The Junior Research Group analyzes the interplay of Islamic education, social organization and political mobilization in the modern era. The project will run for five years. The contents of this Islamic education, as well as its media, methods of dissemination, institutions, and forms of organization, are constantly changing.
Islamic education has a highly dynamic potential.
This is because it was only rarely a domain completely controlled by the state and because it depended to a greater extent on the effort of individuals who spread knowledge by their personal contacts and networks. Network analysis rests on the premise that individuals construct a network of personal relationships and use that network to achieve their personal ends. It also rests on the premise that there are certain patterns underlying these networks. Network analysis challenges the structuralist view that individuals are completely determined by society's norms and categories, while trying to avoid the opposite extreme of formalist reductionism, which defines norms as mere byproducts of social change. The implementation of network analysis for research on Islamic educational movements promises to reveal new insights on techniques of mobilization, the influence on politics and public opinion, and the interrelationship of education and economy.