Confronting an existential crisis

The last book I read on madrasas  (Hem Borker’s Madrasas and the Making of Islamic Womanhood ) argued that for all their flaws they offer a route to educational mobility for Muslim girls from conservative families, particularly from rural areas. These girls find madrasas empowering and a potential stepping stone to mainstream higher education, even a career. Some told her madrasas had transformed their lives. 

Yet, her description of the life inside a typical madrasa (Borker spent some time at a Delhi women’s madrasa as part of her research) showed an institution mired in a culture of exclusion, with  girls living isolated lives totally cut off from the outside world. 

Ms Borker wrote she had worked with minority communities before but had “never engaged with an institution that is so Muslim, not just in terms of the student and staff composition, but also in its cultural norms, behavioural practices and ethos. ...zealously fenced, with multiple levels of security, which can be quite unwelcoming and intimidating”.  

Her brave attempt to work up enthusiasm for madrasas was ultimately frustrated by the reality she encountered on the ground.  The book under review also sets out to refurbish madrasas’ image by trying to portray them as a casualty of widespread Islamophobia, but soon it comes up against the hard reality behind the plight of madrasas and why they are perceived by the outside world with disdain and suspicion, making them a sitting target for attacks.

Describing a madrasa adjacent to a well-appointed school in Kishanganj (Bihar), which famously organises an international literature festival, it says that while the “students of the school in smart trousers, shirt and tie attend many of the deliberations, the students of the madrasa remain conspicuous by their absence”. 

“All through the festival, they remain inside, emerging only to offer prayers at their appointed time....They are like frogs in the well: read, learn, memorise and repeat. From early morning to lunch, then again after a lunch break...the students sit hunched over religious texts. There are no tables, chairs, just benches to place their books and rough jute rugs to sit on,” the authors write pointing out that it’s the same story at “countless madrasas across the country”. 

None of this — lack of basic amenities, regressive environment, antiquated curriculum and teaching methods— has got anything to do with Islamophobia, and everything with the system’s inherent institutional flaws. Some madrasas, as the book points, not only openly practise exclusion but also “indoctrinate” their students against rival Muslim sects. They are even forbidden from reading literature published by other sects. And attempts to isolate students from the outside world stretch to banning them from reading English and Hindi newspapers considering these languages as “foreign to Muslims”. (Page 173).

This book is significant not because of what it says but because who is saying it. It’s written not by any old Islamophobic madrasa-sceptic, but by two devout Muslims who are knowledgeable about madrasas; appear passionately to care for them, writing about their decline with a real sense of loss; and believe in their continued relevance.  

Book details

Generally, a reflex Muslim reaction to any criticism of madrasas is to dismiss it as Islamophobic rant, or coming from armchair detractors who have never “seen the inside of a madrasa” (as one madrasa head is quoted as saying about critics). But Ziya Us Salam (a former colleague at The Hindu ) and M Aslam Parvaiz  are “kosher” Muslim voices and the community will find it harder to shrug off their outspoken criticism of a system teetering on the brink—starved of funds, steeped in conservatism, stuck with an outdated curriculum and resistant to change. 

They warn that only a radical “overhaul” (end to sectarianism and modernising the syllabus) can help it “survive into the next century”. Sectarianism runs so deep that most madrasas teach “only one interpretation of Islam” depending on the sect to which a madrasa belongs. None of this is news. But, for a change, the conveyors of this bad news are not the so-called usual madrasa or Muslim-baiting suspects but respected credible voices from within the commu­n­ity. Which will make it harder for the madrasa lobby to shoot the messenger this time. 

The book offers a well-documented and honest critique of madrasas, but spoils its card somewhat by opting for a slightly misleading populist title, “Madrasas in the Age of Islamophobia”. Those who buy it hoping to get an understanding of how Islamophobia has affected madrasas may be forgiven for feeling disappointed that it doesn’t quite deliver what it says on the tin.  

The reviewer is the author of, Who Killed Liberal Islam