Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to examine the social and political concepts that led to the implementation of the Ma‘had girls’ schooling system and to describe the process by which the new Islamic educational system for women was constructed.
Nowadays the Ma‘had (which is managed by the comprehensive Islamic organization al-Azhar) has become a part of Egypt’s significant national network of educational institutions, regardless of gender. The current number of students in these schools has reached approximately 1,730,000 just from primary to secondary levels, wherein girls account for 46% of the schools’ enrollment. Historically, however, female students could not enter these al-Azhar schools.
After Nasser overthrew the constitutional monarchy in 1952, the regime continued the policy of increasing school enrollment. This expansion concerned not only the field of general education but also the Islamic education system. In 1961, the Nasser regime enacted Law No. 103, which pressured al-Azhar to reform, for instance, by adding new courses in their al-Azhar university and Ma‘had schools. In the context of the expansion policy, al-Azhar decided to allow women into their own institutions.
The first half of this paper investigates the social and political aims that led al-Azhar to enter the field of women's education, by analyzing periodicals and official publications issued in the 1960s-70s. Then, the latter half of this paper focuses on the experiences of students who graduated from al-Azhar's first girls’ school (named Maadi Girls’ Ma‘had), based on alumnae interviews.
The findings are as follows:
1) In the 1960s, the beginning of religious education for women was celebrated as a sign of progress from backwardness, in the general context of State Feminism and Arab Socialism. As a consequence, the media displayed expectations that the schools would train girls to become good mothers and wives for their family. In addition, they would educate the region's future women leaders. However, these kinds of discourse faded away in the 1970s. Then, the publications stopped approaching the Ma‘had girls’ school from an elitist perspective and emphasized the value of mass education using Islamic rationalistic terminology, as the number of schools and students increased.
2) The alumnae described the ways in which the political policy and social demands were achieved through the pedagogy, curriculum, and environment of the Maadi Girls’ Ma‘had and mentioned their own careers and achievements. At the same time, they felt torn that their old school’s image of high-quality education could not be maintained in the context of the influx of students. Several respondents, who had returned to the school as teachers, unfavorably compared it to their student days.
This research reveals how al-Azhar Women’s education promoted the new women’s social participation, such as producing women teachers of Islam. However, in order to evaluate the benefits of the 1961 mass education reform, it is necessary to consider the thoughts and experiences of the next generation, who graduated from Ma‘had schools after the late 1970s, in further research.
