Colonial Classification of Islamic Education in the Netherlands East Indies, 1882–1927

Abstract

This study examines how Islamic education was discursively constructed within colonial knowledge and administration in the Netherlands East Indies between 1882 and 1927. Using qualitative historical critical discourse analysis informed by the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), the study analyzes five primary colonial documents produced within orientalist scholarship, educational administration, military-academic circles, and government institutions. The analysis focuses on nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivisation, and diachronic changes in representations of pesantren, religious schools, kiai, santri, and religious teachers. The findings reveal a gradual shift from describing and translating Islamic educational institutions to quantifying them, incorporating them into administrative classifications, evaluating them through standards of modernity, and placing them under systems of supervision. Colonial representations were not uniformly negative: some documents acknowledged the reach of Islamic educational networks and the authority of religious teachers, while others differentiated pesantren from Islamic schools considered more compatible with modern institutional forms. Categories such as Mohammedaansch godsdienstonderwijs also carried regulatory consequences through teaching permits, pupil registration, inspection, and the Goeroe-ordonnantie. The study shows that colonial power operated not only through formal educational policy but also through the authority to name, classify, evaluate, and regulate legitimate forms of education. It contributes a diachronic account of how administrative language shaped the position of Islamic education within the colonial order.