The character of the madrassah and its structure reflected the political and social context of India in the

thirteenth and 14th centuries. Since judges were in great demand, the study of akhlaq was emphasized in the schools. The emphasis on the study of akhlaq differentiated the madaris of India from those in Arab-Persian heartland of Islam wherein a study of Hadith was emphasized. Zia Barani writes in his book on history about an event during thereign of Alauddin Khilji. An Egyptian scholar, Maulana Shamsuddin Turk, came to India to encourage the study of Hadith, but returned after visiting Multan. Before he left, he wrote to the Emperor admonishing him that the ulema in India were heedless in the study of Hadith. The mullahs of Hindustan, sensing that a shift in emphasis from akhlaq to Hadith would jeopardize their jobs, saw to it that the letter did not even reach the Emperor. Indian Islam at that time was more legalistic than kitabi. Maulana Abul Hasan Nadvi, in his manuscript, Hindustan ki khadeem darsgahen (Shibli Academy, 1919), states that the syllabus of the madaris in the subcontinent during the 13th and 14th centuries included the following subjects:

Akhlaq and its principles Akhlaq Grammar Eloquence Hadith and its sciences Arithmetic and astronomy Tasawwuf Kalam India was not immune from the intellectual turmoil raging in the post-Mongol Islamic world. The ulema who migrated to India from other parts of the Muslim world brought with not only their knowledge but also their intellectual predispositions. The rise of tasawwuf as the governing paradigm of Islamic life brought about a reaction from the more conservative quarters concerned that the liberal outlook of the Sufis would dilute the discipline of the Shariah. Ibn Taymiah (d 1325) of Damascus waged a life long battle against the esoteric Islam of the Sufis, emphasizing the importance of adhering to the Islam as practiced by the earliest Companions. His movement is generally referred to as Salafi Islam. A second source of tension was the presence of Mutazalites in the Delhi court. The study of philosophy received a boost when some of the Delhi sultans openly espoused its study and practice. The emperor Mohammed bin Tughlaq (d 1351) was one of them. Sultan Mohammed invited some of the leading Mutazalites of the day to Delhi where they were received with honor and given important positions at the court. The simultaneous presence of Salafi ulema, Mutazalite philosophers and Sufi Shaikhs was sure to result in a showdown. Indian Islam was at cross roads. The sultans of Delhi found themselves as arbitrators of the disputes between the Sufis, the Salafis and the Mutazalites. The historian Farishta documents in his book, Tazkiraye Nizamuddin Awliya that a debate took place in the court of Ghyasuddin Tughlaq (d 1236) on the issue of samaa, the ecstatic dance performed by the Sufis accompanied by music. On one side was Shaikh Nizamuddin Awliya, the reigning

Shaikh of the Chishtiya silsilah, considered by many to be one of the greatest of the awliya to grace Indian soil. Shaikh Nizamuddin was a hafiz, a scholar of hadith and a master of akhlaq. Arrayed against him were Kadi Jalaluddin, chief kadi of Delhi and Shaikh Ilmuddin, who was a Mutazalite and had traveled extensively through Egypt, Syria, Iraq and P ersia. Farishta relates that whenever Nizamuddin Awliya offered evidence a Hadith in favor of samaa, the opposition would declare that in Delhi the sciences of akhlaq had preponderance over sciences of the hadith. Kadi Jalaluddin and Shaikh Ilmuddin asked the emperor to ban the practice of samaa. The emperor, not willing to be drawn into the controversies, ruled that the samaa was legitimate for the Chishtiya order but not legitimate for the Qalandariya order, knowing full well that the Qalandariya order had not yet entered the heartland of India. The Sufis triumphed and tasawwuf continued to be the governing paradigm of Indian Islam well into the zenith of the Mogul period in the 17th century. India was a border state in the vast tapestry of Muslim states and the reformist currents in the Islamic world invariably had an impact on the madaris in India. During the resign of Sikandar Lodhi, towards the end of the 15th century, two well known scholars, Shaikh Abdullah and Shaikh Azeezullah migrated to Delhi from Multan. Shaikh Abdullah settled in Delhi and Shaikh Azeezullah settled in Sanbhal (UP). Partly because of the scholarship of the sages and partly because of the patronage of the Emperor, the fame of these two scholars spread all over India. These savants enlarged the syllabus and introduced the study of commentaries on earlier works of kalam and tasawwuf. Attempts were also made to reinforce the study of hadith. Shaikh Abdul Haq, Muhaddith, Dehlavi went to Arabia, learned the Hadith from the scholars in Mecca and Madina and published it. But the social and political context in India was different from that in Mecca and Madina. The marginal presence of Muslims in India was as yet in a consolidation phase. Indian madaris remained focused more a study of akhlaq and the graduation of kadis than the ulema who specialized in a study of hadith. The onset of Mogul rule in India was a benchmark in global history. The Moguls extended the fold of Islam to its limits and yet still stayed within the realm of their faith. While the sultanate of Delhi struggled to hold its sway over Northern India for brief periods, the Moguls embarked on laying the foundation of an Indian nation. At its height the Mogul empire extending over the entire south Asian region embracing the modern nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. It was during the reign of Akbar (d 1605) that the Mogul reach embraced all the diverse religions, cultures and regions of India. Akbar married Rajput princesses, abolished the jizya, and opened up his administration and his army to the Hindus. In extending familial ties to the Hindus, he accorded them the same status as that enjoyed by the people of the book. He invited Jesuit priests from Goa to discuss religion with them, bestowed endowments upon the Sikhs and made land grants to mosques and temples alike. The cosmopolitan culture of Mogul India included the Moguls, the Afghans, the Rajputs, the Persians, the Hindus and the Muslims. He even started a Sufi tareeqa with himself at his head, called Deen e Ilahi which was misunderstood by the Muslims as a new religion. Through his policy of sulhe kul (peace between all groups) he sought to unify all the cultures of India under the Mogul banner.

The cosmopolitan character of the Moguls was reflected in the madaris of the age. Gone was the narrow focus on the study of akhlaq and hadith. The moguls instituted a broad based curriculum which included not only the religious sciences but also advanced mathematics, engineering, sociology and history. According to Nadvi, the Mogul madrassah curriculum included the following subjects:

Akhlaq and its principles Literature and grammar Law Philosophy Mathematics Astronomy Medicine Hadith Akhlaq Theology Tasawwuf The life of the Naqshbandi Shaikhs Along with the religious madaris, there existed more secular schools run by the state. These schools trained the engineers, artisans, doctors and administrators for the state. The curriculum of these schools included the following subjects:

Akhlaq (good character, humility, respect for elders, etiquette). The text books used included Akhlaq e Nasiri and Akhlaq e Jalali) Arithmetic Astronomy Astrology Mathematics Geometry History (Shahname Firdowsi, Zafar Nama of Sharfuddin Ali Tarmizi, Futuhat e Timuri, Akbar Nama, Iqbal Nama e Jahangeeri, Tareeq Feroqe Shahi, Warzam Nama, Mahabharata) Oration Medicine Economics Sociology Literature (prose, poetry, fiction)

Tazkiya Nafs (Maktubat of Syed Shah Ashrafuddin Yahya Ahmed Muneeri, Nazhatul Arwah, Mathnawi Molvi Manavi, Hadeeqa Hakim Sinai) Planning Goal setting Operations Management Politics Health Maintenance Mathematics Religious Studies The reforms introduced during the early Mogul period lasted well into the 18 th century. Akbar, in particular, was a patron of scholars. He invited Shah Fatehulla Shirazi, Mir Sadruddin, Mir Ghiyasuddin Mansur, and Mirza Jan Mir to come and settle in India India. He conferred honorific titles and supported them with generous grants. For instance, Fatehulla Shirazi received the title of Asnul Mulk. Similar titles were conferred upon other scholars. The Mogul schools had a high standard of excellence. It was these schools that produced the engineers and architects who built the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, the Jami Masjid and the Agra Fort. It was also these same schools that trained the astronomers who built the observatories in Delhi and Jaipur in the 18th century. In addition to the madaris and the state schools, there were the zawiyas wherein young men received a religious education as well as training in the arts. The graduates from the zawiyas were absorbed into different guilds such as metal working, wood working, weaving, embroidery, leather work, masonry, carpet making and ivory inlay work. The workmanship of the Mogul artisans was superb which attests to the quality of education and training they received in the madaris and the zawiyas. There were military academies as well. Attached to these academies were armament manufacturing centers wherein students learned the art of metal casting, forging, smithy, siege engine and cannon manufacture. Some of the instructors in these schools came from as far away as Istanbul and Ottoman influence in Mogul armaments was noticeable. The land-based Mogul artillery was a match for those of the Europeans well into the 16th century. It was only in the latter part of the 17th century that European gun-making caught on and overtook the armaments of Mogul and Ottoman dynasties. In the waning years of the Mogul empire, Islamic orthodoxy displaced the cosmopolitan culture of the empire. Correspondingly, the study of textbooks on Akhlaq was replaced by the study of legal rulings such as Fatwa e Alamgiri. In the 18th century the Mogul empire declined. It was a period of general social and cultural disintegration. There was a need to reform the educational structure of the madaris as well as the syllabus as a way to reform the society and arrest social decline. One of the most influential educational reformers of the era was Mullah Nazimuddin who was a contemporary of Shah Waliullah (d 1762). Mullah Nazimuddin enlarged the syllabus and added several books to the

study of grammar and attempted to lay the foundation of a broad based educational system so that the graduate could continue his studies on his own after completing school. The study of hadith was reinforced. The courses of study in this period were based on the Nizamiya syllabus and included:

Sarf (accounting) Nahau (grammar) Balagat (oration) Literature Mantiq Hikmat (wisdom, integrative knowledge) Riyazi (astronomy) Principles of fiqh (jurisprudence) Kalam (theology) Hadith (authentic sayings of the Prophet Muhammed) Faraez (religious obligations) Manazira (debate) Tafseer(commentaries on the Quran) Principles of Hadith The limitations of this syllabus were:

1. It had very little history, geography or sciences of nature. 2. Philosophy was de-emphasized. 3. It offered very little exposure to Hadith, Tafseer or Ilm Ijazul Quran. 4. There was overemphasis on Mantiq. The madaris did not use the division of classes, as it is done in modern schools. Each student was allowed to learn at his own pace. When a student finished the introductory books, he moved on to the more advanced books. Three degrees were awarded: qabil, alim and fazil. There were also specialized schools in the Punjab, Delhi, Rampur and Lucknow. Punjab specialized in sarf and Nahau, Delhi in hadith and tafseer, Rampur in mantiq and hikmat and Lucknow in fiqh and its principles. As the British gained ascendancy in India, the education and instructional institutions correspondingly went into decline. The new rulers replaced Farsi with English, first in the court systems, then in the educational systems. Their requirements were for lower echelons administrative personnel to run the vast bureaucracy of the sprawling subcontinent. The study of science, technology and history was discouraged. The madrassah was marginalized. It could not compete with the European system in science and philosophy. These subjects in which the

Islamic world once dominated, had gone west, and had returned to the east with a heavy dosage of western flavor. The Muslims considered these subjects to alien, a product of a secular Europe. The curriculum was marginalized and retracted unto itself. The syllabus evolved during this period was a poor imitation of the old Nizamiya syllabus. The next period brings us to the modern age. After the collapse of political power in the 19th century, political and social stagnation set in. Education in the madaris reflects this stagnation. The syllabus has gone through a further contraction. Unable to innovate and cope with the challenge of Western education, Islamic education has fallen back to the basics. The Nizamiya syllabus has been resurrected with major deletions. Unlike the Nizamiya college of Nizamul Mulk in the 11thcentury the curriculum of the modern madrassah does not include a study of history, science or philosophy. Mathematics has been reduced to elementary arithmetic and tasawwuf has been eliminated. Remaining in the curriculum are hifz (memorization of Quran), hadith, elementary Arabic, Urdu, akhlaq, recitation of the Quran and tafseer (Quranic interpretations).Only recently has there been a realization that in order to survive in the modern world, the syllabus of the madrassah must be expanded to include a study of the modern languages, Islamic and global history, science, mathematics and computer science.

Education under the Mughals Under the Mughal rule special attention was given to education. Du ring the Akbars reign important changes were introduced in the syllabus of education through the efforts of Shah Fathullah Shirazi.Islamic schools were attached to mosques, Khanqah of the Sufis and tombs. Special buildings were also constructed for imparting education. Their expenses were met from endowments. During the Mughal period the principal centres of learning were at Lahore,Delhi,Ajmer,Sialkot,Multan,Ahmadabad,Allaha bad,Lucknow,Murshidabad,Dacca.Many scholars were attracted to these institutions from Persia and Central Asia. Students received education free of cost. Famous scholars received fixed stipends from the royal treasury. Provisions were made for the teaching of Persian; the official language of the government in the Maktabs.Nizamiyah system of education became popular during the later days of the Mughals. The aim of this system was to create such ability in the scholar so that he is able to acquire perfection in any branch of learning through self-study and personal efforts. While Muslims received education in Maktabs,Hindus had their pathsalas for imparting religious instructions.