Koran

Note: The following text is taken from a 19th-century collection catalog and, in its language and perspective, partially reflects colonial thought patterns. We present the text in its original version to make the collection's history transparent and promote a critical examination of the colonial legacy. Certain terms and formulations may be perceived as problematic today. A 2009 research project concluded that most descriptions are factually correct and still usable; only a few details were found to be inaccurate or incorrect. The results of this project were published in the following collection catalog: khm-wmw-tm-library.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1457155265"712. QuranA Quran, medium sized, bound in leather with Arabic text, as the Arabs sell to the population not only on South Celebes but in the entire East Indian Archipelago. There are only a few natives, even few Muslim priests, who understand the Quran; it usually lies unused like a talisman in the house. The priests teach the children a few prayers in Arabic in the mosques; these repeat mechanically and loudly after their teachers, usually all the children at once. The content of the prayer is just as unknown to the priest as it is to the children who are learning. There are no schools as we know them. The Dutch Government is trying everywhere possible to build schools for the natives in a European style, where the children can learn to read and write in their mother tongue; additionally the concepts of arithmetic, geography - naturally just their own land. The teachers in these schools are also natives and are trained in the larger places in teacher training institutions at the cost of the Government. The Javanese have a kind of high school, a kind of seminary, where the Muslim priests are taught in a course of several-years. The students live in this institute and the whole thing is under the responsibility of an head-priest as director.  The teachers are just normal priests. The student can enter this seminary whenever he wants, without any pre-education, and he can leave when he wants to. The only subject taught at these institutions is the interpretation  of the Quran, and this in the most original way. The students lie on the floor in their cells on their stomachs, their heads in front of a small window opening, with the Quran in front of them. The cells of the students of one year all face onto a covered corridor in which the teacher walks up and down, also with a Quran in his hand. He reads the students parts of the text and at the same time translates them and all of those present must shout back very loudly what he has just said. The teacher appears to have a special talent in detecting from whom and in which cell a mistake has been made. In such institutions there are usually several hundred students who, at the end of their studies, make a pilgrimage to Mecca and return as Hadjis to their homeland."Translation of: Czurda, F. A. J. (1883). Catalog mit Erklärungen der Etnografischen Privatsammlung des Dr. F. A. J. Czurda in Postelberg (Böhmen). (p. 168-169). Wien, Wilhelm Braumüller