Does Fully Scrapping the Madrasa Education System Solve any Problem?
By Dr. Mohammad Ghitreef, New Age Islam
11 November 2021
Who
Can Bring About A Reform In The Madrasa Education System?
Main
Points:
1. Appeal to Prime Minister
Narendra Modi to remedy what ails Madrasa system seem to me a bizarre one.
2. Madrasa Education gives its
graduates an irrational mentality, a thinking style devoid of logic
3. Its curriculum having roots
in political Islam creates extremism and hatred.
------
What Khalid Umer says about Madrasa system,
in his recent article at newsintervention.com, sounds like a sweeping statement,
but has an element of truth. He has headlined it 'Scrap the derelict
institution of Islamic Madrasas in India'. This article is available at: https://www.newsintervention.com/scrap-the-derelict-institution-of-islamic-madrasas-in-india
. However, his hope and appeal to Prime
Minister Narendra Modi to remedy what ails Madrasa system seem to me rather a
bizarre one. It is indeed hoping against hope. Yes, to be honest, Madrasa
system is a derelict one. I agree that it gives its graduates an irrational
mentality, a thinking style devoid of logic, and makes them unfit to live a
normal modern life in consonance with the demands of 21st century values. Its
curriculum having roots in political Islam creates extremism and hatred
indirectly not only towards Secular modern liberal values, and contempt towards
other faith communities but also towards fellow Muslims belonging to other
sects and different schools of thought.
However, I strongly feel that there are
some useful aspects of this religious education system also, which could be
summarized as such:
1.
It is the largest educational
network of Muslims that works like an NGO that makes a large number of Muslim
children literate who cannot afford to go to a good school or college.
2.
They cater to the religious
needs of Muslim society.
3.
Muslim National organizations
and community institutions get workers from them.
4.
They help to maintain the
Muslim identity of the community in a rather hostile environment.
However, this education system has its own
shortcomings and fault lines too, which many intellectuals have been pointing
out for a century but to no avail. And when it comes to reforming or
modernizing the madrasas, the madrasa administration and the ulema make lame
excuses. It is very strange that there are so many in the community who are
ready to buy this lame excuse, that only three or four percent of the Muslim
children go to these madrasas and so why bother about this minor number? They
should rather be left to their own devices and the rest of 96 percent must be
cared about instead. I ask, if there are 4% victims of Eye diseases in society
then what would be done? No measures would be taken to cure the lot of the poor
4%? If so, wouldn’t it be cruel to keep them in the dark? Yet it is another
story that will be discussed some other day. Here I am dealing with the appeal
to PM Modi for reforming this ill system. The point is whether its remedy lies
in asking the prime minister, the stalwart of Hindutva, to scrap that rotten system of education out
rightly?
The question is if the madrasa system is
gone, then from where does the community fulfil its theological and religious
needs?
I think for the remedy an Ataturk is
required and PM Modi cannot be one for obvious reasons. In this context, some
words are due about Ataturk and how he built modern Turkey. Turkey in the
twentieth century’s beginning was at a crossroad. It was called by European
scholars and historians the Sick man of Europe. The old Ottoman Caliphate
system was in a stalemate, corrupt, rotten, sluggish, and bankrupt. It was
handicapped by the traditional thinking of Sufis, Ulama, and selfish political
class. All these elements combined made Turkey unable to go forward and face
the challenges ahead. The last caliph Abdul Hamid with all his supposed
capabilities, piety, love of prophet, and caring to the Muslim Ummah, was an
autocrat and dictator, who ruled Turkey for 31 years with an iron hand. He made
it a police state where the secret agents were ruling the roost.
The Shaikh ul Islam (chief of the Ulema)
and other Ulema were so rigid, narrow-minded, and incompetent that there was no
room for any reform. Then Turkey was invaded by colonial forces. Arabs rose
against the Caliphate in connivance with Allied forces in the Second World War,
resulting in the defeat of Germany and her ally Turkey. Then Turkey as a
defeated and fractured country went into chaos and was rent asunder. At that
point in time Mustafa Kamal Ata Turk came forward to rescue his nation. He
abolished the caliphate and opted for a secular political and educational
system. This is why Mustafa Kamal is the most hated and most abused person in
the Islamist circles all over the world
today.
Yet
it should not be ignored that the main hurdle in the way of reform was
traditional Ulama and Sufis. They had been giving fatwas against using new
techniques, new inventions, and even against new scientific training of army
cadres, which was so much needed at that time as the county was besieged and
invaded by her enemies from everywhere. Against this backdrop, Mustafa Kamal
came to rescue his people and abolished the old political and educational
system. Yes, in his reform drive he did some blunders also. For example, he
changed the Turkish script from Arabic and Persian into Roman letters, cutting
the new generation from its enriched past altogether. Likewise he decreed for
Azan to be recited in Turkish. And so on. So we can safely say that Ataturk’s
ultra-secular dose was excessive, but it was needed at that juncture.
I cited the reference of Kamal Ataturk
because Kahlid Umer argued that:
“Islamic teaching and modern education
can’t coexist.” Here Khalid is very harsh and rash in his opinion. Contrasting
to his point I must say that not only does Turkey show the way for adopting a
model wherein Islamic teachings and modern education coexist but there are
other experiments also for example in the Malaysian model or Indonesian model.
Why is he fully ignoring this fact?
Now when some of us are requesting PM Modi
to intervene in this system or scrap it from India it is imperative to think
how this hope is a flawed one. Simply because with all his faults and
shenanigans Mustafa Kamal was a man from our ranks. He could do what he did
because after all he was a Muslim leader leading a Muslim country.
Madrasa system of education cannot be
scrapped wholly: there is a need for madrasas. So this system cannot be
abolished altogether and yet there is an urgent need for reforming this system
too. No government can do it, as when
Education Minister Kapil Sibbal of the UPA merely suggested a central madrasa
board comprising of ulema from all schools of thought, we rejected that angrily
as an interference in our religious matters.
So the question is who can bring about a
reform in the madrasa education system?
I think the community itself should do this
on its own. And since it is already very late now, we have to take immediate
steps for this reform. At the very least a process of introspection and
brainstorming should begin right now. All schools of thought should be
involved. We should at least be together on the need for reform.
------
Dr.
Mohammad Ghitreef is an Associate, Centre for Promotion of Educational and
Cultural Advancement of Muslims of India, AMU, Aligarh
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-society/scrapping-madrasa-education/d/125751
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