Nipping thought in the bud

NOT long ago, we took pride in some of our theological seminaries for their part in the anti-colonial struggle. Today, they are portrayed as nurseries of ‘‘sedition’’. Schools at Deoband and Lucknow were showcased as vibrant symbols of secular India. Come September 11 and, suddenly, they were regarded as the source of all evil. Madarsas and maktabs are vigorously assailed for fostering ‘‘fundamentalist’’ ideas. Sadly, the current debate is influenced by the Taliban upsurge and is, for that reason, based on misplaced suppositions and imaginary fears.

The Turks established the earliest known madarsas in north India in the 13th century. During Mohammad bin Tughlaq’s (1325-1351) reign, Delhi alone had a thousand madarsas. A 16th century British traveller visiting Thata — now a picturesque ruin near Karachi — reported 400 large and small madarsas. In the 18th century, the Dars-i Nizami (devised by Mulla Nizamuddin) became the standard syllabus. The curriculum was confined to the purely religious sciences. The Holy Koran was at the heart of the curriculum, and its memorisation the highest scholastic attainment. The Dar al-ulum in Deoband (founded soon after the 1857 revolt) and the Nadwat al-ulama at Lucknow (founded in 1894) adhere to the Dars-i Nizamia. They maintain uniformity in belief and practice by determining what is true or desirable in accordance with the Koran and the Traditions of the Prophet.

So far so good. The real problem — one that afflicts the traditional system of learning — lies with their managers who brook no intrusion in their special field of instruction. A majority of them shut themselves off from the contemporary world in their mosques and madarsas, denouncing each other and dubbing everyone else as ignorant, irreligious and atheistic. Only exceptional men, such as Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the Aligarh Muslim University, Shibli Nomani, founder of the Nadwat al-ulama in Lucknow, and Maulana Azad, attempted to reconcile tradition and modernity by building bridges between the two. But such men were too few and the results of their labours too limited.

If you don’t already know it, let me tell you that the other major problem, for which the madarsas invite criticism, has been the unchanging character of the curriculum. Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughal emperors, reprimanded his former teacher for having taught him Arabic, grammar and philosophy, rather than subjects more practical for a future ruler of a vast empire. Syed Ahmad Khan echoed the same view, pointing to their syllabus being ‘‘unsuited to the present age and to the spirit of the time’’.

Others, too, have criticised the curriculum for encouraging memorising rather than real understanding. The scholar Fazlur Rahman commented: ‘‘By organically relating all forms of knowledge and gearing these to dogmatic theology the very sources of intellectual fecundity were blighted and the possibility of original thinking stifled.’’
Today, the Islamist orientation of the madarsas afflicts Pakistan but most certainly not India. The crux of the matter here, one that commands immediate attention, is the narrowing down of the general field of learning, and the consequent decline and stagnation of Muslim scholarship in our country. I object not to the imparting of religious education but to the abysmal failure of the madarsa system to equip students to compete in the wider world. India’s Muslims must have their share of men with turbans and flowing gowns, but they must also produce, in equal measure, front-rank professionals.

For this to happen, the secular and religious leadership has to alter the tone and tenor of the curriculum in order to make it responsive to the requirements of this millennium. During the course of its history, Islam developed the capacity to meet challenges creatively. The basic problem now, however, is what elements in its history it may emphasise and recombine for its effective self-statement in the present challenge; what it may modify and what it may reject (Fazlur Rahman). There is, I believe, much less ambiguity in the realm of education. The principles of intellectual integrity necessitate a fundamental reconstruction of educational thought.

In the second half of the 19th century, the traditional system of education was reorganised to prevent the influx of subversive ideas from the religiously alien and ‘‘morally inferior’’ British, and to put a premium on unorthodox thought and learning. Today, the Muslim communities are faced with a different challenge, i.e., to define their agenda in response to the currents of change and progress. A standard curriculum that excludes rational sciences is not good enough; instead, there is a serious need for a constructive and bold humanism that would restate and reinterpret Islamic educational ideas in the contemporary social and cultural environment.

At the same time, the current mindset towards our traditional centres of learning needs to be changed. Just as all the ‘‘Hindu’’ or Arya Samajist schools do not spew venom against Islam and Christianity, the maktabs and madarsas do not necessarily nurture fundamentalist ideas. Mostly dependent on public donations and drawing students from poor families, they survive on the margins of India’s educational paraphernalia. How can they breed terrorists? In the past, the same maktabs and madarsas produced leading theologians, political activists (thousands went to jail in response to the Gandhian movements) and liberal reformers. They can still be the source of (for example, the Deoband school) and the inspiration behind rationalist thought and reformist initiatives.

The real problem is the prevalence of widespread illiteracy and a higher drop-out rate at the elementary stage. It is not clear whether Muslim children are not sent to schools because of economic constraints, the sting of the prevailing bias against Urdu, or because parents in larger arts and crafts centres hardly consider it worthwhile to give their children higher education. But one thing is for sure. Part of the reason why maktabs and madarsas flourish is because the state has not done enough to promote ‘‘secular’’ education in mofussil towns and the rural hinterland. Hence, children of poor Muslim families flock to religious schools. Over the decades, these schools have performed a useful and legitimate role (as do the gurukuls or the Christian schools). Let us not treat them with suspicion and disdain but urge the government to creatively intervene in secularising (not crass secularism) their curriculum and methods of instruction.

Islam is ‘‘surrender to the Will of the God’’ — i.e., the determination to implement the command of Allah. Given the place assigned to knowledge in the Koran, one hopes that the managers of madarsas will discover a fuller meaning of their role in Muslim society. The degree and effectiveness of their vision may affect not only their own future but also much of the world around them.

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