1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910789901503321

Autore

Bano Masooda <1973->

Titolo

The rational believer [[electronic resource] ] : choices and decisions in the madrasas of Pakistan / / Masooda Bano

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, 2012

ISBN

0-8014-6433-1

0-8014-6386-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (265 p.)

Disciplina

371.077095491

Soggetti

Faith and reason - Islam

Islamic religious education - Pakistan

Madrasahs - Pakistan

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

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

Sommario/riassunto

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.