The Education system of Bangladesh is characterized by the presence of traditional religious (madrasah) and general (school) education. The prevalence of this duality is considered to be one of the fundamental problems in promoting an integrated educated society in the country. The difference between these two groups of people can be observed not only in their orientation and thinking but also in all aspects of life ranging from style of dressing to commitment towards politics. Those coming out of the general education system dominate educated society and the national development process, while those who receive education through the madrasah system usually live on religious activities and rituals and its teaching. Hence their contribution towards national development is hardly visible. The present study, which is probably unique of its kind in Bangladesh, is an empirical one investigating this duality in education, its causes, influencing factors and consequences. It has been evident in the present study that although the root of this duality lies in historical facts, present management by authority largely adds to the problem. Then apathy towards the issue has aggravated the situation and the rift continues to be as wide as ever. There are some social, economic and cultural factors among the people which also keep this issue alive. It has been found in this study that factors like parental educational background, level of education, influence of relatives, level of economic condition, family tradition and attitude towards religion seem to have influenced the enrolment of children into the two systems. Integrating these two contrasting systems of education was felt necessary by most of the respondents although on the question of how to achieve this integration opinion did not converge. It is of course a difficult task, but not impossible. For the greater benefit of society, all should come forward to minimize the gap between the two systems of education.

This study investigated attitudes towards religion and morality among a selected group of Secondary School (fourth grade) students in the state of Kuwait. Two measuring scales, namely Attitude toward Religion (ATR) and Attitude toward Morality (ATM), were constructed to measure students' orientation. The findings suggested that most of students hold high positive Attitudes toward Religion and Morality and that there is a close relationship between their behaviour - measured by a five-point prayer frequency scale- and ATR and ATM. The thesis included nine chapters covering theoretical and empirical investigation. The study begins with a critical review of previous literature and gives a general outline of Islamic Education thought and the Educational System of Kuwait. A quantitative methodology has been applied and the computer software programme, SPSS, for data analysis has been used. The sample used includes 750 students selected randomly from five Educational Districts comprising both male and female Secondary School students. An elaborative descriptive and inferential data analysis is given in order to validate the several findings of the study. In addition, the study displayed variance of figures and tables in order to clarify the different independent factors and variables and their relationships. At the end, a number of relevant appendices are added. High scores recorded on the ATM and ATR scales show that most students recognized the importance Islamic religious and moral values in their lives. The study recommended that the Islamic Education curriculum should have a special information technology component whereby students are introduced to 'Islam through multimedia means. On the whole, the study by its empirical investigation aimed to contribute to the theory and practice of contemporary Islamic Educational thought.

This thesis explores the strategic dynamics of Jihad across the first 70 years of Islam, surveying how the military instrument dynamically served policy in a means-end relationship; and was the product of both the systemic strategic environment, and the bargaining dynamics of domestic politics. Two distinct concepts of Jihad are distinguished; the first is the theological and perpetual contest or absolute Jihad, that seeks to impose the jurisdiction of God’s sovereignty without challenge; and secondly, Jihad in reality, that is, war in reality subject to the vicissitudes of the strategic setting and environment. Mapping the evolution of Jihad reveals that the initial warfighting practices of the Prophet Muhammad served revolutionary policies that would be transformed by the policies of successive Caliphates (al-Khulafa al-Rashidun) yet remain the idiom of military action in Islam. Specifically, Jihad served the functions of homeland security, defensive expansionism, and most prominently, an emancipatory interventionist Da’wa Policy. In its final evolution, during the first caliphate of the Umayyad Dynasty, Jihad served an imperial agenda designed to regain strategic and regional hegemony. The strategic dynamics of Jihad across the first seventy-years of Islam was infused by the cult of the offensive as early Muslim political leadership competed with regional actors for superior offense-dominance and the strategic initiative, under conditions of anarchy and self-help. The research concludes that the proposition of ‘Jihad as a continuation of politik by other means’ accurately reflects the politico-strategic behaviour of Muslim political administrations during the first century of Islam. Absolute Jihad consistently provided the permissive essence for policies of limited warfare that sought to implement Jihad as the idiom of military action, although objectives were set according to the geopolitical and strategic realities of the operational and strategic environment and setting and not upon theological imperatives or absolute war.

This study is concerned with the comparison of religious education in Turkey and England with special reference to the teaching of Islam in secondary state schools. It aims to realise the following two main objectives in terms of secondary school textbooks: 1. To indicate to what extent the adoption of a confessional or non-confessional approach in religious education makes an impact on the teaching of religion. 2. To describe and compare the similarities and differences in the teaching of Islam in state schools and their connection with broader educational policy in Turkey and England. . It begins with an investigation of historical developments in religious education in Turkey and England, then turns to examine different aspects of the presentation of Islam in terms of selected textbooks from the two countries. The thesis concludes with a presentation of the findings and contribution of this research. It is observed that having a confessional or non-confessional approach in religious education made different impacts on the teaching of Islam. In England, mostly because of a non-confessional presentation of Islam, historic western prejudices and distortions, particularly with regard to the doctrinal dimension of Islam, largely disappeared. An attempt was made to present Islam as far as possible in its own terms. However, the creation of new prejudices and distortion about the portrayal of Islam could not be precluded in the English textbooks selected, particularly over some issues such as women and use of force in Islam. It should also be noted that compared to Turkey Islam has relatively been presented in its contemporary forms, as well as consideration of pupils' educational development. Due to the adaptation of a confessional approach in religious education Islam is presented as a possible and desirable way of life in the Turkish textbooks selected. A certain degree of indoctrination and promotion of Islam, and a more sympathetic mode of expression with reference to Islam were observed, while exhibiting limited adaptability to complying with the changing conditions of Turkish society from the point of view of religious education and of pupils' educational necessities. Moreover, as far as possible, writers of Turkish textbooks tried to present Islam as an individualistic religion in line with the secular understanding of the Turkish state. Non-Islamic religions were generally externalised as religions. With respect to this, Christianity was treated in terms of the Islamic understanding of religion, and the dominant influence of the Qur' an and the traditional Islamic viewpoint about ahl al-kitab (possessor of the holy texts) was noted.

This thesis offers a historical account of the emergence and evolution of new Islamic educational institutions in Saudi Arabia in the twentieth century which came to sit at the heart of migratory circuits of students and scholars from across the globe. It pays special attention to the Islamic University of Medina (IUM), which was launched by the Saudi state in 1961 to offer fully-funded religious instruction to mostly non-Saudi students. Exploring the history of this missionary project provides a point of departure for interrogating the commonplace claim that Saudi actors have taken advantage of wealth derived from oil rents in recent decades to fund the export of Wahhabism. In order to understand the far-reaching cultural, social and political dynamics that have emerged from this nexus between migration, education, material investment and religious mission, this study develops a historiography grounded in a novel conception of transnational religious economies. These are understood to consist in flows – both within and across national borders – of material capital, spiritual capital, religious migrants and social technologies. While Saudi state spending has been crucial for the operation of institutions like the IUM, its missionary project has also drawn on a far wider range of resources within the terms of these economies, including migrant labour, sources of symbolic legitimation and modes of pedagogy appropriated from beyond the Peninsula. The IUM’s syllabuses, whilst firmly rooted in core Wahhabi concerns, have also been shaped by processes of hegemonic engagement with migrant students. Finally, students bearing spiritual capital accumulated on its campus have themselves made divergent uses of these resources in locations around the world. The notion of transnational religious economies developed here shines light on the multiple resources, border crossings, historical contingencies, interests and forms of agency bound up in the articulation of a power-laden, state-led project of “religious expansion”.

This thesis is an in-depth study into two of the UK charity iERA's da'wah narratives: the Qura'nic embryology 'miracle' and the Kalam Cosmological Argument. While the embryo verses have received scholarly attention, there is little to no research in the da'wah context for both narratives. Berger and Luckmann's social constructionism was applied to both, which were problematic. It was found that iERA constructed its exegesis of the embryo verses by expanding on classical meanings to show harmony with modern science. Additionally, it developed the Cosmological Argument by adapting it to Salafi Islamic beliefs. The construction processes were found to be influenced by an online dialectic between iERA and its Muslim and atheist detractors, causing it to abandon the scientific miracles and modify the Cosmological Argument. Signs point to a weakening of faith among young people, including Muslims, as they have unprecedented access to unfiltered online information on religion and science. By employing the narratives, iERA aims to legitimate the fundamentals of Islam to Muslims and to attract converts by presenting it as a rational and modern faith. While iERA's da'wah template is practical, its errors are relevant to the wider discussions on Qur'anic exegesis and modern challenges to the religion.

The Tablighi Jama'at (TJ) is widely regarded as the largest movement of grassroots Islamic revival in the world yet remains significantly under-researched. This thesis examines the British branch of the movement based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork conducted over 18 months. Intensive participant observation was combined with 59 semi-structured interviews to present a detailed typology and topography of the movement's organisational structure in Britain. Further, the issue of intergenerational transmission is explored – based on an analysis of the cultural identity markers of language, clothing and food – with clear shifts identified between the first-generation 'Old Guard' and the British-born 'Avant-Garde.' The thesis argues that TJ should best be characterised as a movement in transition located within broader processes of indigenisation operative within British Islam more generally. Theoretically, the thesis augments Berger and Luckmann's sociology of knowledge with insights derived from Bhaskar’s critical realism to propose the twin 'generative mechanisms' of secularity and spirituality from which empirically accessible social phenomena emerge. These are used to anatomise the process of 'intra-religious conversion' which emerges as a key motif of contemporary TJ experience. Turner's concept of liminality and Schutz's phenomenology of consciousness are further deployed to examine ritual and semantic dimensions of conversion that see the neophyte’s attachment to religion transition from a nominal to a passionate state. Generic theories in the sociology of religion are also consulted to explore issues of retention and post-conversion strategies of commitment-maintenance. Finally, utilising insights from Peter Berger’s vast oeuvre, the thesis explores the intersection of 'Islamic Revival' with secularisation theory in Europe. It argues that, in the context of contemporary ‘Eurosecularity,’ the willed and conscious exercise of agency in ways which publicly affirm faith is intrinsically imbued with a disconcerting ‘debunking’ potential for those who have unthinkingly imbibed into interior consciousness the taken-for-granted suppositions of a secular nomos.

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When a terror attack targets a multi-faith society, the rate of prejudice against the Muslim population suddenly increases. It was reported after the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 that there was a noticeable increase in prejudice against Arab Muslim Americans. Yet, it suddenly decreased after identifying the perpetrator as non-Arab/non-Muslim (Timothy McVeigh). This research argues that the misrepresentation of Islamic legal discourse, particularly jihad, participates in framing the cognitive aspect of prejudice against Muslims. It explains further that misrepresentation frames the mental representation of terrorism as 'Islamic terrorism'; an explicit crime that is committed by Muslims, motivated by jihad and targets the West. This thesis concludes that, due to the misrepresentation of jihad, terror attacks stimulate prejudice against Muslim populations. Misrepresented discourse confuses the receivers by activating the mental representation of a criminal act when using jihad instead of a legal rule, categorises the Muslim population as the out-group that threatens the security of the in-group, mainly the West. Ultimately, misrepresentation causes the domination of radical ideology and demonises the role of legal discourse and counter terrorism policies. This thesis makes recommendations regarding these issues. This research is library based; the researcher utilises her identity in the writing of this thesis (autoethnography). In addition to this, speech act theory is used as the main theory to reclaim the legal performative of “jihad” in Islamic international law by treating the Islamic legal discourse as an authoritative discourse. Other theories have a secondary role in examining the impact of misrepresentation on the social dynamics between the in-group and the out-group, especially after a terror attack; they are social psychology, frame theory, schema theory, discourse theory (pragmatic), and critical discourse analysis.

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