Madrasas in Kerala, South India

By Yoginder Sikand

The system of Islamic education in Kerala presents a considerable contrast to its counterparts elsewhere in India. Kerala boasts of the highest literacy rate in India, and the Kerala Muslims, estimated at around a fourth of the state’s population, is the most well-educated Muslim community in the country. Although some madrasas of the ‘traditional’ type do exist in Kerala, they have been overtaken by a large and expanding network of reformed madrasas that have incorporated ‘modern’ subjects and teaching methods to varying degrees. Comparing the ‘reformed’ madrasas in Kerala with ‘traditional’ madrasas in north India is a fascinating exercise, highlighting the diversity within the madrasa system of education in India as a whole.

India’s first contact with Islam was in Kerala, where for centuries before the rise of Islam Arab traders would visit local ports to trade. Legend has it that a group of Muhammad’s companions visited Kerala on their way back from a pilgrimage to Adam’s Peak in Ceylon, where Adam is said to have lived. Just then, it is said, Cheruman Perumal, the Chera ruler of the principality of Kodangallur, or Cranganore, in coastal Kerala, witnessed a miraculous happening, the sudden splitting of the moon. The visiting Arab traders explained to the king that the miracle was a sign that a prophet had been sent by God to Arabia. Soon after, Cheruman Perumal travelled to Arabia and accepted Islam. On his way back to India he died at the port of Zafar in Yemen, where his tomb later grew into a popular centre of pilgrimage.

On his deathbed he is said to have authorized some of his Arab companions to go back to his kingdom to spread Islam. Accordingly, a group of Arabs led by Malik bin Dinar and Malik bin Habib arrived in north Kerala and set up several mosques there. The historical veracity of the story is disputable, although Muslim tradition does speak of an ‘Indian king’ who presented Muhammad with a bottle of pickle as a gift.

Whatever the truth of the story may be, ample evidence exists of Muslim merchants from Arabia settling along the Malabar coast not long after the Prophet’s death, where they were welcomed by local kings for the valuable role that they played in the lucrative foreign trade. It was largely through the peaceful missionary efforts of Arab merchants that Islam spread in the region, particularly among the oppressed ‘low’ castes. Today, Muslims account for around a fourth of Kerala’s population.Traditional Islamic education in Kerala, like elsewhere, was largely mosque-based. Students would gather in learning circles or othupallys to read a text or set of texts from a particular teacher. The othupally system was almost entirely based on oral learning, and often students were not able to write despite several years of study. The curriculum originally consisted of a range of disciplines, including the ‘transmitted’ sciences as well as subjects like geometry, mathematics, astronomy, logic, history and medicine. Later, however, it was largely reduced to the Qur’an, Hadith and fiqh.

The early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a number of powerful reformist movements among the Muslims in Kerala, among whose aims was the reform of the Islamic education system. One of the pioneers in the field of Islamic educational reform in Kerala was Moulavi Chalilakath Munmuhammad Haji. In 1909 he was appointed as the headmaster of the Tanmiyath ul-‘Ulum madrasa at Vazhakkad in British-ruled Malabar in north Kerala. He renamed the madrasa as the Dar ul-‘Ulum Arabic College, seeking to turn it into a modern institution for the teaching of both Islamic as well as ‘modern’ subjects. As the new name of the institution suggests, it was sought to be modelled on the system of colleges that British rule had brought about in its wake. The Haji arranged for the preparation of textbooks for the new subjects and also introduced the use of tables, chairs and blackboards in the classrooms, a radical innovation for his times. Several graduates of the college went on to launch similar experiments in other parts of Malabar.

At roughly the same time, efforts to reform the traditional othupally system were launched in southern Kerala. Vakkam Muhammad Abdul Qadir Moulavi (1873-1932) established a chain of modern madrasas in the princely state of Travancore and also arranged for government schools to teach Arabic to Muslim students. Likewise, in Cochin, Sanaullah Makti Thangal and Shaikh Muhammad Mahin Thangal opened a number of schools where Islamic subjects were taught along with ‘modern’ disciplines. The work of these reformers was carried on further with the establishment of organizations set up with the purpose of reforming the traditional Muslim educational system, including the Malabar Muslim Educational Association (1911), the Lajnat ul-Muhammadiya Sangham (1915), the Muslim Mahajana Sabha (1920), the Kerala Aikya Sangham (1922), the Kerala Jami‘at ul-‘Ulama (1924) and the Hidayat ul-Muslimin Sangham.

A central message of these reformist movements was that Muslims must study the Qur’an for themselves, rather than be dependent on a professional class of religious specialists. They argued that the Qur’an was a book of divine instruction that must be properly understood by every Muslim. It was not, they stressed, a book of esoteric mantras to be chanted or simply a monopoly of the professional ‘ulama, as was then widely believed. Naturally, the conservative ‘ulama saw in the reformist project a major threat to their position as religious leaders.

The reformists’ bitter critique of popular customs associated with the cults of the Sufis and their advocacy of ijtihad also directly undermined the authority of many’ ulama, who were quick to brand the reformists as ‘anti-Islamic’ Wahhabis. At several places reformist Muslims were socially boycotted, and some conservative ‘ulama even went to the extent of issuing fatwas of infidelity against them, discouraging marriages with them and even denying them the right to be buried in Muslim graveyards. Yet, the reformist cause gradually began to gather in strength, so much so that, not long after, the conservatives started to establish similar educational centres to meet the reformist challenge, setting up their own organization, the Samastha Kerala Jami‘at ul-Ulama, for the purpose.

Interestingly, one of the important causes for the success of the reformists was the support that some of them received from the British in Malabar and the Hindu princely states of Travancore and Cochin in southern Kerala. In 1904, the British colonial administration deployed some mullahs from traditional othupallys to teach Arabic in selected government schools in Malabar. Later, the colonial authorities set up a small number of Muslim high schools in the region, where facilities were provided for the teaching of Arabic and Islam. Shortly after, in 1914, the government of Travancore began employing Qur’anic and Arabic teachers in several primary and high schools in the state and appointed a Mohammadan Inspector of Schools to supervise their work. The government later constituted an Arabic Examination Board, which was responsible for the training of the teachers and for preparing a fixed syllabus and textbooks for the schools. In 1920 the government of Cochin began appointing Arabic teachers in schoolswith a large number of Muslim students. The introduction of Arabic and Islamic education in the government schools in Kerala, in both the areas under British and princely rule, thus played a major role in helping to bridge the divide between the othupally and the ‘modern’ systems of education.

In the post-1947 period Arabic was introduced in several more government schools. In 1957, a year after the merger of Malabar, Cochin and Travancore into the newly created state of Kerala, Arabic was introduced in 17 additional government high schools in the state. In 1958 Arabic began to be taught in primary government schools in Malabar, where, unlike Travancore and Cochin, it had earlier been taught only at the high school level. Today, there are an estimated six thousand Arabic teachers working in government schools all over Kerala, with some 500,000 students, mostly Muslims, learning the language. The State Council of Educational Research and Training and the Directorate of Public Instruction both have separate sections to supervise Arabic education in government schools in the state. Expert committees appointed by the state government, consisting of leading Arabic scholars, have prepared modern textbooks for the teaching of Arabic, and these are regularly updated.

At the higher levels of education, too, the government has worked closely with Muslim organizations to reform the system of Arabic teaching. Today, the universities of Calicut (Kozhikode) and Cannanore (Kannur) have a total of eleven affiliated Arabic Colleges, almost all located in the Malabar region, that provide facilities for higher level Arabic learning. Several Arabic Colleges are co-educational and it is not uncommon to find women teaching male students. They offer a five year afzal ul-‘ulama degree, the basic qualification for which is a high school pass. Some of them also have facilities for a two year post-afzal ul-‘ulama course. The curriculum focuses on Arabic grammar and literature, along with general Islamic Studies. Many Arabic Colleges now have computer departments as well as a range of extra-curricular activities, including cultural programmes and social work conducted through local units of the National Service Scheme. In 1980, the syllabus was considerably restructured and modernized and English was made compulsory at all levels. Since the syllabus is set by an expert committee appointed by the state government, it is free of intra-sectarian polemics and disputations that are so central to the madrasa system in north India.

Besides the affiliated Arabic Colleges, the salaries of whose staff is paid for by the state, there are a large number of other such colleges in the state for the study of Arabic and Islamic studies that are privately run and funded. They are independent in setting their own syllabus, but they generally follow the curriculum prescribed for the afzal ul-‘ulama degree by the universities of Calicut and Cannanore. In addition, they teach various Islamic disciplines, such as Islamic law and Qur’anic commentary, which are either not at all taught or else receive little attention in the afzal ul-‘ulama course. These colleges have their own system of examinations, but encourage their students to appear as private candidates for the afzal ul-‘ulama degree as well.Government recognition of the afzal- ul-‘ulama degree has worked to help integrate the system of Islamic and Arabic education in the state with the ‘mainstream’.

In 1980, the afzal ul-ulama course was accepted as equal to a regular BA, and the post-afzal ul-‘ulama as an MA. This has helped increase the range of occupations that graduates can aspire for. Graduates of Arabic Colleges in Kerala are qualified to appear for a range of examinations for various government jobs or to go in for higher education in regular universities. Many graduates now work as translators and office workers in Arab countries, and several are studying or teaching abroad. A large number are also employedas Arabic teachers in government schools.

Kerala’s system of higher Arabic education is the most well organised in the country today. So, too, is its system of madrasa education. Full-time madrasas, such as in north India, are today a rarity in Kerala, although among ‘traditionalist’ groups, labelled as ‘Sunnis’ in popular parlance, they are still to be found. What are called madrasas in Kerala correspond to the maktabs in the north. Students, both boys and girls, attend a madrasa for two hours daily, early in the morning or late in the evening, thus allowing them to study at regular school as well. Far from being discouraged to study at regular schools in addition to the madrasa, they are generally encouraged to do so in the belief that all forms of legitimate education are ‘Islamic’.

This has made for a close integration of traditional and ‘modern’ education in Kerala unparalleled in the rest of India.In contrast to madrasas in much of the rest of India, most Kerala madrasas are affiliated to and run by centralized organizations, which has made for a uniformity of standards and more efficient management. The most important of these organizations are the Kerala Nadwat ul-Mujahidin, the Jama‘at-i Islami and the Samastha Kerala Sunni Jami‘at ul-‘Ulama. The Nadwat ul-Mujahidin corresponds to the Ahl-i Hadith of north India. They do not recognize any of the schools of fiqh as binding. They argue that one should follow only the Qur’an and the Hadith, and if the schools of fiqh diverge on any matter from these two primary sources they are to be rejected. They are also opposed to popular customs that they see as having no sanction in the shari‘ah. The Jama’at-i Islami shares a broadly similar orientation, although, unlike the Nadwat ul-Mujahidin, it has a clearly political orientation and sees the Islamic state as an essential pillar of Islam. What are known as the ‘Sunnis’ in Kerala, that is, generally speaking, Muslims not affiliated to either the Nadwat ul-Mujahidin or the Jama‘at-i-Islami, insist on the need for strict compliance with the schools of fiqh, which, in the case of most Muslims in Kerala, is the Shafi‘i mazhab.The Nadwat ul-Mujahidin, now divided into two rival factions, the Jama‘at-i Islami, and the various groups of the ‘Sunnis’ have their own Islamic education boards to administer the madrasas under their control. In 2003 it was estimated that the Nadwat ul-Mujahidin’s Madrasa Vidyabhyasa Board administered some 500 madrasas, the Jama‘at-i Islami’s Majlis ut-Ta‘lim al-Islami about 200, the Samastha Kerala Islam Matha Vidyabhyasa Board of the ‘Sunnis’ roughly 6000, and the Sunni Dakshina Kerala Jami‘at ul-‘Ulama some 1000.

Generally, a local community owing affiliation to one of these various groups decides to set up a madrasa and approaches the concerned education board for permission. The community provides a small building for the purpose and collects money to pay for a teacher. The education board then sends an inspector, and after it approves of the scheme formally affiliates the madrasa to it. Each board has a fixed curriculum and set of textbooks specially prepared for the different grades, and these are sent to the affiliated madrasas. They consist of lessons in Arabic and basic Islamic Studies, reflecting the particular understanding of Islam of the school of thought with which the madrasa is affiliated. By the time the students pass the final grade they have a sound grounding in the faith and a good understanding of elementary Arabic. Examination papers are sent out by the boards, thereby ensuring certain minimum standards, a major problem with ‘traditional’ madrasas in other parts of India that are autonomous of any higher controlling authority.

In addition to the network of madrasas and Arabic Colleges that they run, each of the three major Muslim groups in Kerala has also established a number of regular schools. They are like any other private school, following the state government syllabus, but also make arrangements for the teaching of Arabic and Islamic Studies for their Muslim students. They are generally open to all communities, and some of them have a large number of non-Muslim students as well, for whom religious education is not compulsory. As this suggests, the gulf between ‘religious’ and ‘modern’ knowledge and between traditional ‘ulama and ‘modern’ educated Muslims, so stark in large parts of north India, has thus considerably narrowed down in Kerala today.


Bridging Din and Duniya: The Kerala Nadwat ul-Mujahidin

Among the many Muslim organizations and movements in Kerala involved in promoting ‘modern’ as well as Islamic education is the Kerala Nadwat ul-Mujahidin, commonly referred to simply as the Mujahid movement. Established in 1950, the movement grew out of the reformist efforts of the Kerala Muslim Aikya Sangha, formed in 1922, and then the Kerala Jami‘at ul-‘Ulama, set up in 1924. Several early leaders of the movement, such as K.M.Moulavi, E.Moidumoulavi and Muhammad ‘Abdur Rahman, were also involved in the anti-colonial struggle. The Mujahids, admittedly, represent only a minority of the state’s Muslims, but they have played a leading role in promoting educational awareness and social reform, influencing other Muslim groups in Kerala in turn.

The Mujahids are the Kerala counterpart of the Ahl-i Hadith in north India, but are rather more moderate, sharing an understanding of Islam somewhere in-between the so-called ‘Wahhabis’ of Saudi Arabia and the nineteenth century modernizing Salafis of Egypt, such as Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida. They believe that Muslims need to go back to the basic sources of the faith, the Qur’an and the Hadith, bypassing centuries of tradition as represented by medieval fiqh and Sufism. Followers of the movement call themselves mujahids since they believe that they are engaged, not in a physical jihad or war, but, rather, in a spiritual jihad against superstition and corrupt practicesthat have crept into Muslim society.

Today, the Mujahid movement has some 1000 units all over Kerala, with roughly 50,000 members, many of them are highly educated professionals and businessmen. It runs scores of madrasas, schools and colleges in the state, in addition to a number of social work centres. It sees ‘modern’ forms of knowledge as perfectly compatible with Islam, arguing for an Islamic understanding of modernity that willingly embraces new developments in the world but remains firmly embedded in the Islamic worldview.

Husain Aboobacker Koya, general-secretary of one branch of the Kerala Nadwat ul-Mujahidin, explains:The Qur’an stresses the importance of ‘ilm, or knowledge, and this includes both knowledge of Islam as well as of the world, there being no rigid distinction between the two. The Qur’an repeatedly asks us to ponder on the mysteries of creation, exhorting us to acquire knowledge of it. Thus, an ‘alim is anyone who has specialised ‘ilm in any particular field. The true ‘ulama are those who are learned in any branch of knowledge and at the same time are God-fearing. Hence, we are opposed to the notion of professional priesthood, although we believe that there should be specialization in different branches of learning, because of which we have the separate Kerala Jami‘at ul-‘Ulama.Although the Mujahids do not deny the need for specialized religious scholars, they insist that ‘traditional’ madrasa-trained ‘ulama do not have a monopoly of performing religious functions. In fact, in several Mujahid mosques, trained doctors and other such professionals lead the congregational prayers and read the Friday khutba or sermon.

Unlike the conservative ‘Sunni’ mosques in Kerala, in Mujahid-controlled mosques, numbering some 600, the khutba is delivered in Arabic as well as in Malayalam, so that the people can comprehend it. For the Mujahids, the khutba is an important means for promoting education and awareness in the community. Often, their khutbas relate to contemporary issues in the light of the Qur’an and Hadith. This is in marked contrast to mosques run by the ‘Sunnis’, where the khutba is almost always in Arabic only, and are often simply rehashed versions of sermons written several centuries ago. Again in contrast to the ‘Sunnis’, women are allowed and, in fact, encouraged, to pray in Mujahid mosques.

Defending this practice, Koya argues:
"At the time of the Prophet women used to pray in the mosques and so we don’t see any reason why they should not now, although we do not say it iscompulsory. However, there are some people who believe that women must not pray in the mosques, and they find legitimacy for this in the books of medieval fiqh, which depart considerably from the Prophetic practice in this regard. They allow women to come to Sufi shrines or to travel in buses and shop in market, but they resist them coming to mosques!"

‘Engaging in social work is a form of jihad’, Koya explains. As a grass-roots movement inspired by an activist understanding of Islam, the Nadwat ul-Mujahidin runs several social work projects all over Kerala. In addition to its madrasas and Arabic colleges it has a number of high schools that use the state government syllabus, but also provide Islamic education. Several of these schools have a number of non-Muslim students as well. It administers some 30 orphanages, 300 Qur’an learning centres, a major scholarship scheme for poor children, and several blood banks, medical centres and vocational training centres. Its Yuvatha Book House has published some 200 titles on a range of religious and social issues, including translations of works by modern Arab scholars, a five volume Islamic encyclopaedia and a four-volume Malayalam translation of the Qur’an. It also publishes several magazines, including one for women and another that deals specifically with cultural issues. The Mujahid’s Rachana Kala Samithi (‘Literary and Cultural Committee’), which was inaugurated by the famous Malayalam writer Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, organizes regular cultural festivals. The youth wing of the movement, Ittihadul Shubban il-Mujahidin, organizes regular anti-drugand anti-liquor programmes and coaching centers for students.

Funds from these projects are collected from Mujahid members, who contribute their annual zakat and two days’ income. Mosque committees collect this money, which is then used to sponsor particular projects, such as building houses for the poor or providing craftsmen with tools. Koya explains how the Mujahid’s system of community self-help is organized, turning zakat from mere charity into a means for community development: "We believe that zakat should be used to help people come out of poverty so that they, too, can in future give zakat, so we don’t distribute little amounts of money to the poor, which would not help them out of the trap of poverty. In several parts of India poor Muslims go from house to house during Ramzan and people give them small amounts as zakat. I think this system is wrong as it makes the poor feel small. So, I feel our system of productive assets being given by a mosque committee is much better. Rather than giving small amounts of money to large numbers of poor people, we use the money to sponsor a small number of projects every year that can help the poor improve their earning power. The Qur’an says zakat should be spent on the poor, and does not specify that they must be only Muslims. So, last year we decided that we should also use our zakat funds for non-Muslims as well. In this way, given our limited resources, we have been engaged in promoting a socially engaged understanding of religion".

The Mujahids are also engaged in inter-faith dialogue work, through which they seek to promote inter-community harmony while at the same time presenting their own understanding of Islam to people of other faiths. In this regard, the movement has published a number of books in Malayalam on Islam and religious tolerance, and has held several inter-religious conferences to discuss issues of common concern for people of different faiths. Among the participants have been Christian and Hindu priests as well as Dalit and leftist activists. At the Mujahid’s annual meetings scholars are often invited to present papers on issues of current concern, including communalism and inter-faith relations.

Kerala enjoys the highest levels of female literacy in India, and the Muslim women of the state are among the most educated in the country. The Mujahid movement has been at the forefront of Muslim women’s education in Kerala, stressing the need for both Islamic as well as ‘modern’ education for girls. Mujahid intellectuals have written extensively on women’s rights from an Islamic perspective, although, because these writings are almost entirely in Malayalam and have not been translated into other languages, they remain largely unknown to Muslims in other parts of India. By denying the need to follow the established schools of fiqh, they argue that Muslims must rely only on the Qur’an and the Hadith, where they find ample justification for their cause of women’s rights. Thus, ‘Abdul Qadir, a senior Mujahid leader, approvingly cites the case of Ayesha, wife of the Prophet, from whom the Prophet is said to have instructed his companions to seek ‘half the knowledge of the faith’. This, he says, strikingly suggests that women can be teachers of men. He sees no problem in women working outside their homes along with men, provided that they are never alone with a single man.

Today, in several Mujahid madrasas and Arabic Colleges girls outnumber boys by a considerable margin. All Mujahid madrasas and some of its Arabic Colleges are co-educational, although girls and boys sit apart. The movement also runs a number of Arabic Colleges exclusively for girls. A good example is the Mujahid’s Anwar ul-‘Ulum Women’s Arabic College AUWAC) at the village of Mongam in the Mallapuram district of north Kerala, an hour’s drive from Calicut. Although there are several other women’s Arabic Colleges in south India, the AUWAC is the only such institution to be affiliated to a university, in this case the University of Calicut. Here, some 300 girls study, a third of whom live in the college hostel. Several come from poor families, and some of them receive scholarships. Qualification for admission is a pass in the tenth class examination. The students then train for a five year course, divided into a two year pre-afzal ul-‘ulama degree and a three year afzal ul-ulama degree. For those who want to go on for higher education the college offers a two-year post afzal ul-‘ulama course, the equivalent of an MA. They study a range of disciplines, particularly Arabic, both classical and modern, the Qur’an, the Prophetic traditions, English and computers.

The girls here are not simply fed on a diet of Arabic tomes. Besides their regular studies, they are encouraged to busy themselves with some sort of social work, and the college has two wings of the National Service Scheme functioning on campus. Pictures of students in the college’s album show neatly attired girls in black hijabs and spotlessly white cloaks, cleaning a village pond, running a medical camp and building a road in a neighbouring Dalit settlement with shovels and spades. ‘In this way’, explains Zohra Bi, the principal of the college, ‘we are training our children to become good citizens and also to show to ourselves and to others that true Islam means working for the betterment of society’.

Graduates of the college have gone on to take up a range of careers, for, as the Mujahids believe, Muslim women can indeed work outside their homes, albeit observing certain restrictions. Several graduates of the AUWAC teach Arabic in government schools, and a few are even elected members of local and district level panchayats. Several of the teachers of the college, some of them graduates of the college itself, are also pursuing higher research. Zohra Bi, mother of seven, has an impressive list of degrees and certificates to her credit. After doing an MA from the Aligarh Muslim University, she earned a Ph.D. from Calicut, where she worked for her thesis on the subject of women’s rights in Islam. She is the recipient of the prestigious M.M. Ghani award for the best teacher of all Arabic colleges affiliated to Calicut University, of the Bharat Jyoti award, granted by the Delhi-based India International Friendship Society for community work, and of another award from Kerala’s leading newspaper, Malayalam Manorama, in tandem with Air India. Zohra Bi and her colleagues are presenting new role models for pious Muslim women, and she sees her work simply as ‘service of the faith’. ‘Islam’, she says, ‘is wrongly thought of as a religion of women’s oppression. Through our work in the college we want to show that Islam actually empowers Muslim women to work for the community at large’.

As this account suggests, Islamic educational institutions in large parts of Kerala offers a remarkable contrast to their counterparts in other regions of India. The considerable success of the Kerala madrasas in integrating ‘modern’ and Islamic education owes to a number of historical, social, economic and political factors. To begin with, unlike in much of the rest of India, Islam came to Kerala through traders, not invaders. They were welcomed by the local kings, who granted them land to establish mosques and the freedom to propagate their faith. The early Arab settlers played an important role in the local economy, controlling the region’s foreign trade. The Arabs intermarried with local women, and adopted the local language and culture. Because Muslims are so well integrated into local Kerala society today, a legacy of their long history, they have been able to organize without major opposition from other communities, unlike, for instance, in much of north India. Kerala is still largely free of overt inter-communal strife (although the situation is now changing), and this has allowed Muslims to focus on constructive community work rather thanon simply defending themselves or their identity. Again in contrast to north India, where madrasas were traditionally linked to ruling houses and large landlords, Kerala experienced only a brief period of Muslim rule.

Hence, Muslim society here is remarkably free of what is often disparagingly referred to as the ‘feudal’ north Indian Muslim culture, to which the lack of enthusiasm for reform in many ‘traditional’ north Indian madrasas is generally attributed.Further, from the late nineteenth century onwards Kerala has experienced waves of reformist movements, spearheaded by Christian missionaries, communists and ‘low’ caste activists, whichhave also profoundly affected the state’s Muslim population. In addition, Muslims in Kerala, perhaps owing to their historical ties with the Arab heartlands, were among the earliest Muslim communities in India to accept the reformist impulses emanating from Muslim ‘modernists’ in countries such as Egypt and Syria. Then again, unlike north India, Kerala was not affected by the Partition.

The bulk of the north Indian Muslim middle class, who could have expected to take a lead in reformist efforts, left for Pakistan. This, in turn, had serious consequences for efforts to organize the community for ‘modern’ education and to reform the madrasa system. In contrast, very few Malayali Muslims migrated to Pakistan. Today Kerala has a sizeable Muslim middle class, which have played an important role in setting up new sorts of Islamic schools in the state. At the political level, the close integration of the Muslims into the state’s political system has given them strong political leverage, which has helped them to receive government assistance for numerous educational ventures, including schools and Arabic Colleges.

This explains, in part, why, in remarkable contrast to their counterparts in large parts of north India, many Muslim educationists in Kerala have not been averse to working along with the government.The Kerala example is, however, not widely known among Muslims elsewhere in India. This is because, unlike in much of north India, Urdu is hardly understood in Kerala, being taught only in a very small number of madrasas and Arabic Colleges in the state. Instead, almost all Malayali Muslim scholars and ‘ulama write in Malayalam, which is not understood by Muslims elsewhere. Because of this linguistic barrier, there has been little communication between the ‘ulama of Kerala and their counterparts in other parts of India.

However, in recent years a number of ‘ulama from north India have been closely working with their counterparts in Kerala. Some Arabic Colleges in Kerala now have a small number of north Indian students, and some have even begun to teach Urdu. ‘Ulama from Kerala now regularly meet their colleagues from other parts of the country at gatherings and conferences. Delegations of ‘ulama from other states now regularly visiting Kerala to gain a firsthand understanding of the Islamic education system there, and some of them have gone back to their homes to launch similar experiments. However, this has been largely an unplanned exercise, because of which its influence has been limited. Old ways die hard, but increasingly Muslim educationists in north India are beginning to look towards the south, including Kerala, as a model they could learn valuable lessons from. Today, a growing number of Muslims in other parts of India, including several ‘ulama, are advocating reforms in the madrasa system, following in the footsteps of their counterparts in Kerala.