Bridging the gap between religious and modern education

At a time when madarsas are portrayed as being out of touch with the modern world, Maulana Shah Muhammad Fazlur Rahim Mujadiddi Nadwi represents an alternative model of madarsa education. The Rector of the Jamiat-ul-Hidaya, a unique madarsa in Jaipur, Rajasthan which combines religious, modern and technical education, talks to Yoginder Sikand about his work and the need for reforms in madarsa education.

You are considered to be a pioneer in seeking to combine religious and modern, including technical, education in madarsas. How did it start?

The story goes back to my great-grandfather, Hazrat Shah Muhammad Hidayat Ali, a noted Naqshbandi Sufi and scholar who felt the need for reform in the madarsa system, for which purpose he set up the Madarsa Talim-ul-Islam in Jaipur.

However, he died in 1951, and his dream was left unfulfilled. Following this, my father, Shah Muhammad Abdur Rahim, contacted various large madarsas across India, exhorting them to open departments of ‘modern’ and technical education so that their graduates could be economically self-sufficient instead of having to depend on others.

Yet, his efforts met with almost no response. Some ulemas argued that it was impossible to combine religious and other forms of education. Others said that while it might well be possible, it would serve no positive purpose. Yet others admitted that it was possible and a good thing but declined to act on my father’s advice on the grounds that this would mean a departure from the tradition set by their predecessors.

So, my father decided to himself set up a model madarsa providing religious, modern as well as technical education so that others could possibly emulate it. This took the form of the Jamiat ul-Hidaya, which began functioning in 1985, which he managed till his death in 1994.

What is the course that students at Jamiat ul-Hidaya undergo?

In contrast to most other madarsas, at the Jamiat ul-Hidaya students study the various Islamic disciplines till the graduation or alimiyat level, but alongside this they also have to study various modern subjects, for which we follow the syllabus prescribed by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

This year, our students appeared for the tenth grade examinations conducted by the National Institute of Open Schooling, and the results were quite impressive. Our course of study begins at the sixth grade.

After students finish the tenth grade examination, they do four years more of religious education while also learning a particular technical trade or craft, such as computers, draughtsmanship, accountancy and so on.

In this way we are trying to bridge the enormous gap between madarsas and the regular system of education. Several of our students are now studying at regular universities, some work as ulema, and several others have taken up a range of other occupations.

Roughly half of our teachers are madarsa-trained ulema and the rest have studied in ‘modern’ colleges and universities.

Likewise, our roughly 700 students come from families with different sectarian affiliations, which, again, is in contrast to most madarsas that select only those students whose parents subscribe to their particular school of thought.

What reforms would you suggest in the present madarsa system?

The syllabus today followed in most South Asian madarsas is some variant or the other of the dars-e-nizami, a curriculum developed three hundred years ago by Mulla Nizamuddin of the Firangi Mahal in Lucknow.

For its times, the dars-e nizami was very appropriate and relevant. It was also job-oriented, helping train bureaucrats and officials for the royal courts. But today, the dars-e-nizami has largely lost its link with employment, and an institution that no longer has that sort of link cannot last long. Hence, I would urge, madarsas need to reform in accordance with modern needs, while still preserving their basic purpose of training would-be ulema. I think the only way this can happen is to incorporate and give a respectful place to basic modern subjects in the madarsa curriculum, as we have done in the Jamiat ul-Hidaya.

Some ulema see introducing modern education in the madarsas as an alleged ‘anti-Islamic conspiracy’...

Some people are apprehensive that changes in the madarsa curriculum, even on the lines that I have suggested, might damage or destroy the religious identity of madarsas. I, however, beg to differ. I think this fear is baseless. At the same time, however, I must state that when certain dominant Western powers or anti-Muslim ideologues talk of the need for madarsa reforms, their intentions are certainly very suspect.

What’s your view of madarsas that are linked to government-appointed madarsa boards in certain states?

With a few exceptions, I think the general experience of such madarsas has been that once they come under such boards their standards decline and teachers do not take their teaching work very seriously, being now assured of a regular salary from the government.

I have not heard of a single madarsa whose standards have improved after coming under a government-appointed board. The State should instead open its own model madarsas that combine both religious as well as modern education. But it is much better if the managers themselves take up the task of reforms than let the State do so.

How do you see the ongoing propaganda offensive against madarsas in India, targeting them as ‘dens of terror’?

This propaganda is completely wrong and baseless. Madarsas in our country do not preach hatred of other communities or engage in or encourage any illegal or unconstitutional activity.

Anyone is welcome to visit them to see things for himself. Besides those who are willfully engaged in seeking to defame madarsas, there are others who think of them in stereotypically negative terms primarily because they have had no association with the ulema or even with ordinary Muslims.

I think this is an issue that the ulema desperately need to address. Most of them have very little interaction with people of other faiths. They should also seek to write in languages other than Urdu to communicate their views and concerns to non-Muslims who cannot read Urdu. For this they need to learn other languages, and not consider that any language belongs to or is associated with only a particular community or that Urdu is somehow a Muslim language, which is not quite the case.