ABSTRACT
One cannot speak of Shariah education without describing the religious field in Arab countries. This chapter will discuss four issues. The first issue is religiosity and its relationship with the secular/civil state, as debates on separating/distinguishing religion from the state and from politics are circulating widely in the public sphere for the first time since the Arab Spring, compared to these issues previously only interesting the elitist left. This opens the path for potential Arab secularity(ies) without its historical authoritarian experience. Second, it will discuss the fatwas issued by religious institutions by distinguishing between three schools. Third, it will study the Islamic internal reform by focusing on some of its new actors (the Arab Network for Research and Publication, Nama Center for Research and Studies, Believers Without Borders, and the International Union of Muslim Scholars). Finally, the chapter will examine Friday sermons through a case study of Sunni and Shia sermons in Lebanon, while highlighting the speakers’ qualifications and relationship to the state: supervision and financing, their sources of knowledge, and a content analysis of Friday sermons, while pointing to social and political issues, public morality, and non-Muslims.
