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The Darul Uloom Deoband (Hindi: दारुल उलूम देवबंद dārul ulūm devband) is an Islamic school, where Deobandi Islamic movement was started. It is located at Deoband, a town in Uttar Pradesh, India. It was founded in 1866 by several prominent ulema, headed by Al Imam Mohammad Qasim Nanotwi. The other prominent scholars were Maulana Rashid Ahmed Gangohi and Haji Syed Abid Hussain.

Introduction

The school was founded on May 30, 1866. It became the center of the Islamic sciences in Asia within a couple of years. Accordingly, before long, students desirous of studying the Holy Book and the Sunnah, the Shari'ah and the Tariqah (the spiritual path), began to flock here in droves from this sub continent as well as from neighboring and distant countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Bukhara and Samarqand, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey and the far off regions of the continent of Africa, and within a short-time the radiant rays of knowledge and wisdom illumined the heart and mind of the Muslims of the continent of Asia with the light of faith (Iman) and Islamic culture.

The time when the Darul Uloom Deoband, was established, the old Madaris in India had almost become extinct, and the condition of two or four that had survived the ravages of time was not better than that of a few glow-worms in a dark night. Apparently it so looked at that time as if the Islamic sciences had packed up their kit from India. Under these circumstances, some men of Allah and divine doctors, through their inner light, sensed the imminent dangers. They knew it too well that nations have attained their right status through knowledge only. So, without depending upon the government of the time, they founded the Darul Uloom, Deoband, with public contributions and co-operation. One of the principles that Hazrat Nanautavi (may his secret be sanctified) proposed for the Darul Uloom and other religious Madaris is also this that the Darul-Uloom should be run trusting in Allah and with public contributions for which the poor masses alone should be relied upon.

The Darul-Uloom, Deoband, is today a renowned religious and academic center in the Islamic world. In the sub-continent it is the largest institution for the dissemination and propagation of Islam and the biggest headspring of education in the Islamic sciences. Such accomplished scholars have come out from the Darul Uloom in every period that they, in accordance with the demands of religious needs of the time, have rendered valuable services in disseminating and spreading correct religious beliefs and religious sciences. These gentlemen, besides in this sub-continent, are busy in performing religions and academic services in various other countries also, and everywhere they have acquired a prominent status or religious guidance of the Muslims. The fact is that the Darul Uloom, Deoband, was a great religious, educational and reformative movement in the thirteenth century Hijri. It was such a crucial and crying need of the time that indifference to and connivance at it could cause Muslims to be confronted with inestimable dangers. The caravan that comprised only two souls on 15th Moharram, A-H. 1283, has today in its train individuals from many countries of Asia!

For the last one century, the Darul Uloom, Deoband, has been considered an incomparable teaching institution for the religious education of the Muslims not only in the sub-continent but also throughout the Islamic world. Besides the Jam'a-e Azhar, Cairo, there is no such institution anywhere in the Islamic world that may have acquired so much importance in point or antiquity, resorting, centrality and strength of students as the Darul Uloom, Deoband, has. The foundation of the Darul Uloom had been laid in this obscure, sleepy village of India at the hands of such sincere and august men that within a short time its academic greatness was established in the world of Islam. And it began to be looked upon as the most popular educational institution of the Islamic world, students from the Islamic countries flocking to it for the study and research of different arts and sciences. A large number of personalities, well-versed in the religions sciences, found today in the length and breadth of this sub-continent has quenched its thirst from this very great river of knowledge, and eminent religious doctors (Ulama) have been once the alumni of this very educational institution. It is a fact that as regards the worth of academic services not only in the sub-continent but also in other Islamic countries there is no other educational institution except one or two, that may have rendered such weighty and important religious and academic services to the Muslim community. The achievements of the Ulama of the Darul Uloom in the fields of religion, education, missionary-work and book writing have been acknowledged repeatedly. And the achievements not only in India but also in other Islamic lands, and in the fields especially of guidance and instruction, teaching and preaching they seem to be ahead of all others. In the Muslim society of the sub-continent, the command a high rank and a lofty position. With the tumult of the fame of the Darul Uloom even the academic assemblies of Afghanistan, Bukhara and Samarqand reverberated. Us graduates became deans and principals of great Madaris, and it is an authentic history. And a fact to assert that this spring of grace of the Darul Uloom, Deoband, by virtue of its ethos, has been busy for more than a century. In quenching the thirst of the seekers of knowledge of different sciences and the whole of Asia is redolent with the aroma of this prophetic garden. Among the hundreds of thousands of seminaries in the world of Islam today there are only two such institutions on which the Muslims have relied most of all: the one is Jam'a-e-Azhar, Cairo, and the other is Darul Uloom, Deoband. The religious services both these institutions of learning have rendered to the Muslims are sui generis. These very religious, academic and intellectual services of the Darul Uloom have made it a cynosure in the Islamic world. And what is more astonishing is that the Darul Uloom without being dependent on the government has made all these advancements. The blessings (Barakat) of the Darul Uloom and its universal beneficence are indicating that upon this academic institution a special theophany (Tajalli) of divine and prophetic knowledge has cast its light, which regularly continues to attract hearts towards it. What and how many great achievements the Darul Uloom, Deoband, made, what and how many renowned personalities it produced and how they imprinted the stamp of their service and utility in every field of religious life. All these things you will know by going through this history of the Darul Uloom, Deoband.

However much pride and joy the Muslims of the sub-continent express over the existence of the Darul Uloom Deoband, there can be no doubt about its being correct and justified. The history of the Darul Uloom in the present times is a bright chapter in the history of the Muslims effort and endeavor; this great struggle for the survival of religion and freedom of thought cannot be over looked in the history of Islam and the Muslims. Darul Uloom, Deoband, is in fact a shore less ocean from which, besides those of this sub-continent, the seekers of knowledge of the whole of Asia are benefiting. If the history of the Darul Uloom is studied minutely, a perspicacious reader will not fail to see the reality that it is not merely an old-type teaching institution; it is in fact a stupendous movement for the revival of Islam and the survival of the community.

The establishment of this seminary in the land of Deoband and its stability is the result of a concerted effort and endeavor of the Muslims of the sub-continent. Service to religion, support to Islam, renaissance of Islamic arts and sciences and their dissemination, and help to the students craving religious knowledge are the special and momentous achievements of the Darul Uloom Deoband. For one hundred and fourteen years it has been rendering, as per the pious predecessors tack, the right-type of academic and gnostic training to the Muslims. Even as Cairo, after the fall of Baghdad, became the center of Islamic arts and sciences, exactly in the same way, after the decline of Delhi, academic centrality fell to the lot of Deoband. And great illustrious personalities rose up from this teaching institution, innumerable scholars were fostered in its laps, and thousands of Ulama, Shaikhs, traditionists, jurisconsults, authors and experts of other arts and sciences were produced here. And, having become an adornment in the firmament of knowledge and action rendered and are still rendering services to religion in different manners in every nook and corner of the sub-continent.The history of the Darul Uloom, Deoband, is a historical chapter on an epoch-making period in the history of Islam as a whole. The long and short of this is that this overflowing ocean of arts and sciences has so far assuaged the thirst of a very large number of the seekers of knowledge, who having become the vernal air, have spread its academic aura in the four corners of the world. Those who benefited from the Darul Uloom are like a luxuriant free the green and fresh branches and foliage of which it is not easy to compute.

Darul Uloom Deoband, has been a center of both the Shariah and the Tariqa from the very day of its inception. All the moons and stars in the sky of the Shariah and the Tariqa and knowledge and action that are at the time shining in the sub-continent have been mostly illuminated by this very brilliant sun, and have come out assuaged from this very head spring of knowledge and gnosis. Every one knows that most of the great Ulama of the sub-continent has been the alumni of this very institution. And those who feasted at the dinner-cloth of Darul Uloom are now present in most of the Asian countries, where as well as in the sub-continent and certain other foreign lands. They have enkindled the lamps of the Holy Book and the Sunnah, and have imparted the grace of instruction and guidance to countless people. Darul Uloom, Deoband, has played a great part in investing the Muslims thoughts and views with freshness and sacredness, their hearts with ambition and courage, and their bodies with strength and energy. Its beneficence universal and countless men, to satisfy whose academic eagerness there were no means available, have quenched their thirst from it. At the same time, on the model of Darul.Uloom sprang up many religious and academic springs, each having its own particular many of circle of its benefit and grace. They are all the stars of this very solar system by the light of which every nook and corner of the religious and academic life of the Muslims of the sub-continent is radiant.

Very little attention has been paid to this benefit of these ýreligious schools that on account of them the condition of millions of Muslim families has been ameliorated. The Muslims inferiority complex was removed and that through these schools became available to the community innumerable such individuals, who, according to the conditions and time, guided the Muslims in the different aspects of life.

Besides their great services in the revival of Islam, they awakened political consciousness among the Muslims and took leading part in the struggle for freedom as a result of which the countries of the sub-continent acquired independence.

Even as in the past the Darul Uloom, Deoband, has rendered invaluable services to the cause of Islam, the Muslims and the religious sciences. It is hoped that in future too it will continue to discharge the obligation of inciting the Muslims power of action, of strengthening the faiths and of preaching and propagating Islam.

Background

In 1857, the British East India Company put down a rebellion by disparate north Indian forces, conducted in the name of the otherwise powerless Bahadur Shah Zafar. Emperor Zafar became the last Mughal Emperor, as he was deposed the following year and exiled to Burma, with many of his sons -- princes of the decayed dynasty -- put to death. This marked a seminal moment for Indo-Islamic consciousness, specifically for the established Muslim elites of north India, who tended to view 1857 as the end of their political predominance and the beginning of what could be a dark period of Muslim history.

In this situation, 'Hujjatul Islam Al-Imam Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanotwi established the Darul Uloom Seminary in the town of Deoband, north of Delhi, from which many Muslim elites had fled. The pedagogical philosophy of Deoband was focused on teaching revealed Islamic sciences, known as manqulat, to the Indian Muslim population. Following in the Hanafi tradition, Nanautavi established a seminary which instituted modern methods of learning -- classrooms, fixed schools, exam periods, prizes, a publishing press -- but which consciously divorced itself from political participation and shunned English-language education. Instead, Deoband instructed its students primarily in Urdu, and then in Arabic and Persian, helping to cement the growing association of the Urdu language with the (north) Indian Muslim community.

Deoband's curriculum is based on the 17th-century Indo-Islamic syllabus known as Dars-e-Nizami. Its over 15,000 graduates have gone on to found many other maddrassas across modern India, Pakistan, and farther afield. The school of the Islamic religion promulgated here is often described as Deobandi.

Description

The Dars-e-Nizami curriculum followed by Darul Uloom Deoband teaches Islamic law (shariah), Islamic jurispridence (Fiqh), traditional Islamic spirituality, known as tasawwuf, which is the practice of Sufism, as well as several other fields of Islamic study. The current syllabus consists of four stages. The first three stages can be completed in a total of eight years. The final stage is a post-graduate stage where students specialize in a number of advanced topics, such as the sciences of Hadeeth, Fiqh etc.

Its students have gone on to found many other maddrassas across modern India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and farther afield: as its official website proclaims, 'the whole of Asia is redolent with the aroma of this prophetic garden.' It has often drawn comparisons to Al-Azhar University in Cairo in regard to influence. The school of the Islamic religion promulgated here is often described as Deobandi.

Many Islamic schools throughout the Indian subcontinent, and more recently, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, are affiliated or theologically linked to Darul Uloom Deoband, such as Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow, Madrassah In'aamiyyah Camperdown, near Durban in South Africa, and Darul Uloom Karachi in Pakistan as well as hundreds of others throughout the world.

The Track ( Maslak ) of Darul Uloom

The track of Darul Uloom Deoband, shall be in accordance with the Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah, Hanafiate practical method (Mazhab) and the disposition (Mashrab) of its holy founders, Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Qasim Nanautavi (Allah's mercy be on him!) and Hazrat Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi (may his secret be sanctified).

The preservation of the track of Darul Uloom shall be a duty of all the members and kindred of the Darul Uloom. No employee or student of Darul Uloom shall be permitted to attend any such society, institution or function the attendance where of may be injurious to the track or interest of the Darul Uloom.

As far as the religious attitude of Darul Uloom and its elders is concerned, it has been clearly stated in a very eloquent and concise manner by Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Tayyib, vice chancellor of Darul Uloom in his treatise entitled Maslak-e-Ulama-e-Deoband.Its summary, more or less in his own words, is as follows:

"Academically this Waliyullahian party is, by track, Ahlus Sunnah wal-Jama'ah, which is based on the Book, the Sunnah, consensus (Ijm'a) and analogy (Qiyas). According to it, the foremost position in all propositions (Masa'il) is held by tradition (Naql), narration (RiwayaT) and the predecessors historical traditions (A'sar), on which the entire building of religion rests. With it, the purports of the Book and the Sunnah can be determined not merely by the power of study but by being confined within the limits of the predecessors' saying and their bequeathed taste, and, to boot, through the company of and attendance on the Shaikhs and their teachings and training. At the same time, intellect and knowledge (Derayat) and discernment of religion (Tafaqqoh Fiddin), too are according to it, a very important factor in the under standing of the Book and the Sunnah. Keeping the intent and purpose of the Legislator (peace be on him!) from amongst the collection of traditions (Riwayat) before itself it connects all the traditions to it and concatenates all of them grade wise at their respective places in such a way that they all look like links of the same chain. Hence the "collocation of tradition" (Jama Bainar Riwaytain) and the "condition of Hadiths' (Tatbiq-e-Ahadith) at the time of mutual contradiction is its main principle the purport of which is that it does not want to leave or omit even the weakest of the weak traditions, so long as it is not fit to be protested against. On this basis, in the sight of this party, contradiction and variance is not felt anywhere in the explicit legal texts; on the contrary, the entire religion, being free from contradiction and variance, looks like a bouquet in which academic and practical flowers of every hue look blooming at their respective places. Along with this, self-purification (Tazkiya-e-Nafs) and self-improvement (Islah-e-Batin), in accordance with the manner of the wayfarers (Ahl-e-Sulook), which is innocent of and free from formalities, usage's and exhibitive rapture and discourse, are also necessary in this track. It favored its dedicated followers with the heights of knowledge as well as adorned them with human morals like slave hood (Abadiyat) and humility. If the members of this party, on the one hand, reached the heights of academic dignity, self-satisfaction (Istaghna) - academically - and self-content (Ghina-e-Nafs) - morally - on the other, they were also abundantly invested with the humbling sentiments of complaisance, humility, self-denial and abstinence; neither did they become a prey to arrogance, pride and self-conceit nor were involved in self-humiliation and wretchedness. While they, reaching the heights of knowledge and morality, began to look higher than the common run of men, at the same time, adorned with the virtues of humility and sub-mission humbleness and complaisance and non-discrimination, they mixed freely with the masses and yet remained "unique among the people". While they sought seclusion for striving with the unregenerate soul (Mujahada) and spiritual communion or contemplation (Muraqaba), at the same time they also displayed warrior - and crusader-like zeal as also feelings for communal service. In short, through the mixed feelings and desires of knowledge and morality, seclusion and congregation (Jalwat), striving and jihad, moderation and the golden mean became they distinctive feature in every religion circle; which is a natural Corollary of the comprehensiveness of sciences and moderateness of morals. It is for this reason that among them the meaning of becoming a traditionalist is not to be dispute with the jurisconsult or of being a jurist consult is not to be disgusted with the traditionalist; or the meaning of Nisbat-e-Ihsani (predilection for Sufism) is not to be hostile to the dialectician (Mutakallim) or the meaning of acumen in dialectics is not to be weary of Sufism. On the contrary, under this comprehensive track the graduate of this institution proved, by gradation, simultaneously a traditionalist, a jurisprudence, a professional commentator of the Quran, a Mufti, a dialectician, a Sufi (Muhsin), a physician and a protector (Murabbi), in whom the mixed sentiments of abstinence and contentment sans beggarliness, modesty and self-effacement sans cajolement, com-passion and mercy with "enjoining the right conduct" (Amr bil-ma'roof) and "the forbidding of indecency" (Nahi anil-munkar), composure of heart with communal service and "solitude in a crowd" (khalwat Dar Anjuman), became firm. Or, the other hand, the feelings of moderation, recognition of dues and the fulfillment of rights in regard to arts and sciences and the men of arts and sciences permeated in them as virtues of the self. Hence all the masters of learning and excellence and the well-versed scholars in all the branches of religion, whether they be traditionists or jurisprudenis, Sufis or Gnostics, scholastic theologians or fundamentalists, the nobles of Islam or caliphs, all of them are worthy of respect and faith in their sight. To extol or run down any class of Ulama or to be careless as regards legal limits in praise or censure is not the track of this party. With this comprehensive method the Darul-Uloom, by its academic services, diffused the light of the prophetic sciences from Siberia in the north to Java and Sumatra in the south and from Burma in the east to Arabia and Africa in the west, wherefore the thorough fares of sacred morals became clearly visible.

On the other hand, its scholars never shrank from political and national services, so much so that, from 1803 to 1947, the individuals of this party offered in their own style the greatest possible sacrifices which are on record in the pages of history. The political and warrior-like strives of these august men can never be concealed; particularly the events in the second half of the thirteenth century when the Mughal regime was tottering, the efforts for revolution, jihad-like steps and self-sacrificing struggle under the auspices especially of Shaikhul Masha'ikh Haji lmdadullah for the national liberty and independence, and the imprisonment and bandage on arrest-warrants of his two favorite proselytes (Murids), viz., Maulana Mohammad Qasim and Maulana Rasheed Ahmed and their dedicated followers and attendants, are such historical facts which can neither be denied nor thrown into oblivion. The people who wish to conceal them merely for the reason that they were themselves not accepted in the path of sacrifice will add to their own unpopularity. According to research scholars and those who are knowledgeable about this aspect of the Indian history, all such writings whether emanating from one who may have some connection with Deoband or from a non-Deobandi that negate the jihad-like services of these august men are unreliable and absolutely unworthy of attention. If a favorable view is taken the utmost accounting of these writings can be only this much that these writings, as a result of the awesome factors of the time, are a demonstration of foresight and circumspection to the personal extent, Otherwise, in view of the historical and factual evidences, they have neither any importance nor are worthy of consideration. The sequence of these services continuously went further and with the same inherited feelings the well-guided successors of these elders also continued to come forward in a self-sacrificing manner in connection with national and communal services; whether it was the Khilafat Movement or the release of the native land from the foreign yoke, they, in exact proportion, took part in all these revolutionary ventures.

In short, while the comprehensiveness of knowledge and morals was always the distinctive feature of this party, service to religion and community, nation and country with breadth of vision, enlightenment and toleration was its practice. But in all these walks of life the utmost importance in this party has been given to the imparting of the prophetic sciences, as all these walks of life could be brought into effect correctly only in the light of knowledge and therefore it kept this aspect only conspicuous. Hence the summary of the comprehensiveness of this track is that it is inclusive of knowledge and gnosis, inclusive of reason and love, inclusive of action and morals, inclusive of spiritual striving and jihad, inclusive of rectitude and politics, inclusive of tradition and intelligence, inclusive of seclusion (khalwat) and public appearance (jalwat), inclusive of devotions and social life, inclusive of commandment and wisdom, inclusive of the exterior and the interior, and inclusive of ecstasy and discourse. If this track which has been obtained through the spiritual connections (Nisbats) of the predecessors and the successors is reduced to technical language, then in sum it is this that religiously Darul Uloom is Muslim; as a sect, Ahl-e-Sunnat wal-Jama'at; in practical method, (Mazhab), Hanafi'yat; in conduct, Sufi; dialectically, Maturidi Ash'ari; in respect of the mystic path, Chishtiyyah, rather comprising all the Sufi orders; in thought, Waliyullhian; in principle, Qasimiyah; sectionally, Rasheedian; and as regards connection, Deobandi".

Since a separate treatise entitled "Maslak -e- Darul Uloom" has already been written in this connection, the need of greater detail is not felt on this occasion and its comprehensive sentences only have been excerpted here. For details, one can refer to the said treatise.

Moreover, greater detail here is unnecessary for the reason that a very clear sketch of this track has been written by Qari Saheb in his introduction to this history. However, a synopsis of this extensive article was necessary and so, at my request, he wrote it himself and gave me, The verbatim text is as under:-

"The summary of it is that this moderate track is based on seven basic foundations, which, with brief elucidation of each, are as follows:-

1- KNOWLEDGE OF THE SHARI'AT: Which includes all the branches of beliefs, devotions and worldly dealings etc. The outcome of which is faith (Iman) and Islam; provided this knowledge may have been acquired, being restricted to the sphere of the sayings and practices of the predecessors, through the teaching; training and grace of the company of authoritative divine doctors and discipliners of the hearts whose chain of exterior and interior, knowledge and practice, understanding and taste may have continuously reached through continual authority to the Author of the Shari'at (on whom be most excellent blessings and greetings !); and may not be the result of self-opinion or mere book-reading and power of study or mere rational search and intellectual investigation, though it may not be devoid of rational style of description and argumentative proof and demonstration, for without this knowledge, distinguishing between right and wrong, legitimate and illegitimate, permissible and impermissible, the Sunni and the innovation, the abominable (Makrooh) and the commendable (Mandoob) is not possible nor is release possible from wild fancies, philosophical theories and blind superstitions in religion.

2- THE FOLLOWING OF THE PATH: That is, consummation of good breeding, self-purification and spiritual traversing (Sulook-e-Batin) within the auspices of researching Sufis and their well-tried principles (inferred from the Book and the Sunnat), because, without this, moderateness in morals, stability of zest and ecstasy, internal insight, mental purity and observation of reality are not possible. It is obvious that this branch is connected with Ahsan along with faith and Islam.

3- CONFORMITY TO THE SUNNAT: That is, conformance to the prophetic Sunnat in every walk of life and dominance of the permanent Sunnat thorough maintaining respect of the Shar'at in every 'state' (Hal) and 'utterance' (Qal), every condition of the exterior and the interior; for without it, It is impossible to be released from the conventions of ignorance, customary innovations and prohibited indecencies. and from the calamity of customarily imitating the ecstatic utterances and sayings of 'men of states' in spite of the lack of spiritual states of giving those utterances the status of a permanent general law parallel to the shari'at.

4- JURISPRUDENTIAL HANAFATISM: The name of Islamic practical doctrines (fra'iyat) and casuistic interpretations of laws (ijtehai'yat) is Fiqh (jurisprudence). And since the elders of Darul Uloom are generally Hanafi'at, the meaning of jurisprudential Hanafiatism is compliance with the hanafi'at jurisprudence in casuistic practical doctrines, and conformance to its principles of jurisprudence only in the education and preference of propositions and fatwas; for without it elusion from the desires of the evil self in educible propositions and, through the way of colligation, operating capriciously under different systems of jurisprudence, excision in the contents of propositions in accordance with the desires of the hoi polloi or guess and conjecture under the awe of emergency conditions and shallow changes and innovations in propositions through unlearnedness are unavoidable. It is obvious that this branch appertains to Islam.

5- DIALECTICAL MATURIDIISM: That is, as regards beliefs, the sustentation of the power of certitude and the stability of true beliefs with right thinking in accordonce to the laws and principles determined and codified through the method of the Ahlus Sunnat wal-Jama'at and the Asha'ira and the Matureedia; for without it escape from the doubts cast by the tergiversators and the conjectural innovations, superstitions and skepticism of the false sects is not possible. It is evident that this branch is connected with faith (iman).

6- DEFENSE AGAINST TERGIVERSATION AND DEVIATION: That is, defense against the mischiefs raised by bigoted cliques and tergiversators, but in the language and expression of the time, with consciousness of the psychology of the milieu and through the contemporary familiar means where the argument or proof may be completed. Moreover, efforts with a crusader-like spirit for stamping them out, for without these the removal of the unlawful things (munkarat) and protecion of the Shari'at from the encroachment of the antagonists is not possible. It includes refutation of polytheism and innovation, confutation of atheism and materialism, correction of the customs of ignorance, and, as per need, polemics, verbal or in writing, and the changing of unlawful things. It is obvious that this branch is concerned with the elevation of the word of allah in accordance with "While Allah's word it was that become the uppermost" and the expression of religion be in accordance with "He may cause it to prevail over all religion" and the general organization of the community.

7- THE TASTE FOR QASIMISM AND RASHEEDISM: Then while the same track, with its collective dignity, appeared after passing through the hearts and souls of the first patrons of Darul Uloom Deoband, and the feelers of the pulse of the community, it drew in the demands of the time in it and adopted the form of a particular taste which has been denoted with the word 'mashrab' (disposition, nature, temper, conduct). Accordingly, in the basic constitution of Darul Uloom Deoband (dustoo-e- Asasi-e- Darul Uloom Deoband), which was approved in Sha'ban, A.h. 1368, this reality has been stated in the following words: "The track of the Darul Uloom, Deoband, will be the hanafi'at practical method (mazhab) in accordance with the Ahlus Sunnat wal-Jama'at and the disposition (mashrab) of its holy founders, Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi and Hazrat Maulana Rasheed Ahmad Gangohi (may their secrets be sanctified !)".

    Hence among the constituents of the track of Darul Uloom this factor is an important element on which the establishment of the education and training of Darul Uloom working. It comes under Ahsan (god-consciousness), while it is connected with spiritual training. Thus the knowledge of the Shari'at, the following of the path, conformity to the Sunnat, Jurisprudential Hanafitism, dialectical Maturidiism, defense against deviation, and the taste for Qasimism and Rasheedism are the constituents of this moderate track which answers well to "seven ears, in every ear a hundred grains" (11:261). If these "seven ears" are expressed in shara'i language, they can be interpreted as Iman (faith), Islam, Ashan and Izhar-e- Deen (demonstration of religion), as has been indicated item-wise above. The collection of all these seven articles with the above-mentioned details is the track of Darul Uloom Deoband. if it is mused over, this track will be found to be an exact epitome of the Hadith-e- Jibra'il in which, on Gabriel's questioning, the Holy Prophet (Allha's peace and blessings be on him!) has described Islam, Iman, Ahsan ans defense against mischiefs in detail and has called it the teaching of religion. Hence it witt not be inappropriate if it is said that track of the Ulama of Deoband is Hadith-e- Jibra'il itself. 

    Then the basis and foundation of all these basic elements are the Book of Allah, the Sunnat of the Apostle of Allah, the consensus of the ummat, and casuistic analogy, out of which the first two proofs are legislative (fashri'i) with w the Shari'at is formed and the last two are derivative (taf'ri'i) by which the Shari'at is opened. The first two proofs are the treasure of explicit texts which are traditional, for which authority (sanad) and (riwayat) are inevitable; the next two proofs are rational for which trained reason and understanding and habitually pious mind and taste are ineluctable. Hence this moderate track is traditional as well as rational, narrative as well as intelligential; but in such a way that it is neither extraneous to reason nor based upon it, but has been rather raised in such a way with a balanced mixture of reason and tradition that tradition and revelation (wahy) are the root in it and reason is its all-time attendant and agent. 

   Thus this track of the ulama of Deoband is neither the track of the rationalist Mutazilites in which, acknowledging reason to be covereign and master over tradition, reason has been made the root and revelation or its meaning its subject, whereby religion is rendered a mere philosophy, the paths of atheism (zandaqa) are made even for the rank and file and at the same time the connection of the simple-minded faithful with the religion does not remain intact. Nor is this track that of the externalists (zahiriya) in which dead-locked or being inert over the words of revelation, reason and intellect have been thrown into abeyance, and, bidding adieu to the esoteric causes and mysteries and inner points of wisdom and experiences of religion, all the ways of ijtehad and inference have been blocked, whereby religion is rendered something unreal, rather, something meaningless, unreasonable and static, and the wise and the sagacious then have no more relation with it. Thus in one track there in left reason and reason alone and in the other reason becomes suspended and idle. It is obvious that both these directions are of the two extremes and of "whose case ha?h been abandoned" (XVIII : 29) from which this middle, comprehensive and moderate religion is free. Hence this alone is the track that includes both reason and tradition and it can be this only that in all roots and offshoots common sense should always remain with authentic tradition, but as an obedient and compliant attendant and agent of the religion so that it may keep supplying rational proofs, reasonable arguments and perceptible evidences and examples for each of its generalities and details whereby religion may prove acceptable for every class of the ummat an all-sided constitution of life, and this ummat may look a correct answer to "Thus We have appointed you a middle nation" (11:143). This thack alone is called the track of the Ahlus Sunnat wal-Jama'at and the ulama of Deoband are the heralds and standard-bearers of this very track . It is for this reason that on account of the culmination of this comprehensive track and all these religious sciences, they are simultaneously commentators of the Quran as well as traditionists, jurisprudents as well as scholastic theologians, sufis as well as strivers with the self (mujahid) and thinkers; and then, with the amalgamation of all these sciences, their disposition is temperate as well as medium. This is the reason that in their party disposition there is neither extremism (ghulu) nor exaggeration (mubalagha), and due to this breadth of vision there is neither anathematizing (takfir) nor scurrility, neither obloquy nor ill-speaking against anyone, neither obstinacy and envy and indignation nor dominance of position and pelf and excess of luxury. It is rather only a statement of proposition and ummat, or the establishment of the truth and refutation of the falsehood, in which there is neither involved the despising and disparagement of personalities nor is there arrogant flouting. The name of the sum-total of the same virtues and particulars is Darul Uloom, Deoband, and it is due to this very academic and practical versatility that its influence has spread over all the countries of world.

The Constitution of Darul-Uloom

THE CONSTITUTION OF DARUL-ULOOM PREPARED BY ITS PIOUS FOUNDER Qasimul-Uloom ("The Distributor of Sciences") Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi (may his secret be sanctified!) (1248/1833 - 1297/1879), who was the caravan-leader and the moving spirit of this educational movement, has rendered glorious and invaluable services to the Muslims of the sub-continent in the academic, educational, missionary literary, political and social fields. In the constitution he has proposed for the establishment and sustaining of seminaries, he has emphatically inculcated the need of adopting the same method of public donation in contrast to the previous system of the period of Islamic rule.

In this constitution he has shown that the following principles should be the fundamentals for the establishment of seminaries:-

(1) The first fundamental is that the functionaries of the Madrasah, as far as possible, always have an eye to the augmentation of the donation. 'Make an effort and also persuade others to do the same'. The well-wishers of the madrasah must always keep this thing in mind.

(2) The well-wishers of the madrasah, as far as they can, should endeavor for the continuous supply of food to the students; rather, for increasing the number of students.

(3) The counsellors of the Madrasah should always bear in mind that the Madrasah should acquire will-being and excellence, and no one should be unyielding in one's opinion. God forfend! If it comes to such a pass that the counsellors consider opposition to their own opinion and their subscribing to the opinions of others unpalatable, then the foundation of the Madrasah will become shaky. In short, a counsel from the bottom of one's heart in season and, in its context, the excellence of the Madrasah must always be kept in mind. There should be no sticking to one's guns out of bigotry; hence it is necessary that the counsellors should on no account be hesitant in expressing their opinions, and the eudience should always hear them with good faith; i.e., it might be contrary to the opinion of some, it would be accepted with heart and soul. And for the same reason the Vice-chancellor (Muhtamim) also must necessarily seek the counsellors' advice in all important matters, whetter they be the regular counsellors of the Madrasah of any intelligent, knowledgeable visitor who may be a well-wisher of the Madrasahs. Over and above this, it is also necessary that if the vice-chancellor due to some reason, does not chance to consult all the counsellors but may have taken counsel from a proper quorum of them, one should not feel displeased for not being consulted. A counsellor, however, can of course take exception if the vice-chancellor may not have consulted any one.

(4) It is a very necessary thing that all the teachers be of the same humour (Mashrab), and neither presumptuous like the other religious divines of the time nor be after insulting each other. God forbid! if such a turn comes to pass, this madrasah will be plunged into hot waters; it will be imperilled.

(5) The fixed syllabus already prescribed or to be prescribed later through some other deliberation should always be completed; otherwise the madrasah will, firstly, not have good strength, and even if it does get good strength, it will be useless.

(6) So long as there are no regular means of income for this madrasah, it will go on like this, if it please Allah, provided we pin our faith in Him. But if some assured income is obtained, e.g., a fief or a commercial establishment or the promise of a staunch man of means, then it seems that this state of fear and hope which is the source of our appealing to Allah will slip off our fingers, divine succour will cease and mutual disputes will ensue among the functionaries.

In short, a destitution of sorts should always, be kept in mind.

(1) The participation of the government as also that of the affluent appears to be very harmful.

(2) The donation of such people who can afford as much as they can and do not expect fame from it seems to cause more prosperity (Barakah). On the whole, the donor's good faith appears to be the provision for greater durability.

(3) Maulana Muhammad Tayyib Sahib has very apophthegmatically elucidated these eight principles which have been published in a separate pamphlet entitled Azadi-e-Hind ka Ek Khamosh Rahnuma. In the first, second, sixth, seventh, eighth clauses of this constitution, public donation has been specifically suggested as the substitute for endowments, and at the same time it has also been stressed that it is necessary to abstain from assured sources of income as otherwise hope and fear which are the real cause of appealing to Allah will be lost.

The Universal Religious call and Educational Movement

Darul-Uloom Deoband, is a great central and religious teaching institution ·f the Muslims of Asia which has been rendering for a period of more than 114 years the service for the reviving and progress of religious sciences like Tafsir, Hadith, Fiqh, Kalam, culture, morality, etc. After the collapse of the Mughal sultanate in India when the English, in view of their own political expediencies, had altogether abolished the old institutions teaching the Islamic arts and sciences, at that time not only for the survival of the Islamic arts and sciences and the Islamic culture but also for keeping Muslims as Muslims, it was an urgent need of the time to establish a great teaching institution on great foundations in order to protect the Indian Muslims from the great threatening mischief of atheism and religiousness. The responsibility of preserving Islam then devolved on the band of Ulema and the land of India is a witness that they did not show any dereliction in discharging their duty in time. Thanks to Allah Most High that these expectations were fulfilled in full measure and in a short time the fame of Darul-Uloom reached its apogee and before long it became an international university, not only of the Indian Muslims but also of the Muslims of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Indonesia, Malayasia, Burma, Tibet-, Sri Lanka and the countries of East and South Africa; now around one and a half thousand students from India and outside India flock to it every year. Darul-Uloom Deoband, is not merely a teaching institution; it is infect a movement, an independent school of thought, a shoreless sea from which, besides those of India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh, students from the whole of Asia and east and south Africa are acquiring knowledge. Almost all the teachers in all the religions schools that exist today in the subcontinent are directly or indirectly those who have benefited from Darul-Uloom and every year hundreds of students graduating from here, discharge the duty of propagating religion through leaching, preaching, sermonising and compiling of books and now this range has spread upto Europe, England and America. Darul-Uloom Deoband, has rendered yeoman service in taking the Muslims of the sub-continent to a distinguished position in their religions life. It is not only an international educational centre but is also such a centre of intellectual development, cultural evolution and communal aspirations that the Muslims have always had confidence in and pride over its authentic knowledge and high ethos. Even as the Arabs had once saved the sciences of the Greeks -from being wasted, the 93 Darul-Uloom Deoband, has similarly rendered invaluable services to the Islamic sciences, particularly to the science of Hadith, in the present limes, which is a golden achievement in the academic history of Islam. Darul-Uloom Deoband, has not only provided prodigious means of maintaining and preserving the religious sciences and Islamic values in India, but it has also cast, at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries Hijri, very far-reaching and fruitful influences. Discomfited in the uproarious revolution of 1857, the Muslims had been overcome with great depression and pessimism. A dreadful bowling wilderness was rampant in their academic and cultural environments. Had Darul-Uloom been not established and had it not served as a torch in .hose dark limes, it is difficult to say what would have been the Indian Muslims' history today. In short, the glorious services Darul-Uloom Deoband, has been rendering for the last one century in respect of the religious education, preaching and sermonising, correction of beliefs and morals and the conservation of religion, are not hidden from anyone today. The graduates of Darul-Uloom, accordingly, are busy in many countries in giving religious guidance to Muslims and in teaching, preaching and reforming. In the words of Maulana Abul Hasan All Nadvi; "The rapport which the graduals of Darul-Uloom have with the common Muslims is not had by any other religious group, A network of Arabic Madaris has spread all over India and the Ulema and graduates of this institution are gracing the Masnads of teaching in them. They are considered trustworthy among the Muslim masses and are influential in the masques and the Mohallas (localities)". So however much the Muslims of the sub-continent exult over the existence of Darul-Uloom, it will not be improper. After the start of the British system of education in India when a new culture and a new era was beginning here, the elders of Darul-Uloom opportunely felt the necessity and importance of the Muslims' religious education. With public co-operation and the common Muslim's donations they started the movement for religious education and the establishment of Islamic Madaris. By Allah's grace and favour this movement of theirs gained popularity amongst the Muslims with the result that religious schools were started at many places in the subcontinent and a network of which spread all over India before long and has been widening day by day. In short, Darul-Uloom Deoband, arranged such a bouquet of its graduates in which parti-coloured and multi-coloured flowers are providing by their fragrance the means of exhilaration and delight to the smelling-sense of the soul. Who is not aware of this reality that students alone are the true reservoir of a people's strength? There is no dearth of promising young men among the Muslim community. There are however today countless young men and children who do have an eagerness and penchant for studies but financial difficulties come in their way. They want to walk but cannot walk; they wish to advance but cannot advance; they desire to come up but cannot come up; and yet the very same young men and children will constitute our future tomorrow. Feeling this helplessness and encumbrance, the Darul-Uloom Deoband, and all the other seminaries founded in its wake, have opened the thorough tares for the prosecution of studied for the students of religious sciences by making education free along with free facilities for food, clothing and lodging; and have removed all those obstacles and shackles which came in 'the way of acquiring education. The point of view of the religious schools is that the true key for the treasure of the world is the key of religion. Those prosecuting studies in the religious schools with this point of view are undoubtedly living a successful life. As far as the demand for their services in that subcontinent is concerned, it is increasing day by day. In this respect the future of the graduates of the religious schools is bright and satisfactory. After completing their education whichever walk of life the graduates of the Darul-Uloom selected for themselves, they were successful in it; and the complaint of unemployment is being rarely heard about them, although among the students of modern education this complaint of joblessness is quite common. In its more-than-one-hundred-year history the Darul-Uloom, on the one hand, has given the Indian Muslims a progressive consciousness of social life and, on the other, a counterbalance between thought and action. If a class of Muslims today .has adopted a rational interpretation of Islamic views, a satisfactory elucidation of Islamic thoughts, and a correct Islamic life, it is mainly the result of the more than one hundred year old academic and practical struggle of the Darul-Uloom. Contrary to the common reports the religious proclivity here has never been reactionary and obscurantism. Darul-Uloom, while grasping its basic principles firmly, has, in changing circumstances, always sided with the spirit of the age. as far as the Islamic principles permit. In this respect it can be said that Darul-Uloom is an educational institute which has been established on a 95 beautiful confluence of the old and the new, and its more than hundred year old glorious traditions are a herald of its brilliant past and a messenger of its great -future.

THE ACADEMIC AND RELIGIOUS BENEFACTION OF DARUL-ULOOM DEOBAND

There is no doubt about it that the Muslims, due to their infirmities, bidding farewell to sovereignty, had set seal to the decision of death of their collective life. But Divine Will wanted to preserve them. This required religious warmth which has always been the fountain-head of the Muslims progress. The land of Deoband was chosen for this fountainhead. Accordingly, for centuries this land was being given good tidings through the auspicious tongues of Hazrat Mujaddid Alf-e-Thani and Hazrat Sayyid Ahmed Shaheed that it would become the cradle of prophetic sciences. Most probably it was for this reason that the gentlemen who took part in the founding and establishing of Darul-Uloom were not only adorned with external sciences but their hearts were also the reservoirs and reflectors of the effulgence of divine lights, and who had been especially appointed through special inspiration for the establishment of Darul-Uloom. Hazrat Qazi Muhammad lsma'il Manglori who has been one of the great saints, says : "Darul-Uloom Deoband, Mazahir-e-Uloom of Saharanpur and Madrasa-e-Shahi of Moradabad are not among those Madaris which are being established by chance; these Madaris have been established through special inspirations". Maulana Hafiz Muhammad Ahmed, the fifth vice-chancellor of Darul-Uloom, writes in one of his memoranda that: "In this world of causes whatever fame, respect, high position, esteem, progress and popularity this Madrasah has achieved is sheerly Allah's bounty and special favour to this Madrasah. From the inception this Madrasah has received the patronage of such favourites of the Divine Court and training of such special men of God through whose internal and external 'confrontation' (Tawajjuh, a technique of contemplation, concentrating one's being upon someone; Translator) this Madrasah day by day achieved every kind of progress. Sincerity in the members, unity among the teachers, good and prosperity (Barakah) in every matter and the hourly progress, etc.- all these things are a sign of the confrontation of the same august men and trust in Allah of the same benefactors". There is no doubt about this fact that whatever has been Allah's dealing with this Ummah and even as. He has helped it repeatedly in the past, this time also the divine miracle appeared. In the light of the philosophy of history this event can be put into these words that this was a natural reaction to the unfavourable circumstances which shook the Muslims' mental faculties out of their sleep and revivified them. It is very necessary to know here as to what kind of results and fruits of education and training of Darul-Uloom were produced among the Indian Muslims and other Islamic countries, for the true criterion of the success of anything can be only its consequences and results. In this connection, a long time back, the famous Urdu daily "Zamindar" of Lahore, had written the following about Darul-Uloom Deoband: "At this time a large number among the personalities well-versed in religious sciences seen in the length and breadth of India consists of those who have come out assuaged from this river of knowledge (Darul-Uloom Deoband). All the great Ulema of India have been students of this glorious Madrasah and intact no other teaching institute in India can compote with it in the valuable's of academic services. Not only this, but in foreign countries also, except one or two, there is no other seminary which can stand comparison with it and which may have rendered such important services to the bright Islamic nation". Darul-Uloom Deoband, had been established at a time when the Madaris for religious education had altogether become extinct in India and that time looked like approaching when vis-à-vis the modern education and its influences in India the light of religious education, Islamic commandments and religious usage's might have been lost or al least might have got bedded. During those tumultuous limes it was Darul-Uloom which steadied the tossing and teetering boat of the community and hence as far as the renascence of the social life of the Muslims concerned, it can be said off hand that a large part of its history is connected with the skirt of the continua educational and missionary struggle of Darul-Uloom. In the long life of Darul-Uloom a good many storms of accidents arose and a good many revolutions. 97 occurred in the politics and conditions of the country, but this institution, remaining unruffled, continued to fulfil with almost perseverance and steadiness the objectives with which it had come into existence, lt. is a tact that during these tumults of thought and ideas and in the period of movements steeped in the mischief of the West, had there been no existence of the Arabic schools generally and that of an academic institution like Darul-Uloom particularly, then it is ineffable in what gigantic maelstrom of inertia and insensitiveness the Muslims would have been engulfed. In guidance and inculcation, preaching and commemoration (Tazkir), education and training and in improving the people there is no comer where the graduates of Darul-Uloom may not be busy and may not have played an important role in reforming and training the Muslim community. The splendour of the great functions and gatherings held for the call to and guidance of religion, and preaching and sermonising, at present in India is due to the presence of the honourable Ulema of the same, Darul-Uloom; the seals of teaching in all the big Islamic Madaris in the country today are being graced by these very gentlemen. As regards educational thought and practice Darul-Uloom has always traversed a particular tack. This tack fully reflects the light of its intelligence and perspicacity and its understanding of the times; and not only at that time but even after a pretty long time a large body of our educational experts was unable to understand it. However, the turn of event; at last brought the sincerity of action of Darul-Uloom into full relief like a sunny day, so much so that even those circles in which Darul-Uloom had been opposed vehemently had to acknowledge its necessity and services. Accordingly, once when its opponents had started a movement to get the financial help it was receiving from Hyderabad (Deccan) cut off. Sir Ross Mas'ud who was then the education minister in the Hyderabad Slate, opposing the said movement, had written; "Although we are striving for the dissemination of the English language, even as our effort for the betterment of our worldly economic life is correct, the existence of Deoband (Darul-Uloom) for our religions need is also necessary". Khwaja Khalil Ahmed Shah, the keeper of the famous saintly shrine (Dargah) of Hazrat Sayyid Salar Mas'ud Ghazi at Bahra'ich (U.P.) writes:- "Darul-Uloom Deoband, is a matchless centre of Islamic sciences not only in India but also in the whole world and it has had a special 98 class in the world next to the Jama-e-Azhar. This is the Madrasah which has caused to flow the rivers of Islamic Arabic sciences in India. Its graduates are engaged in each and every comer of India in education and Islamic services. The services Darul-Uloom Deoband, has rendered to religion and religious sciences are as bright as the sun. Of course, if some one closes his eyes due to inward blindness, opinionatedness and inequity, there is no remedy for it". The people who have happened to travel through Islamic countries or have read in newspapers and magazines about the conditions prevailing there will have marked one thing, not so much marked in thought and mind as in their lifestyle : that the inhabitants of these Islamic countries have not only been affected by western civilisation and culture but have also accepted and adopted their influences to a large extent. The atmosphere of "he countries like Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Iran, etc., the lands whereof received directly the honour of being traversed by the holy Companions and acquired grace directly from their holy breaths, remained resplendent with prophetic sciences and the Companions' relies and continued as cradles of Islamic sciences and arts for centuries; but no sooner the feet of strangers touched those lands than the Muslim inhabitants bode good-bye precipitately to Islamic arts and sciences and Islamic culture and civilisation, and admitted such change and revolution in their lifestyle as if they had never been accustomed to the Islamic way of life; or as though they belonged to a region of Europe ab initio. Besides this social and cultural revolution the condition of the academic decline you have already heard about in the foregone pages from no less a person than Allama Sayyid Rasheed Reza that had the Indian Ulema not lavished their attention on the Science of Hadith, this science would have completely disappeared from the countries of the East, for between the tenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries (Hijri) this science had reached the last stage of decay and debility in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Hejaz. In A.H., 1315 when this respectable scholar migrated to Egypt he found that the khatibs in the Jama-e-Azhar and other masques used to quote such hadiths in their sermons which were untraceable in the tomes of Hadith, and, he has added the condition of the preachers and the teachers was also the same. When the death-dealing tide of European dominance and paramountcy tried to wash away India, which had generally remained deprived of the auspicious steps of the Holy Companions and had not had any opportunity to be benefited directly by their holy breaths, the Indian Muslims had to contend with these calamities for nearly one and a half or two centuries, but they have not to date totally relinquished their old Islamic conduct, culture and social life and the orthodox religiosity the foundation of which had been laid eight hundred years ago. The cause of this difference? What else can it be but this that at the time of the revolution in the said Islamic regions there did not exist any organised religions party, which, feeling the pulse of the nation in that envenomed atmosphere, could have made an all-embracing arrangement as a prophylactic measure for its survival and safeguard. But in India Hazrat Shah Wall Allah, having presaged this change from the straw in the wind, had laid the foundation of preventive measures. He prepared the Muslims' thought and mind in such a way that it safeguarded them from the alien influences; and at last the organised and blessed efforts of this party appearing on the one hand in the form of Darul-Uloom proved to be the guarantors 'of the Muslims' religion and virtue, on the other they became the means of their Islamic relations and religious connections. Forestalling, Darul-Uloom and its party built dams and dikes against the atheism-nourishing hurricanes and poisonous storms of irreligious, saved and rescued the Muslims from the current of the flood and brought them to the shore, reminded them of the forgotten lesson and thus, maintaining the prophet knowledge and the Companions' legacy intact in India, did not let the Indian Muslims straggle from the straight course. The thirteenth century Hijri (nineteenth century AD) is a period of political decline and ideational languor. It was during this period that Europe gained domination over and colonised almost all the Islamic countries and more or less everywhere Islamic culture and Islamic sciences were facing the struggle of life and death, Ever-new misleading movements were faking birth in Islam, In short, after the decline of the power of the Mughal kings in India, the Indian Muslims were passing through the most precarious period of their history. They had never needed correct guidance so much before as they did now. The collapse of the Mughal regime and the establishment of the English paramountcy was the greatest accident in the history of the Indian Muslims. Under the violence, oppression and domination of the English, the enforcement of the Islamic laws apart, even the survival itself of Islam and Muslims in India was difficult. At that time the only party to bear the responsibility of protecting Islam was that of the Ulema; every inch of land of India is a witness to fact that the Ulema did not fail in discharging their duty even to the extent of a scintilla. Even on ordinary student of history knows that inspire of being deprived of the government backing during the past quarter and century the Ulema of India have so lightsomely discharged the onerous responsibility of protecting and developing the Millat (community) that the alien government had to incur defeat at every front of antagonism to Islam. And prise be to Allah that the Muslims of India continued to progress! After the revolution of 1857, the Indian Muslim were groaning under mountains of misfortunes and tyrannies inflicted by the English upon them; they were overwhelmed with a peck of troubles and oppression which created in them such a feeling of fear and panic, helplessness and distress that if urgent and effective steps had not been taken to alleviate it, it is difficult to say that would have been the condition of the Muslims in respect of Islam. Madaris and hospices had been devastated; the Ulema had been sent to gallows, the fiefs (Jagirs) of the nobles had been confiscated, and the endowments of Madaris and hospices had been peculated. The Muslim rank and file had been so severely and excessively punished that a feeling of misery, loneliness and subjugation had overcome them and had blunted their religious and academic faculties. Such a condition of inertia had developed in them that seeing it, it was not easy to predict that this community would ever thrive again. The victorious English men's passion for vengeance, with their characteristic morgue anglaise, did not content itself only with the country and wealth of the Muslims but it also did not leave any stone unturned in destroying and obliterating, as far as possible, their 1300-year old proud achievements, their arts and sciences, civilisation and culture and human virtues and merits. Under such adverse circumstances it will not be an exaggeration to assert and claim that if the name of Islam has remained alive in this land of India, it is very much due to this Darul-Uloom and the sweating toil of the party of the Ulema. Then, stringing all the inhabitants of the Islamic world in one academic thread, it served them also besides the Indian Muslims in a very generous manner. There are very few such Islamic countries from where students may not have come to Darul-Uloom to slake their academic thirst. As such, in the past one century, thousands of students, having lighted their own torches from this great candle of knowledge, have fanned out in the darknesses of the world. Students from Sri Lanka, Java, Sumatra, Malaya, Burma, China, Mongolia, Tatar, Qazan, Bukhara, Samarqand, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria. Yemen, Iraq, so much so that even from the illuminated Madina and the glorious Mecca, came here for studies. Is it not short of a miracle that the country that may never have benefited directly from the prophetic sciences should become a centre for the whole world in religious education, so much so that the same sun of knowledge may be shedding its light in the two holy sanctuaries of Islam (Mecca and Madina)? And this felicity has not fallen to the lot of any other seminary that its graduates may have graced the Masnads of teaching in the illuminated Madina, particularly in the Prophet's Masque. Maulana Khalil Ahmed Anbathvi. the author of Bazlul-Majhood, Maulana Sayyid Ahmed and Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani have lectured on Hadith for years in Madina and in the Prophet's Masque, and have caused to flow the rivers of arts and sciences, the Book and the Sunnah, from which numerous students of Egypt and Syria, besides those of Hejaz, benefited and quenched their thirst of knowledge. Maulana Madani's elder brother, Moulana Sayyid Ahmed, an alumnus of Darul-Uloom, started a Madrasah named Madrasatul-Uloom al-Shariyyah in the illuminated Madina from which the Madinans are deriving benefit, Maulana Madani used to say that "when during my stay in the illuminated Madina l used to describe the exegetical information of Hazrat Shah Abdul-Aziz and other Indian Ulema before the Ulema of Hejaz, the latter used to wonder as to from where the Indian Ulema had acquired those secrets and mysteries of the Quranic knowledge". Maulana Rahmatullah Keranvi established Madrasa-e-Saulatiyyah in the venerable Mecca on the pattern of Darul-Uloom. Another Madrasah was founded by Maulana lshaq Amritsari, an old boy of Darul-Uloom. The peculiarity of Darul-Uloom is that it is irrigated by the pellucid spring of Islam and has had its own special individuality, Its versatile services which, crossing the Indian borders, have reached the Islamic countries, are intact the sweet fruit of the Indian Muslims' performance of their duty and pecuniary sacrifices, and by way of "discourse of Lord's bounty", they can pride themselves in all the Islamic countries on the tact that this largest seminary of the Muslims of Asia is maintained on the basis of their generosity and love of learning, and its sphere of benefaction is not limited to them only but has encompassed within its religious C education and training the non-Indian Muslims also; and for one hundred and thirteen years the assemblies discoursing on Allah's and the Apostle's words have been thronged due to Darul-Uloom only. This is the very fountain-head of divine graces which, by its spiritual water of life, has made the fields of faith green in every nook and comer of India and outside India and the alumni of this very seminary are discharging the duty of serving the upright religion (Din-e-Hanif) in India and most of the Islamic countries. No just Muslim can deny the tact that the sentiments of awakening of the Indian Muslims are mostly the result of the admirable efforts of Darul-Uloom only. Time showed many vicissitudes and fluctuations but at no lime did Darul-Uloom change its ideal; it has maintained its old tenor for a period of more than one hundred years. If had to sail through perilously swirling waters and brave severe storms and it had to bear many buffeting from angry waves, but it did not alter its course. Instead of being affected and swayed by the accidents and vicissitudes of time, it has always tried to change the atmosphere of the world by casting its own influence. This is the reason that as much religiosity as is found in the Muslims of India despite their long subjugation is not seen in other Islamic collieries. A contributor to Mujalla-al-Uloomiddin, Aligarh, has stated as follows: "The domination of the English people had created the danger that, God forbid, religion and religious sciences might depart from the country. The establishment of Darul-Uloom under such circumstances obviated this danger and it emerged on the map of India as a live exposition of the Quranic verse : 'Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder, and Lo! We verily are its Guardian' (XV : 9) "The Muslims of India and Pakistan (the subcontinent). as regards their religious life, are under the obligation of the graduates of Deoband. Innovations and wrong customs and conventions came to an end in every nook and corner of the country through their missionary and reforming efforts. The correction of convictions (Aqa'id), preaching of religion, and polemical debates with the benighted sects, etc., are the conspicuous achievements of these gentlemen. "Its graduates accomplished great works in the academic field in which, besides the compilation and writing of useful books, are included the discovery of old academic treasures, useful and meaningful commentaries and scholia, and the translations of innumerable books. Their services in the academic field deserve to be appreciated and complimented. "Many graduates of Darul-Uloom entered the political field, gave sacrifices and suffered hardships for the sake of the dear native land. Darul-Uloom Deoband, has also been a centre of political guidance for the Muslims of India. Its graduates not only joined different movements and worked with them but they also became the cause of the setting of several new movements on foot. Thus they have been regularly giving the correct political guidance to the Muslims. "Indubitably the establishment of Darul-Uloom Deoband, was an important need of the time and its graduates fulfilled this important need. In such circumstances prevailing in the country when the very concept of education, particularly the religious education, was absent and when there were only schools established by the English which either used to Christianise their students or at least made them weary of their religion, Deoband rose to the occasion, gave correct religious guidance to the people and created a religious atmosphere in the whole country. The services of Darul-Uloom in this connection deserve to be written in letters of gold. A former ambassador of Afghanistan, Sardar Najibullah Khan, has expressed his impressions of Darul-Uloom in the following words : "In the eyes of the common people of Afghanistan Darul-Uloom Deoband, is a public educational institution but l can say on the basis of my own observation' that it is not merely a public teaching institution but is also a centre of Islamic culture. At a time when the Islamic state was no more in India, Darul-Uloom protected religion and Islam, and l hope that in future too it will remain similarly engaged in serving the arts and sciences. The public, Ulema and lowers of knowledge in Afghanistan are not only its admirers but they are also the helpers and well-wishers of its Ulema. In fact this assembly (Mehfil) of Islamic culture is the most prominent assembly and is sui generis. The foundation of Islamic culture rests on truth, love and recognition of reality and this assembly comprises all these elements. "The history of the Darul-Uloom is a witness to this thing that it has always produced upright and truthful sons on whom Darul-Uloom can rightly pride itself." Once a newspaper of Calcutta, 'Asr-e-Jadid', dated October 13, 1936, reviewing the services of Darul-Uloom, had written :- "The religious and educational services Darul-Uloom Deoband. bas been rendering to Islam and the manner in which it has protected the spiritual building of Islamic India from the flood of western culture and civilisation can be evidenced by every comer of this long and broad subcontinent that is India. At a lime when the glitter of modern sciences had dazzled the superficial' observers, when the lure of worldly honour and ranks was drawing the best hearts towards them, when people had become indifferent to religion and negligent towards religious education, when the sacred voices of "Said Allah" and 'Said the Apostle', overcome by the victorious racket and deafening flourish of trumpets of the western education and civilisation, had been suppressed in the drum-porch of modern education, at such a delicate time it v/as Deoband and Deoband atone which stood its ground bearing the standard of the Quran and the Hadith. The typhoons of apathy and the tornadoes of lukewarmness of the country repeatedly tried to knock it down but it stood like a mountain. The derisive laughter of the triumphant culture could not deflect it from its Asianism and conservatism. The flood of modern education did wish to wash it away with its current but it was discomfited; and it, despite its forlorn condition, continued on the one hand to contend with its internal and external enemies and, on the other, kept transmitting the light of its spiritualism to every nook and comer of the country, so much so that after its continuos struggle it is today a glorious centre of Islamic education not only in India but also in Asia and the state of its spiritual lure is such that those doting on the Quran and the Hadith have gathered around it moth-like not only from Peshawar and Rangoon but also from Qafqaz, Mosul, Bukhara and every part of the Islamic world. "It is said that the Ulema are recluses, unaware of the roughs and smooths of the world. But this is not correct. They are not against the modern sciences but they are certainly inimical to the westernism which makes hearts and minds disclaim their own nationality, their own religion and their own social life. They are not inert and narrow-minded, but this is also certain that they do not look with approval upon such education and lifestyle which may make the sons of the community and the country strangers to themselves; which may annihilate their communal sentiment and make them indifferent to religion and devoid of oriental morals; which may habituate them to fashion, externalism and indolence and may put out of sight the greatest and most important purpose of life, i.e., worship to God and service to his creatures". The newspaper, AI-Jami'at, Delhi, dated April 22, 1952, had written in its editorial as follows:- "To deny this fact will be tantamount to denying the greatest truth of the world that the example of the glorious services which the Islamic and religious schools of India, particularly Darul-Uloom Deoband, have rendered to Islam and the Muslims and the way they have moulded the mind in the Islamic mould, cannot be found in any educational system of the world. Such inexpensive education which has been given in Arabic schools till now is sui generis in the world. The teachers get so much pay as today perhaps office peons must be getting. They teach sitting on sack-cloth so that such students may be prepared who may become responsible for the religious life of the Muslims. The condition of the students' steadiness is such that they content themselves with whatever they get. Even if they receive any help from the Madrasah, it is only so much that oil and soap may be bought and they may launder their clothes themselves. These students devote themselves merely for Allah's pleasure and don't care a fig even if they have to starve sometimes and may not have whole clothes on their bodies ! "If the statistics of this inexpensive education these schools have given are published, perhaps the world will not believe it. These schools are the headspring of Islamic life through which the warm blood of religion and beliefs is transfused into the religious body of the Muslims. And all are aware of the fact that Darul-Uloom Deoband, is the greatest religious centre not only of India but also of Asia in which students from all over the world receive education and the sheets of whose educational benefaction have spread all over Asia". The daily Da'wat, Delhi, dated July 24, 1969, writes about the peculiarities of Darul-Uloom as follows :- "Darul-Uloom Deoband, is a century-old trust with us. In Asian countries it is the only institution which takes upon itself full responsibility for supporting and educating nearly fifteen hundred students every year in such condition that it never took aid of a single paisa from the government. Students right from Asia Minor to Hejaz, Syria and Iraq used to come to Darul-Uloom Deoband, for prosecuting their studies and after graduating from it when they reached their own countries, they used to cut a good impression of their academic erudition. In India and Pakistan teachership in the Madaris and the important service of leading the congregational prayers in the masques and sermonising are even today mostly in the hands of the graduates of the same Darul-Uloom". From the opinion of a western thinker you will -know that the fame and greatness of Darul-Uloom, having passed through the continents of Asia and Africa has even reached Canada. Prof. W. Cantwell Smith, Director of the Department of Islamic Studies, Mc Gill University, Montreal, Canada, writes in his book. Modern Islam in India :- "Next to the Azhar of Cairo, the Darul-Uloom at Deoband is the most important and respected theological academy of the Muslim World. Its influence and prestige throughout India are naturally large and they are all the greater for the school's long tradition and concern for the' material condition of the Indian Muslims. The tradition is derived ultimately from the movement of Shah Waliullah Dehlavi and the Indian Wahabis and has expressed itself in the participation of Deoband 'Ulama' in various revolutionary movements such as the Ghadar of 1857 and their more recent support of Congress nationalism. Unlike Bareilly, Deoband is thoroughly dissatisfied with things as they are, and it is vigorous and determined in its efforts to improve them. Its aim is to resuscitate classical Islam, rid the Muslims of the theological corruption's, the ritual degradation's and the material exploitation to which they have fallen prey since the British occupation. "Theologically the school stands for a rigid orthodoxy of the classical Aristotelian type. The door of "Ijtihad" is closed tight. Deoband maintains rigorously the promises of Islam. Within the limits of those pressures it is relentlessly rationalist. It attempts to do away with aberrations, compromises and intellectual laziness. The theological atmosphere is that of an unmitigated scholasticism; the professors use exclusively the old categories of thought. "On the practical side, Deoband 'Ulama' are puritanically strict. They work assiduously to overcome and destroy backsliding, superstitions, saint-worship and all the paraphernalia of ignorance, poverty and fear in a depressed and decadent agrarian society. "Their ideal is traditional Islam in its purest form with a strict enforcement of Shari'ah. Their conception of historical Islam is precise unlike the liberals, whose roseate picture of an ideal age in the past is coloured more strongly by contemporary liberal aspirations than by any disciplined acquaintance with Islamic studies". (Modern Islam in India, pp. 320-321 by Prof. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Pub. Minerva Bookshop, Anarkali, Lahore 1943.) The educational and religious services of Darul-Uloom are so clear that an observer can see them at first sight. In 1377/1957, the President of the Republic of India, the late Dr. Rajendra Prasad, while speaking in Darul-Uloom, has said :- "The august men of the Darul-Uloom have been learning and imparting knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Such men have been there in the past also but very few who acquired knowledge and taught it merely for the sake of serving knowledge. They used to be more honoured than the kings. Today the elders of Darul-Uloom are treading the same path. "The elders of Darul-Uloom have rendered service not only to the inhabitants of this country but they have also achieved such fame from their services that students of foreign lands also flock to this institute, and after having acquired education here, they go back to their countries and disseminate whatever they have learnt here. This thing is worthy of being proud of for all the people of this country".

Darul-Uloom in the Fight for Freedom

The political history of Darul-Uloom Deoband, should be reckoned to have begun nine or ten years prior to the establishment of Darul-Uloom. In 1857 (A.H. 1274), with the determination to free India from the English yoke, the elders of Darul-Uloom, particularly the Shaikh (spiritual guide) of the group, Hazrat Haji Imdadullah Muhajir-e-Makki, 42, and his favourite disciples.Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, 25, and Maulana Rasheed Ahmad Gangohi, 29, and some other respectable men, as a dernier ressart, appealed to arms with great derring-do, an event which makes the first-ever page of the history of Darul-Uloom. In a gathering at Thana Bhavan the famous historical.

"Though defeat had been incurred in the field of battle, the group's concept of freedom had not been annihilated. At that time, observing the English domination and their uncommon power, an august man had remarked in the mosque of Chhatta : 'The English have stabilised (lit., clawed deeply) their position firmly; let us see how they are uprooted'. At this Maulana Muhammad Yaqoob Nanautavi, the first principal of Darul-Uloom, Deoband, who was a relative, disciple and one of the favourite companions, said in a very awesome manner; 'what are you thinking of the time in not far off when India will be rolled up like a mat. We will sleep at night under their government and will wake up in the morning under another administration'".

The Ulama of Deoband, with resoluteness and trust in Allah, have always been not only in the foremost rank of those who have struggled in the movement for the independence of India but they have also frequently been in the lead of this movement for independence; and if it is seen more thoughtfully and justly, they were the first persons, the pioneers, who initiated this idea. The warmth, vigour and catholicity which was created in this movement in fact is indebted to them. Most of these gentlemen raised the banner of revolt against the English government, fought face to face with the English army and many of them passed a good part of their lives in jail. The fact is that the history of the independence movement of India is so mixed up with the history of the Ulama and religious personalities that it is now difficult to separate one from the other. Political decline had reduced Muslims to a state of helplessness and misery, distraction and anxiety; by the establishment of Darul-Uloom, Deoband, they received equanimity, composure and stability.

In 1333HD. 1913AD., Hazrat Nanautavi's well-guided pupil, Maulana Mahmood Hasan Shaikhul-Hind prepared a scheme of stirring a revolution against the British Government which has been called "Silken Letters" in the report of the Rowlatt Committee. But by chance this scheme of Silken Letters miscarried and the Shaikhul-Hind, along with his accomplices', Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, Maulana Ozair Gul and others were arrested and kept under detention in the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea for a number of years; and the Shaikhul-Hind's disciples, Maulana Ubaydullah Sindhi and Maulana Mansoor Ansari had to pass a very long time of their lives in exile.

In 1338/1920, after his release from Malta, the Shaikhul-Hind joined the jami'atul-Ulama which his disciples had founded in 1337/1919 to give a fillip to the independence movement. The jami'atul-Ulama shoulder to shoulder with the Indian National Congress, serpent its force in awakening the country politically and socially. Maulana Sayyid Husain Ahmad Madani, Maulana Mufti Kifayatullah Dehlavi, Maulana Sayyid Fakhrud-Deen Ahmad, and later on, Maulana Hifzur-Rahman, Maulana Mufti Ateequr-Rahman Usmani, Maulana Minnatullah Rahmani, Maulana Habibur-Rahman Ludhyanvi, Maulana Sayyid Muhammad Miyan Deobandi and many other Ulama of Deoband not only remained in the forefront of the movements for the freedom of the country but they have also been the cause of coming into being of several other movements and have consequently suffered the hardships of imprisonment and jail.

In 1345/1926, the gentlemen who sowed the seeds of complete independence for Indian in the meeting of the Jami'atul-Ulama-e-Hind at Calcutta were the graduates of Darul-Uloom, Deoband, only; and then they reiterated it in 1346/1927 in the meeting at Peshawar.

It should be made clear here that the Indian National Congress had declared complete independence three years later in its session at Lahore.

Abdul-Gaffar khan, during his visit to India in 1389|1969, addressing the students of Darul-Uloom, had said:-

"I have had relation with Darul-Uloom since the time the Shaikhul-Hind Maulana Mahmood Hasan was alive. Sitting here we used to make plans for the independence movement as to how we might drive away the English from this country and how we could make India free from the yoke of slavery of the English. This institution has made great efforts for the freedom of this country".

It is stated in the magazine 'Ilm wa Agahi of Government National College, Karachi, as under:-

"Darul-Uloom Deoband, is not merely an old-type institution of Islamic ; it is, rather, the name of a glorious movement for the revivification of Islam and the stability of the community. Darul-Uloom, Deoband, was a centre of revolution and political, training. It nurtured such a body of such a body of self-sacrificing soldiers of Islam and sympathisers of the community who themselves wept in the grief of the community and also made others weep; who themselves tossed about restlessly for the restitution of the Muslims' dignity and caused others also to toss about. They themselves sacrificed their lives for the attainment of respectable life and also taught the lesson of self-sacrifice and self-denial to others. They shattered the Muslims' intellectual stagnation, they broke up the spell of the British imperialism, and, grappling with the contemporary tyrannical powers, dispelled fear and anxiety from the minds of the country. Not only this; they kindled the candle of freedom in the political wilderness of Aligarh, extricated from the baseness of ideal, created the sense of the superficiality of objective, and in that assembly where the law of muteness was in force, where tongues were chopped off on talking and where sentinels were set on the minds, they blew the trumpet of revolution, and rescuing a large body of young men from the squalor of toadayis life appointed them on the post of guidance in the struggle for the independence of the country. It is a historical fact that the political awakening that was created in Aligarh in the beginning of the twentieth century was indebted to Deoband and some other revolutionary movements in the country, and the revolutionary freedom-lovers who rose up there were the products of the grace from the spring of thought of Deoband.

"The elders of Deoband took more and more part in the struggle for the independence of the country; they suffered all the troubles of this path and came out successful in every test, After the establishment of Darul-Uloom the period of participation in national politics begins with Hazrat Shaikh al-Hind.Maulana Ubaydullah Sindhi has acknowledged the Shaikh al-Hinds life to be a separate epoch of the Waliyullahian movement. The caravan of resolute men prepared under the leadership of the Shaikh al-Hind included Maulana Ubaydullah Sindhi, Maulana Muhammad Mian Mansoor Ansari, Maulana Fazl-e Rabbi (member Hai'at-e Tamizia, Afghanistan), Maulana Sayfur-Rahman Kabuli, Maulana Muhammad Sadiq Karachwi, Mfti Kifayatullah Dehelvi, Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani, Maulana Ahmed Ali Lahori and many other great ones. Even today, from India to Pakistan, the graduates of Darul-Uloom Deoband, are guiding the country and the community in the field of politics. The leaders of the movement for Pakistan derived benefit from the course adopted in certain matters by an illustrious religious divine of Deoband, viz., Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, while Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani was himself among the leaders of the movement for Pakistan and he, with his best scholarly capacities, tried to make the Muslim League firm and steady in the ideal of Islamic state. Then, after the establishment of Pakistan, the Indian leaders of Deoband guided the Indian Muslims in utterly adverse circumstances and helped keep up their spirits high; and in Pakistan the august men of his order took up the gauntlet of reconstruction and service to the country and the community with a new determination and guided the community with their capacities and abilities in every walk of life in Pakistan.

The Inspired Madrasah & it's school of thoughts

Fundamentally the foremost thing is its school of thought with out elucidating which neither any light can be thrown on its spirituality nor its religious orientation can be exposed. Some questions arise here: Firstly, what is its central thought from which its raison d'être may be determined? What are the constituents of its central thought from which its angles of action may be fixed? What is the head-spring of this thought from which it received this thought? What is the route to reach it whereby its being authentic and satisfactory may become conspicuous? These are the very questions without solving which no light can be thrown on its spirituality and reality.

So, the first thing in this connection is that the chain of authenticity of the Darul Uloom starts with the great traditionist of India, Hazrat Imam Shah Waliyullah Dehlwi whose continuous chain of authenticity reaches back the Holy Prophet (Allah's peace and blessings be upon him!). Shah Waliyullah's knowledge, taste and thought, through the medium of Shah Abdul Aziz, Shah Muhammad lshaq and then Shah Abdul Ghani, reached Hujjatul Islam (the Proof of Islam), Maulana Mohammad Qasim Nanautawi and Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi, who universalized it through this sacred institution, i.e., the Darul Uloom, Deoband. So, undoubtedly, in the teaching of the Holy Book and the Sunnah and in the elucidating and stating of the greatness and veneration of Divine Unity (Tauheed) and apostle hood (Risalat). Shah Waliyullah has had a peculiar color and a remarkable style of explaining, and whose foremost nuclear matter is Divine Revelation (Wahy) and its discernment, which is the basis of his thought.

Then in the sphere of teaching and inculcation there is that specialty of expression which appeals to the psychology of every age, and of which there are different constituents which have been working in it as per the Psychology of time. Then this style of thought is not the result of mere rational deliberation or intellectual exercise; it is rather inspirational, the inspirational specialty of which Shah Waliyullah himself has expressed in his monumental work, Hujjatullahil Baligha.

It is clear that to present the handed-down (narrated) and traditional religion in the garb of rational arguments, physical expediencies and spiritual secrets and mysteries. To make religion acceptable to the rationalist dispositions of the period by showing it to be the natural religion is the first part of this inspired school of thought that was inspired by Allah into the Shah Sahib's heart.

But after the elapsing of the age of childhood of this era, when the time of the youth of rationalism came and the English power also, having passed through the hidden and machinating stage began to run full gallop in open courses. The said zest too began to dwindle in the same ratio. Rather, when therewith European theories and atheistic thoughts began to arrive in the shape of a rival vis-a-vis religion, and with the crossbreeding of philosophy with science. These theories began to take the form of percepts, sheer reason also lagged behind and perceptivity, launching an attack, scrounged its throne of sovereignty. And now the presenting of anything traditional in the garb of the rational no more remained a guarantor of its being believed so long as it was not put forth in the guise of percepts. It was so because the pace of the time and the straw in the wind were showing that shortly Lenin and Stalin would replace Newton and Goethe, and instead of theoretical philosophy. Sensory and socialism's and perceptual philosophies were to be founded which would not be prepared to give importance to any theoretical and rational philosophies as long as practical and perceptible factors were not seen working in them. Rather, even the swords of strength and power should not obstruct the throats of this socialistic and sensory ism.

Accordingly, swelling like a turkey cock with the pride of perceptible and material powers, Gladstone's swollen oratory. It was to echo in the British parliament to the effect that "now we have become so powerful that even if the sky wishes to fall down upon us, we will stop it at the points of our bayonets." Then, after a brief interval. Stalin's was to reverberate in the atmosphere that "now we have banned the entry of God into the Russian borders". And (astronaut) Yuri Gagarian, returning safely from his journey to the moon, was to aver: "I, rising above the gravitational center of the earth went on circling in the atmosphere of the sky and witnessed the rising and setting of the sun seventeen times within an hour. But now where their l saw God". Moreover, in this mean world anti-God and anti-prophet societies were also to be founded merely for the reason that God is invisible to them through bare eyes. God forfends! In sum, in place of the rational gallop, o perceptual race was starting and in place of the faculties of the heart and the mind the sovereignty of the eye of the forehead was to be installed. In other words, that old Judaism, which had divested the Jews of their faith, was to revive again to come before the world and it was this only that they, striking the adz at the very basis of their faith, had fixed the eye to be their deity; and they had said:

"0 Moses! We will not believe in thee till we see Allah plainly"(11:55). 'And we will not acknowledge the divine speech to be divine till we hear Allah's voice with our own ears'.

As though this abnegation had taken the form of a principle that a thing not seen by the eye does not exist; naturally the sequel was that sense had taken the place of intellect and perceptible things the place of rationalism. Hence, they were desirous of seeing with eyes even those spiritualities, which are things to be seen with the heart and are free from and above perceptible form and shape. Hence, it had become insufficient to explain to them a subtle and spiritual reality like religion by bringing it before them merely in a rational shirt, as long as it was not brought forth covered with the mantle of perceptible abject. Thus, even as at the beginning of this age of rationalism the respectable Imam Shah Waliyullah, through divine inspiration, carved the way of rational argument and proof for the stating of religion, at the start of this period of perceptivity. A unique gem in his own fourth academic lineage, Shah Abdul Ghani Muhaddith Dehlwi also, observing this situation of the world, indicated the dress of perceptions, though its practical period began afterwards. Accordingly, this fact becomes apparent from his own (following) incident, which was related by Haji Ameer Shah Khan Khurjawi, a favorite attendant of Qasimul Uloom Nanautavi, before a group of students among whom. This humble writer was also present; that Hakim Nuruddin (Bhervi), the first khalifa (spiritual successor) of Mirza Ghulam Ahmed Qadiani, was one of the pupils of Shah Abdul Ghani, though later on he reneged. After he completed his studios, Shah Sahib told him: "Mian Nuruddin! Books you have already finished; now learn something about remembering Allah". He replied "Sir! I have read the Quran, l have read the Hadith. What's remembrance of Allah besides this?" "Nuruddin! You must have estimated from my lectures on Hadith", said Shah Abdul Ghani, "that l transform the traditional into the rational by the practice of remembering Allah this rational will become perceptible". The purport of this observation was that by the excess of Sicker (remembrance of Allah) illumination of the heart (Ishraq-e-Qalbi) is achieved and by its luster, along with the realm of spirituality's, the realities and knowledge's of the world of perception are also uncovered. The hint was towards this that now it would not be sufficient to present religion theoretically in the rational color till it was not put before the world with arguments of the perceptual style. And perceptible evidences of which there is no other way except self-discipline (Riyazat), spiritual exertion (Mujahada) and excess of Zikr, whereby gnosis, insight and the dignity of divining realities are created in the heart, and theoretical propositions turn into and look as percepts.

So, in this stating of religion, Imam Shah Waliyullah had included rational expediencies and mysteries and a particular disciple of his in the fourth generation (Shah Abdul Ghani). Included along with it perceptual and observational arguments and evidences as well, which was the effect of the light of the same divine inspiration and gnostic intuition. But, anyway, this was the same aesthetic and oratorical manner, which, as regards the wisdom of the verses and the traditions, could be effective and appealing to the sentiments of our own people or those individuals who were intellectually proximate. It was, however, not of such argumentative dignity that it could affect a sheer repudiator and a pure antagonist, carrying a hidden negation of the Book and the Divine Revelation in his heart. And who, ab initio, be a denier of the existence of the Creator and, backsliding from the necessity of prophet hood, be unconvinced, from the very start, of resurrection, and may have taken these beliefs to be an amusing old fable. How could then the wisdom and insight born of verse and tradition or of relevance to them be effective upon one who would shy at the very mention of a verse and tradition? Hence it was necessary that without the initial mention of verses and traditions, religion might be presented before him with mere scientific principle in philosophical manners and in the style of the ism of the current period in such a way that, apart from narrative and tradition and apart from their rational arguments and perceptible proofs. Islam might appear before him independently in the form of a philosophy and ism. In the beginning it may not be sensed that this is some revealed religion which is being presented before him but he may feel that this independent, natural, intrinsic philosophy and a System of life without adopting which man can never pass his life pleasantly. And when love of this religion may have started flowing' somewhat in the straits of his intellect, he may be told at the end that this was the same Islam from which he was shying.

Keeping this situation in mind, if the present-day period is seen, then this situation has reached its extreme stage. The war of today is not that of theories; intact it is not of theories even but rather mostly or caption and style of expression.

If today a reality is presented with the names of God and the Prophet, peoples free from it, but if the same reality is presented under the captions of civilization, society and worldly benefits. Then not only they deem it worth paying attention to but also consider it acceptable, it means, therefore, that the real enmity is with the names of God and the Prophet, not with their message, provided it is not presented with their names. What else is the upshot of all this but this that in the present-day superficial period all the religious wars are not of realities and events but only of captions. That is, superficiality has come to such a level that meanings and realities apart, the criterion of truth and falsehood has come to depend upon interpretation and interpretative ascription. For instance, it initially the inculcation of a belief comes in the name of a religious tradition or a religion and whatever number of exigencies are laid bare, it will continue to be lost to bewilderment and escape. And if the same is presented under the caption of scientific, philosophical, economic and cultural expediencies, in the form of an ism, then not only that it does not prove to be a means of bewilderment and flight but also becomes worthy of attention and cogitation. As though the world has become an appreciate of words and wearies of meaning. Hence, its reformation too is possible through percepts and verbal captions only, provided those words be of the same meanings which are meant to be instilled into their hearts. So, for treating the spiritual patients of this period rose up from the fifth academic generation of the same Waliyllahian family an individual whom on the afore-said line, presented from the very start the faith and religion. Religious beliefs and religious principles and universals, under the impulsion of the same divine inspiration, without mentioning the names of Quran and Hadith or religion and community (Miltat), in such an argumentative and logical style of expression as if he were presenting, as per the condition of the times. A strong and firm is in the external caption of which initially was neither the proclamations of religion nor the information of the Invisible, but finally it was the same religion and the belief of the Unseen. But he presented it in such a manner as if it were the inculcation of a pure philosophical ism without believing which neither the social life could be maintained in the right way nor politics and civilization nor life-after-death could be firm and successful. So he laid the foundation of a new perceptual philosophy and knowledge. We remember this individual as Qasimul Uloom Maulana Mohammad Qasim Nanautavi (may Allah have mercy on him'), who was the pith of the sciences of Shah Waliyllah, Shah Abdul Aziz, Shah Mohammad lshaq and Shah Abdul Ghani and the quintessence of their religious discernment. And the same deposit that he had taken from the Waliyullahian era, he put forth before the world in a philosophical manner opposite to the condition or this period. Accordingly, in view of the mentality of the period, verses and traditions or religions technical terms are not initially mentioned anywhere on the surface in Qasimul Uloom's writings and compilations though in reality they are nothing but verses and traditions. Rather, remarkably the interpretative part as regards form consists of argumentative forms, demonstrative proofs and perceptual evidences and illustrations, whereas the internal part, in respect of meanings and imports, consists of the realities of faith, gnostic bonds and apocalyptic and manifestative qualities. So Qasimul Uloom has reflected the splendor of verses and traditions in the mirror of the indisputable questions (Musallamat) and objects of sense of this era, but through philosophical argumentation and logical style of affirmation, in such a way as if an independent philosophy of life were being presented. In the end, however, it is disclosed that this is very much the same Islam by the name of which the world had been bewildered. Thus, it becomes manifest to them that they were quarrelling over only names and captions and they had not got even the wind of the matter, though by nature they were not far from reality. But when by this philosophical style the reality became evident to them, finally the same caption which Allah Lord of honor had coined for this reality was put on it ----i.e., Islam which Shah Waliyullah and his predecessors had presented.

It was this reason Maulana Ubaydullah Sindhi used to say that the only ladder to Shah Waliyullah's philosophy is the Qasimi's philosophy without climbing which one cannot reach the Waliyullahian proofs adequately. So the sciences Shah Waliyullah presents in an aesthetic and apocalyptic color, Qasimul Uloom brings them out in an argumentative color. The former, in fine, does not let the familiar but skeptic persons become repudiators while the latter convinces the repudiators and pure atheists; the former, under verses and traditions, explains them philosophically. While the latter, by his philosophy, brings the backsliders to the door of verses and traditions to ease their entry into the palace of religion, provided, of course, this philosophy reaches or is conveyed to them. And even as the Waliyullahian philosophy is inspired, the Qasmi's philosophy too is inspired and is a treasure of afflatus. And even as regards the Waliyullahian philosophy its propounder him-self has made it explicit in his writing that it is theopneustic and not the outcome of mental gymnastics. The elucidation and clarification of which has already been quoted from his writing; about the Qasmi's philosophy too the clarifications of its propounder are present in his works.

Anyway, it is one and the same afflatus (Hikmat-e-Ladunni); when it descended upon Shah Waliyullah through divine inspiration, it put on the garb of rational color in the stating of religion when it came to Shah Abdul Ghani, and it indicated the performance of percepts. And when it was experienced by Qasimul Uloom, it took the form of perceptible objects instead of intuitive things and in that too it clothed itself with a ratiocinative dress; and in tune with the changing mentality of the times. This afflatus too went on changing different attires, the common value of which is divine inspiration and intuition. The same intuition (Ilqa), through divine providence, went on forming and developing the mind of these august men; but since Maulana Nanautavi had derived benefit from and been trained by all of them, he proved to be the quintessence of the knowledge and philosophy of all these elders. Thus he became the most accomplished exponent of the tack (Maslak) of the Ahl-e-Sunnah wal Jama'ah. And from time to time, presented the sciences of this tack sometimes in the rational color, sometimes in the perceptional and sometimes in his convincing dialectical method, in his teaching and inculcation, books and lectures. Wherefore this tack came before the world in a comprehensive manner; and its comprehensiveness too became conspicuous that it combines the traditional with the rational, the rational with the perceptional, and the perceptional with the dialectical color. It is for this reason that in the Qasimul Uloom's knowledge there is knowledge with gnosis, expediency with command, the traditional with the rational, the rational with the perceptional, benefits with the law. The spiritual path (Tariqat) with the high road (Shari'at) of religion, consciousness of divine observation (Ehsan) with faith (Iman), defense of religion with its affirmation; that is, combining the sentiments of the grandeur of religion with religion. He presented it in the form of a compounded electuary with a life giving antidotal color, which comprised realities sprung from the head-spring of pure inspiration. Allah Most High, with His unbounded bounty and favor upon him, had made his physical nature itself such that if he proves one small proposition (Mas'ala) it appears in the garb of a general principle which settles not one but hundreds of other details.

It is obvious that when, in his time, Qasimul Uloom alone was the sole originator of the basic idea of the Darul Uloom Deoband, as has been evidenced by his pupils, compeers and elders. It was but ineluctable for this inspirational aspect to come to the fore in the tack of the Darul Uloom, and it did. And thereby it became clear that its tack, central thought and religious tendency were not the outcome of cogitation but were a drop from the overflowing sea of divine inspiration. So if it were said, then it can be said without the fear of the blamer's blame that Deobandism is firstly Waliyullahism and secondly Qasimism, and that it is not merely the name of teaching and learning. And in view of the combination of the afore-said academic connections, it can be said that it is not merely a Madrasah but it is a Madrasah of though in the modern technical term, a school of thought.

Thus it becomes evident that Deobandism is neither a creed (Mazhab) nor a sect, terms by which its antagonists try to incite the masses against it. But it is a comprehensive picture and a complete edition of the tack of the Ahl-e-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah in which all he offshoots of the Ahl-e-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah are seen joined with their root. What a fine succinct sentence the Poet of the East, the late Dr. Sir Shaikh Mohammad lqba!-and it be seemed him alone-had spoken about Deobandism! When someone asked him, "What thing is the Deobandi, a creed or a sect"? He replied: "It's neither a creed nor a sect; Deobandi is the name of every rationalist religious man".

At all events, the central thought and fundamental religious orientation or tack of the Madrasah of Deoband is a comprehensive, moderate and versatile tack of the Ahl-e-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah in which, by the combination of the Sunnah and the Jama'ah (group). The principle of religion, which is the Holy Book and the Sunnah, and respect for the religious personalities-jurisprudents (Fuqaha), traditionists (Muhaddethin), school doctors (Mutakallemin), professional commentators of the Quran (Mufasserin), Sufis, fundamentalists (Usuliyeen) and divine doctors (Ulma-e-Rabbaniyeen) -both have combined. Neither departing from principle there is invention, novelty and renewal so that the door of heresies (Bid'at) and innovations may be opened, nor breaking away from the religious personalities. There is self-esteem and opinionatedness whereby the gate of pride, presumption, self-conceit and haughtiness may be set ajar, and "the greatness of the pious predecessors and the just posterity may become chimerical. So, the prevention of the first disease is done with the world 'Al-Sunnah' and the second disease is averted by the word 'AI-Jama'ah', and thus this comprehensive and moderate tack cleansed of all diseases, has reached us intact through Madrasah of Deoband and other Madaris of similar nature. Otherwise in whichever tack there is excess and deficiency, it is either due to the absence of both these words, Al-Sunnah and AI-Jama'ah, or the lack of one of them. If there be no Sunnah, it will become a tack of heresies and innovations, and if AI-Jama'ah be missing, it will become a tack of self-opinion, freethinking and presumptuousness and the result of these two shortcomings is excess and deficiency.

Preaching Services 0f Darul-Uloom

In the particulars of the years A. H. 1341-42 the most important event is that regrettable incident of Shuddhi (lit. purification, i.e., conversion of the Muslims to Arya Samaj) and Sangathan (Hindu solidarity), which diverting the Darul-Uloom from its own internal affairs, had drawn all its attention to itself. This unpleasant incident in the history of India was an organized movement of the Arya Samaj started with the purpose of converting simple-minded Muslims, ignorant of Islam, to Arya beliefs. This movement looks very queer in the context of the politics of that era and the Hindu-Muslim unity. To understand it properly if is necessary to know its background.

In the years 1920, 1921 and 1922, due to mutual help and co-operation between the Khilafat Movement and the Indian National Congress such strong bonds of friendship, unanimity and alliance had been forged between the Hindus and Muslims that both the communities had become very intimate with each other. The significant change that had appeared in the Hindus practice of untouchability with the Muslims was that now they had begun to take sherbet and pan (betel-leaf) unrestrainedly from the Muslims hands. Such were these conditions that had mode the future continuance of the British power in India difficult. The English, sensing the delicacy of the circumstances, made use of their old. Favorite recipe of hatred and "divide and rule", which, unfortunately for India, proved to be their sovereign remedy. The detail of this is that in 1922 the then viceroy (Lord Reading) summoned a great leader of the Non-co-operation Movement, Swami Shraddhanand, who was then in jail, and held a secret parley with him. After this talk which was to be held a guarded secret, he was released from jail. As soon as he was out of jail, Swami Shraddhanand started a movement for converting the Muslims to the Arya Samaj ideology. On the other hand, one Dr. Moonje established what is called Sangathan, a purely Hindu organisation. Kesari, a newspaper of Lahore, drew attention to the 'purification' of four and half Laces of Malkana neo-Muslim, Rajpoots of Agra. Agra, Mathura, Etah, Itawa, Kanpur, Farrukhabad, Gurganwa and Moinpuri, etc., were the main centers of this movement.

On this extremely delicate occasion the Darul-Uloom did what be seemed a religious institution. In this connection, before launching a defensive and counteractive action, the Darul-Uloom first morally appealed to the All-India National Congress that using its catholic influences it cries a halt to these aggressive activities, which were fostering sentiments of hatred and animosity between the Hindus and the Muslims. The text of the resolution was as under: -

"This council of the Darul-Uloom emphatically requests the All-India Congress Committee that, considering the tumultuous circumstances of the country, it stop for the good of the country. All those activities which appearing in the form of a strife, are provoking among the Hindus and Muslims the sentiments of hatred and antagonism and are proving to be the cause of darkening the horizon of the freedom of India. And in order to make peace and cleansed the political atmosphere which was becoming disturbed day by day, it cause those preachers who are engaged in waging a religious war of sorts to be recalled. However, no party has had the right to stop anyone from such religious preaching which, along with inter-communal tolerance, is of a reasonable and mild type".

The following resolution was presented regarding the Sangathan: - 

"Since in certain circles of the movement of the Hindu Sanghatan it has been so understood, rightly or wrongly. That it has been devised to be a powerful program vis-a-vis the Muslims in order to bring the Hindus into clash with the Muslims, such a thinking has very severely injured and made alarming the peace of the country. Hence this council proposes that the All-India Congress Committee strongly request the Hindu Maha Sabha that, assessing these delicate and dangerous conditions through which our country is passing. It postpones the present form of Hindu solidarity from which the engendering of harmful dangers is being always apprehended. However, when the atmosphere of the country becomes suitable and the conditions return to normalcy, the All-India Congress Committee is requested that it advise such plans to develop the physical strength of both Hindus and Muslims. Whereby both the communities, severally and jointly, may protect their physical powers from general debility which is being observed today, more or less, in most of the individuals of both the communities. So that the country may acquire the services of such of its sons, and the good people may be enabled to protect their life, wealth, honor and religion from the wicked ones".

It can be called nothing but ill luck of the country that at that time this conciliatory appeal of the Darul-Uloom ended up as a cry in the wilderness. On the other hand, when news arrived incessantly in the Darul-Uloom, through letters and newspapers, of the intolerable communal activities of the Arya Samaj and the apostasy of the neo-Muslims, a delegation of preachers was dispatched on 12th Jumad-e-Ukhra from the Darul-Uloom.

It was known from the report of the delegation that the movement of the Arya Samaj had spread in a very organized mariner and on a very wide scale, and therefore, to counter check and counter work more preachers, in sufficient numbers, were required. So, in pursuance of this suggestion, several other delegations consisting of the teachers and students of the Darul-Uloom were sent one after another. Making Agra the base of preaching activities, on office of the Ulama of Deoband was opened there under the supervision of Maulana Meerak Shah, a teacher of the Darul-Uloom, who used to dispatch preachers wherever they were needed. Thanks to Allah that as a result of the untiring efforts of the preachers countless renegades recanted and returned to the fold of Islam. The Muslims of those places where the movement of the Arya Samaj was in operation were generally simple-minded and ignorant of religion and hence they used to fact easy prey to the adversaries. The preachers, through sermons and preaching, re-acquainted the Malkana Rajpoots (who were in tact neo-Muslims) with Islam, made arrangements for their religions education and opened Madrasahs at various places. At many places the Muslim missionaries had to break lance with the Arya preachers in which the preachers of the Darul-Uloom were generally successful.

It appears from the informations, which the preachers sent from time to time that initially they had to suffer various severe harassments from the perversities and cruelties of the recusant and recalcitrant Malkanas. In the earlier stages, when the preaches reached Tasai, a village in the erstwhile Alwar state, the Malkanas refused to accommodate them; the Malkanas used to make fun of the preachers' ablution (Vuzu) and when the latter would ask for water, they would answer with brickbats. But the preachers, putting up in mosque, went on bearing with the Malkanas' vexatious behavior with fortitude and determination for a long time. When the preachers' cup of patience over brimmed and success kept evading, willy-nilly they thought of returning. But at night some of them saw in dream that the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be on him!) was busy smilingly in putting a check on the mischief of apostasy. This great good tiding revived and bolstered up their spirits, and, on the one hand, the condition of the Malkanas, by divine destiny, took a sudden turn and their vexatious harassment changed into acts of providing comforts.

There is no denying the fact that during these delicate period many other institutions and societies besides the Darul-Uloom participated more and more in the preaching efforts. The activities of the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind were also not any the less in this field, so much so that when it also opened its missionary office at Agra. Darul-Uloom, in order to maintain a joint position, thought it advisable to affiliate its own branch of preaching to the Jamiat's office. Accordingly, from Rabiul-Awwal, A.H. 1342, this decision was put into practice. But from the manner, in which the common Muslims and newspapers acknowledged the services of the Darul-Uloom, it appears that the efforts of the Darul-Uloom were much more extensive, organized and valuable. The newspaper "Siyasat" (Lahore), in its issue of June 27, 1922, had written: "As far as the protection of religion, repudiation of the antagonists and reformation of the Muslims are concerned, the part the teachers, preachers and organizers of the Darul-Uloom, Deoband, far exceeds that of the whole of India. As for Instance, if those unlimited efforts, which the Arya Samaj put in against Islam, are considered, it will be as clear as day to you that one who stood face to face with these efforts more prominently. It was the Madrasah A'liya, Deoband, only and it can be claimed that the talks of true religion, Arabic sciences, Tafsir, Hadith and Fiqh, by Allah's help, are existing to a great extent due to the auspicious existence of Deoband".

The news daily "Zamindar" (Lahore) had stated: "It is needless to mention how valuable services the Darul-Uloom is rendering in the prevention of the mischief of relegation. Its teachers and students are active in achieving this object with utmost concentration and it is an open fact that a real leaching institution is that which may enter the field of action in the hour of need".

Efforts for the Preservation of Religion

The Christian countries of Europe have been rivals of the Muslims from the very beginning. They never considered the idolatrous nations to be their enemies capable of posing danger to Christendom in the field of international politics. But the Muslims did have an international position. They had established their slates not only in Asia but had also ruled over Spain in Europe for 800 years and then for 600 had held sway over Constantinople, which was the capital of eastern Byzantium and other territories under its suzerainty. The real rivals, therefore, of the Christians were only Muslims, who had fought great wars with them in the course of 1400 years, particularly since the Muslims control of Jerusalem and practically since A.D. 1095 when the two great faiths, Islam and Christianity had after centuries of argument, decided to resort to— as a world-renowned historian of civilisation says: "To man's ultimate arbitrament — the supreme court of war". When all Christendom was aflame with holy fervour as never before as it feverishly prepared for the holy war. On the holy-land of Palestine alone, which was then the bone of contention, as many as thirteen crusades had been fought in which the allied natives of Europe had taken part and had at last been defeated. The Turks had to keep fighting the Christian nations of Europe for 600 years. Christendom was therefore afraid only of the Muslims against whom it was always intriguing and hatching conspiracies to create weakness in Muslim politics so that it might take advantage of it.

So, when the English, in their greed of conquest, landed on the Indian soil, here too they found the banner of Muslim power waving in the air. This too made them consider Muslims as their true rivals and they began to plan to crush them. In the sight of the English the Muslims did not deserve any sympathy. The passions for vengeance created by the events of 1857 had deprived the English of even the human sentiments of justice and equity in respect of the Muslims. Since the Muslims, in the revolt of 1857 and earlier, had been in the forefront of every movement opposing the English, they alone were made the target of wrath after the stabilisation of the English government. Subsequent to the decline and extinction of the Muslim power and the stability of the sway of the East India Company over India, the Christian missions enhanced their activities throughout the country more fervently and enthusiastically, although the preaching activities in India had already begun during the Mughal regime itself. A historian of that era, Khafi Khan has stated: "The Feringhees have mostly established their colonies in the coastal ports. When anyone from amongst their subjects dies, they confiscate his effects and, enslaving his young children, whether they be Hindu or Muslim, Christianise them".

The means and methods the English adopted in propagating Christianity had spread prodigious misgivings among the Indians.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century the activities of the Christian missions encompassed the whole country. The aforesaid Charles Grant was instrumental in inducing the British Parliament to incorporate provisions about education and the entry of missionaries in the Charter of 1813. With this permission a floodgate of missions and their schools, collages, hospitals and Bible Societies was opened "to redeem the heathens of India from the darkness in which they dwelt. For this purpose legions after legions of padres began to come to India and crores of rupees began to be spent like water. Besides males, a number of women missionaries were also employed to preach among the Indian women. The people of the untouchable, scheduled castes of India were much affected by the Christian preachers, Besides them some other people also, renouncing their ancestral religions, began to become Christians.

In 1826, Archbishop Heber of the Church of England, after a long missionary tour of India, submitted a report to the Court of Directors of the East India Company to the effect that since its political power had been established in India. And Muslims, Marhattas, Rajputs, Sikhs, all had submitted to their paramountcy. There was no more left any possibility of any row or uproar over the preaching of Christianity, Such reports and statements gave a great fillip to the missionary activities, encouraging the padres' coming to India and their long sojourns here. Christian preachers swarmed everywhere and fanned out in the country, laying a network of preaching activities from cities and towns to villages. These overzealous raissionaries would not rest content with merely the description of the merits and virtues of their religion but, under a pre-planned scheme, used to publish such literature in which the religions of India. Particularly the Islamic teachings and Islamic culture were being derided, and the Prophet of Islam, Muslim monarchs and saints were insulted and affronted. The purpose of these people behind this derision and detraction most probably was that since the Muslims after their political decline and debacle had been deprived of their inherent courage, high-minded-ness and lofty vision. If the virtues and merits of Christianity and the (supposed) defects and shortcomings of there own religion and history were presented before them on this occasion. They would very possibly apostatise and would adopt Christianity and thus the English would get a chance to rule over India permanently and complacently.

In A. D. 1834/A. H. 1250, the famous preacher of the Church of England, Dr. C. G. Fonder came to India. He was a cleric of German stock and had proficiency in speaking and writing both the Arabic and Persian languages. In A. D. 1835/A. H. 1251 he published a book in Persian entitled Mizan ul-Haq in refutation of Islam.' This is the first book in refutation of Islam published in India.

The East India Company whose apparent purpose was trading and the real objective was the preaching of Christianity and the grabbing of political power in India, had gradually begun 1o intermeddle in the political, educational and administrative affairs of the country. With this objective in mind, Bible Societies had been established at many places, the Bible had been translated into all the principal languages of the country. Christian missions had been opened in all the big and small cities and towns of India, and the officials of the Company and the Christian missionaries had made a common cause and were preaching Christianity vigorously. The English people's plan was that somehow the Indians, particularly the Muslims, should be converted to Christianity so that that religious zeal that impelled them to hate and oppose the British might be channelised for stabilising the British government. And thereby the chances of ruling over India peacefully with the flourishing of Christianity might be created.

In short, on the one hand, missionary activities of the padres were current, mission schools were being opened in which facilities for acquiring education were being provided, and the officials of the Company were on their back. Providing all sorts of help and support and, on the other, above every thing else was the lure of government services. The scheme of the Company was such that by making the inhabitants of India, particularly the Muslims, indigent and ignorant, for which all sorts of proper and 1mproper means were being employed. And by luring them to the acquisition of services, they should be constrained to receive education in Mission Schools, which were considered then the greatest means for the preaching of Christianity. But the greatest stumbling block in this path was the sciences of the Muslims and their love for it. To obviate this the said education scheme VV'CIS devised in AD 1835/ A.H. 1251 the spirit of which. According to Lord Macaulay, was to create a class of persons who would be "Indians in blood and colour, but English in last’s in opinions, in morals, and in intellects".

This second weapon of English education and English culture no doubt proved more successful than the former. It is obvious that this scheme of the Company was a very noxious and deadly weapon for the Muslims' religious life, communal traditions and arts and sciences that they could never bring them selves round to accepting under any circumstance. And while they had not yet thought out a solution for maintaining their religious life and communal consciousness, the upheaval of 1857 occurred whose unsparing ravages and horrible consequences had terrorised hearts, benumbed brains and withered souls. The whole community was over- clouded with inertia, insensibility and despondency. The monarchical and ruling power and glory, wealth and pomp had been finished and the Muslims had been altogether deprived of the means of livelihood. Indecent habits were taking root in them day by day and the entire community was falling into the abyss of ruination and destruction. Disinclination towards education and alienation from religion were increasing daily; the consciousness of their own strength and position was dying out. The padres' preaching activities had made conditions more perplexing and the time was not far off when the old generation of the Ulema educated in the former seminaries would have gradually vanished. 

These were the circumstances under which our thinkers and savants had to perceive that with political decay and debacle and deprivation of sovereignty, the Muslims' learning, religion and communal life too would soon fall into serious jeopardy. They were not unaware of this decision of history that whenever a people have conquered a country and have gained political domination and sway over its inhabitants. The influences and characteristics of the victors do not remain confined to the bodies of the vanquished but go deeper, subjugating the heart and mind. Learning and thought of latter also with the inevitable result that the vanquished not only bid adieu to their national customs, national ethos and national thought and practice. But in accordance with the axiom "the people follow their kings religion", and due to the continuous process of attraction and assimilation for a long time, they at last begin to hate their own traditions, values, thought and practice. And then imitation and blind following and conformance to the victorious nation become a source of pride for them.

In the 600-year-old history of the Muslims in India this was the most dreadful, delicate and dangerous time. At such a delicate and dangerous time when the fortune's wheel had brought about a very ruinous state of affairs for the Muslim community, the most important need of the time for the protection and survival of the Muslims was the palingenseis of religious values and establishment of religious schools.

It has been a great characteristic of our Ulema and Shaikhs that from religious, academic and jurisprudentially propositions to any branch of culture, social life, politics and civilisation, they never let the skirt of the Islamic Shari'ah slip from their hands. They never laid down arms before the rival powers in any corner. The nineteenth century A. D. was a great challenge to the beliefs, thoughts and views of the Muslims. Western arts and sciences and European culture were engulfing the whole world like a great deluge. The lamp of the Mughal sultanate in India had been snuffed out. The lustre and glitter of modem science and technology had dazzled the eyes and overawed the minds. But the noble Ulema continuously remained engaged in facing this challenge. On the one hand they prepared such a defensive fortification by establishing seminaries everywhere in the country that it secured the Muslims to a great extent from the consequences of their political defeat. And on the other Maulana Rahmatullah Keranvi, Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, Maulana Abul Mansoor and Dr. Wazir Khan, etc. put up a vigorous fight with full courage and intrepidity against the onslaught of the Christian missionaries. And did not let their preachers dream of converting the Muslims of India to Christianity come true. 

The methods of propagating Christianity adopted by the Christian missionaries in those days can be divided into four categories.

1.Mission schools in which the official language of the Government (English) was taught. The teaching of the Bible was compulsory in every such school. It is needless to point out that education is the greatest means of propagating any religion. The thought and mind of students who, due to young age and inexperience, are simple-minded and innocent of religious information can be diverted from their ancestral traditions and values. And can be easily impressed through education, and one's own thoughts and views can be implanted and indurate in their raw, malleable and receptive hearts and minds. It had become a common belief in those days that by reading English children used to bid adieu to their own religion and become "Kristan" (i.e., Christian). Hence the Muslims particularly refrained from admitting their children to mission schools and opposed the English education tooth and nail. Khwaja Ghulam Al-Hasany Panipati has stated: "Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali told my mother about me: Send him to Delhi so that living with me he may acquire English education'. My mother refused saying: 'by giving him English education t don't want to make him materialist and irreligious"?

This was a safeguard of sorts used by the Muslims against the Christian Mission; the Ulema were in the forefront in creating this consciousness among the Muslims.

2.The mission hospitals too ware mode a means of preaching Christianity and efforts were made to impress the patients in these hospitals. This method continues to some extent even now. Hence the allopathic system of medicine was also opposed. The Muslims, for their medical treatment, used to resort mostly to the Unani and Ayurvedic Systems of medicine and herbal therapy. A great advantage obtained from this reaction was that the Unani and the indigenous Systems are still extant in India and are progressing day by day.

3.Consisted in speaking and sermonising, the third method of the Christian Mission consisted in speaking and sermonising in public gatherings and in holding polemical disputations. The Ulema broke lance with the Christian preachers in this field too and with their forceful arguments repulsed the Christian missionaries incessantly so thoroughly that all their schemes were completely demolished. In this connection the names of Delhi, Agra and Shahjahanpur can be particularly mentioned. In 1271/1853, at Agra, the greatest Christian missionary of the time, Dr. C, G. Fonder was so reduced to a nonplus by the incontrovertible academic arguments and clinching objections of Maulana Rahmatullah Keranvi and his colleague, Dr. Wazir Khan, that “Exposition of Truth", with its cogent and unarguable arguments and irrefutable proofs, is that soon after its publication in Arabic its translations in six European languages had been published about the same time.

There is no doubt about it that the Muslims in India had been defeated politically by the English but this is also a fact that the eminent Ulema never gave a chance to the Christian padres to succeed in the academic and ideal fields. On every front of the preaching of Christianity they went on defeating the padres without cease, so much so that the Christian missionaries had to restrict the sphere of their feverish activities and had to give up at last that aspect of preaching Christianity. Particularly in which there used to be aggressive attacks on other religions. In short the Darul-Uloom Deoband and its elders protected the religion at a time when its lamp was about to be extinguished; they tried their level best to make a short work of every internal and external mischief and defended Islam in every possible way.

Besides detective protection there was also need of positive steps at that time, and in this connection the first step was the establishment of religious schools. Accordingly, the Darul-Uloom Deoband was established in 1283/1866. A few months later Madrasah Mazahir-e-Uloom came up in Saharanpur and then such Madaris followed one after another at Thana Bhavan, Muzaffar Nagar, Anbattha, Gulaothi, Meerut, etc., and now their number keeps multiplying day by day. In those crucial and critical days the strategy of the Elias of Deoband, particularly of Hazrat Nanautavi, consisted in the establishment of seminaries only. Wherever he went he tried to establish Madrasahs — at Moradabad, Anbatha, Gulaothi, etc. Wherever he had faithful followers he used to insist upon them in letters and personally to found and start Madrasahs. By this persuasion and stimulus a number of Madrasahs were established, as though, in a way, he — Hazrat Nanautavi — deserves to be called the Founder of Madrasahs in India. 

To transmit the correct Islamic beliefs to the rank and file, printing presses were started in which, besides the holy Quran, other religious books too were being printed, some of which were in refutation of Christianity. Through these books that came out of the presses the religious knowledge of the common run of Muslims kept increasing day by day, they not only derived satisfaction from them but also got armed with the well-argued ripostes and squelches to the objections raised by the Christian missions. The Ulema of the Darual-Uloom supplied the Muslims with literature consisting of thousands of books; thus a large number of books on various Islamic topics were published from there. The teaching and publication of Islamic sciences combined raised an insuperable obstacle in the way of the Christian missions and hence those results of the fervent preaching efforts of the missions the padres were desirous of could not ensue.

The force and intrepidity with which, first of all, Hazrat Nanautavi, and then Maulana Murtaza Hasan Chandpuri and Maulana Sanaullah Amritsari from amongst the graduates of the Darul-Uloom Deoband, contended with the preaching of Christianity. And also with the onslaught of Christianity and Arya Samaj which had begun in the last phase of the thirteenth century Hijri, is a glorious exploit in the history of the Darul- Uloom, Deoband.

The great services rendered by Maulana Sayyed Muhammad Anwar Shah Kashmiri, Maulana Murtaza Hasan Chandpuri, Maulana Ahmed Ali Lahori, Maulana Habibur-Rahman Ludhianvi, Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafee Deobandi, Maulana Muhammad ldris Kandhlavi, Maulana Badr Alam Meerathi, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jalandhari, and Qazi Ahsanullah Shahjahanpuri, etc. against Qadianism form a bright chapter in the history of the Darul-Uloom.

Similarly, whenever during the British regime the Government tried to make any law which could have clashed with the Islamic Shari'ah, the Ulema of Deoband opposed it tooth and nail and gave proof of their devotion to duty. On the occasion of the Sarda Act and the Waqf Bill they did not hesitate at all in presenting the Islamic point of view with daring and clarity.

Anti-Terrorism

On February 25, 2008 Darul Uloom Deoband organized a conference against terrorism. It was attended by over 10,000 Muslims from all over India representing all schools of thoughts of Islam. They declared terrorism to be un-Islamic. Gathering of Indian Muslims declare terrorism un-Islamic

Scholars

The Deobandi school of thought has produced great scholars across the globe. Some of the notable ones are as follows:

1. Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi 2. Qari Muhammad Tayyib Qasmi 3. Qasmi Tahir Qasmi 4. Maulana Khurshid Sahib. 5. Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani 6. Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani 7. Maulana Salim Qasmi. 8. Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhelvi 9. Maulana Anzal Shah

See also

• Deobandi
• Tablighi Jamaat

Moulana asraf randi

References

1. http://darululoom-deoband.com/english/sys_of_edu/index.htm
2. Mawlana Ashraf Ali Thanwi, Shariat and Tasawwuf pg. 11, 112, 113
3. In'aamiyyahMadrassah In'aamiyyah

External links

• Official website of Darul Uloom Deoband

• Sunni News
• Deobandi Islam
• "Traditionalist" Islamic Activism: Deoband, Tablighis, and Talibs
• Darul Ishaat UK - House Of Propagation - Online Islamic Store
• Hardline takeover of British mosques
• Two faces of British youth in thrall to sinister Muslim sect
• Our followers ‘must live in peace until strong enough to wage jihad’

29°41′32″N 77°40′39″E / 29.69222°N 77.67750°E / 29.69222; 77.67750

• Islam in India
• Muslim education
• Educational institutions established in 1867
• Islamic universities and colleges in India
• Islamic universities and colleges
• Saharanpur
• Deobandi