["TESOL Quarterly, EarlyView. ", "\nAbstract\nExternal donors increasingly promote English as a notionally value‐neutral language of socioeconomic advancements in the Muslim South, overlooking local ideological diversities. Furthermore, national and Western forces deploy English as a tool to de‐Islamize madrasas (Islamic educational institutes) in the post‐9/11 world for global peace. Given that the madrasa ideologies of English are scarcely represented in TESOL, this paper presents such ideologies from a Bangladeshi madrasa to critically examine ELT‐aid projects and the efforts to moderate madrasas through English. Data were collected from a traditional Qawmi madrasa in rural Bangladesh employing a linguistic ethnography under a doctoral project. The findings show that people in the madrasa navigate English within various spiritual, historical, and cultural ideological dynamics but identify the language as crucial for furthering Islam. In addition, an essential sense of Islamic comfort, control, and care closely girdles their English learning efforts. Their alternative and reflexive ideologies question the benign instrumentalism of ELT‐aid projects, and their views of learning English for and in Islam challenge the validity of the broad‐brushed mobilization of English to de‐Islamize madrasas. The paper, by offering rare critical religious insights from the Muslim South, contributes to strengthening inclusion and plurality while advancing broader decolonization agendas of TESOL.\n"]