Between the Madrasa and the Manuscript: A Story of Two Worlds
By Dr. Abdul Raoof Mir, New Age Islam
23 April 2025
Every year, for the past twenty-three, I return to my village. And every return begins the same way. My cousin drops me at the gate. I see my parents waiting, arms open, their embrace softening the months of distance. I drop my luggage in my room, head to the kitchen, and am greeted with a steaming cup of noon chai (salt tea). We speak briefly about the journey, the weather, the health of distant relatives. Then, as always, I step out to visit the village shop, the epicentre of local gossip, transactions, and casual gatherings.
Neighbours greet me warmly. But the question always comes, sooner or later: “Why don’t you return for good? You can make a living here. Everyone else does.”
There’s care in their tone, but also disbelief, as if my leaving was both unnecessary and selfish.
Some still call me “Yaqoob Kak’s son.” Others now say “Doctor Saab”, with a mixture of pride and detachment, as though unsure how to place me.
The next day, I walk to the mosque, the village’s true public square. The Maulvi Sahib is leading prayers, as he has for years. He sees me, and nods with polite familiarity. Once, he held my hand through my first Surah. Now, his eyes say: You’ve gone far. But have you really come back?
He never left the village. He failed his tenth-grade board exams. I mention this not with judgment, but to mark how divergent our paths became. After the failure, his parents sent him to a madrasa in a nearby town. He memorized the Qur’an, became a Hafiz, returned, and opened a small Maktab. Over time, he became the moral spine of our village. He leads Friday sermons, officiates weddings, arbitrates disputes. His presence carries reverence. His word, weight.
Meanwhile, I followed the winding trail of higher education Anantnag to Delhi, Hyderabad to US to Germany to London studying religion, media, and text through the lens of theory. I learned to read Islamic thought critically, historically, and comparatively. I immersed myself in both Foucault and al-Ghazali, wrote on media and religion in Kashmir, spoke at global conferences on AI and disinformation — places where no one ever said Insha’Allah.
And yet, when I come home, that knowledge vanishes.
Here, on this soil, Maulvi Sahib’s memorization is sacred. My analysis, suspicious. My family listens, but they turn to him for fatwas. I can speak of ambiguity, of context and hermeneutics, of layered meanings, but he decides what is haram and halal, if a dowry is acceptable, or whether a girl may attend school.
And sometimes, that truth wounds more than I expect.
It’s not about status. It’s about rupture.
Between tradition and inquiry.
Between lived knowledge and learned knowledge.
Between rootedness and reflection.
Often, I feel like a character from Hayy ibn Yaqzan — Ibn Tufail’s solitary seeker who discovers existential truth in isolation, only to descend into society and find that people care more for rituals than metaphysics. Hayy’s truth, like mine is too abstract for the rhythms of daily life. His clarity, like mine, does not translate into community authority.
The Maulvi has never read Hayy, or Ibn Tufail, or Kant, or Saba Mahmood. He doesn’t need to. His authority isn’t born of theory, it’s born of memory, presence, trust. He has buried our dead, taught our sons to recite, witnessed every sorrow and celebration. His knowledge is embodied. Intimate. Lived.
And so, I return to an old question: What kind of knowledge counts?
Why is the Maulvi the ethical architect of our village, while I with all my degrees feel like an exile in the very community I hoped to serve?
This isn’t a plea for recognition. Nor is it a critique of tradition. It’s a reckoning with disjuncture — between epistemologies. How Muslim societies often locate truth in repetition rather than critique, in preservation rather than provocation. And how those of us shaped by critical traditions — especially within Western academia live suspended between two worlds, fluent in two epistemes, but truly at home in neither.
Sometimes, I wonder: could there be a third figure?
Someone who stands between the madrasa and the manuscript?
Someone who prays and also questions, who cherishes tradition but does not fear complexity?
Or maybe just maybe that is what I am still trying to become.
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Dr. Abdul Raoof Mir is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Alliance University, Bengaluru, with a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University and an MPhil from the University of Hyderabad. His research explores the intersection of media, religion, culture, and technology, with a focus on AI, disinformation, and identity in South Asia. Dr. Mir has published in journals such as Society and Culture in South Asia and Journal of Religion, Media, and Digital Culture. A recipient of INLAKS and DAAD fellowships, he has also been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Colorado and the University of Göttingen. Dr. Mir has been selected for the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), Oxford University Visiting Fellowship for October to December 2025.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-society/madrasa-manuscript-worlds/d/135270
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