'Mass education has not brought a decline in religious observance. It Essay

'Mass education has not brought a decline in religious observance. It has, instead, reconfigured the ways in which Muslims kno - Essay Example With time, some of the traditional ways of people have faded away all thanks to the changes that the world has undergone. Everything has taken a turn to a certain direction. The economy has changed; the social lives of people have changed, and the cultural life of people and political atmosphere are different from the past. Whether all this changed have happened all for the positive reasons is yet unknown, but one thing is clear in all this; individuals have become more aware of their surroundings. They have come to see that the world around them is changing. They have acquired the knowledge and are literate enough to distinguish between things. This is one of the major developments that have occurred. Individuals have become more literate. They have come to learn more, and this brings them closer to understanding the changes that have occurred. Literacy has been something that has been taken seriously and it is considered a necessary aspect in the development of an individual. Peopl e now value the aspect of education more than they did a time ago (Kaplan, 10, 2006). They have become literate, and all this is because of development and change. Literacy has brought change in politics, economy, culture and tradition and the social lives of people. ... Much to the contrary, mass schooling and literacy have heightened the public interest in Islam and widened access to Islamic texts. This increasing demand for Islamic knowledge has created a highly charged educational field, where different interest groups and institutions vie for the hearts and minds of Muslims. The main focus will be turned on to two countries that have Muslim influence; Egypt and Turkey (Eickelman, 45, 1992). A number of ethnographic and historical studies that examine the place and politics of Islam in public education will be reviewed in order to give the basis of educational influence on Muslims. By the end of this essay, questions will be answered that relate to literacy and Islam. Questions like, â€Å"What happens to religious socialization when it becomes formalised (set curricula) and centralized (state-controlled)?† will be answered. Another area of interest that will be looked into is the Eickelman’s (1992) suggestion that states that, â₠¬Å"mass education has led to an â€Å"objectification† of Islam†. Also there will be a discussion of Starrett’s (1998) notion of â€Å"functionalization† of Islam – â€Å"putting it consciously to work for various types of political and social projects†. There is also another area of interest that relates to the discussion; Kaplan’s (2006) thesis that the religious nationalists of post-1980 Turkey have promoted an â€Å"Islamic secularity† through school curricula. All this will be put into consideration in order to test whether literacy has brought Muslims closer to them realizing their true heritage and embracing it. Public education is not, of course, confined to formal schooling. Saba Mahmood (2005), for example,