Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

THE DEOBAND MADRASA AND ITS SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

The emergence of the madrasa in Deoband can be attributed to the second phase in response to the failed revolt against British rule in 1857/58. By the time of the arrival of the British, Muslim dynasties had ruled over South Asia for 600 years. Many Muslim princes and scholars had participated in the uprising. After that, Muslim groups and scholars came under pressure and were viewed with suspicion by the British while Western-style public administration and secular nationalist thought expanded. In this situation, the religious scholars decided to concentrate on the reconstruction of religious knowledge and revival of religiosity. The Islamic school – D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um Deoband – came into being in 1866 when it was founded on the model of a British college by Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi (1832–1879) and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (1829–1905). This analogy pertained to the formal setting of curriculum, paid staff, a campus with teaching halls and hostels. As few formal madrasas existed at the time in South Asia, the Deoband approach was innovative and fairly radical. In theological matter, they adopted the traditional curriculum of Islamic teaching current in South Asia, the dars-e niz.¯am¯ı, drafted in the late seventeenth century–early eighteenth century. It was conceived by two scholars from Lucknow in North India, Mulla Qutb al-Din Sihalwi (d. 1691) and his son Mulla Nizam al-Din of Firangi Mahal (d. 1748) after whom it was named (Robinson, 2001: 211ff.). On political matters, they preferred to protest their loyalty towards the British. Religious scholars of Islam from most schools of thought at the time cautiously distanced themselves from violent jih¯ad, or Holy War. They issued fatw¯as raising high hurdles under which it would become legitimate to start Jihad to the extent where it became almost impossible.

Over the years, the Deobandschool and its followers went through different phases. Like in many Islamic schools, the foundations of the Darul Ulum Deoband were laid at a local mosque, the Chhatta Mosque, where teaching began under a tree. It first started as a maktab, the religious school for the primary level. Eventually more and more departments were added. Its major contribution to Islamic teaching in South Asia was the introduction of regular degree courses producing religious scholars – ‘ulam¯a’, sing.‘¯alim.

Until today the ‘¯alim course has remained at the heart of the Deoband teaching. It stretches over 8 years with regular classes. It consists of teaching the Qur’an and the Prophetic Traditions as well as related theological and ‘worldly’ subjects. Early on madrasas distinguished between revealed subjects going back to the ‘lawgiver’, i.e., God, and intellectual subjects that could be grasped with one’s intellect and senses, i.e., ‘worldly’ subjects (Hillenbrand, 2003). This distinction is maintained even today. It is variously called ‘ul¯um-i naql¯ıya or manq¯ul¯at for the revealed, and ‘ul¯um-i ‘aql¯ıya or ma‘q¯ul¯at for the ‘worldly’ sciences (Robinson, 2001: 211ff). Under the first category come all branches of knowledge which owe their existence to Islam, that is, the study of the Qur’an, its commentaries(tafs¯ır) , the Traditions(Hadith) and auxiliary theological sciences; the theology(kal¯am) of Islam; the interpretation of Islamic law(shar¯ı’a) by the law schools(fiqh) and the principles of law(us.¯ul al-fiqh) . As Arabic is seen as the language of Qur’an and therefore of divine provenance,its linguistic and literary studies are also treated here. The ‘worldly’ subjects encompass logic, philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, and traditional medicine(tibb) . They are largely restricted to classical Greek works.3

The learning is focused on classical texts, but even more on commentaries and super-commentaries on them, which make the study often arcane. Books and commentaries mostly have to be learned by heart. Debate only focuses on comprehension of the texts. Underlying issues are not raised or discussed. If the works are in Arabic, non-Arabic speakers have to prove they can read the text and understand it. Certificates(Sanad) are awarded on the basis of books mastered not failing to mention the line of authorized teachers through which the study of this work was passed down the generations.

The regular features of the ‘¯alim course make it a standard for reformist religious education in Deobandi interpretation allowing it to be reproduced in all schools following the same curriculum. This standardization of religious teaching has helped in fostering consistency in the Deobandi teaching and keeping the various institutions together. It equally reproduces a certain outlook and a rather conservative mentality, especially in social matters. Its worldview is primarily focused on religious teaching and marked by neglect of or indifference to contemporary worldly knowledge except on technical matters such as computers or subjects seen as auxiliary, as with English.

The grade ‘¯alim is already conferred after class seven of the course before the final year(daur¯a-i h.ad¯ıth) starts when the students return to the study of the Prophetic Traditions. After class eight, they become graduates – f¯ad. il. Then they can further specialize(takhassus.) in various directions taking additional courses up to 2 years in different departments of the school rewarded by the final degree of k¯amil. Participants in these specialization courses vary between two and three, to a maximum of around 20. Specialization is undertaken in the major theological disciplines such as Qur’anic exegesis(tafs¯ır) , the Traditions

(had¯ıth) and Theology(‘ul¯um) . Other departments offering specialization courses include:

• English language and literature

• Computer training

• The Shaykh al-Hind Academy, offering training in advanced theological research and religious journalism

• The ‘Defence of the Finality of the Prophethood of Muhammad’(Tah.affuz.-i Khatm-i Nabuwwat) training graduates in writing works and preaching against the sect of the Ah.mad¯ıya, but also in refuting the views of rival interpretations in Islam such as those of the Ahl-i H.ad¯ıth, the Bar¯elw¯ıs, the Jam¯a‘at-i Isl¯am¯ı, and of ‘unbelievers’, i.e., non-Muslims such as Christians and Hindus; this department operates in conjunction with the Preaching Department(Sho‘ba-i Tabl¯ıgh)

• Legal Consultation(Da¯ r al-Ifta¯ ’ ) offering training in writing legal decisions(fata¯ wa¯ , sin. fatwa¯ ) in reply to inquiries from the Muslim public

The fatw¯a-writing is an important feature of most of the larger Islamic schools in the Muslim world today. They regard it as an essential service to the community to guide it to observe what they regard the ‘correct’ and ‘true’ Islam. The D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um Deoband has four to five Muftis employed answering legal inquiries about the permissibility of actions and conduct under Islamic law. While Deoband concentrates on jurisprudence in the tradition of the Hanafi law school to which most South Asian Muslims adhere, they will also answer specific inquiries based on the other law schools for which they have specialized scholars. In 1423 AH, the Legal Department also trained 37 students. The Deobandschool stands out as an orthodox reference institution for Muslim India, but also for South Asia as a whole and beyond.

Many of the larger schools also keep branches for primary education and for teaching specialized religious skills. At the Deobandschool , the primary branch is called the Urdu Religious Curriculum(¯urd¯u d¯ıniy¯at) which loosely follows the government curriculum for classes 1–5, although the examinations are not verified by Government Boards.

There are also courses for Qur’an memorization and recitation awarding the degrees of hafiz.and q¯ar¯ı. Reading the Qur’an and writing are taught separately. In the year 1423 AH, there were 2,502 students attending the Arabic faculty, including the eight classes of the ‘¯alim course, and 717 students of the non-Arabic faculty, including the primary classes and the minor degree courses (see tables 7.1 and 7.2). A traditional medical college(J¯ami‘a T. ibb¯ıya) also belongs to the Deoband school.

Students and teachers form a community, which is meant to follow the ideals of early Islam. In particular, students are taken care of comprehensively. They receive a(small) stipend, food, clothing and books. Food items are sold at subsistence prices. Medical treatment is free. However, the level of care is very basic marked by the poverty of the region. Traditionally, the schools survive on donations in kind from the landholding families in the region, especially rice, pulses and meat. Donations in form of subscriptions and donations(‘a.t¯ıya, chanda) are

another main source of income where members of staff travel the countryside to collect these. In addition, the Islamic welfare tax(zak¯at) is used to pay for expenses. Many schools are established on donated lands and form part of religious endowments(waqf) .Where religious endowments are administered by the state, as partly in India and Pakistan, so-called Waqf Boards are constituted contributing to expenses of religious education (cf. Kaur, 1990). Some money comes from the hides traditionally donated to madrasas across South Asia on the Muslim holiday of the sacrifice, ‘I¯d al-Ad.h.¯a. Living conditions on the campus for students and teachers alike are simple, rather ascetic, but compared to the remote rural areas from where many students hail, almost urbane.

Inside the Deobandi schools, character formation, tarb¯ıyat, plays an important role. After emphasizing the study of the Qur’an, the tafs¯ır and the had¯ıth, the old founding constitution of the Deoband school, enumerating its essential goals(nas.b al-‘ain) , in para two of five stressed the objective ‘to teach the practice and morals of Islam and to inculcate in students the spirit of Islam’ (D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um D¯eoband, 1422: 4). This is also reflected in the description of the work of the department for hostel accommodation(d¯ar al-iq¯ama) in the Administrative Reports of the Deobandschool . The report mentions that the teacher in-charge sees to it that students are woken up in time for the early Morning Prayer and do not miss the late-night prayer. They look after the ‘religious, educational and moral upbringing’ of the students (Ad Rep 1423: 15). Students are also controlled how they spend their leisure time as cinema and fun fairs are out of limits and violators would be punished.4 This also applies in varying degree to the use of television, radio and newspapers which are generally not allowed on campus. Exceptions are possible if transistor radios, for instance, are strictly used for information-gathering only.5 Piety, humility and respect of elders are considered equally important. At times, the tendency of some madrasa teachers to restrain students physically, particularly in the younger age groups, is viewed very critically by society. There have also been cases of abuse discussed in the media.6

In the course of their evolution, the Deoband schools have formed a distinct culture of their own. It reflects the tendency of South Asian Islam for its various groups and interpretations to take on sectarian features. Members not only hold certain views and follow particular principles, but they also start marrying inside their groups, share common rituals and other cultural traits such as a preference for certain dress, music/poetry – or the rejection of it. By extension, there is a tendency of these groups to produce also distinct political loyalties. As explained in the following section, the Deobandis are represented by the conservative Associations of Religious Scholars(Jam¯ı’yat-e ‘Ulam¯a’) which in some countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh also act as political parties.

The school’s public stand is marked by a strong sectarian stand, defending its own interpretation of Islam as the only ‘correct’ and ‘true’ form of belief against dissenters within and outside Islam. Sunni radicalism as a public stand took hold during the 1920s and 1930s of the twentieth century (Reetz, 2006: 255ff). This sectarianism feeds into radical theological disputes and connects with militancy, if only by supplying the radical arguments for militant groups that seek to enforce their religious views on dissenters.

In terms of sectarian affiliation, the Deobandis should not be confused with Wahhabis, a term often used as an invective by their detractors amongst Muslims and in the West. While the Deobandis share with the Wahhabis a certain bent for a radical reinterpretation of Islam they still maintain many popular practices and follow selected Sufi traditions totally rejected by the Wahhabis.

At the same time, pietistic tendencies remain strong. The rigorous discipline enforced, the heavy teaching load and the orientation towards the Muslim community lead to the formation of mostly humble and obedient characters representing the traditional service mentality of the ‘ulam¯a class inherited from their role in the administration of the Muslim empires.

A major phase of expansion for all Islamic seminaries started in the late seventies. Political and cultural Islam took an upswing across the Muslim world successfully challenging and ultimately unseating nationalism and socialism as the major sources of political legitimacy, ideological mobilization and cultural identification. The school at Deoband went through its own phase of upheaval and expansion during that period. It celebrated its centenary on a grand scale on 21–23 March 1980, even though it was already its 124th anniversary. About 8,000 delegates, public luminaries, politicians and Deobandi graduates from across the world were reported to have participated. Scholars proposed far-reaching programs of improvement and infrastructural growth. The occasion was used to reunite a large number of graduates of Deoband from all over the world in a traditional turban-binding(dast¯arband¯ı) ceremony (Mukhtas.ir R¯ud¯ad, 1980). The wide public attention, which the school received in India and across the Muslim world, may have contributed to heightening the simmering tensions inside. Rival family factions vied for control. One was headed by Qari Muhammad Tayyib Qasimi (1897–1983), the grandson of the founder Nanautawi, the other led by Maulana Asad Madani (d. 2006), the son of Husayn Ahmad Madani. The Qasimi faction was defeated and forced out of the school along with its followers. They set up a new school on donated lands after which it is called D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um Waqf. Both sides concede that the split is of a personal nature and does not subtract from the common ideology and mission. The new school has already been able to attract about 1,500 students – half of the number of students of the old school. The schism is regarded by both as an anomaly. Efforts for reconciliation continue and may be hastened by the recent demise of Asad Madani.

The old school gained new strength after it passed through the crisis. It added new departments and expanded its teaching significantly. The number of students almost doubled between 1400 AH/1980 and 1424 AH/2003–04 from 1,822 to 3,504; the number of graduates rose from 406 to 774 per year. According to Deoband’s own data, until 2003 the school had produced 32,806 graduates since it came into existence. About 6 percent of its graduates hailed from other countries.7 Amongst the new departments added in the eighties were those which heightened the ideological profile of the school, such as the Shaykh al-Hind Academy (1982) and the ‘Finality of Prophethood’ Department (1986). Study circles and debating societies(talab¯a’ k¯e anjuman¯en.) train students in theological and political controversies and seek to sharpen the ideological and sectarian profile of the school. The students learn public articulation through wallpapers and speaking contests. The rapid growth of Islamic teaching led to expanded and more formalized networking. After several earlier attempts failed, an Old Boys Association(Tanz.¯ım-i Abn¯a’-i Qad¯ım) was finally established in 1991. When Islamic schools in India faced the pressure of Hindu nationalists to justify their existence the schools mobilized in defense of Islamic teaching and founded an association of Deobandi schools(R¯abi.ta Mad¯aris-i ‘Arab¯ıya – RMA) in 1994. Now for the first time Deobandi networking was coordinated by a regular institution endorsing the curriculum and courses of affiliated schools. This was a new significant development, branding the product of Deobandi teaching in the emerging and highly competitive private market of religious and worldly instruction. It also shifted attention to development concerns in a more pronounced way. The opening of the Computer and the English language departments in 1996 and 2002 respectively after long resistance demonstrated the changing character of the educational landscape and reflected the demands and expectations of the public at large.

The teaching of Islam at the Deobandi schools and other Sunni mad¯aris had also been modeled on the famous Egyptian Islamic university, Al-Azhar (cf. Eccel, 1984). This includes the curriculum, but also the personal ties that some teachers and students hold with this university. While Al-Azhar underwent significant changes in the 50s and 60s, primarily opening new faculties of modern and worldly sciences, the South Asian schools have so far resisted such opening. Yet, some Deobandi schools have started offering modern facilities where they teach secondary education based on government standards alongside the religious subjects. The Islamic schools still mostly attract the lower strata of society from a largely rural background. For those who see no other option of advancement, graduation from one of the major religious seminaries iskey to upward mobility, the only road out of the narrow confines of their village and its poverty.

In addition to religious teaching, Deobandi schools have pursued political and ideological concerns since long. Although most Deobandi schools and madrasas in general refrain from political activism, the headschool in Deoband has often taken a strong political stand, a tradition dating back to the colonial period. Its head teachers were involved in the famous ‘silk letter conspiracy’ in 1914–16 directed against British rule in India. They were making plans for an Islamic army to be drawn from different Muslim countries that would confront the British and other Western powers, seeking to chase them out of Muslim lands and remove them from the religious sites of Islam on the Arabian Peninsula, in particular. The Deobandschool also joined the secular nationalist movement against British rule led by the Indian Congress Party. Deobandi scholars also got involved in institutional body politics. The Association of Religious Scholars that was formed in 1919 as a coordination platform for religious concerns started participating in elections in the 1940s. After the partition of the subcontinent when the two states of India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947, the parameters of political engagement were radically redefined. The Pakistan branch transformed into the Party of Islamic Scholars, the Jam¯ı’yat-e ‘Ulam¯a’-e Isl¯am (JUI), which is still the strongest religious party there. The JUI formed the nucleus of the alliance of religious parties there, the MMA(Muttah.ida Majlis-e ‘Amal) that gained prominence in Pakistan’s politics after 2001. In India, the scholars’ association still bears the original name of JUH concentrating on cultural and social issues. Yet, the Deoband leaders still regard the school as a political asset. They take a strong public stand on issues that as they see it concern the Muslim community as a whole. Being a minority in India of 13 percent, Muslims and particularly its religious elite often feel beleaguered. The school has repeatedly provoked public controversies by its legal decisions(fatw¯as) and other statements of its elders. They concern Muslim Personal Law issues such as rulings on separation and maintenance, the role of women or the religious status of television and mass media. Here the school usually defends conservative interpretations of orthodox Islam. Deoband scholars were equally defensive about Taliban rule in Afghanistan and strongly opposed Western military intervention.8

These developments were mirrored in other Islamic countries. Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia played key roles in the Islamic revival of the late seventies and eighties. In Pakistan, the intervention of its Islamist military dictator Zia-ul-Haq led to the manifold growth of Islamic schools and their graduates as increasing amounts of donations, zakat and state money were channeled to them (Malik, 1996: 227ff). This expansion was helped by US interest in camouflaging its role in the Afghan civil war through overt and covert support to religious fighters(mujahid¯ın) who had graduated from Deobandi schools in the Pakistani border belt with Afghanistan. Trilateral cooperation between the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia poured substantial amounts of money into the Islamic sector in Pakistan’s border area (Rashid, 2002).

Complex social trends also fed into the Islamization process of education. An emerging Muslim middle class weary of Western domination and angry about the failures of local governance to deliver modern economic standards and democracy turned to religious values for identification and reassertion.

Over the years, the Deobandi school of thought has significantly expanded internationally. Through its network of international graduates, who established new Deobandi schools wherever they went, they have gained strong influence amongst Muslims in South Africa, of which most hail from the subcontinent, amongst the migrant communities in East Africa, Britain, North America, and increasingly South East Asia, with Malaysia, South Thailand and Indonesia as major destinations. Among them, the Muslim trading groups from the Indian state of Gujarat have played a special role. They appear to be on the back of many of the madrasa activities outside South Asia, and particularly in South Africa and Britain. Nevertheless, the Deobandi interpretation of Islam also appeals to indigenous Muslims in countries such as Malaysia, Afghanistan, post-Soviet Central Asia and China who do not hail from South Asia.

The impact of Deobandi teaching on Islamic learning in different countries is ambivalent. While it strengthens formal orthodoxy considerably, it partly adapts to local traditions also and allows for varying degrees of Sufi influences to continue.

The Deobandi schools, teacher and student networks operate like ‘reformist orders’ where clan structures and family loyalties play a large role. These may be as much connected to ethnic and regional origins such as those tied to Gujarat, as to Deobandi Shaykhs linked to the missionary movement of the Tabl¯ıgh¯ı Jam¯a’at (TJ) or prominent seminaries in India or Pakistan.

It was particularly the stunning growth of the Tabl¯ıgh¯ı movement which helped the rapid expansion of the Deobandis. The Tabl¯ıgh¯ıs represent a missionary movement which originated in India in 1926 and evolved in close interaction with the Deobandi school of thought there. Maulana Muhammad Zakariyya (1898–1982), the cofounder of the TJ and nephew of its founder Maulana Muhammad Ilyas (1885–1944), significantly contributed to the spread of the Tabl¯ıgh¯ı movement through his Sufi activities as Shaykh and the network of disciples he built around the world. The infrastructure of the Tabl¯ıgh¯ı movement revolves around local centers(Mar¯akaz) which would be either a Deobandi mosque or a madrasa. Where the TJ did not find suitable mosques or madrasas, its followers initiated the establishment of such schools and prayer places. The competing Barelwis would not allow Tabl¯ıgh¯ıs to base themselves in their mosques and schools. At times, they even forcefully evicted their groups. The Barelwis instead established their own rival preaching movement Da’wat-i Isl¯am¯ı in 1980 closely modeled on the Tabl¯ıgh¯ı Jam¯a’at. Today the major Deobandi schools in Britain and South Africa owe their existence to Tabl¯ıgh¯ı influences and the Zakariyya network. Cases in point are the D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um Dewsbury and the D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um Holcombe/Bury in the United Kingdom; the D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um Zakariyya, Lenasia and the D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um Azadville in South Africa. The Dewsbury school is today the European center of the Tabl¯ıgh¯ı Jam¯a’at, and so is the Lenasia school for South Africa. In South East Asia, it is also through the Tabl¯ıgh¯ı exchanges of travelling preachers that Deobandi teachings have reached Malaysia, Indonesia and South Thailand. Young graduates from the local system of traditional Islamic schools, the pondoks, find it difficult to enter the government schools for higher education. When going on preaching tours with the TJ to India and Pakistan, they feel tempted to stay on and join the mad¯aris there. On their return to Malaysia and Indonesia, they seek to introduce the formality of the Deobandi teaching system in the local context which is still marked by a high degree of informality in traditional religious schools. The TJ in Malaysia has now established a regular Deobandi school at its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur churning out graduates who are planning to establish a whole network of formal Deobandi curriculum schools across the country at all local centers(mar¯akaz) of the TJ.

Though it is often said that the regular madrasa student cannot be tied to terrorist and militant activity, there are no clear boundaries with the militant sector. Some actors step out from one milieu and effortlessly move into the other, acting in turns as scholars, politicians, Sufi Shaykhs, and godfathers of militant groups. The TJ founder Zakariyya was known for his spiritual mentality and inspiration. The directory of his disciples lists scholars such as Maulana Yusuf Sahib Ludhianwi who was teaching Hadith at the J¯ami’a al-‘Ul¯um al-Isl¯am¯ıya in Binuri Town Karachi advancing to the position of rector (Mot¯al¯a, 1986: 636–640). He also headed the Pakistan chapter of the notorious World Organization for the Defense of the Finality of Prophethood, the ‘A¯ lam¯ı Majlis Tah.affuz.-e Khatm-e Nabuwwat (AMTKN). He was shot by militants in a sectarian tit-for-tat on 18 May 2000 (Dawn, 19 May 2000). His school had heavily promoted the sectarian militant organizations of the Sipah-e Sahaba-e Pakistan (SSP), and later the Jaish-e Muhammad (JM) led by Maulana Masood Azhar. Ludhianwi was reported to have pledged allegiance to Azhar for his intention to unite all jih¯ad¯ı factions in Kashmir and Afghanistan (Rana, 2004: 217). Another example was Maulana Abdul Hafiz Makki, also a disciple of Zakariyya. He was teaching Hadith at the Deobandi madrasa at Mecca, D¯ar al-‘Ul¯um S.aulat¯ıya. He defended the role of Sufi hospices, but was also involved in the AMTKN and regarded as a patron with the SSP.9 When militant groups started opening their own religious schools, further cross links were established between the two milieus, particularly in Pakistan. In the most detailed survey of religious schools of Pakistan yet, the Pakistan Journalist and social activist Amir Rana listed 38 big madrasas assumed to be close to the SSP (ibid.: 200–201). He named another10 schools with 1,500resident students for the Ahl-i H. ad¯ıth organization Jam¯a’at al-Da’wa (JD) serving as an umbrella for the now defunct militant group Lashkar-i Taiba (ibid.:325 ). These schools mostly followed the dars-e niz.¯am¯ı curriculum, albeit with a heavy dose of ideological indoctrination on militant jihad, anti-Western sentiments, and radical Sunni sectarianism. After the militant groups have successively been banned in Pakistan, their clientele now more than ever relies on their religious schools to refill the ranks of their members. It has to be stressed, however, that this development is primarily to be observed in Pakistan and even there it is a fringe phenomenon, accounting for 3–5 percent of all madrasas according to various estimates. To a smaller extent, this trend has made itself felt more recently also in Bangladesh (Singh, 2006).

Madrasa-type institutions still cater for the educational needs of a considerable part of the Muslim populace across the world. The percentage of people attending the secondary and college level will vary, but seems not to exceed 3 percent and would in few places locally peak at 5–20 percent of all school-going students. A rough and probably conservative estimate for South Asia puts the number of medium to higher-level madrasas at 15,000 each in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India with approximately 1.5 million or more students in each country.10 Efforts are undertaken to advance the process of their registration although many administrators and scholars resist coming under the control of government. A limited group of so-called government madrasas in mainly West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh has kept its traditional link with the state. They offer also secular education and they are recognized and often financed by government.11 The same holds true for Kerala where the universities of Calicut and Cannanore have affiliated a group of Arabic colleges some of the teachers of which are paid by the state. They follow a nonsectarian 5-year religious degree course of afd.al-ul-‘ulam¯a’ (= most excellent scholars) where they also teach English.12 In Rajasthan, the state government recognized 619 madrasas as schools in 1999 paying for the teaching of modern subjects such as Hindi, English, mathematics and science. With a range of 90 to 100 percent, they are reported to have achieved much better results than many government schools.13 The most famous among them is Madrasa Jamiatul Hidaya of Jaipur, billed as the ‘hi-tech madrasa’. Beside religious subjects the school teaches a great variety of diplomas and degrees in Computer Application, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engi neering, Accounts and Business Management, Communication, Refrigeration, Leather/Footwear Technology, Airconditioning and Offset Printing. Its modern courses are affiliated with the public Aligarh University.14 These schools continue the old tradition of madrasas working under state patronage which also the British continued. The most famous of their creations was the Madrasa Aliya of Calcutta set up in 1781 for training in oriental sciences and languages to help the colonial administration.

A growing number of religious schools are devoted to girls’ education.

According to a 1992 study of Indian religious schools, there were 35 girls’ madrasas against 502 institutions for boys and 3 j¯ami’a-type institutions for girls against 36 for boys among those participating in the survey (Qamaruddin, 1994: 89). Girls’ schools offer shortened versions of the same courses, where the ‘¯alim course would take 4–6 years instead of 8 and where also the ‘non-Arabic’ courses such as in Qur’anic recitation(h¯afiz.) would take less time. Additional emphasis would be placed on character building, on becoming a model Muslim house wife (Winkelmann, 2005). Some scholars see this development also as empowering women sowing the seeds of an ‘Islamic feminism’.15

The higher the coverage and standards of public education the lower seems to be the percentage of people attending madrasas of various persuasions. These schools are not homogeneous but differ substantially according to the interpretation of Islam they follow. More generally, we find a division into a more ‘traditional’ and a ‘reformist’ or ‘orthodox’ format. ‘Traditional’ would refer to local and popular institutions and methods of learning which had been common in that specific area earlier. Prominent examples would be many local schools of the Barelwi tradition in South Asia and many pondoks teaching the traditional ‘yellow books’ – the classics of Islamic thought in South East Asia. ‘Reformist’ would refer to a revised literalist curriculum that follows the traditions of al-Azhar, Deoband or the Saudis in line with the concept of is.l¯ah.that seeks to reform Muslim society to bring it into conformity with the Islamic ideal of the founder generations of Islam(as-salaf) . Among its components serious differences persist, both in interpretation and in ritualistic practice.

THE INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITIES AND THE ‘ISLAMIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE’ PROJECT

In contrast, the International Islamic Universities would represent a third variety of Islamic schools that could be called ‘modernist’. They would be modernist in a sense where they teach modern arts and sciences in a religious context. They would aim at creating conditions for students where ideally they would successfully compete with secular and Western students and still keep a much-regulated religious life-style. In addition, they would allow the students to acquire and apply religious knowledge. All this is meant as a service to the local and transnational Muslim community which is seen in need of uplift.

When these universities emerged their understanding of ‘modernization’ was rather different though. They gradually arose out of a project for the ‘Islamization of knowledge’ that did not recognize the validity of secular or Western knowledge per se. Its proponents saw the need for Muslims to close the perceived knowledge gap to the West by searching for a ‘third’ way into modernity, or an ‘Islamic middle path’ (Abaza, 2002, 144) . This road would lead along the path of reinterpretation of Western and secular knowledge in line with the theological tenets of Islam. Almost 30 years down the road, the various discursive and research projects venturing into the Islamization of social sciences and philosophy, but also of economics, and some technical sciences, have produced little results.

The project of the ‘Islamization of knowledge’ was more clearly articulated by the International Institutes of Islamic Thought (IIIT) forming the nucleus of the International Islamic University (IIU) movement and binding them together conceptually since 1980 (cf. Table 7.3). During this period, these institutions have passed through different phases which could be conditionally identified as (1) ideological, (2) political, and (3) developmental. When the major ones such as the IIUs and IIITs in Islamabad (1982), Kuala Lumpur (1982) and Herndon, Virginia, (1981) came into being the Islamist initiators were still driven by pro-Western sentiments of finding their own but largely compatible road to modernity. At the time, they pursued projects of cooperation with many departments of Islamic studies in Western universities. Sunni Islamists were the allies of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan and against Iran whom the West hoped to solely direct against communism and left-leaning populism. During this first phase, the Islamic Universities established themselves as an extension of the IIIT philosophy with an ideological orientation towards Islamism.

After the end of the cold war and the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, they entered a second, more political phase of ‘internationalism’. They witnessed rapid growth attracting students from many Muslim countries and minority communities. Their political ambitions and ideological concerns grew tremendously with wars raging in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Kashmir. Students from these universities started organizing in support of the new jih¯ad causes. By the end of the nineties, but more so after 9/11, this trend ran out of steam and a third phase of development concerns set in. New students now expected to gain more from their studies than religious knowledge. They wanted a degree in worldly sciences which would guarantee them viable career options. The universities became tools to promote the formation of national elites that remained firmly embedded in Muslim culture. Foreign, mainly Middle Eastern and Saudi, funding was drying up and gradually replaced by national governments involved.

Yet, the ideological, political and developmental aspects have practically always coexisted, albeit with varying emphasis. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which had strongly promoted the idea of separate Islamic schools, had stressed the development aspect from the very beginning. The Islamic universities in Uganda and Niger in particular were created at the decision of the 1974 Lahore summit of the OIC (see Table 7.3). The seventh OIC Foreign Ministers meeting in Istanbul decreed in 1976:

53. The Conference, recognizing the need for the establishment of Arab Islamic schools all over the world to provide education for Muslim children whose parents might be working in foreign countries, decided to give moral and educational assistance to the Federation of International Arab Islamic Schools established recently in Saudi Arabia and to any other organizations that may be undertaking similar projects. It also called on Member States to consider the desirability of introducing Arabic as one of the compulsory languages in the curricula of their schools and other educational institutions. 16

The religious dimension of these schools developed with reference to the ‘Islamization of knowledge’ project in public interventions by scholars like Muhammad Naguib Syed al-Attas (b. 1931). In his lecture of 1976 and his later book of 1978 on Islam and Secularism he took the line that the (Western) secular sciences need to be Islamized in order for Muslims to regain their identity (al-Attas, 1976, 1998):

Hence those integral components whose historical and cultural effect in the West pertain to the dimensions of secularization, and which are not necessarily the monopoly of Western culture and civilization because they also play an important historical and cultural role in the impact of Islam in human history and culture, should simply be interpreted in their proper Islamic perspective as the integral components in the dimensions of islamization. (al-Attas 1998: 44)

From this perspective, Islamization was a continuation of Westernization, was enlightenment without distancing man from God.

While the argument continues today, the emphasis has shifted towards a more political connotation. Rashid Moten calls the ‘Islamization of knowledge … a process of developing or generating human knowledge in harmony with the revealed will of Allah’. He contends that ‘its aim is to critique, analyze and reformulate Western academic disciplines in such a manner that revelation is reinstated in man’s intellectual life and in fact becomes a basic source of knowledge’. It seeks ‘to provide to the Muslim ummah a vision as well as a methodology to confront the contemporary challenges and to reclaim Islam’s lost civilizational glory’ (Moten, 2004: 248).

While Islamic universities today see their Islamic teaching rather as a means of providing the moral values as bedrock to studies of secular sciences, the dissemination and teaching of Islam still plays a key role at these universities. All students, including those from nonreligious course programs, have to pass the University minimum course in Islamic studies during which they also need to learn Arabic. In addition, more importantly, the modern Islamic universities see themselves fulfilling the task of a missionary organization, of da’wa.17 Their da’wa is comparable to the reformist schools discussed earlier in that it follows the same literalist guidelines of Qur’anic and Hadith studies. On one level, they direct their da’wa at the modern national intelligentsia which normally would not attend the traditional and orthodox schools. On another lever, the universities also aim at bringing a more ‘upgraded’ and ‘sophisticated’ da’wa to the orthodox and traditional sectors. They organize qualification courses for madrasas and other traditionalinstitutions, study and defend the orthodox and traditional Islamic school system against secular and Western criticism; and serve as an access point for madrasa graduates to enter the mainstream educational system because of their mastery of Arabic. This ambiguity of purpose and the concomitant process of redefining Islamization can be clearly illustrated on the example of the International Islamic University in Islamabad (IIUI).