2 major madrassas say no to modernization

Children going for their afternoon prayer

By Uzmi Athar

BANGALORE (Oct. 4)—Two major madrassas in Bangalore are strongly opposed to a 2009 central government instruction that they modernize their curriculums, telling The SoftCopy that such modernization is “un-Islamic.”

The central government ordered the committees that run madrassas to introduce mathematics, science and English into their curriculums and earmarked nearly 800 million to pay for science teachers.

But representatives of Madrasa Islahul Banat, which teaches girls, and Madrasa-e-Rahmania, which teaches boys, told The SoftCopy they would rather shut down than agree to this new proposal.

Ummat-e-Tahir, head of the Madrasa Islahul Banat, told The SoftCopy: “Modernization is not at all necessary. We have to concentrate on our religion and not on anything else. We have come to the world to spread Islam. We have to overcome the attractions of the world.”

Madrasa Islahul Banat is home to about 200 girls, whom it teaches Urdu, Arabic and the Koran.

Zubair, who does administrative work for the Madrasa Islahul Banat, said: “Government schools are in a very bad condition—it is a reflection of what is taught there. What is the point of modernizing the madrassas when we know that studying subjects like science and mathematics is going to take us nowhere?”

 Madrasa-e-Rahmania, another famous madrassa of Bangalore, echoed this view.

“You can master only one subject, so let us concentrate on Islam. There is no place for other distractions,” said Munshi, a spokesman for Madrasa-e-Rahmania. “Our students are working as imam (head of mosque) and ulma (teacher of Islamic subjects). We are happy in our present situation.”

Muslim governing body: Worldly knowledge needed

But the state Muslim governing body, the Waqf Board, decried such thinking by the committees that run the madrassas.

“If the committees don’t agree with modernization, we will remove them, but modernization has to take place,” said Mirza Akbar, chief executive officer of the Waqf Board. “We support modernization—you need worldly knowledge along with religious knowledge to survive in this world.”

Madrasa-e-Islahul Muslimeen Model School of Bangalore is a rare co-ed madrassa that teaches science and math to its students. But it has its own set of problems, with no laboratories as these have been converted to staff rooms.
While the madrassas are against modernization, the government sees this as key for the development of the economically backward Muslim community.