The organisation and content of Islamic education have been an object of Western scrutiny based on claims linking religious education to radicalism. Many Arab Gulf states have responded to such allegations with significant overhauls of their religious curricula. This article focuses on the politics of education reform in the United Arab Emirates. A detailed coding and analysis of 1500 pages of Islamic education textbooks reveal that religious education is a deeply politicised field. However, it promotes loyalty rather than radicalism. The reformed curriculum is used as a pedagogic tool by the state to advance national interpretations of Islam in support of domestic and international policy objectives, such as strengthening national identity against sub-national loyalties, securing political legitimacy, pacifying opposition, rebranding the state's international image, and spurring economic development. This article advances the existing scholarship by bringing in the international dimension of domestic education reform and the precise mechanisms that we call emulation and generalisation through which Islamic knowledge becomes functionalised for the state's nationalist goals.

中文翻译：

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教科书的意义：宗教教育、民族伊斯兰教和阿拉伯联合酋长国的改革政治

基于将宗教教育与激进主义联系起来的主张，伊斯兰教育的组织和内容一直是​​西方审查的对象。许多阿拉伯海湾国家对此类指控作出了回应，对其宗教课程进行了重大改革。本文重点关注阿拉伯联合酋长国的教育改革政治。对 1500 页伊斯兰教育教科书的详细编码和分析表明，宗教教育是一个高度政治化的领域。然而，它提倡忠诚而不是激进主义。改革后的课程被国家用作教学工具，以推进对伊斯兰教的国家解释，以支持国内和国际政策目标，例如加强国家认同以对抗地方忠诚度、确保政治合法性、平息反对派、重塑国家国际形象，促进经济发展。本文通过引入国内教育改革的国际层面和我们称之为的精确机制来推进现有的学术研究。效仿和概括，伊斯兰知识通过这种方式为国家的民族主义目标而发挥作用。