Graduate student Mizanur Rahman presented a paper titled “Reexamining Madrassah Education-Politics Nexus in Bangladesh” at the Southern Political Science Association Annual Meeting at New Orleans, held January 5-7, 2018.
Rahman argues that madrassashs in Bangladesh are not apolitical, but rather both streams of them, Aliya and Qawmi madrassahs, have political affiliations and are connected to political activism.
The paper corroborates the existing contention that Aliya madrassas are politically connected Bangladesh Jamat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist political party in the country. However, it also argues that Qawmi madrassahs display their political aspirations by way of holding a monopoly over authority on Islam, activism for a shari’a based Islamic state, and other social Islamization movements.
