History

Progress of a nation is directly linked with knowledge and knowledge is the key to progressive enlightenment.

In the nineteenth century the Colonists destroyed our traditional institutions of learning. Muslim response took many dimensions. One was to accept western secular education in order to enter the new job market. The second response was to confine themselves to the study of old disciplines and reject everything new and western as ‘kufr’.

We ceased to enlighten and extend knowledge; we became consumers, followers and imitators. In due course we failed as leaders and originators.

The ‘madrassa’ continued to fortify the faith and provide solace to the faithful, yet its relevance with the world diminished gradually. As the western tradition was but pursued half-heartedly, it resulted into an overall intellectual inertia and cultural schism. Haphazard blending of the two traditions also proved futile.

The conflict mainly affected our women. The impoverished yet protective Muslim communities neither sent their women to the centers of alien thought and culture, nor could they establish separate indigenous Islamic schools for them. This resulted in illiteracy, and backwardness of our womenfolk.

Muslim countries have been liberated. The challenge firstly is to develop a well-balanced and integrated system of education. Secondly, for centuries, there has been a gender specific neglect; a gender-specific intervention is badly required.