Masooda Bano, The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions In The Madrasas of Pakistan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012, pp. 264, ISBN- 9780801450440

Authored by: Tapas Das

The Rational Believer by Masooda Bano provides us with an in-depth analysis of the madrasa system in Pakistan, which helps us comprehend the reasons behind institutional (religious institutions in this case) stability and change. Bano is a Professor in the Oxford Department of International Development. Her interest area lies in studying the role of ideas and beliefs in development processes and their evolution and change. She has written extensively on the Islamic education system and the female educational movements in Pakistan.  

In the decades that followed the '9/11' terrorist attacks in the US, the religious seminaries or the madrasas in Pakistan have figured prominently in the discourse on extremism and militancy. Global counter-terrorism measures aim to seek reforms in these madrasas' education system as they are often considered a breeding ground of Islamic fundamentalism. However, the author has the opinion that the debate on madrasas has been reduced to a superficial and polemical level. After citing the case of the Red Mosque incident, which occurred in Pakistan in 2007, Masooda Bano raises a few points that differ from the standard conventional or 'Western’ views regarding madrasas.

The first question she asks is- what makes the ulama and the students of madrasas adopt such apparently irrational preferences, advocating disagreement with modernity and calling for the replacement of civil laws which is crafted to meet the demands of modern life with the medieval age laws of Shari‘a? Secondly, she asks- What are the factors that influence the flawed “means-end” calculations of these religious actors? Thirdly, what can be the plausible explanation for the dramatic reversal of preferences within the madrasas, like the one that happened in the Red Mosque, where students and teachers chose to sacrifice their lives for other-worldly rewards. She refutes the dominant assumption that religious indoctrination in the context of deprivation is the main reason for the Red Mosque incident and other acts of militant Islam. The puzzle is much more complex and requires a deeper understanding. Even if we accept the case of religious indoctrination, we still need to explain the various factors that make individuals susceptible to indoctrination.

This book proposes to answer the questions mentioned above by developing a thorough account of the decision-making processes of the religious actor with an emphasis on the madrasas of Pakistan. According to Bano, religious actors should not be viewed as being driven primarily by irrational impulses. It represents a normative judgment but is far from reality. Instead of assuming the religious actors to be passive recipients of religious values, the author tries to develop a theory where such actors in spite of them being forward-looking, rational individuals, opt to be believers. This kind of approach does not take the religious institutions as given and attributes agency to the individual actors, whose strategies and choices explain the existence of the former. To be precise, this volume attempts to elaborate on why and how religion garners followers, as well as how and why religion is carved by the choices and methods of these very followers. Bano relies on empirical work to justify her arguments; she got involved in ethnographic fieldwork and carried out extensive interviews with hundreds of teachers, students, parents, and donors in over 110 madrasas of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.

In the first chapter- ‘Religion and Reason: A New Institutionalist Perspective," Bano lays down the theoretical framework of the book. She points out the limitations of purely structuralist and rationalist theories in explaining religious behavior because both approaches end up reducing religious action to instrumental reason. Religious action is explained as a response to socio-economic deprivation or religious indoctrination; the appeal of religious ideas themselves in creating and sustaining a demand for religion is rarely explored. The structural-functionalist tradition offers the kind of approach where religious actors are treated as passive agents constrained within the structures of the institution.  In rational choice theory, the agents are considered to be reasonably informed and follow utility-maximizing behavior.  The problem that lies with rational choice theory in explaining Islamic fundamentalism is its failure to understand the appeal of religious ideals in terms of their moral power as it focuses only on the material conditions in which fundamentalists operate.

According to Bano, the most systematic attempt to bridge the two positions has come up in the field of New Institutional Economics (NIE). This field of inquiry belongs to economists, but now political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists are making contributions to it too. It follows a middle-path and recognizes the limitations of human decision-making processes, and at the same time, it retains a focus on the forward-looking and maximizing behavior of the rational actor. Therefore, the NIE framework offers an interplay of both functionalist and ideational forces that gives shape to institutions as well as the utility-maximizing behavior at both the inter and intra-madrasa level.

The second chapter of the book- 'Religion and Change: Oxford and the Madrasas of South Asia' discusses whether religion, like other institutions, is open to change. It tries to explain the reversal in the fortunes of South Asian madrasas that were once responsible for grooming the elite in Muslim India, and in recent decades they have become a refuge for the poor. The author compares the experience of South Asian madrasas with that of the University of Oxford, as both had their origins in religious education. The two traditions started out in the twelfth century with similar initial resource endowment and followed a pace of consolidation over several centuries. Their paths started to diverge in the seventeenth century when Oxford started to engage with modernity while the madrasas opted otherwise. The strategy maximizing the behavior of the elites helps in explaining this diversion. In a given context, the elites are most likely to choose a strategy that will maximize their benefits. The onset of colonial rule in India saw a decline in the growth of madrasas, and in this scenario, the elites chose to shift the emphasis back to religious education.  In the UK, the elites of Oxford chose to embrace the modern education system when the Parliamentarians started to capture power gradually.

Chapter 3- ‘Explaining the Stickiness: State-Madrasa Engagement in South Asia’ explains institutional stability and the factors responsible for it. It compares the trajectory of madrasa reform programs in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and West Bengal. While the reactions to such reform programs are mixed, the outcome is common- the orthodox elite still holds a dominant position in the madrasas of these three places. The reason for such an outcome is the popularity of orthodox Quami Madrasas among the common people when it comes to interpreting the religious scriptures like the Quran and Hadith. In Pakistan, the orthodox ulema holds considerable influence in the political establishment, and this makes it difficult for the government to initiate reforms in the madrasas as they might lose the support of a significant section of the ulema. In India, the people belonging to the minority section consider madrasa reforms to be going against their rights. Hence, the author suggests an engagement with the ulema regarding the reforms instead of implementing it from above. 

In the 4th chapter, 'Organisation of Religious Hierarchy: Competition or Cooperation'- Masooda relies on data gathered by various Pakistani madrasa boards to establish a useful typology of the religious schools of that country. Madrasa boards are nevertheless not capable of establishing cooperation between inter and intra-denominational sectarianism in Pakistan, but it offers a common platform to them when it comes to bargaining for their rights with the government. The chapter also tells us why it is important for the smaller madrasas to join the Waqf boards even if they had to accept a position that is subordinate to the elite madrasas.

In the fifth chapter- ‘Formation of a Preference: Why join a Madrasa?’ Masooda shifted her focus to look at students of this Madrasa. She argued that Madrasa attracts the poor first. She has the term "small investment in return for promised reward" for the lower-middle-class families who expect their children to bring salvation from Madrasa for the whole family. In the hope that their children at least facilitate the road to salvation and bring social respect to the family irrespective of not being economically self-sufficient.

In chapter seven- 'The Missing Free-Rider: Religious Rewards and Collective Action,' the author explores the central puzzle of why the religious rituals promise spiritual rivers involved bodily material sacrifice. Banu believes that they help Muslims to overcome their fear of material loss and promises to gain benefits in the Afterlife. This is the reason why madrasas and mosques are able to check free-riding, not because the believers are more moral and honest than other people in the economic market but because the religion establishes few demands for rewards that can only be attained through participating in the production of religious goods. Masooda uses this conception of "collective Islamic action" to emphasize the point that the local founding of Madrasas is usually a project that is attached to the participation of residents, bureaucracy, police officials, and politicians. There are many case studies on the establishment of a village mosque in the Margalla hills around Islamabad that was upgraded to a madrasa later on.

Chapter 8- ‘Exclusionary Institutional Preference: The Logic of Jihad’ discusses the incentives that can propel individuals to engage in another form of 'irrational behavior': sacrificing one's life for a collective end. It also explores the factors that help jihad in winning the mass appeal. It examines the motives and strategies of jihadists, illustrating the incentives that make individuals so constrain their choices under one institution that they crowd out all other possible affiliations. The concluding chapter- 'Informal Institutions and Development,' summarizes the findings of the book with regard to the working of madrasas and Islam in Pakistan. The author is of the opinion that these findings will be very relevant in studying the nature of informal institutions in general. For the students of international development, the findings can help them in framing designs of intervention in the form of development programs that aim to change the working of informal institutions in developing societies.

Overall the book shows some amount of compelling empirical data on the rational decision-making system in Pakistan's madrasas but becomes overambitious in its design while attempting to speak to the historical development of the religious school, debates over jihad, and questions of policy. The number of madrasas she has surveyed throughout the length and breadth of Pakistan is worthy of appreciation. It gets reflected in the diversity and richness of the data which she shares with us in the book. The theoretical framework of New Institutional Economics (NIE) is quite refreshing in the study of religious institutions as it helps in overcoming the flaws inherent in structural-functionalist and rational choice theories. It offers us valuable insights for interpreting the strategic choices and preferences of the religious actors from time to time. This is a must-read for anyone who keeps an interest in studying the societal and religious institutions in Pakistan. However, it would be difficult for a layman to understand the complex theoretical perspectives put forward by the author even though it has been written in a lucid language.

Author Description

Tapas Das is currently pursuing his PhD in Department of Political Science at Presidency University, Kolkata, India. His research interest include international relations and western political thought.