By Yoginder Sikand

Muslims are often accused of being fiercely opposed to modern education, being allegedly in the grips of a vicious set of clerics who are said to have a vested interest in keeping the community illiterate and backward. The Indian press regularly carries sensational stories describing generally obscure and unknown maulvis railing against modern education. In this way the educational backwardness of Muslims is recognized, but the blame for it is conveniently put entirely on the Muslims themselves, and their detractors conveniently absolve themselves of any complicity in the matter. It is as if discrimination in recruiting Muslims to government jobs had absolutely nothing to do with the lack of enthusiasm among many Muslims for higher education. Or, for that matter, that the Hinduisation of the state sponsored education has no bearing at all on Muslim interest in such education. This discourse on Muslim "backwardness" completely ignores the fact that many Muslims are forced to send their children to madrasas not because they want to but because for want of any other affordable alternative, owing to widespread poverty. Further, the denial that Muslims could at all possibly aspire to modern education completely ignores the creative efforts of numerous Muslims, including even some traditionally-trained maulvis, in evolving forms of suitably modernised and, at the same time, culturally appropriate, Islamic education in India today.

In recent years, Muslims have increasingly begun to recognize the need for modern education. One form that this urge for modern education has taken are the numerous schools set up by Muslims in various parts of the country that seek to combine religious with secular education. Questioning the dualism that has come to be developed between "religious" and "worldly" knowledge these institutions are driven by a vision that sees both forms of knowledge as Islamically valid and necessary.

A good illustration of this sort of institution is the Jamiat ul-Falah, located at Bilariyaganj, near the town of Azamgarh in eastern Uttar Pradesh. It is associated with thew Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. It is one of the largest and better-organized madrasas in India, with an estimated 5000 students on its rolls, including some 2700 girls, who study in a separate wing. It has more than 120 teachers, several of whom are graduates of the madrasa and have also been educated in various universities for higher education in a range of disciplines. Till the junior high school level it uses the government-prescribed syllabus and textbooks prepared by the National Council for Educational Research and Training, supplemented with selected books of its own choice. Thereafter, students do a seven-year specialized course in Islamic studies and Arabic, with English, geography, history, comparative religions, political science and sociology as additional subjects. The school also offers a two-year diploma course in Hindi. It has recently started a computer section, and computers are now a compulsory part of the curriculum.

Falah thus claims to provide a broad-based education, devised in such a way that its students receive a general grounding in both religious as well as modern subjects. This enables them to choose, once they graduate, either to go on to regular universities or else to pursue further Islamic education. Falah's degrees are now recognized by a growing number of universities in India and in Saudi Arabia and Egypt and this has opened up for them new job opportunities not available to products of traditional madrasas. Today, a growing number of Falah students, or "Falahis" as they are called, work as lecturers in colleges, journalists, translators, and as employees in business firms and Islamic institutions in India and in the Arab world. It is estimated that more than half of the students who pass the 'alimiyat or basic religious studies examination at Falah go on to take admission in regular universities, with less than a third staying on to complete the fazilat or higher-level religious studies course.

In contrast to many smaller madrasas, Falah provides its students with facilities for a range of extra-curricular activities. It has a large sports field, and students are encouraged to play a variety of games after school hours. The Jamiat ul-Tulaba, Falah's students' organization, organizes regular debates and essay competitions and brings out a college magazine containing articles written by the students themselves. The madrasa arranges for professors from universities to lecture to the students occasionally on subjects of contemporary concern. Falah boasts of a library containing over 20,000 volumes, housed in a new three-storeyed building, which also houses a well-equipped computer centre, a large seminar hall and several reading rooms.

Similar educational experiments inspired by the Jamaat-e-Islami have come up in various other parts of India. In Kerala there are estimated to be some 40 high schools associated with the Jamaat, where students train for the 'alim course and simultaneously prepare for a bachelor's degree from a state university. Likewise, in other states a number of regular schools, such as the Zikra High School in Hyderabad, the Millat High School, in Jalgaon, the Iqra School in Aurangabad and the Milli Model School in New Delhi, have been set up in recent years by members or activists of the Jamaat. Some of these are English-medium schools and use the regular government syllabus, with extra classes for Islamic Studies.

By seeking to thus harmonise religious and secular knowledge, schools such as these are playing a key role in promoting culturally more acceptable forms of education among some sections of the Muslim community. As these experiments show, not all or even most, maulvis are bitter opponents of modern education. Rather than being wrongly vilified as unrepentant conservative, their role in Muslim education needs to be recognized and possibilities of well-meaning non-Muslim organizations as well as the state in working with them for addressing the issue of Muslim educational marginalisation need to be explored.