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| Akhlaq Ahmad Usmani addressing the audience | Talha Mannan Khan, AMU |
Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union (AMUSU) organized a seminar on February 26 2017 on the theme ‘Islamic Organisation and Muslim Madarsa’. Topic of the talk was “Role of Madaris in the Development of Nation and Community”.
Previously, proposed venue for the seminar was the big Kennedy Auditorium of the university. Later, it was shifted to Boys Polytechnic auditorium. It was Sunday and in Aligarh, Sunday has always been a ‘high leisure day’ among students since long. A decade earlier a leisurely Sunday could be justified due to very meaningful ‘Intro Nights’ on every Saturday. Post 2007, these meaningful instruments to the synthesis of what we call ‘Aligarh Tehzeeb’ were done away with by the erstwhile Vice-Chancellor Prof. P. K. Abdul Azis. Now a days too, students do remain awake on Saturday nights but aimlessly; thanks to Facebook and aimless utilization of campus-wide high speed Wi-Fi !
So, it was a Sunday on 26th of February and the student turnout in the seminar was meagre as well as humiliating. Humiliating in the sense that the seminar could not even gather only one hundred students from much-hyped jingle of “battees hazaar talba” (thirty two thousands students). About 12-14 girls were present and around fifty boys attended the seminar. One of the speakers, Azam Baig, former President of AMUSU put it bluntly in his speech that it was pathetic that even none of the Chairs (President, Vice-President and Hony. Secretary) of the AMUSU was present in the seminar!
The seminar began around 10:00-11:00 am, and therefore the so-called ‘e-activist’ among AMU students who effervesce most of their energies whole day on Facebook couldn’t rise early in the morning and could not attend the seminar. Although, taking some unimportant issues out of proportions has now become a relic of people as we saw recently in much-hyped case of allegations on Shehla Rashid, former JNUSU Vice-President. How can scenario be changed by organizing these seminars merely by wasting huge sums of money and singing university anthem followed by the national anthem? Further, I don’t know how many students of AMU’s bridge course centre were there in the seminar who have been exorbitantly projected on the campus as ‘future leaders of Muslim ummah’!
Speakers invited spoke variedly on the topic. Topic was bi-pronged i.e. it talked about the role of Madrasas in service to the (1) Indian Nation (2) Muslim Community. While some speakers peeped in to the history, Prof. Tauqeer Alam Falahi (AMU) highlighted obligations of Muslims in general and madrasas in particular which they owed to the nation and humanity by the dint of their monotheistic association with the Almighty. Prof. Falahi categorically said that madrasas had been promoting humanism and should shoulder on this responsibility in future as they need to purge off all evils of the world.
Akhlaq Ahmad Usmani, noted journalist and expert on geo-politics, gave an account of culture of knowledge prevalent in West Asia and Central Asia during hey-days of those big empires. He talked about multidimensional curriculum design during the times of Prophet Muhammad and Umar’s caliphate. Usmani strongly lamented the Muslims’ secluded and narrow approach towards knowledge in domains other than theological discourses. He raised very pertinent questions like ‘How physical education, martial arts, swimming and horse riding was excluded from madrasa curriculum?’ ‘How did mathematics, advanced geometry, astronomy and anatomy was thrown away out of madrasa syllabus? Who decided those madrasa boys and girls would not learn world languages like Russian, Chinese, French? ‘In the bygone era, there had been upside down changes in conception of ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ among Muslims of world and India. Who can be held accountable for such deterioration?’, he asked. Usmani held that correct perception of knowledge and dedicated endeavours was very much important because nation-building and community-building could not be accomplished sans ‘weapon of knowledge’.
Out of all speakers, SQR Ilyas, prominent face of Jamat-e-Islami Hind, spoke very thought-provokingly. He spoke on what all other speakers actually missed. His talk, as it seemed to me, was an exegesis of what Allama Iqbal once said ‘liya jayega tujhse kaam duniya ki imamat ka’. He said that during ten years of UPA government five big laws were passed by the Parliament that included Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Right to Information (RTI), Right to Education (RTE), Food Security Act and the Lokpal. All those laws were the outcome of great struggle by civil society members that exhorted the government to draft such landmark bills. In drafting these five bills, he complained, no Muslim individual or institution actually contributed! Moreover, he asked, what our madrasas were doing to tackle female foeticides, female illiteracy, communicable diseases, poverty, human trafficking, child labour, tribal rights, and farm suicides? ‘What inputs and manpower do we provide to national policy-making system on these grave issues?’, he added.
He complained that Islam came just ‘to give everything’ to humanity but now a days we are asking pity things like ‘minority funds’, ‘welfare schemes’ from everyone. Where are we? We are negating in praxis what Prophet said, ‘a giving hand is always above an asking hand’.
If we extend this overarching notion of Mr. Ilyas we may further ask ourselves why our madrasas have provisions of education only for Muslim children? Why our institutions like earlier Sufi hospices are not open to others. Why not non-Muslims are imparted education in modern sciences, interfaith studies and their own scriptures in madrasas? Did not we know that when non-Muslim would come to the Prophet for seeking solution to their problems, Prophet would first ask them if he would solve their problems from their own books or from the Holy Quran? For, Prophet was equally versed in the books and laws of religion of Moses and Jesus as he was in the Quran. We are not even aware of ‘ours’ today! Where is that Prophet's legacy among Muslims?
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