Education is the most powerful tool for social change is not a striking slogan for a modern Muslim mind. But it wasnt the case for the medieval mind. For them, education was more a tool for stability than for change. This notion which garnered sweeping attention from colonized Muslim subjects is the actual product of 20th-century modernism. Muslim reformers of the 20th century generally shared this view. They also suggested significant structural and pedagogical changes to traditional madrasas. Intellectuals of Tanzimat, Egyptian modernists like Abduh and Rida, and Syed Ahmed Khan of India were its major proponents.
Proponents of this idea in Muslim land were mesmerized by the capacity of modern state education to effect change in their favor. Knowingly or unknowingly, they were turning down the traditional concept of madrasa education known in Muslim societies. Madrasas in Muslim lands were the agents of legitimacy for any action initiated by any individual. This need for legitimacy increased according to the positions that individuals enjoyed. The rulers absolutely needed it right from the beginning. Madrasa never played the role of modern state schools which is to enact disciplinary power on the subjects of state. Even in the 19th century, we could see Muslim rulers forced to leave office by the fatwa of a religious scholar
Madrasa philosophy of power
Classical Orientalist scholarship argued that the emergence of the Madrasa was part of the Sunni Renaissance that took place in the 11th century. They believed that these new Madrasas were set up to provide them with a group of administrative and apologetic officials for the state running. This thesis is no more relevant. Medieval madrasa had a fragile Nexus with the ruling Elite. Although some sultans and viziers did patronize some Madrasas, they didnt ( in fact, couldnt ) regulate and control the academic activity within them. Madrasa had always remained a private initiative from local scholars even without affiliation to the institution.
It also dismantles another modern back projection; that is to suppose that Madrasas possessed a discrete identity and function in society. Up to the 11th century, Halqas were the prevalent form of knowledge transmission in the Muslim world. Mosques were the normal location for a Halqa. There seems no reason to suppose any rationale to prefer a mosque over an independent institution, other than its convenience as the usual place for Muslim congregations. This was very private and informal. Perceived as an act of worship in itself like prayer and fasting. These Halqas never espoused a particular curriculum, examination, or any other administrative regularities. There were no administrative procedures to join it beyond the oral permission of the professor. Neither was there any size or limit. It was built upon the prophetic model of Suhba, in which the professor was not only a tutor of a technical subject, but rather an educator, a companion, a supporter, and a moral mentor. Moral cultivation was the central concern.
By the 11th century, particularly under the rule of Nizamul Mulk and Nurudheen Zengi, madrasah began to play a central role in the Islamic world. Nizamul Mulk took a policy of horizontal sponsorship by which he would help foster all the schools of jurisprudence; however with a privilege for Shafite Asharites. This literally ended up in the blossoming of Madrasas under him. Beginning in Khurasan, it later spread into all other major Islamic cities in Europe, Central Asia, and North Africa. Soon, madrasas became an inevitable part of the urban landscape in the Islamic world. Madrasa didnt constitute any new form of education but rather provided for the traditional halqa under the auspices of Waqf i.e. religious endowment.
Madrasas were established by both private individuals and the members of the ruling elite. However, the latter was always the most imposing and impactful. At first glance, it may seem that the rulers motive behind it was their ostentation of power and majesty, as is the case in all pre-modern societies. But, in the Islamic world, it was the craving for legitimacy that motivated them most. Since the majority of Islamic governments were from outside and were short-lived, they couldnt successfully establish a well-knit bureaucratic mechanism. They enjoyed only the Monopoly over military and political power. It also didnt allow them to administer the internal affairs of their subject population by penetrating into it. It was Madrasas and the resultant scholarly circles that filled this gap of internal administration; which has now become succumbed before the Bio-power of nation-states. Madrasa granted no degrees rather the professors did. The institution of madrasa had little role in controlling and regulating the academic activity done by individual scholars. Ijazas, however, were granted; but it was not from the madrasa but rather from the professor with whom the student had sat in person. Like the former Halqas, madrasas too never espoused a curriculum, regular examination and a formal hierarchy of degrees.
Madrasa as a system of stability orthodoxy
and change Association of madrasa with memorization had been commonplace. Often with a derogatory adjective rote . Even though madrasa aimed at preserving and stabilizing religious knowledge, memorization was never an end in itself, rather a means. It is evident from the growing ramification in religious discourses among Muslims with the passage of time.
Ulema represented a heterogeneous variety of people. They formed an open Elite with the flexible criterion of having well versed in the body of knowledge transmitted before them. It allowed a diverse range of people from all strata of society: from farmers and local tradesmen to political elites and merchant families, to be part of it. This Ulema also were the only civil elites that could mediate between people and ruling elites- who were often foreigners. Sultans and viziers could gain obedience from people only through the legitimization of Ulema. Since the Pre-modern Government was far more indirect and decentralized, people could get into the rulers only through Ulama. That is not for judicial or royal purposes, rather to ensure that the Caliph is running along with Sharia. Sharia thus ensured peoples freedom and basic rights against the rulers enforcement of power.
The system of knowledge transmission in the Islamic world also enjoyed the absence of a unified church which facilitated more room for scholarly consensus. Therefore, in any madrasa, a text was usually read aloud by someone and commented upon by everyone. Abu Hanifa ( d 767 ) was well known for following this method of retrospective learning. This process often began with the memorization of the text. Although in the absence of hegemonic orthodoxy, the hostility against innovation was a central feature of the Islamic culture. It was epitomized in the famous tradition Every new thing is an innovation and every innovation is an error and every error is in hell. This came complemented by traditions like the one that says a scholar is more powerful against the devil than a thousand worshipers. This put the Islamic world somewhere in between disintegration and stagnation.
Historians of Islam have always viewed the Islamic education system as a total social phenomenon in which knowledge, politics, and social networks were integrated; to form a complex and generative culture. History and discourses of one sector come to serve the ends of another. By the sixteenth century, the Model of Suhba began to vanish and Madrasas became professionalized institutions which would accommodate a diverse range of preferences. The one which preferred Fiqh and Usūl al fiqh came often at the top reputation. At lower levels, the topics taught were Arabic grammar, syntax, geometry, and astronomy. The intermediate levels took Adab- literature, rhetoric, logic and other rational sciences.
Madrasas' Encounter With Modernity
Wael Hallaq rightly noted that the trend of increasing ruling elites control over legal education has been there since the time of the Seljuqs. Its culmination could be seen in the Ottomans by the eighteenth century. It coincided with the Ottoman encounter with modernity. In its later periods, Ottomans appointed Sheikh al Islam who would be in total control of Madrasas. Through him, later Ottomans could be directly involved in the internal administration of the Madrasas. This Ottoman phenomenon began with the establishment of royal madrasas in Istanbul. The graduates of these royal madrasas were preferred over others for being appointed to the governmental roles of the Caliphate. Thus, for the first time in Islamic history, madrasa began to grant degrees instead of the professor.
Around this time, the Ottomans were trapped in a moral (and political) dilemma; which even led to the birth of the Tanzimat movement in the subsequent years. That was the unprecedented growth of Europe in military and technology over its major rival I.e. Ottomans. Education was perceived to be the secret wisdom behind this growth. This often led the Ottoman intellectuals to think that their Madrasa system is inefficient. After long debates, Ottoman Ulema succumbed to the governments plan to establish schools along with the Western model. Within a century, there came academies for Naval, Army, Medicine, Civil Administration, and Law. European instructors were employed in these academies. This led to the cleavage of Ulema vs Professionals.
By the birth of the Turkic republic, Ataturk completely banned the traditional Madrasa, and introduced the European model departments of theology, even in low quantity compared to the departments for material sciences. By Ataturks death in 1948, turkey began to reintroduce Madrasa in the state. The significant tension in this and other Islamization movements was the dilemma of fixing the position of Religion in the nation States. Since This model of government was unfamiliar to traditional Ulema( and unknown to any Pre-modern society), it paved the ground for long debates on the matter.
In the Muslim colonies of the 19th and 20th centuries, the imperial school posed a real threat to the traditional Madrasa. The major shift was that madrasa education ceased to be an effective means of upward social mobility. European education seized that role, leaving the traditional mosque-universities for students from poor and rural backgrounds. This change has gone without significant resistance in some societies; for instance Morocco. While in some other countries, most notably in the Indian subcontinent, it had to face significant resistance. The modernists like Sayed Ahmed Khan couldnt convince the bona fide Muslims that the new system of education is compatible with their tradition. The textually oriented conservative movements could gain more momentum among the population. The rapid and striking growth of the Deobandi movement is a testament to it.
The colonial shift also prompted the traditional ulema to enhance their madrasas in line with modern educational institutions. This led to the introduction of chalk-and-talk pedagogy in Madrasa; which in some places would reach even the Smart Classrooms. This proves the role of the Madrasa in Muslim society, as Qasim Zaman rightly put it, the custodians of change.