ABSTRACT
Many British Muslim schoolchildren have a dichotomous educational experience; they attend parallel education systems, that is, state-funded mainstream schools during the school day and religious classes at mosques or madrasahs after school (Cherti & Bradley, 2011; Scourfield, Gilliat-Ray, Khan, & Otri, 2013). A dichotomous existence is familiar to immigrant communities, however in the case of Muslims in Western countries, it is compounded by socio-political discourses that pose continuous challenges to identity formation. Islamic education in Western contexts is often viewed with suspicion. Assumptions are made about indoctrination, and media allegations accuse Muslims of educating for ‘extremism’ (S. Ahmed & Matthes, 2016). This situation is compounded by the lack of innovation in Islamic educational practices. In many educational institutions, pedagogy and curricula from Muslim majority countries are still in use in a British context where they may not be appropriate (Abu-Bakar, 2018; Anderson, Tan, & Suleiman, 2011); although there are notable exceptions (Ahmed & Lawson, 2016).
