The Erdkinder concept is not new to Islamic education. For centuries, older Muslim children have attended Islamic boarding madrasahs in various parts of the word. Traditionally, these boarding madrasahs provided the children with practical skills alongside a firm foundation in Islamic subjects such as fiqh, hadith, tajweed, arabic, nahu, quran, tawheed and tasawuf. Many famous scholars and Imams graduated from such madrasahs. However, in the more recent years, traditional madarasah style education has become less available as more and more children enter into mainstream education. A number of traditional madrasahs still operate in countries such as Turkey, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
The traditional madrasah system, alongside the Montessori Erdkinder program, provides an excellent environment for the Muslim youth to grow and develop into well grounded knowledgeable religious adults.