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The Madrasa at Deoband: A Model for Religious Education in Modern India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Barbara Metcalf
Barbara Metcalf
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

A Recent conference of specialists on the study of Muslims in South Asia identified as one of the neglected areas of their field the study of traditional religious institutions in the modern period. Such institutions as the sufi orders, the religious schools, and the system of pious endowments have been treated, if at all, only in their relation to political developments. Thus the leading theological academy of modern India, the Dār ul-'Ulūm of Deoband, has been studied because many of its ulama played an important role in nationalist politics in India and opposed the foundation of Pakistan. That motive for study has seriously distorted the treatment of the nineteenth-century history of the school, endowing it with an anti-British and revolutionary character when, in fact, the school's concerns were totally a-political. An investigation of the early history of the school suggests many other significant historical themes, notably an important incipient trend toward a formal bureaucratization of the ulama and their institutions. Studies of religious institutions outside India such as Gilsenan's study of the Hamidiya Shadhiliya order in modern Egypt and Roff's study of the Majlis Ugama in Malaysia4 suggest that successful functioning in the modern period has required such a transformation in organizational structure. This article describes the organization of Deoband in its initial decades.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , February 1978 , pp. 111 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 Roff, William R., ‘Islamization, “Communitas”, Symbols, and Institutional Structures’, in Dietmar, Rothermund (ed.), Islam in Southern Asia: A Survey of Current Research (Wiesbaden, 1975), pp. 1–4.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Ziya, ul Hasan Faruqi, The Deoband School and the Demand for Pakistan (Bombay, 1963).Google Scholar

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7 Ibid., p. 19.

8 Ibid., pp. 17–18.

9 At least from the eighteenth century, Indian Muslims distinguished between the well-born or respectable, the ashrāf, and all others. The former category was further divided into four ranked grades, each claiming non-Indian decent: the saiyids, the descendants of the Prophet; the shaikhs, the descendants of his companions; the Mughals, who entered India with the Timurid rulers; and the Pathans or Afghans, who entered either as rulers or settlers.

10 Manāir, Ahsan Gīlāni, Sawānih Qāsimī (Deoband, 1955), Vol. I, p. 266.Google Scholar

11 Zahūr ul-Hasan Kasōli (ed.), Arwāh-i ulāa (Saharanpur, 1950), pp. 239–40.

12 Muhammad, Mīyān, ‘Ulamā-yi Haqq (Delhi, 1960), pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

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29 For a contemporaneous example of the influence of school organization on forging new social bonds see Lelyveld, Dàvid S., ‘Aligarh's First Generation: Muslim Solidarity and English Education in North India, 1875–1900’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1974).Google Scholar

30 Dēōband, , Rū dād 1289 (1872–1873).Google Scholar

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32 Muhammad, ‘Āshiq Ilāhi, Tazkirat ur-Rashid, pp. 85–93, paraphrased.Google Scholar

33 Asghar, Husain, Hayāt-i Shaikh ul-Hind (Deoband, 1920, 2nd ed.), pp. 11–13.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., p. 22.

35 Husain, Ahmad Madani, Naqsh-i Hayāt (Deoband, 1953), Vol. II, pp. 44–8, paraphrased.Google Scholar

36 Muhammad, Taiyib, Dēōband kī Sad Sālah Zindagi, p. 92.Google Scholar

37 ahūr ul-Hasan Kasōli (ed.), Arwāh-i ulā a, pp. 248–52.

38 I am indebted to Renata Holod of the University of Pennsylvania for comments on Mughal architecture that prompted this interpretation.

39 Gilāni, , Sawānih Qāsimi, Vol. II, p. 253.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 32–4.

41 Muhammad, Taiyib, Dēōband kī Sad Sala Zindagī, p. 92.Google Scholar

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47 ahūr ul-Hasan Kasōli (ed.), Arwāh-i ulā a, p. 380 Here is noted yet another occasion when ‘Ābid Husain had withdrawn from the school but its personnel maintained affable relations with him.

48 ‘Abd, ul-Hayy, Dehli aur us kē Arāf, pp. 98–9.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., p. 144.

50 Ibid., pp. 101–2.

51 See Muhammad, Taiyib, Dēōband kī Sad Sāla Zindagī, for the tenure of members of all administrative and teaching positions at the school.Google Scholar

52 The fullest report on the meeting is Mohi, ud-Din Khān Morādābādi, Tazki 1312: Waqā'i'i Hālāt-i Madrasa-yi Islāmiya-yi Dēōband (Delhi, 1894–1895). The volume included the statements of both sides. The compiler, a ra'is of Moradabad, entitled himself ‘the servant of the ulama’, and offered the volume for the benefit of his fellow Muslims. He called Deoband ‘the mother of madrasas’ and praised it for spreading religious knowledge throughout Hindustan. A companion of Muhammad Qāsim, he also had a son enrolled at the school at the time of the dispute. He was appointed to the council at the conclusion of the quarrels.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 15. The brothers were Zu'lfaqār ‘Ali and Fazl ur-Rahmān who were khālazād bhā'ī or cousins. Mahmūd Hasan was the former's son and his brother taught briefly at Deoband at a different time. The brother of ‘Aziz ur-Rahmān, the school's first mufti, taught at the school on a voluntary basis.

54 Government of India, Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers Published in the Punjab, North Western Provinces, Oudh, and the Central Provinces, 1894, p. 513.Google Scholar

55 Mohi, ud-Din, Tazkirat, pp. 36–7 and p. 11. They pointed to two issues that particularly revealed Rashid Ahmad's influence: his opposition to the appointment of an official to supervise the collection of pledges and of an inspector of the branch madrasas; and his opposition to the introduction of medical studies.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., p. 43.

57 Government of India, Selections 1895. The Mihr-i Nimrūz of Bijnur on February 21, 1895, pp. 113–4, and the Akbar-i ‘Ālam of Meerut on March 5,1895, p. 138; both were enthusiastic in their defense of the school.Google Scholar

58 Mohī, ud-Din, Tazkirat, p. 31.Google Scholar

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60 Mohi, ud-Din, Tazkirat, p. 22.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., p. 24.

62 Ibid., p. 12. According to Mohi ud-Din, the council had restored the salary of the recalcitrant teacher in 1892. The townsmen then concluded that the council was susceptible to pressure. At that point fifty of them had made requests for membership.

63 One supporter claimed that they actually subscribed to the rival religious orientations of the day. He wrote a ‘Mahabharata,’ whose highlight was this Urdu verse: One will call following the four imams ill Another toward the leaders of bid'at incline will Another imitates nēchari heart and soul Another thinks that worldly things are all.Google Scholar (Ibid., pp 36–7.)

64 Ibid., p. 28.

65 G¯lān¯, , Sawānih Qāsimi, Vol. I, p. 239.Google Scholar

66 Thus, at the time of the crisis of 1895, Rashād Ahmad reported that he had three times received the same illumination that the madrasa would prosper in the hands of Hāfiz Ahmad. Moreover, during a meeting to discuss the crisis, Rashid Ahmad had been inspired with the knowledge that the opponents would fail.Google ScholarAnwar, ul-Hasan, Mubashshirāt, p. 18. Similarly, when Nawwāb Mahmūd ‘Alī Khān of Chattari was leaving Mecca, he was instructed by Hājji Imdādullāh not to oppose Rashid Ahmad. He was astonished since at that point there was no thought of his going to Deoband, let alone of any controversy. Shortly thereafter the great dispute in which he was to play an important role did indeed break out. Ashraf ‘Ali Thānvi, Karāmat-i Imdādiya (Deoband, n.d.), p. 72.Google Scholar

67 Muhammad, Taiyib, Dēōband kī Sad Sālah Zindagi, p. 25.Google Scholar

68 Dēōband, , Rū dād-i Sālāna 1297 (1879–1880), p. 64.Google Scholar

69 Sources for the history of the Saharanpur school include its own printed proceedings. Available to me at the school were those for the years 1286–1288 (1869–72); 1293–6 (1876–9); 1298–9 (1880–82); 1317 (1899–1900); 1318 (1900–01) and 1320 (1902–3).Google Scholar Also Muhammad, Zakariyya, Tārikh-i Mazāhir (Saharanpur, 1973 reprint)Google Scholar, and al-Balāgh (Bombay, 12–01 1374/1954–1955), pp. 234–7. I visited the school in April 1970 and interviewed the school's venerable director, Maul¯n¯ Aadull¯h, and a teacher, Maul¯nā ‘Abd ul-Mālik, a B.Sc. in chemistry. The latter particularly stressed the similarity among Deobandi schools: ‘Deoband is the elder brother and we are the younger.’Google Scholar