Series on Mewat – Part 3
By Yoginder Sikand, TwoCircles.net,
Because the Tablighi Jamaat, today the world’s largest Islamic movement, had its roots in Mewat, many Meos identify themselves with it–even if, for many, this may be only nominal. The founder of the Tablighi Jamaat, Maulana Muhammad Ilyas, is credited with having founded a number of maktabs and madrasas in Mewat in the 1920s. Today, there are several hundred such Islamic schools across the region.
Impact of Tablighi Jamaat on Mewat madrasas
Returning to Mewat after almost two decades, I was eager to learn if the veritable revolution that was so apparent in terms of many Meos’ desire for modern (in addition to Islamic) education for their children was shared by the Meo ulema as well. When I conducted fieldwork in the region in the early 1990s, the general perception was that the majority of the local ulema, mostly associated with the Tablighi Jamaat, were not at all enthusiastic about modern schools, particularly because they considered their general environment to be ‘un-Islamic’. I wanted to find out if that was how the ulema in Mewat continued to feel.
Established in 2005, the Ma’adan ul-Ulum in Jhimravat village in Ferozepur Jhirka’s Nagina block is a modest-sized madrasa. Maulana Ilyas, its head, is an active worker of the Tablighi Jamaat. ‘There is no division between religious and worldly education in Islam’, he tells me, quite in contrast to what many other Tablighi activists would claim. His own son, he says, is studying at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, citing this as proof that he and many of his fellow ulema are not opposed to modern education in principle. He notes, with considerable enthusiasm, that while two decades ago there were hardly any privately-run Meo schools in Mewat, today they number almost 50, although this figure is less than half of those run by non-Muslim Mewatis.
Yet, the Maulana does not favour the teaching of modern subjects in the madrasas beyond a basic limit. ‘The burden would get too much for the children, already loaded with a heavy curriculum, to bear’, he argues. He, however, admits the need for madrasas to have a basic understanding of modern subjects, pointing out that his madrasa had earlier employed a teacher for English and Hindi but that he had subsequently quit his job. ‘Our community does need modern education’, he explains, ‘but those who want to go in for that sort of education at a higher level should study in schools. Why expect madrasas to cater to their needs?’
Another alim associated with the Tablighi Jamaat, Maulvi Qasim, principal of the Madrasa Muhammadiya Anwar ul-Quran, on the outskirts of Ferozepur Jhirka town, echoes similar views. ‘The Mewati ulema, by and large, now do not oppose children studying in regular schools, provided it does not lead them straying from Islam’, he says. One reason for the relatively low rates of enrolment of Meo children in government schools and their high drop-out rates, he explains, is that in many such schools in the region, students are made to recite Hindu prayers–their teachers and principals being largely Hindu. ‘In many villages, parents of Meo children have only two choices–to send their children to such schools or to none at all’, he says, adding that the best alternative for the Meos is to start their own modern schools which should also provide some religious education. With average Meo landholdings rapidly shrinking and Mewat still starved of canals, he says, the largely peasant Meos are now realizing the importance of modern education. ‘Earlier, they used to be largely self-sufficient farmers, and so they considered a bit of religious education enough for their children,’ he points out. ‘Now, with the growing economic crisis in the agricultural sector, they need to go in for new occupations, for which they realize that they also need modern education.’ This realization is also visible in Meo Tablighi ulema circles, he says. ‘Today, relatively few Tablighi activists, mainly those who have little knowledge or awareness or who are very traditionalist in their thinking, continue to oppose modern education’, he comments.
Wind of change blowing but not smoothly
Maulana Khalid, head of the Dar ul-Ulum Mewat in Ferozepur Jhirka, is the son of the founder of this madrasa, Maulana Ishaq, one of the closest Meo disciples of Maulana Ilyas, founder of the Tablighi Jamaat. Established in 1994, the madrasa provides a traditional Deobandi-style education, based on the dars-e nizami pattern, till the fazilat level, one of the only four madrasas in the whole of Mewat to do so.
A year ago, the madrasa introduced the teaching of basic Hindi and English to the 35 children on its rolls. ‘We did so because of compulsion (majburi)’, Maulana Khalid admits. ‘Worldly subjects are not compulsory, while the sixteen disciplines taught through the dars-e nizami are’, he contends. ‘We want to keep our students useless (be-kar) as far as the world is concerned so that they can focus only on religion (deen)’, he explains when I ask him why he does not believe that modern education is necessary for the would-be ulema that his madrasa is training. ‘Only that knowledge (ilm) is important that helps us in the Hereafter (akhirat). Secular knowledge is important only to the extent that it helps us follow the deen. One can be without secular knowledge and still be a good Muslim,’ he claims.
Maulana Khalid vigorously shakes his head in denial when I opine that secular education is crucial for Muslim empowerment. ‘The President of India was a Muslim, and so were top police officers, when thousands of Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002’, he retorts, ‘but they did not open their mouths against that barbarity. It was the ulema, who don’t have secular knowledge, who did so.’
Nor does Maulana Khalid believe, as some contend, that it is the lack of ‘scientific’ education that is keeping Muslims ‘backward’. ‘All great scientific inventions were actually made by Muslims’, he contends. ‘It is not the lack of scientific knowledge that is the cause of our malaise but, rather, the lack of faith (iman)’, he stresses. ‘All this is a result of a Jewish conspiracy. Enemies of Islam have spread all manner of immorality among Muslims in order to weaken them,’ he rattles on, visibly irritated.
The conversation turns to girls’ education. ‘Islam does not prohibit it’, the Maulana says, ‘but in today’s times it is virtually impossible for women who have a secular education to lead Islamic lives, and so it is better to refrain from it,’ he argues.
The Madrasa Moin ul-Islam, Mewat’s largest madrasa, located in Ferozepur Jhirka town, was set up by Maulana Ilyas, founder of the Tablighi Jamaat, in 1922. Run directly by the Tablighi Markaz, the global headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat in Basti Nizamuddin in New Delhi, it has some 300 students, almost all Meos, on its rolls. It follows the traditional Deobandi-type syllabus and has made no provision at all for teaching modern subjects.
Says 35 year-old Mufti Zahid Husain, the director of educational affairs (nazim-e talimat) of the madrasa, a graduate of the Dar ul-Ulum in Deoband, ‘We are not opposed to Meo children taking to modern education, but we don’t want to teach subjects like English here because then our students will be neither partridges nor quails (na teetar na bater). They would not be good maulvis nor good scholars of modern subjects’ He is, however, open to the idea of madrasa graduates joining colleges and universities, if their intention, he adds, is to use this knowledge for what he calls ‘service of Islam’. He cites with approval the example of some new Muslim-run centres in the country that train Deobandi graduates in a range of modern subjects, including English, and encourage them to enroll in universities for a wide range of courses, not just Islamic Studies.
That I find a pleasant surprise, for twenty years ago, when I visited the very same madrasa, I was told by a senior maulvi who taught there that universities were ‘slaughterhouses of the faith’.
The winds of change have thus, it appears, not left even the bastions of conservatism in Mewat–the Tablighi madrasas, who describe themselves as ‘fortresses of the faith’ (deen ke qile)–unaffected.
(Photos and interviews taken by Mumtaz Alam Falahi of TwoCircles.net)