for the dualistic spatial layoutof their villages and the distribution of their houses (Bourdieu 1967:338-39, 350).

Bourdieu characterizes the cognitive style learned at the Sorbonne andthat of Bororo elders to be equally 'formal and fictitious' (1967: 339). Hisuse of these terms carries significant implications for one of the principalproblems of the sociology of knowledge, that of how symbolic represen-tations of the world are related to the social order. For Bourdieu, there is noinherent relation between a specific pattern of thought and the socialcontexts in which it is found. Each may be in a significant tension with theother, but never fully congruent. This notion of 'fictitiousness' stands insharp contrast to an anthropological tradition, still very much alive, whichpresumes a direct, one-to-one correlation between ideology and socialaction (e.g., Durkheim 1915; Mauss 1966; Evans-Pritchard 1940; Lien-hardt 1967; Douglas 1973).

However questionable such an assumption of correspondence may bewhen applied to 'simple' societies, it is decidedly inadequate when appliedto those which are complex, internally differentiated and historicallyknown (Eickelman 1977a,b). Emile Durkheim clearly recognized this in hislargely neglected Evolution of Educational Thought (1977), which is why Irefer to a renewed interest in the study of education. Durkheim's other,more widely known studies on education stress primarily its integrative, or'correspondence' aspects. The analysis in Evolution, in contrast, suggests a'nether' side of Durkheim's thought which has been largely ignored untilrecently because it was out of step with prevailing sociological currents(Cherkaoui 1976).1 Durkheim argues in this study that changes in ideas ofknowledge in complex societies and the means by which such ideas aretransmitted result from continual struggles among competing groupswithin society, each of which seeks domination or influence. Durkheimconsidered educational systems, like other social institutions, to be tied toprevailing social structures, but did not regard such ties as determinate.Thus the forms of knowledge shaped and conveyed in educational systemsare partially autonomous and must be considered in relation to the socialdistribution of power. Such assumptions have only recently been taken upin the study of specific educational systems (e.g., Bourdieu 1973; Bourdieuand Passeron 1977; Young 1971; Bernstein 1977: 174-200; Colonna 1975).

The purpose of this article is to explore the alternatives to 'correspon-1 The fact that Evolution was the last of Durkheim's major works to be translated into

English is indicative of its neglect, as is the omission of all reference to it in E.K. Wilson'sintroduction to the English translation of Moral Education (1973).

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dence' theory through the description and analysis of the cognitive style ofIslamic learning, the institutions of higher learning, and the social contextof both, as they existed in Marrakesh in the 1920s and 1930s, just before theeffective collapse of traditional educational institutions there. The rela-tively sudden decline of traditional higher learning in Morocco during thisperiod makes it a particularly appropriate setting for considering thespecific, and variable, links between concepts of knowledge, the institu-tional context in which such concepts are conveyed, and the adaptation tochange of each of these elements. In particular, Islamic education aspracticed in Morocco was in some ways intermediate between oral andwritten systems of transmission of knowledge. Its key treatises existed inwritten form but were conveyed orally, to be written down and memorizedby students. This article considers how the 'intellectual technology,' orforms of transmission of knowledge available in a society shape andaccommodate social and cultural change. By so doing, ways are suggestedfurther to refine the debate over the 'great divide' in modes of thought, orcognitive styles, between societies which possess systems of writing andthose which do not (Goody 1968, 1977).

A complementary goal, one which I hope justifies the 'thick' description(Geertz 1973) in which my argument is necessarily presented, is to place thecomparative study of higher education in a broader context than that ofEurope and North America, the locus of most such studies (e.g., Stone1974). With the expansion of European hegemony over most of the worldin the last two centuries, non-Western institutions of higher learning havetended to collapse or to be eclipsed by their Western-based counterparts, sothat comparative studies dealing with non-European institutional formshave necessarily been relegated to social historical analyses (e.g., Weber1958:416^4; Wilkinson 1964, 1969; Dore 1965). The study presented hereis no exception, but because it deals with a relatively recent period it hasbeen possible to complement printed and manuscript sources with inten-sive interviews of persons in the milieu of traditional learning in the 1920sand 1930s. These interviews have been especially important in the Islamiccontext. The principal written sources, including teaching licenses (ijdza-s)and traditional biographies and autobiographies of men of learning, followhighly stylized conventions which themselves are a product of Islamiceducation. These conventions severely limit the information which suchsources convey concerning how the eductional process actually worked, nomatter how thorough their analysis (e.g., Makdisi 1961).

ISLAMIC EDUCATION: RECENT POLITICAL AND HISTORICALCONTEXTS

Although the exact timing of decisive European influence has varied,traditional Islamic education had been drastically altered in most regions

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from the time of Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798. For this reason it isimportant to specify the historical context in which such education isdescribed. In some cases, such as Algeria, the colonial power deliberatelydestroyed the financial base of Islamic education so that by the 1880s allthat remained of higher education was a few schools of poor quality.Because the graduates of such schools were ill prepared to assume positionsof significance in colonial Algerian society, Islamic education was increas-ingly regarded by Algerian Muslims themselves as inferior to that providedby the French in official colonial schools (Colonna 1975).

In other countries Islamic education was not so directly undermined inthe nineteenth century. Yet the establishment of European-style institu-tions, at first only for specialized military training but rapidly expanding inscope, had an equivalent detrimental impact. Such schools quicklyattracted students of the more privileged social strata and other moreambitious students, generally leaving Islamic schools to those of a modestand rural origin (e.g., Reid 1977: 351, 357). To meet the threat of European-style institutions, many centers of Islamic learning were compelled tointroduce such Western devices as formal curricula, new subjects, entranceand course examinations, formally appointed faculties, and budgets sub-ject to external governmental control. Such 'organization' (nizdm)—use ofterms implying 'reform' was deliberately avoided—was imposed upon thefamous Azhar mosque-university of Cairo between 1872 and 1896 (Armin-jon 1907: 13-48; Heyworth-Dunne 1968: 395-405). Earlier in the century,as a means of weakening the political strength of Islamic men of learning{'dlim; pi. 'ulamd) in Egypt, the revenues from pious endowments uponwhich Islamic education depended had already been undermined (Hourani1970: 52). Consequently, descriptions of 'reformed' institutions cannot betaken as reliable indicators of the nature of Islamic education prior to'organization' or 'modernization,' although such studies provide signifi-cant insight into the contradictions involved in attempts at reform (e.g.,Fischer 1976).

In contrast, until recently Islamic education in Morocco survived rela-tively intact. The 'organization' of the Qarawiyln mosque-university in Fezoccurred under French auspices in 1931 while the counterpart of theQarawiyin in Marrakesh, the Yusufiya mosque-university, was only sub-ject to 'organization' in 1939.2 Moreover, those few Moroccan students

2 A number of excellent ethnographic accounts depict higher education in Morocco atvarious periods from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. These include Delphin(1889); Peretie (1912); Michaux-Bellaire (1911); Marty (1924); Berque (1938, 1949, 1958,1974); 'Uthman (1935); and (indirectly) as-Susi (1961). As for studies elsewhere, Islamiceducation without competing institutional forms survived in the Yemen until the 1950s, but todate there are no published anthropological or social historical accounts available. SnouckHurgronje (1931: 153-212) provides a brief but valuable ethnographic account of highereducation in Mecca in 1884-85. For a general bibliographical survey of sources on Islamiceducation, see Waardenburg (1974).


sent to Europe in the nineteenth century returned to find themselves largelyignored and isolated; instead, the needs of an expanding precolonialgovernment were met by drawing upon those educated at the Qarawiyin orthe Yusufiya (Burke 1976: 218), leading to a temporary reinvigoration ofthese institutions. Similarly, the colonial administrations established byboth the French and the Spanish in 1912 were based upon an indirect rulewhich at first drew heavily upon the traditionally educated elite to fill theranks of the judiciary, to implement the rural tax, and to act as scribes inother sections of the local and central administrations.

Despite the sudden decline of the mosque-universities in the 1930s, manyindividuals who were students in this period are still socially and politicallyactive as a 'secondary elite' (Mosca 1939)—those who allow the rulers torule.3 The social networks of influence and patronage formed in part bysuch persons have remained relatively intact. This is particularly the casefor Marrakesh and its hinterland, where former Yusufiya students con-tinue to exercise an administrative, political and economic hegemony(Leveau 1976:93, 116).

THE ART OF MEMORY: THE IDEA OF ISLAMIC KNOWLEDGE

The cultural idea of religious knowledge has remained remarkably con-stant over time throughout the regions of Islamic influence. Writing specifi-cally of medieval Islamic civilization, Marshall Hodgson states that educa-tion was 'commonly conceived as the teaching of fixed and memorizablestatements and formulas which could be learned without any process ofthinking as such' (1974: 438; italics mine, D.E.). The last phrase raises thecrucial issue of the meaning of 'understanding' associated with such aconcept of knowledge. The 'static and finite sum of statements' (Hodgson1974:438) conveyed by education constitutes the religious sciences ('Urn; pi.'ulum), the totality of knowledge and technique necessary in principle for aMuslim to lead the fullest possible religious life. They also constitute themost culturally valued knowledge (cf. Rosenthal 1970). The paradigm ofall such knowledge is the Quran, considered by Muslims literally to be theword of God; its accurate memorization in one or more of the sevenconventional recitational forms is the first step in mastering the religioussciences. 'Mnemonic domination' (malaka l-hifd)* the memorization ofkey texts just as the Quran is memorized, is also the starting point for themastery of the religious sciences. To facilitate this task, most of the

3 The terms 'primary' and 'secondary' elite in this context refer to function rather than to anyorganized group or class. The primary elite is today almost exclusively constituted byMoroccans bilingual in French and Arabic.

4 This is the contextual meaning of the term among contemporary Moroccan men oflearning. In other sociohistorical contexts its meaning differs. For instance, in psychologicaltreatises of the 'A bbasid period the term implies'the faculty of memory.' I am grateful to RoyMottahedeh for pointing out this alternative usage.

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standard treatises used by Moroccan men of learing are written in rhymedverse.

Historians and sociologists have tended to take at face value the ideolo-gical claim in Islam of the fixed nature of religious knowledge. Conse-quently, not much attention has been given to a more critical analysis ofhow such a system of knowledge is affected by its mode of transmission andits linkages with other aspects of society. Thus, educated Muslims considerall bodies of knowledge which elucidate the 'high words' (kldm 'dlya) of theQuran and the traditions of the Prophet to comprise the religious sciences.Normatively speaking, the emphasis in transmitting this knowledge isconservational, especially in Morocco. Even Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) notedthat the role of memory was stressed more in Morocco than elsewhere inthe Islamic Middle East. It took sixteen years to acquire sufficient masteryof texts to teach on one's own in Morocco, owing to the necessity ofmemorization, but only five in Tunis (Ibn Khaldun 1967: II, 430-31).Given this emphasis, it is not surprising that contemporary Muslim andEuropean scholars have expressed the most extreme opinions about Mor-occan traditional education. Writing with a firsthand knowledge of theQarawiyin of sixty years ago, a distinguished French historian and Arabistnoted the 'astonishing' (to a European) domestication of the memoryinvolved in Islamic higher education. He claimed that it deadened thestudent's sense of inquiry to the point that the knowledge and comport-ment of twentieth-century men of learning could be assumed 'without fearof anachronism' to be exact replicas of their predecessors of four centuriesearlier (Levi-Provengal 1922: 11). More recently, a Western scholar haswritten of the 'stifling dullness' of Islamic education (L.C. Brown 1972: 31)and another, indicating perhaps an impatience with the unfamiliar princi-ples upon which traditional Islamic education is based, claims that it 'defiesall [sic] pedagogical technique' (Berque 1974: 167). Islamic education faresno better in the hands of Western-educated Muslims, who write of it as a'purely mechanical, monotonous form of study' (Zerdoumi 1970: 196; seealso Hussein 1948).

Two general propositions can be made concerning the form of Islamicknowledge. The first is that an intellectual tradition which emphasizes fixityand memory, as is characteristic of many traditions of religious knowledge,can still be capable of considerable flexibility. In practice, there is a con-siderable variation over time and place throughout the Islamic world as tothe exact bodies of knowledge to be included in the religious sciences. Evenduring the 'classical' period of Islamic civilization, learning could be char-acterized as 'prismatic' (Roy Mottahedeh, personal communication): theinterpretation and elaboration of the religious sciences constantly shifted.Once this shifting is recognized, the interesting issue is the circumstancesunder which redefinitions in what is considered to be the 'proper' scope of

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the religious sciences is brought about. The hyperbolic assertion of anearlier generation of scholars that Islamic education deadens all sense ofinquiry is hard to reconcile with such transformations. In Morocco, forexample, grammar, rhetoric, jurisprudence and to a lesser extent the pro-phetic tradition {hadith) had been among the most central of the religioussciences until the early twentieth century, although subjects which beganto be emphasized (or reemphasized) after the 1920s as components ofa 'new' orthodoxy included Quranic interpretation (tafsir), theology,(kaldm), and a knowledge of pre-Islamic and early Islamic poetry. If thecompass of religious studies appears unduly narrow, it was no more so thanthe products of the English public school in the Victorian era, with anemphasis upon studies in Greek and Latin, or those who received a classicaltraining in France. In a similar way, former students of the Yusufiya andthe Qarawiyin have become not only scholars, but politicians and ministersof state who have played important roles in Morocco in recent years, andmerchants and financiers quite capable of dealing with contemporaryeconomic and entrepreneurial activities.

The second proposition is that the cognitive style associated with Islamicknowledge is tied closely to popular understandings of Islam in Moroccoand has important analogues in nonreligious spheres of knowledge. Thisformal congruence has served to enhance the popular legitimacy of re-ligious knowledge and its carriers in Morocco but at the same time haslimited the pace and range of change in Islamic education, and the ways inwhich changes are perceived. Thus the notion of Islamic law (shra')encompasses both religious law in its jural sense and law as a code forpersonal conduct. It was explained to me by a Moroccan in the followingterms. He drew two parallel lines on a sheet of paper—another wordderivative from the same root as shra' means 'path'—and said that every-thing within the two lines was shra'. All activities not explicitly within thebody of knowledge encompassed by the lines constituted innovation(bidd'). Some innovations are contrary to Islamic law but many others,such as religious brotherhoods or certain governmental reforms, are toler-ated so long as they do not explicitly contradict the principles of Islamiclaw. Most Moroccans do not possess exact knowledge of this law, butnonetheless share the assumption that religious knowledge is fixed andknowable and that it is known by men of learning (see Eickelman 1976:130-38.)

As for secular knowledge, ma 'rifa is the term used to refer to knowledgenot encompassed by the religious sciences; it includes knowledge related tocommerce and crafts, including music and oral poetry. These have signifi-cant parallels in form with the religious sciences and are also presumed tobe contained by fixed, memorizable truths. As Clifford Geertz (1976:1488-96) has recently pointed out, popular oral poetry in North Africa

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takes this shape, just as effective public speech involves both the skillfulinvocation of Quranic phrases and the more mundane but memorizablestock of knowledge drawn from poetry and proverbs. A further parallel isin the model for the transmission of knowledge. The religious sciences inMorocco and throughout the Islamic world are thought to be transmittedthrough a quasi-genealogical chain of authority which descends frommaster or teacher {shaykh) to student (tdlib) to insure that the knowledge ofearlier generations is passed on intact. Knowledge of crafts is passed frommaster to apprentice in an analogous fashion, with any knowledge or skillacquired in a manner independent from such a tradition regarded as suspect.

These analogues in forms of knowledge suggest how Islamic education isappropriately to be evaluated. Marshall Hodgson, by characterizing it asnot involving 'any process of thinking as such,' implicitly evaluated Islamiceducation in terms of Western pedagogical expectations. I shall argue incontrast that the measure of'understanding' appropriate to Islamic know-ledge is its use, often creative, in wider social contexts than those providedby the milieu of learning itself or by the abstract manipulation of memor-ized materials in 'classroom' situations.

THE QURANIC PRESENCE: THE SOCIAL PARADIGM OF 'UNDERSTANDING'

Any analysis of Islamic education must convey a sense of how manypersons were educated and who they were. Until half a century ago, literacyalmost necessarily implied schooling, although schooling did not necessar-ily imply literacy. The first years of study consisted of memorizing andreciting the Quran; only at later stages did more advanced students learn toread and write, and then usually outside the context of the mosque school(msid). Contemporary literacy is difficult to measure, let alone the literacyrates of earlier periods, but approximate estimates are essential to indicatethe scope of traditional education. For the 1920s and 1930s it appearsreasonable to assume that 4 per cent of the adult male population wasliterate, allowing for regional variations, and perhaps 10 to 20 per cent ofthe adult male urban population (Hart 1976: 183; H. Geertz 1968: 45-59;Brown 1976: 107).

Religious learning was popularly respected, yet Quranic schools werecharacterized by a high rate of attrition. Virtually every urban quarter andrural local community maintained a mosque school, as is still the case, forwhich a teacher {fqih) was contracted on an annual basis to teach and toperform certain other religious services for the community (Eickelman1976: 97, 111-12).5 Most Moroccan males and a fair number of girls, at

5 The only estimate of the number of these schools in any region is a 1955 census conductedin Spanish Morocco: 3,292 fora population estimated at 917,000 in 1950 (Valderrama 1956:map opposite p. 155; Noin 1970: I, 33). This means that there was a Quranic school for every279 persons. Since none of these schools was supported by the government, it is reasonable toassume a similar proportion of schools to the population in the 1920s and 1930s.


least in towns, attended Quranic schools long enough to commit tomemory a few passages of the Quran. Most students left before theyacquired literacy and few remained the six to eight years that were generallyrequired to memorize the entire Quran.

The formal features of Quranic schools have been frequently described(e.g., Michaux-Bellaire 1911), although the consequences of the form ofpedagogical action upon modes of thought have only begun to be criticallyexplored.6 A typical fqih had between fifteen and twenty students in hischarge at any time, ranging in age from four to sixteen. No printed ormanuscript copies of the Quran were used in the process of memorization.Part of the reason was the lack of printed or manuscript books, but anequally significant factor, discussed below, is the cultural concept of learn-ing implicit in Islamic education. Each morning the fqih wrote the verses tobe memorized on each student's wooden slate (liih). The child then spentthe rest of the day memorizing these verses by reciting them out loud, aswell as systematically reciting verses that had been previously learned. Thefollowing morning, each student recited for the fqih the verses of theprevious day. Students who recited correctly washed their slates so that thenext set of verses could be written on them. Memorization was thusincremental, with the recitation of new material added to that alreadylearned (i.e. a, then a,b, then a,b,c,). Students were not grouped into'classes' based either on age or on progress in memorization.

Two features consistently associated with Islamic education are itsrigorous discipline and its lack of explicit explanation of memorized mater-ial. Both of these features are congruent with the essentially fixed conceptof knowledge which is at the base of Islamic education and, at least in the

6 The process and context of memorization deserve more careful attention than they havereceived in earlier accounts of Islamic education. The importance of these issues became clearto me only after completing the fieldwork on which this account is based, so that here I onlyoutline what appear to be some of the salient problems that will be pursued in later research.The Islamic emphasis upon memory is not unique in itself, as has been implied by somescholars. Elaborate mnemonic systems developed in classical Greece and Rome which facili-tated memorization through the regular association of material with 'memory posts,' visualimages such as the columns of a building or places at a banquet table (Yates 1966: 2-7).Accompanying such techniques was the notion that mnemonic knowledge was 'purer' thanthat communicated through writing (Notopoulos 1938: 478). What is remarkable about theuse of memory in the context of Islamic education in Morocco is not the performance of'prodigious' mnemonic feats—such 'feats' were fully paralleled in Europe (Yates, 1966).Rather, it is the insistence by former students of the absence of devices to facilitate memoriza-tion. In practice, visual cues and markers were absent but aural ones existed. Students didrecall being able to visualize the shape of the letters on their slates and even the circumstancesassociated with the memorization of particular Quranic verses and other texts. Yet suchpotential mnemonic cues were not systematically developed, perhaps for the implicit reasonthat their use would associate extraneous images with the original word of God and thus diluteits transmission. Although students deny the existence of mnemonic devices and classicaltreatises which stress the importance of memory likewise mention none (e.g., Ibn Khaldun1967: III), a recent psychological study suggests that patterns of intonation and rhythm serveas mnemonic markers (Wagner 1978: 14).


Moroccan context, the associated concept of reason. 'Reason' {'qal) ispopularly conceived as man's ability to discipline his nature in order to actin accord with the arbitrary code of conduct laid down by God andepitomized by such acts of communal obedience as the fast of Ramadan(see Eickelman 1976: 130-38). Thus a firm discipline in the course oflearning the Quran was culturally regarded as an integral part of socializa-tion. This underlying popular attitude toward learning is one of the reasonswhy it is inappropriate to see Islamic education as a 'high tradition' graftedupon or independent of more popular implicit understanding of religion andsociety as has been done by an earlier tradition of Orientalist scholarship.

When a father handed his son over to a fqih, he did so with the formulaicphrase that the child could be beaten as the fqih saw fit. In practice,students were slapped or whipped when their attention flagged or whenthey repeated errors. Such punishments were normatively intended toinduce a respect for accurate Quranic recitation. Former studentsexplained that the fqih (or the student's father, when he participated insupervising the process of memorization) was regarded as only the imper-sonal agency of the occasional punishments which, like the unchangingword of God itself, were merely transmitted by him.7 Moreover, studentswere told that any part of their bodies struck in the process of Quranicmemorization would not burn in hell. The same notion popularly appliedto beatings which apprentices received from craftsmen (m'allrriin dyall-harfa).

Former students emphasized that throughout the long process ofmemorizing the Quran they asked no questions concerning the meaning ofverse, even among themselves, nor did it occur to them to do so. Their soleactivity was memorizing proper Quranic recitation. It should be kept inmind that the grammar and vocabulary of the Quran are not immediatelyaccessible to speakers of colloquial Arabic and are even less so to studentsfrom Berber-speaking regions. Former students readily admitted that theydid not comprehend what they were memorizing until fairly late in theirstudies (cf. Waterbury 1972: 32).

'Understanding' (fahm) in the context of such concepts of learning wasnot measured by any ability explicitly to 'explain' particular verses. Explicitexplanation was considered a science in itself to be acquired only throughyears in the advanced study of exegetical literature (tafsir). An informalattempt to explain meaning was considered blasphemy and simply did notoccur. Instead, the measure of understanding was implicit and consisted ofthe ability to use particular Quranic verses in appropriate contexts. In the

1 The Senegalese novelist Cheikh Hamidou Kane (1963: 3—38) provides the only account ofwhich I am aware that manages to convey the mixture of pious respect for the exact recitationof the word of God and affection for their students associated with the severe attitude ofQuranic teachers toward their students.

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first few years of Quranic school, students recalled that they had littlecontrol over what they recited. They could not, for instance, recite specificchapters of the Quran if asked to do so, but had to begin with one of thesixty principal sections (hizb-s) into which the Quran is divided for recita-tional purposes. Firmer control was achieved as students accompaniedtheir fathers, other relatives and occasionally their fqih to social gatherings.On such occasions they heard adults incorporate Quranic verses intoparticular contexts and gradually acquired the ability to do so themselves,as well as to recite specific sections of the Quran without regard for theorder in which they had memorized it. Thus the measure of understandingwas the ability to make appropriate practical reference to the memorizedtext, just as originality was shown in working Quranic references into novelbut appropriate contexts. Knowledge and manipulation of secular oralpoetry and proverbs in a parallel fashion was also a sign of good rhetoricalstyle (Geertz 1976: 1492).

The high rate of attrition from Quranic schools supports the notion thatmnemonic 'possession' can be considered a form of cultural capital (Bour-dieu 1973: 80). Aside from small traditional gifts by the parents of childrento the fqih, education was free. Yet most students were compelled to dropout after a short period in order to contribute to the support of theirfamilies or because they failed to receive parental support for the arduousand imperfectly understood process of learning. In practice, memorizationof the Quran was accomplished primarily by the children of relativelyprosperous households or by those whose fathers or guardians werealready literate. I say 'primarily,' for education was still a means to socialmobility, especially if a poorer student managed to progress despite allobstacles through higher, post-Quranic education (cf. Green 1976:218-21).

The notion of cultural capital implies more than the possession of thematerial resources to allow a child to spend six to eight years in thememorization of the Quran; it also implies a sustained adult disciplineupon the child. Many contemporary Western pedagogical concepts tend totreat education as a separable institutional activity, an idea inappropriateto learning in the traditional Islamic context.8 Students' families and (atlater stages of learning) peers were integrally involved in the learningprocess. A recurrent feature in interviews with men of learning and otherswho successfully memorized the Quran is the participation of their fathers,elder brothers or other close relatives in their education, asking them torecite regularly and disciplining them in case of inattention or error. Theformal written biographies (tarjama-s) of men of learning regularly relateanecdotes concerning parental sternness (e.g., as-Susi 1961: XIII, 35-36,

8 Such notions have also hampered the study of education in Western historical contexts.For colonial America, see Bailyn (1960).


101,168). Moreover, even for urban students from wealthy families, formaleducation did not involve being systematically taught to read and writeoutside the context of the Quran. Students acquired such skills, if at all,from relatives or older students apart from their studies in Quranic schools(Berque 1974: 167-68), just as they acquired a demonstrated 'understand-ing' of the Quran through social situations.in which Quranic verses andother memorized materials were used.

A student became a 'memorizer' (hdfid) once he knew the entire Quran;this set him apart from ordinary society even without additional studies.9

In the precolonial era, fqihs and students often were the only strangers whocould travel in relative safety through tribal regions without making priorarrangements for 'protection.' This liminality was more pronounced inrural than in urban milieus. In the larger towns throughout Morocco, thosewishing to pursue their studies could begin to sit with the circles of men oflearning and their disciples that met regularly in the principal mosques (seeLaroui 1977: 196-97, 199-201; Brown 1976: 77). In rural areas, mostadvanced students continued for at least a few years at one of the numerousmadrasa-s (lit. 'place of studies') scattered throughout the country as late asthe early decades of this century (Moulieras 1895; 1899; Michaux-Bellaire1911: 436; Waterbury 1972: 30). Such madrasas were an essential interme-diate stage when Arabic was a student's second language. In some regionsthese madrasas were only clusters of tents; others were village mosques withadjoining lodgings for the shaykh and his students, who were supported,albeit frugally, by gifts of food from villagers and tribesmen.10 Moststudents attended madrasas (often several in succession) within their regionof origin. The three to five years characteristically spent in this all-maleenvironment, at least partially removed from their families and communi-ties of origin, was an intense socializing experience. Students frequentlydeveloped close ties with their shaykhs, who could often introduce them toscholars elsewhere in Morocco, and with fellow students. Again there wasno fixed progression of studies, although serious students advanced theirknowledge of Arabic and memorized basic commentaries on grammar andjurisprudence in this milieu.''

9 Like other technical terms, hdfid is subject to contextual variation. Among highly edu-cated Moroccans, it refers only to the most outstanding scholars of any generation.

10 Until the late nineteenth century, students of each region also made collective visits tosurrounding villages each year after harvest to collect donations of grain and animals. Withthese donations, students then camped together and feasted for a week or longer. This practiceceased with the disorders which accompanied increasing European penetration (Aubin 1906:78-79; Michaux-Bellaire 1911: 437).

1 ' From the sixteenth through the early nineteenth century, many religious lodges (zawya-s)in rural regions were also centers for more advanced learning (Eickelman 1976: 39, 60, 222,249). As for the early twentieth century, only the more standard texts tended to predominate inrural madrasas: the Ajarumiya, the Alfiya and the Tuhfat. Since these texts were memorized byall educated men, there was no ambiguity in referring to them by title only. A short descriptionof these texts will indicate the nature of the material memorized. The first is a concise treatise


THE YUSUFIYA! A PROFILE OF HIGHER ISLAMIC LEARNING

The scope of traditional higher education was considerably more restrictedthan that of Quranic education. In 1931, the year of the first reliable censusin the French zone of Morocco, there were approximately 1,200 students inMorocco's two mosque-universities. The country's total population (in-cluding the zone of Spanish influence) was 5,800,000 (Noin 1970:1, 30, 32),so these students constituted a minuscule 002% percent of the popula-tion.12 Since most students left their studies after a few years to becomemerchants, village teachers, notaries and the like, the even more limitednumber who eventually could claim to be men of learning is readilyapparent.

Of two major centers of learning, the Yusufiya was smaller in scale thanits Fez counterpart and for most of its existence tended to attract studentsand scholars only from the hinterland of Marrakesh and Morocco's south.Marrakesh first emerged as a major center of learning in the twelfthcentury, when it rivaled Seville and Cordoba in Muslim Spain. In followingcenturies its reputation as a center of learning rose and fell with the politicalvicissitudes of the city itself. Thus it thrived early in the nineteenth centuryand again reached national prominence with the residence of the sultanthere almost continuously from 1895 to 1901 (Burke 1976: 42, 59). By thelate 1920s and early 1930s, the period of immediate concern in this article,the Yusufiya milieu contained roughly 400 students. Six to eight shaykhsmet daily with students in roughly ten lesson circles (halqa-s).13

The Yusufiya, like the Qarawiyin, constituted an institution in the basicsense of a field of activity whose members shared subjectively held ideasand conventions as to how given tasks should be accomplished. Althoughstudents and, to a more limited extent, their teachers were only transientmembers of the community of learning, most persons participated in themosque-university (jdmi'a) milieu long enough to give it stability in termsof its participants and their relations with wider society.

The mosque-university's use of space indicates its lack of sharp separ-ation from the rest of society. The activities of the Yusufiya, like those of itscounterpart in Fez, were concentrated in space which was shared with thewider community for purposes of worship and other gatherings. Lesson

on grammar, its title being an adjectival form of the name of author. Ibn Ajarum (d. 1324).Often its memorization was begun by writing its verses on the lower part of a student's slatebefore he had completed memorization of the Quran. The AIJTya of Ibn Malik (d. 1274) is agrammar of 1.000 verses, so compact that its comprehension requires elaborate commen-taries. Finally, Ibn 'Aslm's (d. 1426) Tuhfat al-Hukkam is a handbook of practical law with104 chapters and 1,679 verses.

12 In comparison, French secondary education for Moroccan Muslims accounted for 505students in 1924-25 and 1,618 students in 1930-31 (French Protectorate 1931:245).

13 The Qarawiyin had 700 students in the early 1920s with roughly 40 lesson circles meetingregularly, given by 25 shaykhs (Marty 1925: 345).


circles of teachers, students and onlookers met regularly in the Yusufiya(Ibn Yusif) mosque, one of the largest and most central in Marrakesh, aswell as in some of the smaller mosques, religious lodges, and at least oneshrine, that of the principal marabout of Marrakesh, 'Abd al-'AzIz Tabba.Only the hostels (madrasas) for rural students were reserved exclusively forthe purposes of scholars.14

The Yusufiya had no sharply defined body of students or faculty,administration, entrance or course examinations, curriculum, or unifiedsources of funds. In fact, its former teachers related with amusement thefrustrated efforts of French colonial officials to determine who were its'responsible' leaders and to treat it as a. corporate entity analogous to amedieval European university. Although teachers did not act as a collecti-vity, several older and respected shaykhs served as informal spokesmen fortheir colleagues on various occasions. Because of their recognition by thewider community, such individuals exercised a de facto control over thedistribution of gifts given by wealthy or powerful individuals to the com-munity of learning. The ability of certain men of learning to control suchdistributions and to exercise influence on other occasions did much toconsolidate their reputations.

The activities of higher learning were integrally related to and limited bythe values and expectations of wider society in numerous ways. Teacherswere not formally appointed, although some held royal decrees (ddhir-s)providing them with recognition and specified emoluments. Youngershaykhs simply began to teach with the implicit consent of established menof learning and students. The lack of formal appointment meant that thoseshaykhs of lesser reputation had to be especially scrupulous about com-porting themselves and commenting on texts in ways expected both by themilieu of learning and the wider public. Recognition brought most, but notall, teachers small stipends from pious endowments designated for theirsupport, in addition to occasional gifts of grain, olive oil and clothing frompious townsmen, tribesmen, the sultan and his entourage.

The publicly accessible activities of the mosque-university did not pro-vide the full range of knowledge, including poetry, history and literature, ortraining in the rhetorical style considered essential for men of learning. Theformal speech of men of learning was replete with allusions to classical textsand used stylistic conventions that were far removed from ordinary speech.These conventions included the deliberate rhyming of words and phrasesand the use of a classicized diction that avoided the intrusion of colloquialor 'common' ('dmmT) syntax or phrases. Another quality prized by men oflearning was the ability to compose verses for particular occasions. Thesecirculated constantly in oral and written form. Most such poetry drew

14 This is a second contextual meaning of the term, in addition to that of 'school' in ruralcontexts.


upon stock formulae, but these still had to be learned and were expected ofeducated men.15

As in any educational system with diffuse, implicit criteria for successand in which essential skills were not fully embodied in formal learning, theexisting elite was favored. Moreover, the attribute of'student' in itself didnot form a basis for meaningful collective action.16 Students became'known' as such through their comportment and acceptance by persons inthe community of learning, not through any formal procedures. Eachstudent was on his own to discern those persons and ideas that weresignificant in the world of learning and to create a constellation of effectivepersonal ties with which to function. Students from Marrakesh itself,especially those from wealthy or powerful families, had substantial initialadvantages in securing meaningful ties. They continued to be enmeshed intheir families' ties of kinship, friendship and patronage. Since all studentsfrom Marrakesh itself continued to live at home, those from wealthier andmore prestigious families were in a position to invite shaykhs to their homesand to arrange for formal or informal tutoring. Such students oftenattended the public lesson circles of the mosques and shrines only irregu-larly.

Rural students generally were at an initial disadvantage. They wereeasily distinguished from townsmen by clothing and an awkward comport-ment (by urban standards),17 and so were often treated rudely when theyventured beyond the immediate confines of the mosque-university and thehostels in which all but the most wealthy 'outsider' (afdqi) students werelodged. Nonetheless, some rural students, especially those who came fromfamilies of learning, often achieved distinction as scholars. Significantly,two of the most influential reformist shaykhs of the early twentieth centurywere of rural origin, as were several of the other leading shaykhs of theYusufiya.18

15 As-SusT's voluminous writings provide particularly useful anthologies of these conven-tions. Since he was aware that he was documenting a world of learning that was not beingtransmitted to a younger generation, most of the literary allusions in the writings which hecites are fully annotated.

16 At earlier periods in both Marrakesh and Fez there was an annual 'Carnival of theStudents.' Students solicited contributions from townsmen, and a student was proclaimed'sultan' for the duration of the outing held each spring (Cenival 1925). These occasionsinvolved the students of each mosque-university as a collectivity, but the forms of organiza-tion which emerged were weak and dissolved at the end of the carnival. Student carnivalsceased in the mid-1920s in Fez and even earlier in Marrakesh.

17 During the 1920s, for example, most students of rural origin still shaved their heads andas a sign of humility toward their shaykhs did not wear turbans. This practice had virtuallydisappeared among younger townsmen, who in general adopted the fez as a sign of modernity.

18 The two reformist shaykhs were Bu Shu'ayb DukkatI (1878-1937) and Mukhtar as-Susi(1900-63). DukkalT was from a rural family which included several generations of men oflearning. He first gained attention in Marrakesh at the age of thirteen by reciting all of STdiKhalTl's Mukhtasar (a standard treatise on Malik! jurisprudence) before Sultan Hasan I(reigned 1873-94) and showing a precocious command of classical Arabic. Later he gained


Students acquired the necessary knowledge and personal contacts toachieve reputations as men of learning through three overlapping spheresof activity: (1) the lesson circles; (2) peer learning, including participation instudent literary circles; and (3) acquiring sponsorship by established men oflearning. The first and third spheres are familiar elements in accounts ofIslamic education. Peer learning is not, since traditional Arabic sourceshave stylistic conventions that render them almost entirely silent on infor-mal patterns of learning. Thus, in asking several Moroccan men of learningto prepare short written autobiographies, only learning derived from one'sshaykhs was mentioned, in conformity with culturally explicit assumptionsconcerning the proper acquisition and transmission of learning.19 Yet ininterviews and discussions, the importance of peer learning was repeatedlystressed. The emphasis in the following analysis indicates how these spheresof learning fitted together and shaped the adaptation of Islamic educationto new social circumstances.

Lesson Circles. The spatial and temporal setting of lesson circles is highlysignificant in suggesting the relation of forms of knowledge to society atlarge. Almost all of the lesson circles which met in the daytime were held inthe Yusufiya mosque itself and concerned the most traditional andaccepted texts of jurisprudence, grammar and rhetoric. They were con-ducted by the shaykhs regarded as the most senior and conventional.Evening lesson circles were usually held only in shrines, religious lodgesand smaller mosques. These were conventionally devoted to less estab-lished subjects and texts and were generally conducted by reformistshaykhs and those of reformist sympathies, although a few were alsoconducted by shaykhs who lectured in the daytime at the Yusufiya.

The conduct of lesson circles in these settings, where they were in generalaccessible to the nonstudent public at all times, indicated popular supportof and respect for the activities of learning but also imposed certain implicitconstraints upon what was learned and the conduct of the lessons. Leadingshaykhs were publicly treated with deference and respect as they walkedthrough the streets; their hands were kissed, and it was not unusual for giftsto be offered them by pious townsmen and villagers. As another indication

further recognition in his studies at Mecca and Cairo. In 1910, at the age of thirty-two, he wasappointed Qadl of Marrakesh and later became Minister of Justice (JirarT 1976:9-18). As-SusTwas from a family of learning in the Sus region of Morocco's south, where his father was aleader in the DarqawT religious order. He studied at a rural madrasa in the Sus and from 1919to 1923 at the Yusufiya, where he was a student of DukkalT. From 1923 to 1927 he was at theQarawiyin, where he came into contact with most of the later leaders of the nationalistmovement. In 1929 he returned to Marrakesh, where his lesson circles were highly popularamong students. The French grew suspicious of his growing influence and in 1935 assignedhim to forced residence in his native village (Touimi, Khatibi and Kably 1974: 4CM1).

19 Tarjama signifies both biography and autobiography. The ability to prepare such adocument is one of the attributes of men of learning. The third person is used both forpreparing an account of one's own life and that of others.


of respect, many merchants and craftsmen regularly attended lesson circlesfor the religious merit they felt such participation would bring, despite thefact that few of them could follow the classical Arabic in which they werepresented. Nonetheless, their presence placed implicit restrictions upon theintroduction of unfamiliar material in lesson circles, informal discussionsbetween teachers and students, and anything which deviated from popularexpectations of what was 'proper' for such activities.

Propriety of form obliged shaykhs to adhere to the rhetoric of classicalArabic and to comment only upon the texts of others. The necessity alwaysformally to comment upon the texts of others constrained both reformistand other shaykhs to stress that they spoke less for themselves than for theirroles as transmitters of a fixed body of knowledge. As Bloch has observed,at a high level of rhetorical formality, the content of speech and the order inwhich material is arranged are not seen 'as the result of the acts of anybodyin particular, but of a state which has always existed' (1975: 16). Such formis of course congruent with the paradigm of mnemonic (and popularlylegitimate) learning. In practice, shaykhs could introduce a wide latitude ofmaterial into their commentaries, but the symbolic base of the educationalprocess was still a set of texts which took years to memorize and even moretime to use actively in discourse. In itself, the form of commentaries did notlimit subject innovation and adaptation to change, except that it ideologi-cally deflected attention from awareness of historical and contextual trans-formations.

The form of lesson circles conveyed the notion of the fixity of knowledgeby minimizing active student contributions and by providing no checksupon what students understood. Only the student chosen as reader (sdrid)of the text to be commented upon took an active role. As this task wasrarely rotated, few students acquired even this experience. The shaykhinterrrupted the student's reading only to correct errors of vocalization andto deliver his commentary.20 No questions were asked during these ses-sions and students rarely took notes or made annotations in the printedcopies of texts which a few possessed. Former students explained thatdeference and propriety toward their shaykhs prevented their openly rais-ing any issues. Questions had to be placed indirectly, usually in private asthe shaykh prepared to leave the mosque or shrine, so as not to suggest apublic challenge to his scholarship (see also Delphin 1889: 28). Moreover,

20 Part of this system of teaching can be attributed to the lack of printed texts until the latenineteenth century. As with Greek and Latin literature in medieval Europe, the transmissionof a text entailed taking it by dictation from someone reputed to know its proper form, so as toprevent the accretion of errors (Reynolds and Wilson 1974). More significantly, however, onlythe oral transmission of knowledge was regarded as culturally legitimate in the Moroccancontext; knowledge acquired exclusively from the study of books was regarded as unreliable.Significantly, the introduction of printed texts had little impact upon the form of the lessoncircles.


as former students emphasized, informal contact with their shaykhs todiscuss specifically textual matters was exceptional. Thus there were nosignificant practical opportunities for students to use the concepts ormaterials they sought to learn under the guidance of their shaykhs.

A parenthetical comment is essential here. There is no reason to pre-sume, as many scholars have, that latter-day Islamic higher education inMorocco was a 'decayed' remnant of earlier periods. Intra-Islamic differ-ences noted by Ibn Khaldun have already been mentioned. In Morocco atleast, the educational process was never fully encompassed within thepublic activities of lesson circles. In other countries lesson circles sometimeswere arenas for long-term dialogues between teachers and their students(e.g, Snouck Hurgronje 1931: 190); this pattern is only one of several thatIslamic education has taken, although it has often incorrectly beenassumed to be normative for the entire Islamic world. Thus there wereseveral patterns of Islamic education, each of which is appropriately ana-lyzed in its particular context.

Reformist shaykhs sought to introduce new material into lesson circlesand to draw students into a critical questioning of the relation of Islam tocontemporary society (Merad 1971). A description and analysis of thecontext of their lesson circles and the extent to which they were innovativeindicate the constraints which the public and religious conception of valuedknowledge placed upon the potential for adaptation. Former students ofthe period enthusiastically spoke of the reformist shaykhs as having 'liber-ated' (harrar) them from what they regarded as commentaries upon anarrow range of subjects that had remained unchanged for three or fourhundred years. Such hyperbolic claims accurately reflect the attitude ofstudents, but reformist teachings fit well within the 'prismatic' nature ofIslamic learning. A comparison of lists of texts commented upon at differ-ent periods from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century indicatesregular variations in both subjects and texts (Delphin 1889: 30-41; Berque1949; Peretie 1912: 334-45). In practice, the principal achievement of thereformers of the 1920s was to introduce material into lesson circles thatmen of learning earlier had privately acquired in the houses of the elite:Quranic exegesis, theology, history, and classical poetry and literature(addb). The reformers argued that these topics were as much a part of thereligious sciences as those subjects that had been taught conventionally inMorocco prior to their time (as-SiisI 1961: IX, 167-68). Nonetheless,knowledge continued to be legitimized by indicating how it fitted within thereligious sciences. It also had to be conveyed in classical Arabic, whichlimited its accessibility to the same select few who participated in tradi-tional Islamic education. Reformist shaykhs, to seek legitimacy for theirteachings, lectured within the range of popularly expected locales andtimes. The fact that most lectured only after the sunset prayers, a time set

ISLAMIC EDUCATION AND ITS SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 5O3

aside for the more peripheral religious sciences or for less establishedshaykhs, and in locales such as religious lodges and smaller mosques,signaled to all but their immediate followers that their teachings were notsymbolically as central as the 'core' components of the religious sciencestaught during the day at the Yusufiya. Within the restricted group ofmosque-university students, reformist shaykhs enjoyed a considerable fol-lowing, despite the active opposition of many of the more traditionalshaykhs, who were frequently backed by public support and that of thepolitical authorities. In the context of the lesson circles, the reformists didnothing to make their teachings accessible to a wider audience or funda-mentally to change prevalent understandings of the forms in which valuedknowledge was conveyed.

Peer Learning. Peer learning has been neglected in the study of manyeducational systems because it is characteristically informal.2' In Moroccoit provided what public lesson circles could not—an active engagementwith and practice in the comprehensison of basic texts. For most ruralstudents, peer learning had special importance since such students wereusually even more cut off than their urban counterparts from initiatinginformal contacts with their shaykhs, especially during the earlier years oftheir studies. To indicate the significance of such learning in the earlieryears of studies, below is an excerpt from an interview in which a retiredQadi, who was sixteen when he first arrived at the Yusufiya in 1928,described how he invited an older, poorer student to share his rooms at themadrasa in which he was staying. The Qadi was from a rural family thathad produced several judges and men of learning. One of these was an elderbrother who had entered the Yusufiya several years earlier and who thuswas able to arrange introductions for this younger brother to several of hisformer teachers. At the house of one of these shaykhs, the Qadi encoun-tered the man who later became his roommate. Because the interviewcontains an excellent normative description of how men of learning aredescribed, it is given at length:

[My roommate] was a great man of learning, who never spoke unless it wasnecessary. The Quran was always on his lips. He lived from the daily bread givenrural students and from the daily 8 francs he received for reciting [the Quran] at amosque.

I observed his conduct for some time. Finally, I spoke to him and said that I was abeginner [in the religious sciences] and wanted someone to live with me who couldhelp me in my studies. So I gave him the key to one of my rooms and said it was his. Iwanted nothing in return except the opportunity to speak with him about the booksI was reading.

2 ' The overall neglect of the importance of peer learning in studies of Islamic education isstill remarkable, despite the silence of traditional sources. McLachlan describes a similarneglect in the study of colleges in early nineteenth-century America, despite the fact that thecore of learning at this period was 'an extraordinarily intense system of education by peers'(1974:474).


What I had been doing until I met him was memorizing books, but withoutunderstanding what I read. We worked alone for the first several months that welived together. Then, although I was a newcomer to Marrakesh, students who hadbeen there for years asked me to read with them. They saw that I was a seriousstudent and wanted to study with me.

For seven years I lived with [him]. . . . This was the real learning that I did in myyears at the Yusufiya. Of course I learned much at the lesson circles, but it was inreading texts with [my roommate] and with other students and in explaining them toeach other that most of the real learning went on.

Knowledge of basic texts in themselves, however, was sufficient only toacquire modest positions as notaries or village teachers, at least for thosewho used such knowledge in a more than iconic fashion. This was theterminal stage of learning for all but a few students. Only a few studentsacquired the wider range of knowledge considered essential for men oflearning. This additional learning and the practice necessary to acquirecompetent rhetorical style took place through a complementary form ofpeer learning—the small, ephemeral literary circles to which a largenumber of the more successful students belonged. These literary circlesflourished especially with the rise of the pro to-nationalist movement in thelate 1920s, but similar groups existed in earlier periods as well and were byno means unique to Morocco (Delphin 1889: 27, 53; Heyworth-Dunne1968: 13, 40, 66). Participants in such circles read and discussed theMoroccan literary magazines (e.g., Majallat al-Maghrib) that had begun toemerge during this period, Moroccan newspapers and those of the ArabEast (banned by the French), books on subjects such as history, geography,poetry and their own compositions.

As was the case with other aspects of higher Islamic education, studentliterary circles were weak in organizational form and frequently dissolved.Most were relatively small, of a dozen or so members, and usually metdaily, after the sunset prayers. These literary circles provided a trainingground for speaking and writing within the conventions of formal Arabic.Relations among members of these circles approached equality, so thatparticipants took turns in delivering speeches which were subjected to thecriticism of the group. As an indication of these speeches, one formerstudent showed me a notebook containing one which he presented in 1932.The aim of the speech was to defend Marrakesh against the charge that itwas not a major cultural center because so many of its inhabitants wereBerber-speakers and because it had a smaller community of learned menthan Fez. In alliterative, rhymed prose, the student defended Marrakesh bydescribing its physical beauty, its great poets and men of letters, both pastand contemporary. The speech further enumerates the major marabouts(sdlihin) associated with Marrakesh, confirming the lack of a sharp dicho-tomy in the early 1930s between a reform-minded Islam and a more


popular form in which local maraboutic beliefs were considered to be anintegral part of Islam (see Eickelman 1976: 211-30). The speech concludesby exuberantly labeling Marrakesh the 'Baghdad of the Maghrib.' Most ofthe speech consists of conventional platitudes, but its content, diction, andsyntax reflect a style mastered only by the traditionally educated.

Some literary circles, especially those influenced by reformist ideas, wereconcerned to a limited extent with undertaking political action for thebenefit of the wider Islamic community. Carriers of religious knowledgeregarded themselves as legitimate spokesmen for Islam and were popularlyregarded as such. This was especially the case after the 'Berber Proclama-tion' of 1930, by which the French formally extracted certain Berber-speak-ing regions of Morocco from the jurisdiction of Islamic law courts. Thisevent had repercussions throughout the Islamic world as a symbol of theefforts of European colonial powers to weaken Islam. The practical in-fluence of men of learning, sharply circumscribed since the advent ofcolonial rule, temporarily reemerged with this event. In some Moroccancities, including Fez, protests organized against this proclamation wereovertly political and ocasionally violent. In general, however, protests tooktraditional and nonviolent forms such as public communal prayers similarto those made in cases of drought or other natural disasters. Many of theseprayers were organized by literary circles. In Marrakesh, firmly under thecontrol of its pasha, Hajj Thami al-Glawi, demonstrations were rapidlyquelled. Students with ties to urban and rural notables were warned inadvance by their relatives to stay removed from the 'troubles.' Participantsin several literary circles nonetheless took action which could at leastformally be construed as nonpolitical. One such action was for studentsindividually to persuade (to avoid suspicions of organized group activity)the men who gathered each evening in the town's mosques to recite theQuran in unison instead of separately, as had been the practice, in order tosymbolize the unity of Islam.

The narrow range of actions undertaken by participants in lesson circlessuggests the restricted vision of public responsibility associated with theIslamic tradition of 'gentlemanly' education. A man of learning's primaryresponsibility was to acquire religious knowledge and to use it in prescribedways, not to seek to alter the shape of society. Reformist Muslim intellec-tuals in North Africa, stimulated at least in part by the fact of Europeanpolitical dominance, challenged many aspects of Islam as it was locallyunderstood both popularly and in educated circles, but they fell short ofoffering ideological and practical alternatives to the existing social order.Reformist teachings offered no alternative to the accepted popular notionof social inequality as a 'natural' fact of the social order, nor did theyelaborate a wider notion of social responsibility to men of learning thanthat of perfecting their own understanding of religious knowledge and


communicating it to relatively restricted circles (Merad 1971: 193-227;Eickelman 1976: 126-30).

Sponsorship. Students remained in the milieu of learning for as long asthey chose or were able to do so. Just as there were no formal markers ofentry to this milieu, there were none upon leaving it. Only a few studentsmanaged to acquire reputations as men of learning. There were no explicitcriteria by which such recognition could be achieved, so education couldnot assume the function of 'certification' so closely associated with modernWestern institutions.

One means, however, of signaling the completion of studies was for astudent to ask each of his shaykhs for a 'teaching license' (ijdza). Suchdocuments specified the texts or subjects studied and the qualifications ofthe teacher. In Morocco and throughout the Islamic world, teachinglicenses were only as good as the reputations of their writers and the facilitywith which their bearers could use them (cf. Hey worth-Dunne 1968:67-69). As one former student remarked, one sought ijazas from thoseshaykhs who 'had God's blessings in the religious sciences and feared Godthe most, those who were older and more powerful and who always hadtheir hands kissed in the street.' In practice, many outstanding studentsclaimed that they deliberately did not ask for such documents; so manywere prepared as mere courtesies for educated rural notables and not topossess them could in some circumstances be a mark of higher status. Whatcounted was sponsorship and active recognition by established men oflearning and the effective use to which an individual could put such ties aswell as those with other persons of influence.

Since the world of learning was not a closed community, support innonlearned environments could also be decisive in acquiring a reputationfor learning. Moroccan men of learning of the generation of the 1930s havesignificant ties with each other created in part through common schooling,but these ties are not exclusive ones and overlap with social bonds createdon other bases. Social recognition as a man of learning is an attribute whichis used variously according to social context. In Morocco such personsconstitute a social type rather than a distinct group which has sharplydefined boundaries or which acts collectively now or did so in the past(Brown 1976: 75-81; Burke 1976: 218; cf. Eickelman 1976: 89-91,183-89).22

The majority of students rarely used religious knowledge in more than aniconic fashion, as a marker of participation in the milieu of learning. WhenI asked former students about the fact that most left their studies prior to

22 Although this discussion applies primarily to Morocco, I think it is useful in reconsider-ing the social roles of Islamic men of learning in other cultural contexts. Among the importantanalyses indicating the range of variation in these roles are Bulliet (1972). Mottahedeh (1975).Hourani (1968), Lapidus (1967), Keddie (1972), Baer (1971), and Green (1976).


acquiring scholarly recognition, there was often a formal expression ofregret but none of failure attached to such attribution. In discussing theiryears at the mosque-university, most emphasized the opportunities theycreated to secure ties with persons within and outside the community oflearning. These ties often were of use later in facilitating commercial,political and entrepreneurial activities. The frequency with which such tieswere mentioned suggests an implicitly shared conception of career,although not in the narrowly occupational sense of the term. When I askedformer students what were their goals at the time of their studies, mostreplied that they were concerned primarily with the acquisition of thereligious sciences. This was to be expected, given the cultural emphasisupon such valued knowledge. Acquiring the religious sciences additionallyimplied participation in social networks with persons drawn from differentbackgrounds and regions of Morocco and thus with actual or potentialaccess to a wide range of centers of power. No other preparation, exceptperhaps association with the sultan's entourage, enabled a person toacquire such a wide range of potential associations. Knowledge of thereligious sciences was of course essential at some level in order to functionas a Qadi, a notary, a scribe with the government or a teacher in thereligious sciences. Acquiring such knowledge also provided the consocia-tional base from which a wide range of extralocal political, economic andsocial activities could be undertaken, at least so long as there were no majoralternatives to Islamic higher education.

KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIAL CHANGE

When such alternatives developed on a wide scale in the 1930s, higherIslamic education quickly lost its former vitality. As mentioned earlier, itssudden decline can be explained by a relatively straightforward conjunc-tion of events. First was the French 'organization' of Morocco's twoprincipal mosque-universities, undertaken primarily to curb their powerfulsymbolic and practical roles as centers of popular protest against Frenchrule. French organization meant in effect that the retained faculty becamesalaried civil servants and subject to governmental control. Those teachersremaining in the organized institution suffered a significant loss of popularprestige; gifts to them by pious Moroccans, rich and poor, virtually ceased.Rather than teach in an 'organized' milieu, several leading teachers at theQarawiyin chose to leave it in 1931 for elsewhere in the country, includingthe Yusufiya and mosques in smaller towns. A similar exodus occurredfrom the Yusufiya when organization was imposed on it in 1939, althoughsome faculty and students remained until it was informally closed afterindependence in 1956.23

23 The Qarawiyin, now integrated into the national university system, continues to exist.Officially, the Yusufiya still exists as a branch of the Qarawiyin, although since independence


Another major factor was the increasing availability of schools run bythe French. By the 1930s the French had completed a network of schoolsfor the sons of notables. After the defeat of'Abd al-Krim's Riffian Repub-lic in 1926, the Morroccan elite ended a period of indecision and beganincreasingly to enroll their children in these schools. In a context analogousto what Colonna (1975) has described for Algeria, Islamic institutionsbecame the least attractive option open to Moroccan Muslims in colonialsociety. Moreover, significant numbers of Moroccan graduates fromFrench schools were available by the mid-1930s to fill the new posts of thecolonial bureaucracy and other key roles in colonial society whichremained open to Muslims. Studies in a mosque-university ceased to be aneffective means of social advancement.

The consequence was to leave mosque-universities primarily to poorstudents of rural origin.24 By the late 1930s, Islamic education had begunto be regarded with disdain even by those who took part in it during earlierperiods because of the lack of'analysis and synthesis' in its content (Berque1974:173-79). Such a criticism implicitly compared the style and content ofIslamic education with that at least ideally available in schools provided bythe French. Concerned Moroccan bourgeoisie and men of learning soughtto create 'Free Schools' that were independent of French control butadopted some European subjects and pedagogical methods to providealternative education, primarily in Arabic (Damis 1974). As important assuch schools were as an ideological expression on the part of those whobacked them, their educational impact was minimal. They had majorproblems of personnel and failed to recruit the children of Moroccannotables, who saw their children's futures and their own increasingly tied tothe training and certification which only French schools could provide.

The more interesting, and difficult, question is why this collapse had nodirect impact upon the basic popular and learned paradigm of valuedknowledge as fixed and memorizable, especially since at least in principlethe social reproduction of such knowledge was necessary to make availablethe word of God for the guidance of the Islamic community. Why did theeffective collapse not result in any major concerted action, or reaction, onthe part of men of learning? This issue directly involves the relation of

in 1956 it has possessed no formal students or working faculty. A few faculty, I was told inMarrakesh in 1976, have been allowed to continue to draw their salaries until they reachretirement age.

24 Estimates of the number of students of rural and urban origin at the Qarawiyin, forwhich figures are available, indicate the impact of these changes. In 1924, 300 students werefrom Fez itself while 419 were from outlying regions, predominantly rural (Marty 1924: 337).By 1938, seven years after reform, only 100 students were from Fez while 800 were of ruralorigin (Berque 1938: 197). Although no exact figures are available for Marrakesh, informantsestimate that there were roughly 400 students at the Yusufiya in the early 1930s, of whomabout 150 were from Marrakesh itself. The number of urban students had dropped to ahandful by 1935, almost none of whom were from prominent rural or urban households.


knowledge to society in the Moroccan context and the way in which value isplaced on various bodies of knowledge and its carriers.

Traditionally educated Moroccan intellectuals were acutely aware of themajor transformations that their society was experiencing as a consequenceof colonial rule. The teaching licenses which scholars such as Mukhtaras-Susi (e.g., 1935) prepared during this period reiterate the themes thatwhile the entire world is changing, the Maghrib remains in ignorance, withFez and Marrakesh still asleep and their men of learning dying one by one.Yet in practical terms, the principal response of reformist intellectuals tothis perceived crisis was merely to seek to persuade those who alreadypossessed an understanding of the religious sciences to accept the 'neworthodoxy' which they advocated.Yet these same individuals sent theirsons to French-run schools rather than mosque-universities or even theindependent 'Free Schools' set up in major cities.

A partial explanation for the inaction of men of learning is the fact thatcolonial rule posed no direct threat to their material interests. Althoughmen of learning did not form a class or an organized group either in thepreprotectorate period or after the inception of colonial rule in 1912, theyfigured significantly among both rural and urban notables. From theinception of the protectorate the French sought to engage the support ofthis elite by preserving their material interests and by integrating them inthe system of indirect rule, a system which functioned with a high measureof success until the severe economic and political dislocations whichaccompanied the Second World War. Unlike neighboring Algeria, wherethe influence of the traditional elite was systematically destroyed, in Mor-occo they were given administrative and political preferment and theirchildren were given preferential access to French education. Despite theradical shift in forms of education, the elite managed in general to confertheir status upon their descendants (Waterbury 1970; cf. Bourdieu andPasseron 1977). Traditional men of learning, like other Moroccans, shareda conception of society ordered through concrete, albeit shifting, socialnetworks and obligations, not by groups and classes. The French protec-torate (and the Spanish) presented no direct challenge to this conception ofthe social order.

Taken by itself, this explanation based on material interests is insuffi-cient. It does not account for the continued popular respect enjoyed by menof learning. In an excellent study of the rural notables of Morocco in the1960s, a French scholar writes of the preponderant influence of traditionalmen of learning who, in spite of what he calls their 'confused ideal of socialjustice' (Leveau 1976: 93), have managed to retain real popular supportwhile a more 'modern' bureaucratic elite, exposed to Western educationand influenced by cosmopolitan Western life styles, has failed almostcompletely to do so.


The ideal of social justice held by traditional men of learning is 'con-fused' only when analysts seek to consider it in Western categories.25 A fulldiscussion of the world view of traditionally educated Moroccan intellec-tuals and its relation to popular conceptions of the social order is beyondthe scope of this paper, but two implicit premises of it have already beenindicated—the notion of inequality as a natural fact of the social order anda highly restricted sense of social responsibility. These premises are perhapsmost effectively delineated through comparison with two contrasting tradi-tions of 'gentlemanly' education, English and Chinese, which also pos-sessed implicit notions of social inequality. Students of public schools inVictorian England were instilled with a sense of equity or 'fair play,'leadership and public spirit which had its analogues in political life, while inChina men of learning were considered to possess exemplary moral virtueswhich suited them for positions of authority (Wilkinson 1964; Weber1958). There was no expectation in Morocco that Islamic men of learningshould constitute an ideological vanguard, even in times of major socialupheaval. They could on occasion serve as iconic expressions of popularsentiment, but there was no developed tradition in which they were able toshape these sentiments or guide the direction of social change.

The affinity between popular conceptions of valued knowledge andthose conveyed in Islamic education explain the continuing popular legiti-macy of such forms of knowledge and, at least in principle, of its carriers.What of the limitations of form of Islamic knowledge and its associatedintellectual technology? The notion that the most valued knowledge wasfixed by memorization in the first place limited the number of texts whichany individual thoroughly could 'possess,' just as did the notion that valuedknowledge was accessible to all men of learning. A range of materials couldbe and were introduced, but there was no developed tradition of specializa-tion associated with this tradition of learning. The consequence was thatinnovations of content tended to suffer the same fate as innovations insocieties without developed traditions of writing. Men of influence in themilieus of learning could to a limited extent introduce new materials, butinnovations suggested by others had little chance of taking hold. Nor could

2S In a critique of his own study of Arab intellectuals, Albert Hourani (1970: viii) haspointed out the general scholarly inattention to the impact upon society of those thinkers whochose to reject a significant dialogue with Western thought. This critique is confirmedindirectly in the work of a Western-educated Moroccan intellectual, Abdallah Laroui (1974:19-28), who divides modern Arab intellectuals into three types: technocrats, liberals andclerics. He largely succeeds in portraying the dilemmas of the first two Western-influencedtypes in their confrontation with Western social and political ideals and search for "authenti-city,' but conveys only an unconvincing stereotype of the "clerics," his term for the products oftraditional Islamic education. Because the ideologies of this latter type are popularly shared,they need not be fully explicit. This makes them all the more difficult to convey to a Westernaudience, or for that matter to a Muslim one that has received a Western-style education withits accompanying implicit values.

ISLAMIC EDUCATION AND ITS SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 5I I

forms of knowledge proliferate. The body of knowledge shared by men oflearning of any generation shifted over time, but it did not tend to becomemore elaborate in form. There was no room in this tradition for disciplinarycompetences to be carved out and elaborated by smaller communities ofmen of learning. Moreover, since knowledge was considered to be fixed andmemorizable, the central ideological problem was that of justifying anychange of form or content in terms of its essential replication of past forms,instead of allowing an elaboration of form and content at least partiallyautonomous from generally accepted forms.

In the past, the memorizable truths of Islamic education were passedfrom generation to generation. Since the collapse of Islamic education inthe 1930s, this is no longer the case. To the present, this collapse of the'technology' of intellectual reproduction has had no pronounced impact; aselsewhere, major changes in educational systems take a long time to have awidespread impact. The concept of knowledge as fixed and memorizabletruths is still concretely demonstrated in Moroccan society by men whohave memorized the Quran and its proper recitation, and associated textsare still mnemonically carried by the last generation of traditionally edu-cated men of learning. Yet the number of individuals who are able todemonstrate 'possession' of such knowledge is rapidly diminishing. Oneconsequence is that the older generation of men of learning consider theiryounger replacements as essentially ignorant, knowing little of Islamic lawbeyond the bilingual French and Arabic handbooks prepared by theMinistry of Justice. The accuracy of this appraisal is not at issue here, butimplied in it is the notion that their replacements are little more thanbureaucratically appointed specialists who carry neither the authority northe sense of legitimacy that they regard themselves as having possessed inthe past. This notion appears largely to be popularly shared.

The shift of religious knowledge from that which is mnemonically 'pos-sessed' to material that can only be consulted in books suggests a majortransformation in the nature of knowledge and its carriers. It may still beideologically maintained that religious knowledge is memorizable andimmutable, as is certainly the case for the word of God as recorded in theQuran, but the lack of concrete embodiment of this premise in the carriersof such knowledge indicates a major shift. This shift may not be consciouslyrecognized, just as many Muslim intellectuals claim that the Frenchcolonial experience had little impact on the belief and practice of Islam,which from a sociological point of view is decidedly not the case (Eickel-man 1974). One possible consequence of this shift is that socially recog-nized carriers of religious learning are no longer confined to those who havestudied accepted texts in circumstances equivalent to those of the mosque-universities, with their bias toward favoring members of the elite. Thosewho can interpret what Islam 'really' is can now be of more variable social


status than was the case when mnemosyne was an essential feature of thelegitimacy of knowledge. The carriers of religious knowledge will increas-ingly be anyone who can claim a strong Islamic commitment; freed frommnemonic domination, religious knowledge can increasingly be delineatedand interpreted in a more abstract and flexible fashion. A long apprentice-ship under an established man of learning is no longer a prerequisite tolegitimizing one's own religious knowledge.

The essential limitation of the 'correspondence' approach in delineatingand analyzing the relation between systems of meaning and patterns ofsocial domination is that it presumes rather than demonstrates a symmetrybetween the two domains. It might be argued that no scholar, or almostnone, has sought directly to apply such a premise to education or othersystems of meaning in complex, historically known societies. Yet adominant theme in recent anthropological discussions has been to proposea radical separation on the analytical level between culture (systems ofmeaning) and the social contexts in which such notions are maintained(e.g., Schneider and Smith 1973: 6). Such a resolutely separatist approachmay be effective in uncovering the logic of a particular cultural system, butby neglecting the relations of knowledge to power and the communicativeaspects of the interrelations between symbol systems and social action, itcannot explain how systems of meaning influence, and are influenced by,the various historical contexts in which they occur. An exploration of therelations between the forms of religious knowledge in Islam as it is under-stood in Morocco and the intellectual technology by which such forms wereshaped, legitimized and transmitted, suggests that the relation between thetwo is complex and irregular, so that it must be traced through specificsocial historical contexts rather than deduced from a set of abstractassumptions. Such an approach adds a crucial historical dimension to thesociological understanding of symbols and of systems of meaning.

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