School Timings: 9.00 AM - 2.00 PM
In more than one thousand years of their continuous presence in the Indian sub-continent, Muslims have made enormous contributions to Indian civilization, language, culture and architecture. Islam has penetrated to almost every nook and corner of the region, so much so, Muslims constitute close to 40% of the total population of the entire Indian sub-continent today.
Initially Islam came through traders and ulama mostly from Arabian Peninsula to the western coastal areas followed by Sufis and scholars from Persia and central Asia to mostly northern and north-western regions. First military conquests came in the wake of military campaigns by Muhammad bin Qasim in the beginning of eighth century. He conquered Sindh and the adjoining region up to Multan between 708-712 AD. This was followed by Ghaznavids in the 10th century. Ultimately north India was conquered by Sultan Shihabuddin Ghori towards the end of 12th century when he defeated Prithivi Raj Chauhan in 1192 AD at the battle of Tarain. Qutub Uddin Aibak was his slave and general
The foundations of the first empire (The Delhi Sultanate) were laid in 1206 by Aibak in the city of Lahore and later shifted to Delhi. The Muslim domination of the Indian sub-continent continued unabated until 1757 when the Mughal emperor Shah Alam handed over the administrative powers to the British East India Company.
Thereafter the nominal Mughal rule continued for another 100 years and ended after the failure of the first war of independence in 1857 and India became part of the British crown and a colony ruled from London.
During their imperial days lasting almost a millennia, Muslims established their traditional educational and religious institutions in India based on similar institutions in their ancestral homelands of Central Asia and Persia where both religious as well as contemporary sciences were part of the syllabus. There was hardly any distinction or separation between religious and non-religious education. Greek sciences, specially logic, mathematics and philosophy were as much part of the education as Islamic subjects of Quran, hadees, fiqh and seerah
Around 15th century AD, when Europe was awakening from its dark ages and entering its renaissance by rediscovering Greek sciences at Muslim institutions in Andalusia and other parts of Islamic lands, Muslim creativity and advancement in education and sciences came to a halt.
Religious orthodoxy overshadowed every branch of knowledge and became the norm. If I may say, the last 500 years have been the barren(unproductive) age of Islam and Muslims have been unable to produce the polymaths likes of Alkindi, Ibne- Heitham, Al Beruni, Ibne Sina, Al Farabi and many more who were both excellent religious scholars and pioneers in the fields of contemporary and new sciences.
In the Indian sub-continent the uprising of 1857 against the British rule and its brutal suppression jolted the Muslim intelligentsia out of their stupor. It suddenly dawned upon them that they had not only lost the political power and consequently the control over economic resources but their community was way behind others in every field, specially modern education.
In the field of education the community was at war with itself with regards to the type of education. Majority was under the spell of religious orthodoxy and totally opposed to modern secular education which it considered western education and consequently a sin. A small elitist minority was educated in British educational establishments and exposed to European ideas, culture and habits but had little religious knowledge or sense of Islamic history and, therefore directionless.
However, there was a small group of intellectuals who were well groomed in Islamic knowledge, ethics and upbringing as well as new frontiers of knowledge necessary for socio-economic and political development of the community. They also had the intellectual foresight and sense of history to realize that if Muslims did not acquire the modern scientific education along with the Islamic education and upbringing in a carefully balanced manner, they will be left behind, as a community, forever to be in the dustbin of history.
These intellectual giants, among whom Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Allama Shibli Nomani and a generation later Sir Allama Dr. Mohammad Iqbal are the foremost, planted the seeds of Muslim renaissance in the sub-continent towards the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century. It is our endeavor here to present the ideas of Allama Shibli Nomani with regards to education which he expressed through his various writings and his attempts to implement these ideas by taking leading role in establishing a number of institutions. It is also intended to explore the relevance of those ideas for the present generation of the 21st century and propose a new road-map for its mass implementation.
Allama Shibli Nomani was a product of traditional Islamic education which he mostly received from the prominent scholars of his time, although he did manage to get a law qualification as well but never practiced it.
He had a very receptive and keen analytical intellect and took full advantage of his experience and exposure to non-religious knowledge. The 16 years he spent at AMO College as professor of Arabic/Persian and his close association with Sir Syed, Prof. Arnold and others transformed Shibli into an intellectual giant of his times, well versed in both traditional Islamic knowledge and modern western developments of new ideas in education and acquisition of knowledge. It made him realize the backwardness and inadequacy of traditional Muslim education on one hand and relevance and importance of western education for the community’s worldly development, on the other.
He even travelled to other Islamic countries like Turkey, Egypt and Syria to see for himself their educational developments and learn from them. He endeavored very hard to synthesize and articulate his ideas through his writings, lectures, participation in conferences and meetings at local and national levels.
More importantly, he tried to implement many of his ideas by reforming existing institutions and establishing new ones.
The jist of his educational ideas was, in his own words, an amalgamation of traditional Islamic education and modern western education, “ a majune-morukkab”.
He further elaborated his ideas as follows:
Allama Shibli tried to implement these educational reforms in various institutions which he was closely associated with or were founded by him.
The purpose of education, in Allama Shibli’s own words, was not only to bring out the full potential of God given creative abilities in the individual but more importantly bring about the all-encompassing, spiritual, socio-economic, political and physical development of the Ummah to enable it to face the challenges of the modern times.
Although, the educational reforms conceptualized and implemented by Allama Shibli were soon diluted and indeed even forgotten by succeeding generations who managed the institutions he helped to establish.
However, ironically his concept is still evolving and taking roots in many other places all over the Indian sub- continent.
It would, therefore, be not too utopian to hope that in the next quarter century a comprehensive school system similar to Allama’s “ Majun-e-Murakkub” concept will emerge which will prepare students for higher education in either stream. It may, very well replace the traditional madrasa entirely at the lower level.
If the objective of education is to nurture an Islamic personality in the individual with the desired high values and exemplary character with worldly knowledge and skills to enable the community to face modern challenges and achieve its rightful place in the world, it is imperative that this division of education and knowledge between religious and secular must end at the basic level as a minimum.
The children should not be sent to either purely religious or purely secular schools in the first eight(8) years (3 years of pre-school plus 5 years of primary) of basic education.
New pre-primary and primary schools should be established by the community having comprehensive and combined curriculum of religious and secular subjects.
The main method of teaching is envisaged to be activity based rather than so much rote learning. The concept is to build and nurture proper personality traits and prerequisite language and analytical skills necessary to acquire higher level knowledge in any field.
After the completion of primary education only the students and parents should decide based on aptitude tests and counseling by experts as to the field of further education either religious education in higher level madrasa or secular education in a secondary school.
At the secondary school level, if they are community managed, religious/moral education should continue by introducing subjects like sirah and Islamic history. Boarding should be built and students starting from class 8th should be kept in the boarding to prepare them for competitive exams like university entrance tests and other similar tests.
Day boarding should be also introduced from class 6th onwards to compensate for lack of facilities and conducive environment at home. Not all students qualifying high school will be interested in higher education or even able to qualify.
The ideal percentage entering tertiary institutions is about 20%(currently only about 3% enter higher education). The bulk, therefore, will stop at high school and enter the job market. It is therefore, very important that vocational and skill training centers of high quality are established to provide skills to these students to enhance their capabilities in order for them to take full advantage of available economic opportunities.
It is quite clear that Government is reducing its budget and role in educating the new generation and expects the private sector to fulfill this role. It is therefore, incumbent upon us, indeed it provides an unique opportunity to the community to mobilize its maximum resources to establish such schools in large numbers to enable its future generations to have a dignified existence in this country.
The author of this article has been experimenting with such an educational concept for last ten years in a rural part of Azamgarh by establishing Hera Public School at Phadgudia near Phulpur.
Alhamdulillah, the results are so far very encouraging and we expect that the system will prove its superiority and excellence, God willing, in next 5 years.
