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The Rational Believer : Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan / Masooda Bano.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2012]Copyright date: ©2012Description: 1 online resource (264 p.) : 2 halftonesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780801450440
  • 9780801463860
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 371.077095491 23
LOC classification:
  • BP43.P18 B37 2016
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Transliteration and Spelling -- Glossary -- 1. Religion and Reason: A New Institutionalist Perspective -- Part I. Institutional Change and Stability -- 2. Religion and Change: Oxford and the Madrasas of South Asia -- 3. Explaining the Stickiness: State-Madrasa Engagement In South Asia -- 4. Organization of Religious Hierarchy: Competition or Cooperation? -- Part II. Determinants of Demand for Informal Institutions -- 5. Formation of a Preference: Why Join a Madrasa? -- 6. Logic of Adaptive Preference: Islam and Western Feminism -- Part III: Informal Institutions and Collective Outcomes -- 7. The Missing Free-Rider: Religious Rewards -- 8. Exclusionary Institutional Preference: The Logic of Jihad -- 9. Informal Institutions and Development -- Appendix: Research Methodology -- References -- Index
Summary: Islamic schools, or madrasas, have been accused of radicalizing Muslims and participating, either actively or passively, in terrorist networks since the events of 9/11. In Pakistan, the 2007 siege by government forces of Islamabad's Red Mosque and its madrasa complex, whose imam and students staged an armed resistance against the state for its support of the "war on terror," reinforced concerns about madrasas' role in regional and global jihad. By 2006 madrasas registered with Pakistan's five regulatory boards for religious schools enrolled over one million male and 200,000 female students. In The Rational Believer, Masooda Bano draws on rich interview, ethnographic, and survey data, as well as fieldwork conducted in madrasas throughout the country to explore the network of Pakistani madrasas. She maps the choices and decisions confronted by students, teachers, parents, and clerics and explains why available choices make participation in jihad appear at times a viable course of action.Bano works shows that beliefs are rational and that religious believers look to maximize utility in ways not captured by classical rational choice. She applies analytical tools from the New Institutional Economics to explain apparent contradictions in the madrasa system-for example, how thousands of young Pakistani women now demand the national adoption of traditional sharia law, despite its highly restrictive limits on female agency, and do so from their location in Islamic schools for girls that were founded only a generation ago.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Transliteration and Spelling -- Glossary -- 1. Religion and Reason: A New Institutionalist Perspective -- Part I. Institutional Change and Stability -- 2. Religion and Change: Oxford and the Madrasas of South Asia -- 3. Explaining the Stickiness: State-Madrasa Engagement In South Asia -- 4. Organization of Religious Hierarchy: Competition or Cooperation? -- Part II. Determinants of Demand for Informal Institutions -- 5. Formation of a Preference: Why Join a Madrasa? -- 6. Logic of Adaptive Preference: Islam and Western Feminism -- Part III: Informal Institutions and Collective Outcomes -- 7. The Missing Free-Rider: Religious Rewards -- 8. Exclusionary Institutional Preference: The Logic of Jihad -- 9. Informal Institutions and Development -- Appendix: Research Methodology -- References -- Index

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Islamic schools, or madrasas, have been accused of radicalizing Muslims and participating, either actively or passively, in terrorist networks since the events of 9/11. In Pakistan, the 2007 siege by government forces of Islamabad's Red Mosque and its madrasa complex, whose imam and students staged an armed resistance against the state for its support of the "war on terror," reinforced concerns about madrasas' role in regional and global jihad. By 2006 madrasas registered with Pakistan's five regulatory boards for religious schools enrolled over one million male and 200,000 female students. In The Rational Believer, Masooda Bano draws on rich interview, ethnographic, and survey data, as well as fieldwork conducted in madrasas throughout the country to explore the network of Pakistani madrasas. She maps the choices and decisions confronted by students, teachers, parents, and clerics and explains why available choices make participation in jihad appear at times a viable course of action.Bano works shows that beliefs are rational and that religious believers look to maximize utility in ways not captured by classical rational choice. She applies analytical tools from the New Institutional Economics to explain apparent contradictions in the madrasa system-for example, how thousands of young Pakistani women now demand the national adoption of traditional sharia law, despite its highly restrictive limits on female agency, and do so from their location in Islamic schools for girls that were founded only a generation ago.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 02. Mrz 2022)