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VIEW: A mullah’s diatribe against education for girls —Yoginder Sikand

Muslim families in India are increasingly seeking today to educate their daughters, providing them with both religious as well as secular education. It remains to be seen if, in the face of this, the traditionalist ulema are willing to relent or will continue in their obdurate opposition to anything but a very traditional education for Muslim girls

In addition to widespread poverty and state apathy, one of the major factors in the dismal level of education of Muslim girls in India is the influence of traditionalist ulema. As many ulema see it, ‘modern’ education is calculated to distort and finally destroy Muslim identity and faith, leading to indifference, if not hostility, to religion. For some ulema this opposition to secular education stems from a fear that it might result in a challenge to their claims to authority as ‘spokesmen’ for Islam and might also undermine the patriarchal structure they continue to defend.

Women’s education is particularly contentious. Education imparted in schools where no provision is made for religion, they believe, will leave girls, in particular, vulnerable to all manner of immoral influences. Hence, they insist, the only sort of education that Muslim girls should receive is that provided in traditional madrassas to prepare them for the only future they envisage for them, as good wives and mothers.

A good illustration of the Deobandi position on girls’ education is provided in a book recently published by a Deobandi scholar from Bihar, Maulvi Abdul Basit Hamidi Qasmi, a graduate of the Deoband seminary. It contains short forewords and notes of appreciation by numerous leading Deobandi ulema, including teachers of the Deoband madrassa and the Jamia Rahmani, Munger, one of the premier Deobandi seminaries in Bihar.

A speech titled Talim ul-Niswan Ka Nizam (The system of girls’ education), deals specifically with the issue of what Qasmi believes to be the ‘Islamically’-appropriate form of education for girls. The author argues that Islam stresses the acquisition of ‘knowledge’ for all Muslims, males as well as females. However, in contrast to modernist Muslim scholars, who take this to mean sanction for both religious and secular knowledge, Qasmi argues that here ‘knowledge’ refers only to ‘religious knowledge’ (ilm-e-din), or “the knowledge through which one’s religious beliefs and prayer are perfected”. He argues that “English, history and geography are not ilm, but, rather, skills (hunar)”. Qasmi opposes ‘non-religious’ education for Muslim girls. He regards those who advocate this sort of education for girls as ‘blindly imitating Europeans’. He sees ‘non-religious’ knowledge as good only for enabling people to work outside the home, which is un-necessary for Muslim girls. Earning a livelihood, he insists, is the duty of the man, not the woman. Also, it is binding on the woman to observe pardah (seclusion). “Reason”, he insists, “indicates that worldly knowledge cannot be had while observing pardah”.

He then relents and says a woman could learn modern subjects under conditions of “severe necessity” since there is no absolute prohibition. But this must be done in pardah and only after completing her religious studies. For this purpose, he lays down, she must study only from either another woman, or, if this is not possible, a mehram male (husband or a relative she is forbidden from marrying). In case women have no males to support them financially, he grudgingly says, it is permissible for them to learn some ‘worldly arts’ so that they can earn their livelihood.

Qasmi insists that “worldly knowledge is not good for women and can be destructive for them”. He appears to equate modern education with Westernisation, and condemns the latter outright, arguing that “Western culture is blind, so how can it provide light to others?”

His opposition to ‘modern’ education for girls stems essentially from the argument - which many Muslim modernists would furiously dispute - that it must necessarily be defined as Western and, therefore, immoral and irreligious. Seeing traditional Deobandi-style education as normative, he cannot conceive the possibility of a harmonious combination of Islamic and secular education, something that numerous Muslim modernists have been advocating. ‘Modern’ education, as Qasmi sees it, is bound to lead Muslim women away from the path of Islam. All ‘modern’ educated Muslim women are painted with the same brush. Thus, Qasmi claims, making no room for exceptions, that all such women “care nothing about religion, do not distinguish between the permissible and the forbidden, know nothing about the angels, don’t know which angels used to deliver the Divine revelations, or how many famous angels there are and what their names are or the details of the life after death, or the number of heavenly books and which prophet received which book and who the first prophet was, or the reality of faith and disbelief”.

Women receiving ‘modern’ education, he goes on, “have no love for Islam. “They use magic and spells to subjugate their husbands, very few of them know the Prophet’s mother’s name and are not observant of prayers and are ignorant of the rules of religious purity.” Muslim women studying in colleges and universities, he says, do so simply to “become European and English”. He accuses their male relatives who facilitate their admission in such institutions as “sellers of their conscience”.

To remedy this situation, Qasmi says, Muslim girls must be educated only in religious madrassas. This is also crucial, he contends, because if women lack religious education their children and the future generations of Muslims might be tempted to disbelief and immorality. Ideally, he lays down, Muslim girls should study in their own homes, from older female relatives or, if this is not possible, then from mehram males who have some knowledge of Islam. Brighter girls can be given higher religious education. For others it is enough to learn “basic religious rules” and observe them. This, Qasmi argues, approvingly quoting the Deobandi scholar Ashraf Ali Thanvi, is the “best method” of girls’ education.

In addition to religious subjects, Qasmi says, they should also be taught various domestic skills. Significantly, he makes no reference at all to the teaching of non-religious disciplines.

Mercifully, Qasmi does not speak for all Muslims or even for all ulema, although his views find a powerful echo among many traditionalist Deobandis. As numerous studies have shown, Muslim families in India today are increasingly seeking to educate their daughters, providing them with both religious as well as secular education. It remains to be seen if, in the face of this, the traditionalist ulema are willing to relent or will continue in their obdurate opposition to anything but a very traditional education for Muslim girls.

The writer is post-doctoral fellow at the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, Leiden. He also edits a web-magazine called Qalandar, which can be accessed at www.islaminterfaith.org

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