Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam 176. A Historical Perspective on Islamic Education - 2
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA

 

Islam made its inroads into the heart of the subcontinent when the renowned Sufi Sheikh Khwaja Moeenuddin Chishti moved to Ajmer from Multan (1190). Soon thereafter, the victory of Mohammed Ghori at the first of battle of Panipet (1192) solidified the political hold of Muslims on the Gangetic plains. The infant sultanate of Delhi was still struggling to consolidate itself when Gengiz Khan, after laying waste Samarqand, Merv and Bukhara, appeared on the Indus (1219-22). For forty years thereafter, the primary contribution of the Delhi sultans to Indian history was to hold off the Mongol hordes and protect India from the devastation suffered by Central Asia and Iran.

It was not until a hundred years later, during the reign of Alauddin Khilji (d 1302), that the Delhi sultanate succeeded in consolidating its hold on the subcontinent. The conquests of the Khilji general Malik Kafur brought southern India into the orbit of Delhi. The Tughlaq dynasty inherited the vast Indian empire and under Mohammed bin Tughlaq projected its influence as far away as China.

The spirituality of the Sufi shaikhs attracted a large number of Buddhists and Hindus to Islam. A growing Muslim community required the services of a large cadre of ulema and kazis to teach the basics of the Shariah and to man the judicial arm of the state. The local madrasas were not equipped to produce the ulema and the kazis in such large numbers. The sultans therefore sought out well known scholars and kazis from around the world to come to India and help with the judicial work.

The experience of the celebrated world traveler Ibn Batuta at the court of Mohammed bin Tughlaq in Delhi provides an illustration. Ibn Batuta, a resident of Tangier in Morocco, was trained in the Maliki Fiqh. Mohammed bin Tughlaq (d 1351), the emperor of India desired to embellish his court with scholars schooled in Fiqh. When Ibn Batuta arrived at the court of the emperor, he was received with great honor and was appointed a judge in Delhi. Ibn Batuta served more than a year at the Delhi court before he tired of the idiosyncrasies of the emperor and escaped to the Caromandal coast of India on his way to Malaya and China.

The character of the madrasa and its structure reflected the political and social context of India in the thirteenth and 14 th centuries. Since judges were in short supply, it was difficult to support a curriculum in Fiqh and Hadith. Instead, a study of akhlaq was emphasized in the schools. The emphasis on the study of akhlaq differentiated the madrasas of India from those in Arab heartland of Islam wherein a study of Hadith was emphasized. Zia Barani writes in his book on history about an event during the reign of Alauddin Khilji. An Egyptian scholar, Maulana Shamsuddin Turk, came to India to encourage the study of Hadith, but returned after visiting Multan. Before he left, he wrote to the Emperor admonishing him that the ulema in India were heedless in the study of Hadith. The mullahs of Hindustan, sensing that a shift in emphasis from akhlaq to Hadith would jeopardize their jobs, saw to it that the letter did not even reach the Emperor.

Maulana Abul Hasan Nadvi, in his manuscript, Hindustan ki khadeem darsgahen (Shibli Academy, 1919), states that the syllabus of the madrasas in the subcontinent during the 13 th and 14 th centuries included the following subjects:

Akhlaq and its principles; Grammar; Oration; Hadith and its sciences; Arithmetic and astronomy; Tasawwuf; Kalam

India was not immune from the intellectual turmoil raging in the post-Mongol Islamic world. The ulema who migrated to India from other parts of the Muslim world brought with them not only their knowledge but also their intellectual predispositions. The rise of tasawwuf as the governing paradigm of Islamic life brought about a reaction from the more conservative quarters concerned that the liberal outlook of the Sufis would dilute the discipline of the Shariah. Ibn Taymiah (d 1325) of Damascus waged a lifelong battle against the esoteric Islam of the Sufis, emphasizing the importance of adhering to the Islam as practiced by the earliest Companions. His movement is generally referred to as Salafi Islam.

A second source of tension was the presence of Mu’tazalites in the Delhi court. The study of philosophy received a boost when some of the Delhi sultans openly espoused its study and practice. The emperor Mohammed bin Tughlaq (d 1351) was one of them. Sultan Mohammed invited some of the leading Muta’zalites of the day to Delhi where they were received with honor and given important positions at the court.

The simultaneous presence of Salafi ulema, Mu’tazalite philosophers and Sufi Shaikhs was sure to result in a showdown. Indian Islam was at crossroads. The sultans of Delhi found themselves as arbitrators of the disputes between the Sufis, the Salafis and the Mu’tazalites. The historian Farishta documents in his book, Tazkiraye Nizamuddin Awliya that a debate took place in the court of Ghyasuddin Tughlaq (d 1236) on the issue of sama’a, the ecstatic dance performed by the Sufis accompanied by music. On one side was Shaikh Nizamuddin Awliya, the reigning Shaikh of the Chishtiya silsilah, considered by many to be one of the greatest of the awliya to grace Indian soil. Shaikh Nizamuddin was a hafiz, a scholar of hadith and a master of akhlaq. Arrayed against him were Kadi Jalaluddin, chief kadi of Delhi and Shaikh Ilmuddin, who was a Mu’tazalite and had traveled extensively through Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Persia. Farishta relates that whenever Nizamuddin Awliya offered as evidence a Hadith in favor of sama’a, the opposition would declare that in Delhi the sciences of akhlaq had preponderance over sciences of the hadith. Kadi Jalaluddin and Shaikh Ilmuddin asked the emperor to ban the practice of sama’a. The emperor, not willing to be drawn into the controversies, ruled that the sama’a was legitimate for the Chishtiya order but not legitimate for the Qalandariya order, knowing full well that the Qalandariya order had not yet entered the heartland of India. The Sufis triumphed and tasawwuf continued to be the governing paradigm of Indian Islam well into the zenith of the Mogul period in the 17 th century.

India was a border state in the vast tapestry of Muslim states and the reformist currents in the Islamic world invariably had an impact on the madrasas in India. During the resign of Sikandar Lodhi, towards the end of the 15 th century, two well-known scholars, Shaikh Abdullah and Shaikh Azeezullah migrated to Delhi from Multan. Shaikh Abdullah settled in Delhi and Shaikh Azeezullah settled in Sanbhal (UP).

Partly because of the scholarship of the sages and partly because of the patronage of the Emperor, the fame of these two scholars spread all over India. These savants enlarged the syllabus and introduced the study of commentaries on earlier works of kalam and tasawwuf. Attempts were also made to reinforce the study of hadith. Shaikh Abdul Haq, Muhaddith, Dehlavi went to Arabia, learned the Hadith from the scholars in Mecca and Madina and published it. But the social and political context in India was different from that in Mecca and Madina. The marginal presence of Muslims in India was as yet in a consolidation phase. Indian madrasas remained focused more a study of akhlaq and the graduation of kadis than the ulema who specialized in a study of hadith.

The onset of Mogul rule in India was a benchmark in global history. The Moguls extended the fold of Islam to its limits and yet still stayed within the realm of their faith. While the sultanate of Delhi struggled to hold its sway over Northern India for brief periods, the Moguls embarked on laying the foundation of an Indian nation. At its height the Mogul empire extending over the entire south Asian region embraced the modern nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

It was during the reign of Akbar (d 1605) that the Mogul reach embraced all the diverse religions, cultures and regions of India. Akbar married Rajput princesses, abolished the jizya, and opened up his administration and his army to the Hindus. In extending familial ties to the Hindus, he accorded them the same status as that enjoyed by the people of the book. He invited Jesuit priests from Goa to discuss religion with them, bestowed endowments upon the Sikhs and made land grants to mosques and temples alike.

(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)