Contents of January 2008 Issue

The Ulema and Science
Fiqh Academies New Steps In Madrasa Reform
Barbara Metcalf: On South Asian Madrasas (Intervie...
State Policies on Madrasas and Muslim Education:
Defending the Madrasas: Indian Ulama Respond
Countering Anti-Madrasa Propaganda
Indian Madrasa Reform: A Leading Maulana’s Plea
Maududi on Madrasa Reform
Traditionalist Ulema and Educational Reform in Ker...
Kashmir's Largest Madrasa: Dar ul-Uloom Raheemiyya...
A Deobandi Madrasa with a Difference
Deoband's Rector on Central Madrasa Board
The State and Madrasa Reform: An Indian Deobandi P...
Madrasa Reforms: Deobandi Responses
A Day in Deoband
Indian Madrasas: Bibliography (Selected & Annotate...
Indian Madrasas: Voices for Reform
'The Glories of India': The Ulema and Indian Natio...
The Ulema and India's Freedom Movement
Madrasas in Kerala, South India
Girls' Madrasas in India
Madrasas and the Indian State
Madrasa Education in South Asia
Muslim Women Ulema: Reviving a Tradition
Madrasas and Interfaith Dialogue: Interview with H...
Madrasa Reforms: Interview with Saeed ur-Rehman Na...
Madrasas and 'Terror': Interview with Asrar ul-Haq...
Inter-Sectarian Rivalries: Interview with Wahidudd...
Interview: Waris Mazhari on the Ulema and Inter-Se...
Madrasas and 'Terrorism': Interview with Salman Na...
Interview: Nejatullah Siddiqui on Madrasa Reforms
Interview: Maulana Kalbe Sadiq on Indian Madrasas


The Ulema And Science

Yoginder Sikand

Author of almost a hundred books, the late Maulana Shihabuddin Nadwi of Bangalore (1931-2002) is best remembered for his efforts to develop what he regarded as a 'scientific' framework of Quranic exegesis, being one of the few contemporary South Asian ulema to have worked in this field. His books and the institution that he founded—the Furqania Academy—were devoted to the elaboration of a 'scientific' Islamic theology (kalam) as well as 'scientific' explanations of various Islamic beliefs, laws and practices.

The Maulana's intellectual autobiography, Meri Ilmi Zindagi Ki Dastan-e Ibrat ('Exemplary Lessons from My Intellectual Life') was the last book that he penned, which he completed only a few days before his death. It discusses his own intellectual growth, beginning with his graduation from the Nadwat ul-Ulema madrasa in Lucknow and then, following from years of studying science as well as English on his own, his emerging as a brilliant scholar with a huge corpus of writings to his credit.


Running as a connecting thread through the Maulana's writings is the need for the ulema (besides other Muslims) to study and understand modern science. The Maulana was convinced that this was a Quranic imperative and was also essential for the economic and political empowerment of the Muslims as a community. This appeal is also repeatedly stressed in the Maulana's intellectual autobiography.

The Quran, the Maulana notes, repeatedly exhorts Muslims to reflect or ponder on various aspects of God's creation as a means for gaining understanding God's attributes. This, he says, can be construed as a call for Muslims to take to the study of various physical and social sciences. Only if Muslims were to do this could they be suitably empowered to fulfill their responsibility as God's vicegerents on earth (khalifa fil arz) and as people commissioned by God to guide humankind, to enjoin what is good and forbid the wrong (amr bil maruf wa nahy anil munkar).

In this regard, the Maulana evokes the Quran as mentioning the appointment of Adam as God's khalifa and his being given knowledge of the 'names' of everything. The Maulana takes this to also mean Quranic sanction for intellectual, including scientific, knowledge and development. Yet, he laments, most traditional madrasas shun the teaching of modern sciences. He appeals to his fellow ulema to reconsider their stance in this regard, warning them that 'The community that breaks its ties with modern knowledge will commit suicide'. 'The temper of the age always changes', he adds, 'and a community which is ignorant of the temper of its age will always be defeated'.


The Maulana's passionate appeal for the ulema to study modern sciences rests on his firm belief that there is no contradiction between the Quran and God's creation, between the Act of God (fail-e ilahi) and the Word of God (qaul-e ilahi). Rather, the laws of both 'support each other because they are from the same source'. Every age has its own intellectual framework (aqli mizaj), and since Islam is for all times, it needs to be expressed in a framework suited to that age. 'In every age', he explains, 'religion has a very close relation with that age's sciences' and that is why 'the miracles given to every prophet were in accordance with the demands of his age'. Hence, he goes on, in today's 'scientific' age, Islam needs to be expressed in 'scientific' terms, which, of course, is possible only if the ulema have an understanding of what science is all about. This is also essential for the work of Islamic propagation (tabligh).

Further, scientific knowledge is also essential, the Maulana argues, for the ulema to respond to contemporary problems (masail) through ijtihad or creative jurisprudential engagement. Here he bitterly critiques the 'stagnation' (jumud) associated with blind imitation of past juridical precedent (taqlid), because of which, he says, 'the eternal relevance of Islam is obscured', 'Islam is made to appear as a dead religion' and 'Muslims are seen as a foolish community'. The undisputed and empirically verified findings of modern science, the Maulana insists, are 'reliable proofs from the
shariah point of view', and hence an important source of Islamic law and of ijtihad. They cannot be denied', he asserts, 'as they reflect the law of God's provision (qanun-e rabubiyat) and the natural laws (zawabit-e qudrat)'. Hence, to conceal them is 'to conceal the truths of the Quran, rather than serving the Quran'.

Developing a 'scientific' Quranic theology, the Maulana further adds, is also essential for Muslims to take on and defeat the advocates of materialism, who view the world through a lens that claims to be 'scientific' but is based on atheism. The sciences, the Maulana insists, must be 'cleansed of the label of materialism', and then suitably 'Islamised' and used for the ethical purposes that God intends for them. 'By relating the creation with the Creator, and showing the correspondence between science and Islam and the planned nature of the whole cosmos' in this way, he argues, proofs for the existence of God (dalail-e rabbani) can be articulated.

The Maulana recognizes that his 'scientific' exegesis of the Quran would mean a significant departure from the views of traditionalist scholars and indeed from the cumulative scholarly tradition of the ulema itself on significant points. Yet, he says, his approach is not to reject the commentaries of the past outright or to condemn them, for all interpretations are human products, influenced by the social location of their interpreters, and so are liable to some degree of error. This human element in interpreting the divine text therefore means that 'intellectuals must never be stagnant but must always ponder on the Quran'.


The Maulana describes his approach to the cumulative tradition of the Quranic commentators as entailing taking from them what he finds to be reliable and in other matters relying on his understanding of the Quran and Hadith. It is not, he stresses, that 'the meaning of the Quran changes with every age', but, rather, that there is 'great expansiveness in the words of the Quran, which can reflect many different meanings'. 'Accordingly', he writes, 'adopting new meanings for a word does not mean that old meanings attributed to it are fully nullified'.

In defence of this position, the Maulana cites a Hadith report that describes the Quran as having 'many faces'. He also refers to a Hadith report that states that the 'miracles' of the Quran can never end, taking this to mean that people will constantly reflect on the Quran and discover or uncover new meanings from and of it. The Quran, he writes, is 'like an ocean of unknown depth' and so 'the more research one does on it', including by relating it to the confirmed conclusions of science, 'the more miracles does it reflect'.

Further elaborating the need for the ulema to study science and to develop a 'scientific' Quranic exegesis, the Maulana writes that knowledge (ilm) in Islam is a composite whole, there being no division between 'religious' and 'worldly' knowledge. 'One arm or eye of Islam is the shariat and the other is
fitrat (nature or science)', he argues. Hence, he stresses, both forms of knowledge are needed, and Muslims 'should have the shariah in one hand and the sciences in the other'. If Muslims were to ignore this, he claims, they would actually be going against God's will, and would be only selectively following the Quran.

Lamentably, so he himself confessed, the Maulana's appeals did not find enthusiastic reception among most of his fellow ulema. Despite this, he kept up his struggle, as manifested in the enormous number of books that he wrote. Many of these are real treasures that urgently deserve to the translated and widely discussed and disseminated, particularly those on Islamic theology and education, which present novel perspectives on a host of issues of contemporary import.

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For more details about Maulana Shihabuddin Nadwi's works, look at the website of the Furqania Academy, the Bangalore-based institution that he founded, on www.furqania.com