This article explores the nexus between Islamic education and violent conflict, providing insights into the dynamics of Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency. Studies on Islamic education and conflict have mostly asked whether Islamic schools contribute to militancy, showing limited interest in their students and teachers. Drawing on 76 interviews and group conversations conducted in northeast Nigeria in 2021–24, we explore what role Qur’anic schools played for the conflict and how the conflict affected them. We examine recent acts of “direct” violence through the prism of long histories of structural and cultural/epistemic violence. We use the notion of “dangerous discourses” to explore why certain groups are prone to being framed as “dangerous” and what dangers ensue from such framings. We investigate how social and political processes “invisibilize” certain forms of violence and argue that, from a decolonial perspective, conflict and education studies should “see” and study Islamic schools in their own right.
Hoechner et al. (Thu,) studied this question.