Educational vision of the High Madrasa of Tirana

Abstract

After the declaration of independence, Albania was facing national institutional crises and the institutional organization of education was one of them. The Albanian Muslim intellectual elite saw no other way than education as the only hope for Albania to cope with its challenges and move forward. The training of new education providers in the religious and national spirit was the only remedy for the people. Thus, in the First Muslim Congress, the decision to open the  “High  Madrasa“  in  Tirana  was  taken but by the decision of the Third Muslim Congress, in 1929, due to the closure of the district madrasas, the name changed to the General Madrasa. In a very short time this school gained a very important reputation in the people’s education. Islamic religious education and universal values covered by religion and the positivist sciences provided proper training for the professionals- to-be that would soon be hired in the most important educational, academic, political positions. The religious beliefs taught here were considered as an obstacle for the communist system which started intervening in the madrasa curricula  and  eventually closed it down. The madrasa consisted of three cycles. The first consisted of 3 years, the second of 5 years, and the higher cycle of 4 years. This school not only made a contribution to the education and promotion of religious values, but, by discovering the rich philosophical, scientific and artistic corpus of Islamic civilization, and analyzing and evaluating the developments brought by the modern times, it managed to mitigate the intellectual crisis among the Muslims. Thanks to this school, a joint religious  movement was ensured, where dialogues both inside and outside the Muslim circle was possible.