The Imam-Hatip network is a far cry from the western stereotype of the madrassa as an institution that teaches the Quran by rote and little else. Originally founded to educate Muslim religious functionaries in the 1920s, the Imam-Hatip syllabus devotes only around 40 per cent of study to religious subjects like Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence and rhetoric. The rest is given over to secular topics.
In the Beyoglu Anadolu religious school in Istanbul, gilded Qurans line the shelves and on a table lies a Turkish translation of “Eclipse”, a vampire-based fantasy romance by US novelist Stephanie Meyer.
No-one inside the school would have you believe this combination of Islamic and western influences demonstrates potential to serve as a 'moderate' educational antidote to radical Islam.
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