The Rise of Madrasa: Strengthening Islamic Religious Education in Kondoa-Busi Village, Tanzania

Abstract

The Islamic worldview provides children from Muslim backgrounds with a way to interpret their life, establish their values and find meaning. Knowing what is taught in madrasa is the basis of understanding the worldview in which children with Muslim backgrounds are raised. In madrasa, the teacher (Usthadh) focuses on the Quran memorization and the five pillars of Islam. This paper discusses the philosophy, process and content taught to children with Muslim background learning madrasa among the Rangi people living in Busi village, Tanzania. The paper follows a study that was carried out among thirty respondents; twenty- four Muslims who were composed of madrasa teachers, children with Muslim backgrounds who attended madrasa, men and women who had gone through the madrasa training; six adult Christians, also composed of missionaries and local evangelists who served in the Busi area. The study employed use of ethnographic research design as a traditional model of qualitative research, thus data collection was done through participant observation and ethnographic interviews.

Keywords: Madrasa, Islamic religion, Muslim, Christian, Missionaries, Evangelism