Islamic Pedagogy and Embodiment: An Anthropological Study of a British Madrasah

This anthropological study, of a higher education British madrasah, is about increasing our awareness of the spectrum of sensory experiences that shape Islamic pedagogy. I started my anthropological study from an Islamic premise of the inseparable nature of knowledge and the sacred. Pedagogy is defined as not a matter of simple methods and technique but as an holistic approach that deals with the capacity to form the human person. Islamic pedagogy is represented by the heartfelt interactions between the teacher and learner through orality, facilitating memorisation, and the didactic approach towards sacred texts. This research has endeavored to explore the sensoria of the British madrasah from a mystical approach and this provides the foundation for shaping our understanding of the madrasah concept of Islamic pedagogy. Al-Ghazali’s mystical approach toward learning is evident in this research in defining the madrasah as a spiritual rather than social construct, and is optimised by the embodiment of learning.