Noor Aisha Abdul Rahman and Lai Ah Eng, eds., Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies & Marshall Cavendish Academic, 2006. 191 pages.

This compilation provides a systematic overview of the development and challenges of Islamic education in Singapore. After the introduction by Noor Aishah and Lai Ah Eng, Chee Min Fui focuses on the historical evolution of madrasah education (chapter 1) and Mukhlis Abu Bakar highlights the tension between the state’s interest and the citizens’ right to an Islamic education (chapter 2). In chapter 3, Noor Aishah elaborates on the fundamental problem of the madrasah’s attempt to lay the educational foundation of both traditional and rational sciences. Azhar Ibrahim surveys madrasah reforms in Indonesia, Egypt, India, and Pakistan in chapter 4, while Afiza Hashim and Lai Ah Eng narrate a case study of Madrasah Ma`arif in chapter 5. Tan Tay Keong (chapter 6) examines the debate on the national policy of compulsory education in the context of the madrasah, and Syed Farid Alatas (chapter 7) clarifies the concept of knowledge and Islam’s philosophy of education, which can be used to assess contemporary madrasah education.

Formal madrasah education in Singapore began with the establishment of Madrasah Iqbal in 1908, which drew inspiration from Egypt’s reformist movement. This madrasah was a departure from traditional Islamic education, which was informal and focused only on the traditional sciences and Arabic. The madrasah’s importance and popularity in Singapore was attested to by the fact that at one point, Madrasah al-Junied was “the school of choice for students from the Malay states, Indonesia and the Philippines” (p. 10). After the Second World War, there were about 50-60 such schools, mostly primary, with about 6,000 students using Malay as the medium of instruction. The number declined with the introduction of Malay-language secondary schools in the 1960s.

Although the Singaporean Council of the Islamic Religion was set up in 1966, it was able to register, manage, and approve the religious schools’ curricula in 1990. During this period, the Council for the Development of the Singapore Muslim Community emerged to help revive madrasah education. Today, the country’s six full-time madrasahs, supplemented by a number of part-time madrasahs, provide religious instruction for those Muslims who attend the national schools.

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