التعليم الإسلامي في كينِيَا بين التَّجْدِيْد والتَّحديات الجِذْرية

(Islamic Education in Kenya Between Reforms and Fundamental Challenges)

Abstract

Islam extended to the shores of East Africa during the Umayyad Caliphate through Muslim immigrants who came to the region for economic or political reasons. Later, successive waves of immigration and interactions between the arriving Muslims and the native citizens followed, allowing Islam to take hold throughout the region. New Islamic emirates and settlements distinguished by knowledge, scholarship and the manifestations of Islamic civilization were established along the East African coastal line. Among the social institutions that emerged with the advent of Islam in East Africa were the Islamic schools, which went through various forms and phases and played the most important role in transmitting Islamic knowledge and civilization across generations as well as in strengthening Islamic culture and identity. The aim of this research is to shed light on the history of Islamic education in Kenya by examining the historical background, phases, categories, developments and reforms implemented. Furthermore, the study evaluates the impending fundamental challenges that prevent Islamic education in Kenya from fulfilling its mission and provides some suggestions to address these challenges to move forward. The research adopts both the inductive analytical and historical approaches. The data is collected as primary sources from library and electronic materials, university theses, peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. The information was classified, analyzed and documented later to achieve a harmonious and well-documented study that connects past, present and future. The article concludes that Islamic education in Kenya has gone through various stages and forms since the arrival of Islam to the coasts of East Africa during the first century of Hijrah. It displays that the Islamic education was exposed to administrative and methodological obstacles during British colony (1895-1963), but it did not stop or disappear. Rather, reforms occurred in terms of introducing ‘Islamic education’ and ‘Arabic language’ to the state education curriculum, the emergence of integrated schools and Islamic universities at higher education level. However, the Kenyan Islamic education still faces huge fundamental setbacks that embodied in lack of official legal reference, in addition to administrative, curriculum, personnel and financial challenges. The paper recommends conducting more studies on Islamic education in Kenya in a manner that contributes to the comprehensive reconstruction and advancement of Muslim education in Kenya and East Africa at large.
Keywords: Islamic Education, Kenya, Islamic Education Renewal, Islamic Education Reform, Fundamental Challenges.