Beyond the Security Narrative: Qur’anic Schoolteachers as Knowledge Producers, Community Educators, and Agents of Social Resilience in North-Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

Qur’anic schools have long contributed to religious learning, Arabic literacy, moral education, and the transmission of Islamic scholarship in North-Eastern Nigeria. However, public and academic discussions of these institutions have frequently been shaped by concerns about insecurity, educational exclusion, and the Boko Haram insurgency. Although these concerns are important, an exclusive focus on security risks may obscure the educational responsibilities of Qur’anic schoolteachers, the knowledge they produce and transmit, and their relationships with learners and surrounding communities. This study examines Qur’anic teachers as knowledge producers, community educators, and potential contributors to social resilience under conditions of insecurity. It adopts a qualitative documentary and interpretive research design, drawing on scholarship on Islamic education in Nigeria, ethnographic research on Qur’anic schooling, historical studies of the Kanem–Bornu intellectual tradition, and recent research on education and violent conflict in North-Eastern Nigeria. The analysis identifies four interrelated themes: teachers’ scholarly and pedagogical agency; the disruption and adaptation of educational practices under insecurity; the distinct experiences and needs of teachers and learners; and the potential contribution of educational relationships to community continuity and resilience. The study proposes a Teacher Knowledge–Educational Continuity–Community Resilience Framework for examining these relationships. It argues that Qur’anic teachers should neither be idealised as uniformly effective agents of resilience nor treated as a homogeneous security category. Their experiences differ according to institutional arrangements, resources, location, personal histories, and relationships with learners and communities. Because the present study relies on documentary analysis rather than new field interviews, the proposed framework requires empirical validation through comparative school-level case studies. The study contributes a teacher-centred and historically grounded approach to understanding Qur’anic education beyond a predominantly security-oriented narrative.