BridgingDeenandDuniya: The “Modernisation” of Islamic Education in India

Much of the discourse on Muslim education in contemporary India is shaped by notions of Muslim “backwardness” and alleged resistance or even hostility to “modernity”. Madrasas, or Islamic seminaries, form a central core of this discourse, although the actual proportion of Muslim children who study in full-time madrasas is relatively small. Based on the fact that many madrasas are, indeed, resistant to significant change and “reform”, it is argued that Muslims as such resist “modernisation” and “modern” education. Consequently, this discourse, deliberately or otherwise, ignores the innovative efforts being made by some Muslim organisations in India today to combine Islamic and “modern” education as an alternative to traditional madrasa education. Some of these efforts are emanating from “traditional” madrasas themselves. Others mark a new form of madrasa, understood here in the literal sense as “school”, which departs from the “traditional” madrasa in significant ways. These efforts represent different ways of seeking to express Islam in forms more relevant to today's times, seeking to produce a new sort of ‘ulema or Islamic religious scholars, who combine knowledge of the Islamic tradition and the “modern” world. This paper provides a broad overview of some of these efforts with the help of selected case studies.