Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution

3. Madrasa: Style and Substance

3 Madrasa: Style and Substance We have a hadith: The people are dead except the ulama. The ulama are dead except those who practice their knowledge. All those who practice their knowledge are dead except the pious ones, and they are in great danger. - Agha Najafi-Quchani T HE PEDAGOGICAL IDEAL of the madrasa is posed by its members as a criticism of the secular education system, which is spreading at the expense of the madrasa system. The madrasas have been deteriorating in quality and scope of curriculum despite efforts to stop the deterioration and to accommodate to modern demands. But as long as the state and the religious establishment each considered the other a threat to its own legitimacy, no serious thought could be given to an independent quality development of the madrasa ideal. The Madrasa as a Free University The picture that members of the madrasa system draw of the secular schools stresses their coercive and antilearning nature in contrast to greater freedom and more learning for learning's sake in the madrasas. In the state institutions students are forced to take classes they do not like. They are pressured to study for grades and for diplomas rather than for knowledge. Both teachers and students anxiously await release by the bell at the end of the class period. Students and teachers often do not respect each other. Teachers pontificate; students are captive audiences rather than partners in learning. The pedagogical ideal of the madrasa is just the reverse. There are no grades, so students study only for learning's sake. Students who do not study are not flunked out, but neither are they elevated by bribery or favoritism. For each there is a place according to his capacity and inclination : a village preacher (akhund) need not be a legal expert (mujtahid ). Students study with teachers of their own choice. There is thus never a disciplinary problem or a problem of lack of respect for teachers. Indeed the bond of respect and devotion of students for their teachers is 61 Ayatullah Sayyid Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari (in the black turban that indicates sayyid status) in a characteristic daily activity; receiving visitors, inquiries , requests for advice and guidance. Madrasa: Style and Substance 63 proverbial in almost the sense of the Indian term guru. Teachers do not pontificate; rather, all teaching is on a dialectic principle of argument and counterargument in which students are encouraged to participate insofar as they have the preparation to do so. That is the ideal, and to a greater or lesser extent it is also what in fact exists. Teachers, of course, have their different styles, some of which encourage more and some less interruption. For example, to turn to the madrasas in Qum, Ayatullah S. Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari tends not to interrupt the flow of his discourse; he hears interjected questions from the audience but responds to them in his own time. Ayatullah S. Mohammad Reza Golpayegani, on the other hand, stops and listens to each question and answers it as it comes up. Style of give and take also depends upon the level of the class, there being more freedom and reason for questioning and debate at the most advanced levels. When, after a break of several years, Naser Makarem reopened his classes in 'aqa'id vamadhahib (doctrines and religions), he found himself forced to rule many questions out of order and to demand that only people with a certain level of training come to class; otherwise the debate could never get off the ground. Two styles of pedagogical discourse can be briefly illustrated. First, an example from the most advanced level of teaching, the so-called dars-i kharij ("external studies" or studies beyond the strict sequence of textbooks ). In Qum this occurs in the great mosque built by Ayatullah S. Hoseyn Borujerdi adjacent to the Shrine of Fatima, Hadrat-i Ma'suma (sister of the eighth Imam). Several parts of the mosque are simultaneously used by' different classes, each teacher seated upon his minbar (a set of stairs that serves as lecturn, or podium) and the students seated on carpets around him. The three important dars-i kharij (given by Shariatmadari, Golpayegani, and Marashi) are scheduled so that one can attend them all. The students range from youths approaching their twenties to whitebeards in their eighties. The serious students take notes; others may occupy their hands with worry beads, or may...