This is the first part of an interview by Yogi Sikand with Asrhan Amanullah on madrasas and their role in Islamic education.

Arshad Amanullah is a graduate of the Jami‘a Salafia, Varanasi, the apex madrasa of the Ahl-i Hadith in India. He is now a student of Mass Communications at the Jami‘a Millia Islamia in New Delhi. He is a frequent contributor to various Urdu newspapers and magazines and is the author of two books: ‘Isai Missionariyan Aur Hindustan Mai Unka Tariqa-i Kar’ (‘Christian Missionaries and Their Methods in India’) and ‘Media Aur Musalman Azadi Ke Baad’ (‘The Media and Muslims After Independence’). In this interview with Yoginder Sikand he talks about his views on madrasa education.

Q: Could you tell us something about your background?

A: I am from what is now Jharkhand, and that is where I grew up. My father is employed in the Bokaro Steel Plant, and ours was among the few families living in the colony of the Plant itself. Then, in 1984, Indira Gandhi was killed, which resulted in attacks on Sikhs in large parts of India, including in Bokaro, where several Sikhs were massacred. This led to a fear among the Muslims of the town that they too could be targeted like this in the future. Two years later, when the BJP leader LK Advani set about on his rath yatra, whipping up anti-Muslim hatred, we decided, like many other Muslim families, to shift to a Muslim locality, which was like a ghetto with few facilities. We thought we would be safer there, but I continued studying in the school run by the steel plant, and finished my matriculation from there.

I did well in the matriculation examinations, so my father wanted me to join engineering college. But by this time I developed an interest in Islamic studies. It all started when, once, I happened to pray in a Barelvi mosque. Since my family belongs to the Ahl-i Hadith sect we pray in a slightly different way, and when the Barelvis saw me praying they drove me out of the mosque! The imam of the mosque insisted that if I wanted to pray in the mosque I would have to do so the way the Barelvis do, but I refused and I stopped going to that mosque. This set me thinking about the different understandings of Islam and the sectarian problem. I began reading about Islam, and then decided to go in for Islamic studies instead of engineering. I took admission in an Ahl-i Hadith madrasa in Keonjhar in Orissa and spent a little more than a year there. After that I shifted to the Jami‘a Salafiya in Varanasi, which is the apex madrasa of the Ahl-i Hadith in India, where I spent seven years, from 1994 to 2000. Barring in one year, I consistently topped the class. After I finished the fazilat course at the madrasa I was told that I might be able to get a scholarship to study in Saudi Arabia but I refused, because I did not want to live in a kingdom where there is no freedom of expression. Besides, I had grown increasingly opposed to the conservative ‘Wahhabi’ Salafism that is taught in the Saudi universities. Instead, I decided to come to Delhi, and enrolled at the Jami‘a Millia Islamia for a BA degree, and I am now in my final year of the MA programme in Mass Communications at the Jami‘a.

Q: Looking back on your years in the madrasa, how do you think you have gained from the sort of education that you received there?

A: Well, I did manage to learn about the Qur’an and the Traditions of the Prophet (hadith), which I probably would not have had I not joined the madrasa. However, I must say that my interest was more in Muslim philosophy and literature, about which we were taught relatively little. Instead, enormous stress was paid to the nitty-gritty of legal issues (fiqh), such as the proper length of the beard, the proper way of wearing one’s trousers or styling one’s beard. I am not saying that these are unimportant, but what is the use of having a beard but harbouring evil in your heart?

In many madrasas the focus is on these external things, which are really not such fundamental issues that we should be obsessed with them. Most people in the madrasas, teachers as well as students, are not exposed to the world around them. They have a very different way of thinking. And, like in many other madrasas, in our madrasa, too, there were some people who were fiercely sectarian. Almost every madrasa is associated with one sect (maslak) or the other, and many ‘ulama associated with the madrasas see as one of their principle tasks the rebuttal of other maslaks.

Q: Was the rebuttal of other maslaks actually taught to you as a subject?

A: Well, we were made to believe that only our maslak—the Ahl-i Hadith—is correct, while the other Muslim groups are deviant in some way or the other. To begin with I was a hardcore Ahl-i Hadith, too, so much so when the police raided the Nadwat ul-‘Ulama madrasa in Lucknow I secretly rejoiced since I thought that the Nadvis followed a deviant maslak. This belief in the superiority of the Ahl-i Hadith maslak was sought to be constantly reinforced in the classroom. So, we were taught that our way of praying is correct and that of the other Muslims, such as the Hanafis, is not valid. But, gradually, I realised that this approach, of rebutting other groups through forceful polemics, is pointless. You can’t force others to change. If you think you are right that’s fine, but others also have a right to do what they think is correct, provided it does not create any social problems.

Q: How did your own views on maslaki differences begin to evolve?

A: After a while at the madrasa I got fed up with the obsession with the details of rituals, and began reading up on social issues and history. I also started studying the works of the ‘ulama of other schools with an open mind, in order to learn from them, rather than simply to rebut them, as is the normal fashion. At this time I also started writing for the Jami‘a Salafiya’s students’ fortnightly wall-magazine al-Manar, of which I was the editor, and for the madrasa’s journal, Muhaddith. I tried to broaden the scope of the wall-magazine to include new sorts of issues, such as Orientalism, the musical aspects of the recitation of the Qur’an as well as various social problems.

Q: There has been some talk about the need for introducing social science teaching in the madrasa syllabus. How do you respond to this proposal?

A: I think it is very important. Madrasa students, as well as most of the ‘ulama, simply do not think in the parameters of the social sciences. They seem to imagine that if you internalise the Qur’an and the teachings of your maslak all your personal and social problems will be automatically solved. And then, to make matters even more complicated, there is a certain trend among many ‘ulama to attribute all the problems of the Muslims to what they insist is a Zionist-Hindu-Christian conspiracy, without carefully analysing the real roots of the problems, and thereby absolving Muslims of any responsibility in the matter.

This approach of looking at all questions and offering solutions simply in terms of theology and jurisprudence, divorced from empirical social realities, is also reflected in the writings of many ‘ulama. Thus, for instance, some Indian Ahl-i Hadith scholars are translating and publishing the fatwas of Saudi Arabian ‘ulama and seeking to impose their views on us, although we live in a very different context, which calls for different responses on a range of issues. Blindly following the fatwas of a certain scholar just because he is Saudi is silly.

Q: It has been suggested that the Ahl-i Hadith in India are today seeking to present themselves as a carbon copy of the Saudi ‘Wahhabis’, primarily to gain Saudi money. Do you agree?

A: Well, that seems to be the direction in which some, though not all, Indian Ahl-i Hadith are moving, and in this the lure of Saudi petrodollars also has some role to play. In the past there were some Indian Ahl-i Hadith leaders who differed from the Saudi scholars on certain issues, and they exercised their own judgment or ijtihad. For instance, Maulana Daud Ghaznavi, one of the pioneers of the Ahl-i Hadith movement in India, was influenced by Sufism, although the official Saudi scholars are opposed to Sufism. The Maulana used to perform some ritual practices that are considered to be Sufi by the Ahl-i Hadith. He was convinced that these practices had their origins in the Qur’an and the genuine Prophetic traditions. However, today there is an effort to make the Indian Ahl-i Hadith a replica of the Saudi Salafis. So, now some of them prefer to call themselves ‘Salafis’, rather than ‘Ahl-i Hadith’ in order, perhaps, to stress their closeness with the Saudis. Several of them preach a sort of understanding of Islam that has no room for interpretation, one that is extremely literalist and intolerant of other understandings. In turn, this has led to a growing distance from ordinary people and their problems, and to a distinct sense of elitism.

I think this has a political dimension as well. The early Ahl-i Hadith was a progressive movement in many senses. Their opposition to the blind following (taqlid) of traditional jurisprudence (fiqh), stressing genuine Prophetic traditions over fiqh, was a progressive stance. But now, partly due to the Saudi connection, sections of the movement are growing increasingly reactionary, raising minor issues of differences with other Muslim sects in order to condemn them. Because of this, the moderates in the Ahl-i Hadith are being increasingly silenced. Another result of this increasing sectarianism, in which some Ahl-i Hadith ‘ulama are playing a leading role, is that the real problems of the community—education, communalism, poverty and so on—are being sidelined as rival maslaks fight over petty issues of ritual or doctrinal differences. Just to cite one instance: a fatwa of the late Shaikh Bin Baz, the leading Saudi mufti, condemning the lifting up of one’s hands to ask for prayer as an ‘innovation’ has been translated and published by an Ahl-i Hadith scholar in India, and this has led to much acrimony among the different Muslim groups. Aren’t there more pressing things to think about?

Q: How exactly do you think some sections of the Ahl-i Hadith in India are actually serving Saudi interests?

A: When the Soviet Union was still around, a lot of American anti-communist propaganda was promoted by the Saudis, who arranged for this to be translated and published in Urdu and distributed or sold in India. The Saudi ‘ulama sought to promote a very narrow and ritualistic sort of Islam, one that was silent on the question of social justice, which is really a fundamental pillar of the faith. And even today the Saudis are seeking to export a very conservative sort of Islam, which is obsessed with minor ritual details (furu’i masa‘il). I think this sort of Islam is deliberately calculated to lull people into submission, so that they do not speak out against the Saudi monarchy, its corruption and its links with American imperialism. Many of the pioneers of the Ahl-i Hadith were involved in the anti-British movement in India and some of them led uprisings against the Raj. But today you have a situation where the ‘ulama associated with the Saudi monarchy are not willing to speak a word against American imperialism! And you have a number of Ahl-i Hadith scholars in India who praise the Saudi monarchy for being what they call the only genuine Islamic government in the world today, a claim that they tirelessly repeat in their writings and speeches.

Q: You mention the moderates among the Ahl-i Hadith being somewhat sidelined by hardcore elements. Is it really possible to make such a distinction?

A: Yes, indeed. In the Jami‘a Salafiya, for instance, we had some teachers who were rather liberal and others who were really hardcore. There were some teachers who were very conservative, most of whom had studied in universities in Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, the rector of the madrasa, Dr. Muqtada Hasan Azhari, was a moderate, in the tradition of the Egyptian Salafis such as Muhammad Abduh. He received an award from the President of India for his services to the Arabic language, and he has also been involved in dialogue efforts with Hindus and Christians. I recall a small incident that took place when I was a student in the madrasa. Just across the madrasa is a graveyard belonging to the Barelvi sect. One day some Barelvis were lighting candles on some graves and some students of our madrasa began pelting them with stones, shouting out that this practice was an ‘unlawful innovation’ (bid‘at). When Dr. Azhari came to know about this he scolded the students, and told them that even if they believed that the practice was un-Islamic, throwing stones was not the way to make their point. He told them that they should seek to convince the Barelvis through dialogue rather than through violence or extremism, or else their efforts would be counterproductive. I think this principle ought to govern relations between the different Muslim maslaks and between Muslims and others as well.

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