A glance behind the official: madrasa education in contemporary Turkey from a gender perspective

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1852958 (Table of Contents)

This thesis focuses on the experiences of women in the madrasas, which are unofficial ‘traditional’ educational institutions of systematic Islamic learning in contemporary Turkey. Based on semi- structured, in-depth interviews with these women and finding of participant observations in a madrasa and the neighborhood meetings, this study aims to reveal how these individuals acquire their subjectivities through the education provided by these unofficial institutions. Additionally, it is questioned why some women prefer to attend these madrasas instead of official institutions of religious education, such as faculties of divinity or other venues of higher education. Drawing on Saba Mahmood’s critique of the analytical binary of ‘resistance’ and ‘subordination’, it is suggested that the madrasa education nevertheless serves as an alternative way for these women to gain acceptance into a certain social environment, and an in-community status as intellectuals or teachers (hoca). This thesis also analyzes how these women define themselves in relation to their educational background and their differentiated social status both within and outside their respective communities by defining their own kind of “proper and true knowledge” and “conscious Muslim”. Finally, an overarching question is pursued, that is, how the definitions established by the political rule makers on who is educated and what is deemed to be valid knowledge for all come to shape these women’s lives and their social relations with the larger world.