The Son Was Named a Lion, but Called a Wolf
One of the neighbourhoods of Samarqand is famously known as Registan. In ancient times, it housed three major universities, where disciplines such as philosophy, logic, mathematics, astronomy, geometry, and jurisprudence were taught at such a high level that there was nothing comparable in the known world. Students from many Eastern lands would travel there to study. The majestic buildings of those universities still stand today, though education there has long ceased.
At the entrance of one such university, there are two ferocious lions depicted, and in front of them stands a deer. It is said that the lions represent students and the deer symbolises knowledge – the message being that those admitted to the university were trained to hunt down knowledge. Perhaps that is indeed what the image means. But now, those lions – the men of learning and inquiry – are no longer there, and neither is the deer.
In the Indian subcontinent today, there are many madrasahs, but none of them teach history, sīrah, geography, mathematics, astronomy, sociology, or modern sciences. Under the names of “transmitted” and “rational” sciences, what is offered are a few dry textbooks, and the ability to decipher their phrasing is considered a sign of mastery. But no real sciences or arts are taught. Try speaking to graduates from these institutions about any subject, and you’ll be met with nothing but emptiness.
A teacher of fiqh who had graduated from a well-known madrasah once asked our esteemed teacher, Mawlānā Abū al-‘Irfān Nadwī رحمه الله, about the location of a certain city in Transoxiana. Mawlānā explained in detail which places surrounded it from the four cardinal directions. The teacher then requested that Mawlānā also clarify where those places were. Mawlānā responded with regret: “How can I explain to you when you are unfamiliar with the very premises upon which understanding my answer depends?”
The renowned scholar from Pakistan, Mawlānā Zāhid al-Rāshidī, once said to me that students who graduate from madrasahs often don’t even know whether the Battle of Badr occurred before or after the Battle of Uhud. When they can’t answer such a basic question of sīrah, how can we expect them to have any grasp of its details or the jurisprudence derived from it?
Many times, I have had the opportunity to converse with graduates of madrasahs, only to discover that they are unfamiliar with the most celebrated Urdu writers and poets. They hum superficial verses attributed to Iqbāl, but have never read Ghālib or Zauq. The names of Sir Sayyid, Shiblī, Hālī, Hasrat, Fānī, Asghar, and Jigar are alien to them. They have not even heard of Mahdī Afādī, Majnūn Gorakhpūrī, or Rashīd Aḥmad Ṣiddīqī. If this is the state of their Urdu, to expect them to know Muṣṭafā Luṭfī Manfalūṭī, al-Rāfi‘ī, al-Sibā‘ī, Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, Aḥmad Amīn, ‘Alī Ṭanṭāwī, Shawqī, or Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm would be a fanciful delusion.
In the subcontinent, the structures may be called madrasahs, and every administrator is preoccupied with how many buildings he can erect, how many minarets and domes he can construct, how grand the guesthouse should be, and what kind of vehicles the madrasah should own. Anyone wearing a topī (cap), kurta, and pajama is considered a student; anyone with a turban on his head is deemed a shaykh or muftī. The buildings are there, but there is no education. The uniforms are there, but there are no lions and no deer. Who will explain that donning a turban does not bring about reason or wisdom?
Of all the attacks being launched on Islam today, the most dangerous is the one that comes through reason and critical thought. If we do not teach our students how to think, if we fail to cultivate their intellectual and rational faculties, then neither will we be protected from these tribulations, nor will we be able to safeguard others. They will go on erecting buildings of bricks and stone and falsely call them madrasahs—places where neither knowledge nor craft exists.
The children spending time in these institutions will be like that father who named his son “Lion,” but the world came to know him as a “Wolf.”
https://t.me/DrAkramNadwi/6182
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Disclaimer: This article was translated by AI. Original post: https://t.me/DrAkramNadwi/6182
