Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
485
486
DALE F. EICKELMAN
The fact that Evolution was the last of Durkheim's major works to be translated into
English is indicative of its neglect, as is the omission of all reference to it in E.K. Wilson's
introduction to the English translation of Moral Education (1973).
487
dence' theory through the description and analysis of the cognitive style of
Islamic learning, the institutions of higher learning, and the social context
of both, as they existed in Marrakesh in the 1920s and 1930s, just before the
effective collapse of traditional educational institutions there. The relatively sudden decline of traditional higher learning in Morocco during this
period makes it a particularly appropriate setting for considering the
specific, and variable, links between concepts of knowledge, the institutional context in which such concepts are conveyed, and the adaptation to
change of each of these elements. In particular, Islamic education as
practiced in Morocco was in some ways intermediate between oral and
written systems of transmission of knowledge. Its key treatises existed in
written form but were conveyed orally, to be written down and memorized
by students. This article considers how the 'intellectual technology,' or
forms of transmission of knowledge available in a society shape and
accommodate social and cultural change. By so doing, ways are suggested
further to refine the debate over the 'great divide' in modes of thought, or
cognitive styles, between societies which possess systems of writing and
those which do not (Goody 1968, 1977).
A complementary goal, one which I hope justifies the 'thick' description
(Geertz 1973) in which my argument is necessarily presented, is to place the
comparative study of higher education in a broader context than that of
Europe and North America, the locus of most such studies (e.g., Stone
1974). With the expansion of European hegemony over most of the world
in the last two centuries, non-Western institutions of higher learning have
tended to collapse or to be eclipsed by their Western-based counterparts, so
that comparative studies dealing with non-European institutional forms
have necessarily been relegated to social historical analyses (e.g., Weber
1958:416^4; Wilkinson 1964, 1969; Dore 1965). The study presented here
is no exception, but because it deals with a relatively recent period it has
been possible to complement printed and manuscript sources with intensive interviews of persons in the milieu of traditional learning in the 1920s
and 1930s. These interviews have been especially important in the Islamic
context. The principal written sources, including teaching licenses (ijdza-s)
and traditional biographies and autobiographies of men of learning, follow
highly stylized conventions which themselves are a product of Islamic
education. These conventions severely limit the information which such
sources convey concerning how the eductional process actually worked, no
matter how thorough their analysis (e.g., Makdisi 1961).
ISLAMIC EDUCATION: RECENT POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL
CONTEXTS
DALE F. EICKELMAN
from the time of Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798. For this reason it is
important to specify the historical context in which such education is
described. In some cases, such as Algeria, the colonial power deliberately
destroyed the financial base of Islamic education so that by the 1880s all
that remained of higher education was a few schools of poor quality.
Because the graduates of such schools were ill prepared to assume positions
of significance in colonial Algerian society, Islamic education was increasingly regarded by Algerian Muslims themselves as inferior to that provided
by the French in official colonial schools (Colonna 1975).
In other countries Islamic education was not so directly undermined in
the nineteenth century. Yet the establishment of European-style institutions, at first only for specialized military training but rapidly expanding in
scope, had an equivalent detrimental impact. Such schools quickly
attracted students of the more privileged social strata and other more
ambitious students, generally leaving Islamic schools to those of a modest
and rural origin (e.g., Reid 1977: 351, 357). To meet the threat of Europeanstyle institutions, many centers of Islamic learning were compelled to
introduce such Western devices as formal curricula, new subjects, entrance
and course examinations, formally appointed faculties, and budgets subject to external governmental control. Such 'organization' (nizdm)use of
terms implying 'reform' was deliberately avoidedwas imposed upon the
famous Azhar mosque-university of Cairo between 1872 and 1896 (Arminjon 1907: 13-48; Heyworth-Dunne 1968: 395-405). Earlier in the century,
as a means of weakening the political strength of Islamic men of learning
{'dlim; pi. 'ulamd) in Egypt, the revenues from pious endowments upon
which Islamic education depended had already been undermined (Hourani
1970: 52). Consequently, descriptions of 'reformed' institutions cannot be
taken as reliable indicators of the nature of Islamic education prior to
'organization' or 'modernization,' although such studies provide significant insight into the contradictions involved in attempts at reform (e.g.,
Fischer 1976).
In contrast, until recently Islamic education in Morocco survived relatively intact. The 'organization' of the Qarawiyln mosque-university in Fez
occurred under French auspices in 1931 while the counterpart of the
Qarawiyin in Marrakesh, the Yusufiya mosque-university, was only subject to 'organization' in 1939.2 Moreover, those few Moroccan students
2
A number of excellent ethnographic accounts depict higher education in Morocco at
various periods from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. These include Delphin
(1889); Peretie (1912); Michaux-Bellaire (1911); Marty (1924); Berque (1938, 1949, 1958,
1974); 'Uthman (1935); and (indirectly) as-Susi (1961). As for studies elsewhere, Islamic
education without competing institutional forms survived in the Yemen until the 1950s, but to
date there are no published anthropological or social historical accounts available. Snouck
Hurgronje (1931: 153-212) provides a brief but valuable ethnographic account of higher
education in Mecca in 1884-85. For a general bibliographical survey of sources on Islamic
education, see Waardenburg (1974).
489
The cultural idea of religious knowledge has remained remarkably constant over time throughout the regions of Islamic influence. Writing specifically of medieval Islamic civilization, Marshall Hodgson states that education was 'commonly conceived as the teaching of fixed and memorizable
statements and formulas which could be learned without any process of
thinking as such' (1974: 438; italics mine, D.E.). The last phrase raises the
crucial issue of the meaning of 'understanding' associated with such a
concept of knowledge. The 'static and finite sum of statements' (Hodgson
1974:438) conveyed by education constitutes the religious sciences ('Urn; pi.
'ulum), the totality of knowledge and technique necessary in principle for a
Muslim to lead the fullest possible religious life. They also constitute the
most culturally valued knowledge (cf. Rosenthal 1970). The paradigm of
all such knowledge is the Quran, considered by Muslims literally to be the
word of God; its accurate memorization in one or more of the seven
conventional recitational forms is the first step in mastering the religious
sciences. 'Mnemonic domination' (malaka l-hifd)* the memorization of
key texts just as the Quran is memorized, is also the starting point for the
mastery of the religious sciences. To facilitate this task, most of the
3
The terms 'primary' and 'secondary' elite in this context refer to function rather than to any
organized group or class. The primary elite is today almost exclusively constituted by
Moroccans bilingual in French and Arabic.
4
This is the contextual meaning of the term among contemporary Moroccan men of
learning. In other sociohistorical contexts its meaning differs. For instance, in psychological
treatises of the 'A bbasid period the term implies'the faculty of memory.' I am grateful to Roy
Mottahedeh for pointing out this alternative usage.
490
DALE F. EICKELMAN
49I
492
DALE F. EICKELMAN
takes this shape, just as effective public speech involves both the skillful
invocation of Quranic phrases and the more mundane but memorizable
stock of knowledge drawn from poetry and proverbs. A further parallel is
in the model for the transmission of knowledge. The religious sciences in
Morocco and throughout the Islamic world are thought to be transmitted
through a quasi-genealogical chain of authority which descends from
master or teacher {shaykh) to student (tdlib) to insure that the knowledge of
earlier generations is passed on intact. Knowledge of crafts is passed from
master to apprentice in an analogous fashion, with any knowledge or skill
acquired in a manner independent from such a tradition regarded as suspect.
These analogues in forms of knowledge suggest how Islamic education is
appropriately to be evaluated. Marshall Hodgson, by characterizing it as
not involving 'any process of thinking as such,' implicitly evaluated Islamic
education in terms of Western pedagogical expectations. I shall argue in
contrast that the measure of'understanding' appropriate to Islamic knowledge is its use, often creative, in wider social contexts than those provided
by the milieu of learning itself or by the abstract manipulation of memorized materials in 'classroom' situations.
THE QURANIC PRESENCE: THE SOCIAL PARADIGM OF 'UNDERSTANDING'
493
494
DALE F. EICKELMAN
495
first few years of Quranic school, students recalled that they had little
control over what they recited. They could not, for instance, recite specific
chapters of the Quran if asked to do so, but had to begin with one of the
sixty principal sections (hizb-s) into which the Quran is divided for recitational purposes. Firmer control was achieved as students accompanied
their fathers, other relatives and occasionally their fqih to social gatherings.
On such occasions they heard adults incorporate Quranic verses into
particular contexts and gradually acquired the ability to do so themselves,
as well as to recite specific sections of the Quran without regard for the
order in which they had memorized it. Thus the measure of understanding
was the ability to make appropriate practical reference to the memorized
text, just as originality was shown in working Quranic references into novel
but appropriate contexts. Knowledge and manipulation of secular oral
poetry and proverbs in a parallel fashion was also a sign of good rhetorical
style (Geertz 1976: 1492).
The high rate of attrition from Quranic schools supports the notion that
mnemonic 'possession' can be considered a form of cultural capital (Bourdieu 1973: 80). Aside from small traditional gifts by the parents of children
to the fqih, education was free. Yet most students were compelled to drop
out after a short period in order to contribute to the support of their
families or because they failed to receive parental support for the arduous
and imperfectly understood process of learning. In practice, memorization
of the Quran was accomplished primarily by the children of relatively
prosperous households or by those whose fathers or guardians were
already literate. I say 'primarily,' for education was still a means to social
mobility, especially if a poorer student managed to progress despite all
obstacles through higher, post-Quranic education (cf. Green 1976:
218-21).
The notion of cultural capital implies more than the possession of the
material resources to allow a child to spend six to eight years in the
memorization of the Quran; it also implies a sustained adult discipline
upon the child. Many contemporary Western pedagogical concepts tend to
treat education as a separable institutional activity, an idea inappropriate
to learning in the traditional Islamic context.8 Students' families and (at
later stages of learning) peers were integrally involved in the learning
process. A recurrent feature in interviews with men of learning and others
who successfully memorized the Quran is the participation of their fathers,
elder brothers or other close relatives in their education, asking them to
recite regularly and disciplining them in case of inattention or error. The
formal written biographies (tarjama-s) of men of learning regularly relate
anecdotes concerning parental sternness (e.g., as-Susi 1961: XIII, 35-36,
8
Such notions have also hampered the study of education in Western historical contexts.
For colonial America, see Bailyn (1960).
496
DALE F. EICKELMAN
101,168). Moreover, even for urban students from wealthy families, formal
education did not involve being systematically taught to read and write
outside the context of the Quran. Students acquired such skills, if at all,
from relatives or older students apart from their studies in Quranic schools
(Berque 1974: 167-68), just as they acquired a demonstrated 'understanding' of the Quran through social situations.in which Quranic verses and
other memorized materials were used.
A student became a 'memorizer' (hdfid) once he knew the entire Quran;
this set him apart from ordinary society even without additional studies.9
In the precolonial era, fqihs and students often were the only strangers who
could travel in relative safety through tribal regions without making prior
arrangements for 'protection.' This liminality was more pronounced in
rural than in urban milieus. In the larger towns throughout Morocco, those
wishing to pursue their studies could begin to sit with the circles of men of
learning and their disciples that met regularly in the principal mosques (see
Laroui 1977: 196-97, 199-201; Brown 1976: 77). In rural areas, most
advanced students continued for at least a few years at one of the numerous
madrasa-s (lit. 'place of studies') scattered throughout the country as late as
the early decades of this century (Moulieras 1895; 1899; Michaux-Bellaire
1911: 436; Waterbury 1972: 30). Such madrasas were an essential intermediate stage when Arabic was a student's second language. In some regions
these madrasas were only clusters of tents; others were village mosques with
adjoining lodgings for the shaykh and his students, who were supported,
albeit frugally, by gifts of food from villagers and tribesmen. 10 Most
students attended madrasas (often several in succession) within their region
of origin. The three to five years characteristically spent in this all-male
environment, at least partially removed from their families and communities of origin, was an intense socializing experience. Students frequently
developed close ties with their shaykhs, who could often introduce them to
scholars elsewhere in Morocco, and with fellow students. Again there was
no fixed progression of studies, although serious students advanced their
knowledge of Arabic and memorized basic commentaries on grammar and
jurisprudence in this milieu.''
9
Like other technical terms, hdfid is subject to contextual variation. Among highly educated Moroccans, it refers only to the most outstanding scholars of any generation.
10
Until the late nineteenth century, students of each region also made collective visits to
surrounding villages each year after harvest to collect donations of grain and animals. With
these donations, students then camped together and feasted for a week or longer. This practice
ceased with the disorders which accompanied increasing European penetration (Aubin 1906:
78-79; Michaux-Bellaire 1911: 437).
1
' From the sixteenth through the early nineteenth century, many religious lodges (zawya-s)
in rural regions were also centers for more advanced learning (Eickelman 1976: 39, 60, 222,
249). As for the early twentieth century, only the more standard texts tended to predominate in
rural madrasas: the Ajarumiya, the Alfiya and the Tuhfat. Since these texts were memorized by
all educated men, there was no ambiguity in referring to them by title only. A short description
of these texts will indicate the nature of the material memorized. The first is a concise treatise
497
498
DALE F. EICKELMAN
499
upon stock formulae, but these still had to be learned and were expected of
educated men. 15
As in any educational system with diffuse, implicit criteria for success
and in which essential skills were not fully embodied in formal learning, the
existing elite was favored. Moreover, the attribute of'student' in itself did
not form a basis for meaningful collective action. 16 Students became
'known' as such through their comportment and acceptance by persons in
the community of learning, not through any formal procedures. Each
student was on his own to discern those persons and ideas that were
significant in the world of learning and to create a constellation of effective
personal ties with which to function. Students from Marrakesh itself,
especially those from wealthy or powerful families, had substantial initial
advantages in securing meaningful ties. They continued to be enmeshed in
their families' ties of kinship, friendship and patronage. Since all students
from Marrakesh itself continued to live at home, those from wealthier and
more prestigious families were in a position to invite shaykhs to their homes
and to arrange for formal or informal tutoring. Such students often
attended the public lesson circles of the mosques and shrines only irregularly.
Rural students generally were at an initial disadvantage. They were
easily distinguished from townsmen by clothing and an awkward comportment (by urban standards), 17 and so were often treated rudely when they
ventured beyond the immediate confines of the mosque-university and the
hostels in which all but the most wealthy 'outsider' (afdqi) students were
lodged. Nonetheless, some rural students, especially those who came from
families of learning, often achieved distinction as scholars. Significantly,
two of the most influential reformist shaykhs of the early twentieth century
were of rural origin, as were several of the other leading shaykhs of the
Yusufiya.18
15
As-SusT's voluminous writings provide particularly useful anthologies of these conventions. Since he was aware that he was documenting a world of learning that was not being
transmitted to a younger generation, most of the literary allusions in the writings which he
cites are fully annotated.
16
At earlier periods in both Marrakesh and Fez there was an annual 'Carnival of the
Students.' Students solicited contributions from townsmen, and a student was proclaimed
'sultan' for the duration of the outing held each spring (Cenival 1925). These occasions
involved the students of each mosque-university as a collectivity, but the forms of organization which emerged were weak and dissolved at the end of the carnival. Student carnivals
ceased in the mid-1920s in Fez and even earlier in Marrakesh.
17
During the 1920s, for example, most students of rural origin still shaved their heads and
as a sign of humility toward their shaykhs did not wear turbans. This practice had virtually
disappeared among younger townsmen, who in general adopted the fez as a sign of modernity.
18
The two reformist shaykhs were Bu Shu'ayb DukkatI (1878-1937) and Mukhtar as-Susi
(1900-63). DukkalT was from a rural family which included several generations of men of
learning. He first gained attention in Marrakesh at the age of thirteen by reciting all of STdi
KhalTl's Mukhtasar (a standard treatise on Malik! jurisprudence) before Sultan Hasan I
(reigned 1873-94) and showing a precocious command of classical Arabic. Later he gained
500
DALE F. EICKELMAN
501
502
DALE F. EICKELMAN
5O3
aside for the more peripheral religious sciences or for less established
shaykhs, and in locales such as religious lodges and smaller mosques,
signaled to all but their immediate followers that their teachings were not
symbolically as central as the 'core' components of the religious sciences
taught during the day at the Yusufiya. Within the restricted group of
mosque-university students, reformist shaykhs enjoyed a considerable following, despite the active opposition of many of the more traditional
shaykhs, who were frequently backed by public support and that of the
political authorities. In the context of the lesson circles, the reformists did
nothing to make their teachings accessible to a wider audience or fundamentally to change prevalent understandings of the forms in which valued
knowledge was conveyed.
Peer Learning. Peer learning has been neglected in the study of many
educational systems because it is characteristically informal. 2 ' In Morocco
it provided what public lesson circles could notan active engagement
with and practice in the comprehensison of basic texts. For most rural
students, peer learning had special importance since such students were
usually even more cut off than their urban counterparts from initiating
informal contacts with their shaykhs, especially during the earlier years of
their studies. To indicate the significance of such learning in the earlier
years of studies, below is an excerpt from an interview in which a retired
Qadi, who was sixteen when he first arrived at the Yusufiya in 1928,
described how he invited an older, poorer student to share his rooms at the
madrasa in which he was staying. The Qadi was from a rural family that
had produced several judges and men of learning. One of these was an elder
brother who had entered the Yusufiya several years earlier and who thus
was able to arrange introductions for this younger brother to several of his
former teachers. At the house of one of these shaykhs, the Qadi encountered the man who later became his roommate. Because the interview
contains an excellent normative description of how men of learning are
described, it is given at length:
[My roommate] was a great man of learning, who never spoke unless it was
necessary. The Quran was always on his lips. He lived from the daily bread given
rural students and from the daily 8 francs he received for reciting [the Quran] at a
mosque.
I observed his conduct for some time. Finally, I spoke to him and said that I was a
beginner [in the religious sciences] and wanted someone to live with me who could
help me in my studies. So I gave him the key to one of my rooms and said it was his. I
wanted nothing in return except the opportunity to speak with him about the books
I was reading.
2
' The overall neglect of the importance of peer learning in studies of Islamic education is
still remarkable, despite the silence of traditional sources. McLachlan describes a similar
neglect in the study of colleges in early nineteenth-century America, despite the fact that the
core of learning at this period was 'an extraordinarily intense system of education by peers'
(1974:474).
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DALE F. EICKELMAN
What I had been doing until I met him was memorizing books, but without
understanding what I read. We worked alone for the first several months that we
lived together. Then, although I was a newcomer to Marrakesh, students who had
been there for years asked me to read with them. They saw that I was a serious
student and wanted to study with me.
For seven years I lived with [him]. . . . This was the real learning that I did in my
years at the Yusufiya. Of course I learned much at the lesson circles, but it was in
reading texts with [my roommate] and with other students and in explaining them to
each other that most of the real learning went on.
5O5
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DALE F. EICKELMAN
5O7
508
DALE F. EICKELMAN
509
knowledge to society in the Moroccan context and the way in which value is
placed on various bodies of knowledge and its carriers.
Traditionally educated Moroccan intellectuals were acutely aware of the
major transformations that their society was experiencing as a consequence
of colonial rule. The teaching licenses which scholars such as Mukhtar
as-Susi (e.g., 1935) prepared during this period reiterate the themes that
while the entire world is changing, the Maghrib remains in ignorance, with
Fez and Marrakesh still asleep and their men of learning dying one by one.
Yet in practical terms, the principal response of reformist intellectuals to
this perceived crisis was merely to seek to persuade those who already
possessed an understanding of the religious sciences to accept the 'new
orthodoxy' which they advocated.Yet these same individuals sent their
sons to French-run schools rather than mosque-universities or even the
independent 'Free Schools' set up in major cities.
A partial explanation for the inaction of men of learning is the fact that
colonial rule posed no direct threat to their material interests. Although
men of learning did not form a class or an organized group either in the
preprotectorate period or after the inception of colonial rule in 1912, they
figured significantly among both rural and urban notables. From the
inception of the protectorate the French sought to engage the support of
this elite by preserving their material interests and by integrating them in
the system of indirect rule, a system which functioned with a high measure
of success until the severe economic and political dislocations which
accompanied the Second World War. Unlike neighboring Algeria, where
the influence of the traditional elite was systematically destroyed, in Morocco they were given administrative and political preferment and their
children were given preferential access to French education. Despite the
radical shift in forms of education, the elite managed in general to confer
their status upon their descendants (Waterbury 1970; cf. Bourdieu and
Passeron 1977). Traditional men of learning, like other Moroccans, shared
a conception of society ordered through concrete, albeit shifting, social
networks and obligations, not by groups and classes. The French protectorate (and the Spanish) presented no direct challenge to this conception of
the social order.
Taken by itself, this explanation based on material interests is insufficient. It does not account for the continued popular respect enjoyed by men
of learning. In an excellent study of the rural notables of Morocco in the
1960s, a French scholar writes of the preponderant influence of traditional
men of learning who, in spite of what he calls their 'confused ideal of social
justice' (Leveau 1976: 93), have managed to retain real popular support
while a more 'modern' bureaucratic elite, exposed to Western education
and influenced by cosmopolitan Western life styles, has failed almost
completely to do so.
510
DALE F. EICKELMAN
The ideal of social justice held by traditional men of learning is 'confused' only when analysts seek to consider it in Western categories.25 A full
discussion of the world view of traditionally educated Moroccan intellectuals and its relation to popular conceptions of the social order is beyond
the scope of this paper, but two implicit premises of it have already been
indicatedthe notion of inequality as a natural fact of the social order and
a highly restricted sense of social responsibility. These premises are perhaps
most effectively delineated through comparison with two contrasting traditions of 'gentlemanly' education, English and Chinese, which also possessed implicit notions of social inequality. Students of public schools in
Victorian England were instilled with a sense of equity or 'fair play,'
leadership and public spirit which had its analogues in political life, while in
China men of learning were considered to possess exemplary moral virtues
which suited them for positions of authority (Wilkinson 1964; Weber
1958). There was no expectation in Morocco that Islamic men of learning
should constitute an ideological vanguard, even in times of major social
upheaval. They could on occasion serve as iconic expressions of popular
sentiment, but there was no developed tradition in which they were able to
shape these sentiments or guide the direction of social change.
The affinity between popular conceptions of valued knowledge and
those conveyed in Islamic education explain the continuing popular legitimacy of such forms of knowledge and, at least in principle, of its carriers.
What of the limitations of form of Islamic knowledge and its associated
intellectual technology? The notion that the most valued knowledge was
fixed by memorization in the first place limited the number of texts which
any individual thoroughly could 'possess,' just as did the notion that valued
knowledge was accessible to all men of learning. A range of materials could
be and were introduced, but there was no developed tradition of specialization associated with this tradition of learning. The consequence was that
innovations of content tended to suffer the same fate as innovations in
societies without developed traditions of writing. Men of influence in the
milieus of learning could to a limited extent introduce new materials, but
innovations suggested by others had little chance of taking hold. Nor could
2S
In a critique of his own study of Arab intellectuals, Albert Hourani (1970: viii) has
pointed out the general scholarly inattention to the impact upon society of those thinkers who
chose to reject a significant dialogue with Western thought. This critique is confirmed
indirectly in the work of a Western-educated Moroccan intellectual, Abdallah Laroui (1974:
19-28), who divides modern Arab intellectuals into three types: technocrats, liberals and
clerics. He largely succeeds in portraying the dilemmas of the first two Western-influenced
types in their confrontation with Western social and political ideals and search for "authenticity,' but conveys only an unconvincing stereotype of the "clerics," his term for the products of
traditional Islamic education. Because the ideologies of this latter type are popularly shared,
they need not be fully explicit. This makes them all the more difficult to convey to a Western
audience, or for that matter to a Muslim one that has received a Western-style education with
its accompanying implicit values.
5II
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DALE F. EICKELMAN
status than was the case when mnemosyne was an essential feature of the
legitimacy of knowledge. The carriers of religious knowledge will increasingly be anyone who can claim a strong Islamic commitment; freed from
mnemonic domination, religious knowledge can increasingly be delineated
and interpreted in a more abstract and flexible fashion. A long apprenticeship under an established man of learning is no longer a prerequisite to
legitimizing one's own religious knowledge.
The essential limitation of the 'correspondence' approach in delineating
and analyzing the relation between systems of meaning and patterns of
social domination is that it presumes rather than demonstrates a symmetry
between the two domains. It might be argued that no scholar, or almost
none, has sought directly to apply such a premise to education or other
systems of meaning in complex, historically known societies. Yet a
dominant theme in recent anthropological discussions has been to propose
a radical separation on the analytical level between culture (systems of
meaning) and the social contexts in which such notions are maintained
(e.g., Schneider and Smith 1973: 6). Such a resolutely separatist approach
may be effective in uncovering the logic of a particular cultural system, but
by neglecting the relations of knowledge to power and the communicative
aspects of the interrelations between symbol systems and social action, it
cannot explain how systems of meaning influence, and are influenced by,
the various historical contexts in which they occur. An exploration of the
relations between the forms of religious knowledge in Islam as it is understood in Morocco and the intellectual technology by which such forms were
shaped, legitimized and transmitted, suggests that the relation between the
two is complex and irregular, so that it must be traced through specific
social historical contexts rather than deduced from a set of abstract
assumptions. Such an approach adds a crucial historical dimension to the
sociological understanding of symbols and of systems of meaning.
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