Abstract
This book is a critical contribution to ethnographic work in the field of sociology of Muslim societies and to an understanding of issues related to the education of subaltern groups in India. Written in a straightforward style, without much jargon, it examines theoretical debates and issues in a transparent and clear manner. The book ‘argues against textual essentialism, a practice which is rampant when it comes to the study of Muslim societies and cultures. Thus for the present work on madrasas, the Quran and Hadis are not important but people and their practices’ (p. 9).
The first important objective of this excellent ethnographic work is to challenge the vicious stereotyping of madrasas, which took place even before 9/11. ‘The Hindu right termed the madrasas “dens of terror”, training jihadis to massacre Hindus and turn India into an Islamic state’ (p. 1). Arshad Alam’s arguments are based on the recognition that Islam is not a monolithic entity, and the diversity of interpretations within the religion is seen as a matter of contestation over meanings and symbols, reflecting inner struggles over power and authority, especially in relation to claims of defining ‘true Islam’ in maslaki debates. Alam demonstrates this by comparing two madrasas, Ashrafiya and Ehya ul-Ulum, in a town in eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP). The control over Ashrafiya was wrested from a high-status Syed by low-caste Ansari Muslims and it eventually grew to be one of the most prominent of the Barelwi (Ahl e Sunnat wa Jamaat) madrasas in India. Ehya ul-Ulum represents the Deobandi school of thought. Alam details the differences between these two maslaks or interpretive communities, and argues that the two madrasas are predominantly focused on the reproduction of maslaki identities rather than on ‘othering’ non-Muslims. ‘Thus, assuming that madrasas preach hatred towards non-Muslims is simply erroneous’ (p. 196).
Another major focus of the study is the exploration of what studying at a madrasa means for poor, low-caste Muslim children. This issue is dealt with in Chapters 5 and 6, ‘The Madrasa and its Hinterland’ and ‘The Madrasa Regime and its Effects’ respectively. Since students from Bihar constitute a majority at Madrasa Ashrafiya, as they do at so many other madrasas, Alam decided to carry out fieldwork in Purnea district, in north Bihar, where Muslims constitute 36.8 per cent of the district population.
While Alam provides rich ethnographic material from his fieldwork, his methodology has a fundamental flaw. This is related to the question of ‘Muslim society’ and to the ‘study of education for subaltern groups’. The subaltern groups he has studied happen to be Muslim. Does that transform the question of educational backwardness into a ‘Muslim problem’? Alam’s approach implies that it is possible to study ‘Muslims’ in India as an isolable entity. On the one hand, the reader has no clue about the kind of society in which ‘Muslims’ are embedded. On the other hand, the lack of comparison in Alam’s study tends to suggest that the problem of educational backwardness is specifically a Muslim one. Of course, it is the researcher’s prerogative to make certain choices, and in this case it is clear that the researcher is pursuing an examination of those Muslim families that sent their children to Madrasa Ashrafiya in UP. Nevertheless, it would have been interesting to find out the responses of non-Muslim subaltern families in similar circumstances. Then, the issue would not have been treated as merely a ‘Muslim’ problem but as part of a larger ‘subaltern’ problem.
Apart from this methodological problem, which is an important one, Alam has provided a ‘thick description’ of what it means to poor Muslim parents to send their children to a big madrasa and how it transforms the lives of poor, low-caste children.
It is important to understand that madrasas are praised not because they teach Islamic education, but because through this education they are able to inculcate culturally-valued characteristics in the child. What is being stressed by the families is not the religious dimension of the madrasa but the more secular considerations of good virtues in their children. (p. 149)
Apart from maslaki differences, the study also recognises social stratification among Indian Muslims and explores the cultural dimensions of reproduction and the possibilities for the transformation of the system of stratification. This analysis is guided by the theoretical framework provided by Pierre Bourdieu.
Alam argues forcefully about the need to discard certain assumptions about madrasas. These institutions have been viewed in political discourse and in the popular imagination as occupying spaces outside history—as unchanging, traditional and orthodox. However, Madrasa Ashrafiya bestows on the son of a low-caste daily wage earner much more than just a degree in religious education. It confers on him social and cultural capital when he becomes an imam (prayer leader) of a local mosque. This is empowerment. But Alam simultaneously draws another important conclusion regarding the heterogeneous Muslim society, which:
…has devised an internal mechanism of elimination of access to modern schooling: the madrasas wean away a sizable section of Indian Muslims from modern schooling thereby limiting competition for scarce jobs and services…those weaned away are mostly poor and low-caste Muslims so that this process of self-elimination is functional and beneficial for the upper-class and upper-caste Muslims to maintain their monopoly on societal resources. (pp. 207–208)
As a poet has said:
Dair O Kaaba hai, Duaen hain, Khuda hai, Butt hain; Be-saharon ko maissar hain sahare kitne! (There is temple and there is Kaaba, there are blessings, there is God, and there are idols: Look, the helpless have so many options to lean on!)
The nuanced understanding of the madrasa as an educational institution in ‘modern’ times—characterised by its own peculiar diversity and its own specific contestations, power struggles, tensions and contradictions—in Alam’s very important study fills a huge gap in the literature on ‘Muslim societies’. However, it would have been even more valuable had it rid itself of any trace of exceptionalism and located itself as being embedded in the wider ‘Indian society’.