Educational practice: lessons to be learned from madrasahand religious schools in contemporary Southeast Asia

This article aims at examining the current portrait of Islamic education in Southeast Asia. Recently, there have been many studies on the role of madrasahs or religious schools in Islamic education. As Muslim who studies social-anthropology, I would like to approach this issue by examining socio-cultural of Islamic education in Southeast Asia. Historically, the tradition has been based on Muslim society at grass root level. The word of madrasah in Southeast Asia has long history, which called as dayah in Aceh, surau in Minangkabau, pesantren in Java, pondok in Malaysia, and pho no in Southern Thailand. The role of madrasah, then has similarities with the tradition of pesantren, even in some Muslim countries like Indonesia scholars still can differentiate between pesantren and madrasah. In this study, I examine to philosophical dimension and system of knowledge reproduction in Islamic education. Finally, I argue that pesantren or religious school is embedded in Muslim culture.