Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
175. A Historical Perspective on Islamic Education
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA

 

In the year 1080, Malik Shah, Abbasid sultan of Baghdad, appointed Nizamul Mulk as his Grand Vizier. It was a period when the Islamic world was divided between the Fatimids in Cairo and the Abbasids in Baghdad. There was an intense military, political and ideological rivalry between these two camps.

The rivalry was ideological, political and military. The Fatimids were Shiite Seveners and believed that the head of the Islamic community was most properly an Imam in the lineage of Ali (r). The Abbasids, on the other hand, were Sunnis and believed in the Khilafat as established by the first four Caliphs.

The Fatimids controlled all of North Africa, Egypt and Syria while the Abbasids held on to the Islamic domains East of the river Euphrates. The control of Egypt gave an immense advantage to the Fatimids. They controlled the trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Cairo prospered while Baghdad withered.

The ideological rivalry extended to patronage of learning and the trades. The Fatimids started the Al Azhar University in Cairo in 969 CE. Other centers of learning dotted the landscape of North Africa from Morocco to Egypt. The Abbasids were not far behind the Fatimids in this competition.

Nizamul Mulk was perhaps the best administrator the Islamic world has known after the Caliph Omar bin al Khattab (r). He streamlined the Abbasid administration, rationalized the tax collection system and stimulated the economy that had been battered by the loss of trade with the Mediterranean. But the Nizam is best remembered for starting and patronizing a string of universities in the Abbasid domains. The best known of these was the Nizamiya college in Baghdad which attracted the renowned scholars of the age. The celebrated Al Gazzali was a Professor at Nizamiya college in 1090. The syllabus developed at Nizamiya college is known as the Nizamiya syllabus.

It is a tribute to the wisdom and far sightedness of the great vizier that his syllabus has survived almost a thousand years. And it is a sad reflection on the contemporary madrasas that the same syllabus, more correctly a regressed version of it, is still followed. The world went through the Crusades, the Mongol devastations, the discovery of America, the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Industrial Revolution, the consolidation and disappearance of the British empire, the two World Wars, several moon landings and yet a shrunken version of the “Nizamiya Nisab” is taught in our schools!

The shift from a comprehensive syllabus to a parochial one focusing purely on “deen” took place gradually over a period of three hundred years. In South Asia, we find the impact of three different influences shaping the madrasas. First, the internal evolution of religious thought in the subcontinent. Second, the impact of the British Raj. And third, the influence of Saudi institutions and oil money.

The clear indication of this shift is noticeable in the early 18 th century, immediately after the period of Aurangzeb. Largely as a result of the forceful and compelling writings of Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi of the Punjab, the study of fiqh and fatwa gained ascendancy over tasawwuf. The syllabus shifted in favor of the exoteric over the esoteric. Fatwa e Alamgiri, compiled under the direction of the Emperor, became a part of the syllabus. As the Mogul empire disintegrated and political and military initiative passed on to the Europeans, the disciplines that dealt with statecraft and civics were also dropped. Living under British Raj meant that the Indians had to learn to live as loyal subjects of the British crown. As European culture sank roots on Indian soil, the study of philosophy and mathematics was also dropped from the Madrasas, in part because these subjects were considered “tainted” from their contact with the firangees.

A further shrinking of the deeni syllabus took place largely as a result of the contact of Indian ulema with Arabia. The syllabus in the schools of Mecca and Madina was always strong in Hadith. After World War I, the Saudis gained ascendancy in the Arabian Peninsula and imposed their strict, Wahhabi brand of Islam on the Arabs. The ulema from the subcontinent who went to study at Mecca and Medina came into contact with a stripped-down version of Islam, focused solely on the external observations of the Shariah. The sciences of Hadith took preponderance over the sciences of the Fiqh.

In the 19 th century, as the colonial authorities pushed secular education, defeatism and isolation overtook the Muslim educational establishment. No longer enjoying the patronage of the rulers, the madrasas retreated into the deeni corner, partly to preserve themselves and partly to safeguard, as they saw it, the religious heritage of the believers in the face of the onslaught from the unbelieving firangees. Whatever philosophy and mathematics were taught in the religious schools was gradually abandoned because the Europeans knew far more about these subjects than did the natives and the madrasa could not compete with the Westernized secular school in these subjects. This bifurcation of education into deeni and dunawi (religious versus secular) has persisted to this day. Indeed, it has become embedded into the structure of the madrasa. Any attempt to “reform” the madrasa must take into consideration this deep-seated distrust of the secular sciences which are perceived to spread atheism and are construed to be the vanguard of a decadent Western culture which allows free mixing of boys and girls, liquor, dancing, premarital sex and the destruction of the family.

After World War II there was a large infusion of oil money and the Saudi influence on the curriculum in the madrasas accelerated. The science of hadith became the central focus along with a literal interpretation of the Qur’an. The sciences of the soul and the sciences of the heart were dropped from the syllabus, and the madrasa became a deeni replica of the secular schools, which catered to duniya. This was the flip side of secularism wherein the study of religious sciences is dropped in favor of science, technology and secular sociology.

In the more recent past, modern influences have exerted an enormous influence on the evolution of Islamic education. As the global secular materialist civilizations sweep the planet, local cultures and local religions come under increasing pressure. Disciplines that do not command the interest of the market place are dropped in favor of those that have a need in the market place. For instance, computer science replaces philosophy and accounting replaces arts. “Deeni Taleem” has been further pushed into a corner and has become but a caricature of the comprehensive, cosmopolitan self that it once was.

 

The Evolution of Syllabus in the Madrasas of India and Pakistan – A Case Study

During the Middle Ages, the vast subcontinent of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh was a border state in the mosaic of the Islamic world extending from Spain to Indonesia. Borders were porous. Sultans and potentates vied with each other to attract and hold men of learning. Tradesman traveled freely. There was a constant flux of ideas from one part of the Islamic world to the other. Geography dictated to a large extent the interaction of the Indo-Pak landmass with Central Asia, Iran and the Arab world.

Islam appeared on the southwestern coast of Kerala in the eighth and 9 th centuries through trade and commerce. The southwest monsoons brought Arab traders from Yemen and Arabia to Indian shores. They brought with them incense and gold and took back spices and ivory. They married Indian women and a thriving Islamic community evolved over the centuries. This community was part of the trading network in the Indian ocean which was dominated by Muslim traders until the advent of the Portuguese in the 16 th century.

Trade brought with it the religion, customs and educational systems of the Middle East. The traders established madrasas all along the Caromandal coast where the syllabus and the mode of instruction were similar to those in the coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. However, very little historical information about these madrasas has survived today.

At the other end of the subcontinent, in the northwest, Islam was introduced through Omayyad invasions in the 8 th century. Mohammed bin Qasim captured Sindh and Multan and made them a part of the Arab empire. Multan became a thriving educational and cultural center and many a fine madrasa graced its landscape. The curriculum, method of teaching and the structure of the madrasa were similar to those in Central Asia and the Persian heartland. The evolution of the madrasa in this region followed the general historical trends in the broader Islamic world.

(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)