A Major Paradigm Shift In Madrasa Education Policy Needed
Maulana
Arshad Madani Should First Modernize Madrasas Affiliated Under Darul Uloom
Main
Points:
1. Maulana
Arshad Madani stressed the need to teach Muslims modern sciences.
2. Madrasas
have not benefitted from government’s madrasa modernization schemes.
3. Madrasas
have always opposed any modernization move.
4. Jamiat-e-Ulema
Hind grants scholarships to minority students for technical education.
5. Maulana
Madani says successive governments prevented Muslims from education.
6. Successive
governments did not stop Muslims from establishing madrasas.
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By
New Age Islam Staff Writer
22 January
2022
Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind has announced scholarships worth crores of rupees for needy minority students taking up professional courses. Students applying for engineering, medical, journalism or any other technical professional courses would be eligible for these scholarships provided they have acquired 70 per cent marks in the previous year’s examination.
The Jamiat headed by
Maulana Arshad Madani had granted scholarships to minority students previous
year as well. Giving the details about the scholarships, Maulana Arshad Madani
also stressed the need for promoting modern education among the minority
especially among the Muslims. He said that the kind of ideological battle that
has been waged in the country can only be fought not with any weapon or
technology but with modern education.
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Putting all the blame for the educational backwardness of Muslims since the independence on the successive governments, Maulana Arshad Madani said that all the governments after the independence kept Muslims deprived of education according to a predetermined policy and Sachar Committee put a seal on this truth. The report says that Muslims lag behind even Dalits in education. He asked, This happened automatically or did the Muslims commit suicide?” He said that the governments had realized that if Muslims had progressed in educational field they would capture power.
Therefore, the governments kept Muslims away from education. He
stressed the need to establish such schools and colleges that produce doctors
and engineers and where Muslim students can also acquire religious education.
He advised Muslims to establish more and more schools and colleges for
providing modern education to Muslims.
Maulana
Arshad Madani said that the community needs both hafiz and Ulema and doctors
and engineers. He gave the information that for that purpose his organization
had established B.Ed. college, Degree College and schools for Muslim boys and
girls and ITI’s in different states.
It is to be noted that the scholarships are being granted by Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani Charitable Trust (M.H.A. Madani Charitable Trust) and not by the Darul Uloom Deoband of whom Maulana Arshad Madani is an important part. Darul Uloom Deoband was established by the elders Maulana Qasim Nanautawi and his aides in the late 19th century (30 May 1866) for providing only religious education to the Muslims of undivided India. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan had established Aligarh Muslim University in 1875 only because Darul Uloom Deoband had excluded science subjects from its curriculum. Even now, despite realising the importance of sciences, the Madrasas in India have not agreed to modernize. They have not implemented the governments schemed SPQEM and SPEMM for introducing modern subjects in madrasas. Under this scheme, the governments will pay the salary of Rs 6000 to 12000 to the teachers of modern subjects teaching in madrasas but for that the madrasas would need to register with the Educational Boards of the state and the salary of teachers would be paid through banks. Many few madrasas registered under this scheme as the scheme was voluntary.
Madrasa authorities
opposed government’s madrasa modernization schemes on the pretext that it would
lead to unnecessary interference of the government in the minority
institutions.
If that was the fear, then the Madrasas would have taken up their own modernization programme and introduced modern subjects in madrasa education curriculum. Nobody stopped them from doing that. But here the real obstacle was ideological and not political.
A large section of madrasa scholars are of the view that
introducing modern subjects into madrasa curriculum would wean away madrasas
from their true spirit and so modern sciences should not be added to the
madrasa curriculum. They believed and circulated this belief that Duniyawi
Uloom (worldly sciences) are not part of an Islamic education system and so
they should not be included in madrasa educational curriculum. Only Deeni
Uloom( religious sciences) should be taught in madrasas.
During the
initial period of Islam there was not demarcation of religious sciences and
modern sciences or worldly sciences and so madrasas would teach both Quran and
hadith and jurisprudence along with physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics
and as a result great Muslim scientists were produced by these madrasas.
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But after
the spread of British Empire, somehow the wrong belief that the English
education will corrupt the faith of the Muslims strengthened among the Muslims
and so the modern sciences believed to be akin to the British or Christian
education was opposed. This happened in India when Darul Uloom Deoband was
established with the sole purpose of saving Indian Muslims from the modern education
that the British government was promoting.
After the
establishment of Darul Uloom, Sir Syed establish Anglo Mohammadan Oriental
College which later became Aligarh Muslim University with the sole purpose of
providing modern education to the Muslims to enable them to compete in the
modern world. The ulema of his time even issued fatwas of kufr against him for
promoting modern education among the Muslims.
And this
perception has not changed among the Madrasa educationists yet who do not want
to include modern sciences in madrasa curriculum. While stressing the need to
equip Muslims with modern education, Maulana Arshad Madani skipped the issue of
madrasa modernization. He asked Muslims to establish colleges and schools for
Muslims where both religious and modern education would be provided to
students, he did not say whether Darul Uloom Deoband was going to modernize
itself. Therefore, the views expressed by Maulana Arshad Madani were of the
head of M.H.A. Madani Charitable Trust and not of the spokesman of Darul Uloom
Deoband.
If the
Darul Uloom Deoband had included modern sciences in its curriculum soon after
the independence, the madrasas in India would have been the centres of quality
education as millions of Muslim students studied in madrasas. They came out
with the knowledge of hifz, jurisprudence but did not have knowledge of modern
sciences. The Quran enjoins on Muslims to study sciences and do research in
scientific fields but these scholars of the Quran and Islam circulated the
belief that Islam discourages worldly sciences or modern sciences. This
promoted an anti-science mentality among the Muslims.
Since,
Maulana Arshad Madani has realized, though belatedly, the need to equip Muslims
with modern education; he may make a move for the modernization of madrasas
affiliated under Darul Uloom Deoband. Many modern and liberal educationists of
India have already established modern Islamic educations where both Islamic and
modern education is provided to the Muslim students. But as leaders of the Muslim
community, Darul Uloom lagged in this field of knowledge. And even though
Maulana Arshad Madani makes a progressive statement, he makes it not from the
platform of Darul Uloom but from the platform of an NGO.
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This is
time instead of blaming the governments for the educational backwardness of
Muslims in India, the Muslims understood that the governments did not stop them
from establishing modern schools in every town and village. The successive
governments did not stop Muslims from establishing madrasas and producing
hafiz, qari and jurisprudents. This is only an alibi to hide the prejudice of
Muslim scholars that cost Muslims of independent India dearly.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-society/madrasa-education-policy-darul-uloom/d/126214
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