Between Spirituality and Scholasticism

Within Islamic education in the West, there are many factors which impact and shape the educational philosophies, institutions, and approaches to how Muslims can be educated in, and for, the contemporary experience. One such factor is that of ideology and sectarian identity construction. With this in mind, then, this chapter will be dedicated to Barelwi educational philosophy and the evolving modern madrasas aligned with the Barelwi tradition, culminating in a specific case-study of one such educational organisation in contemporary Britain. Namely because, somewhere between Sunni normativity and Sufism within South Asian contexts-Barelwism exists as a socially and religiously significant tradition - a tradition which warrants further nuancing and complexification in academic research and literature. Not least because, by virtue of the mass immigration of South Asians (predominantly as economic migrants) to Britain in the latter half of the 20th century, Britain is now home to a significant number of Barelwi adherents. Moreover, they have

gained the interest of academics of Islamic studies, Sufi studies, and British Muslim studies particularly in the 21st century (Geaves, 2015; Hamid, 2016; Bowen, 2014; Gugler, 2015).