An Ulema-Run Magazine With a Difference

Yoginder Sikand

A new Muslim magazine with articles not just on Islam but also on a host of issues, from global warming, AIDS, modern education among Muslims, madrasa reforms, gender relations and Muslim women’s empowerment to terrorism, communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims and Western imperialism, in addition to news and feature stories about India’s Muslims…. The monthly ‘Eastern Crescent’, published from Mumbai, promises to make a major splash in the fledgling Indian Muslim English-language media market. And what is special about it is that it is run by an editorial team that consists almost entirely of traditionally-educated maulvis from the renowned Dar ul-Ulum madrasa at Deoband.

Launched in mid-May 2006, the Mumbai-based monthly ‘Eastern Crescent’ is the brain-child of Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, the leading-light behind the Markaz ul-Maarif set of institutions that is now assuming the form of a movement. Ajmal, a successful businessman from Assam and himself a Deobandi graduate, is a member of the Central Committee of the Deoband madrasa. The Markaz ul-Maarif runs a chain of schools, orphanages and social work centres in Assam and elsewhere. Another of its major initiatives is a centre in Mumbai that provides a two-year course in English language proficiency to madrasa graduates, most of these being students from the Deoband madrasa.

‘Eastern Crescent’ is published from the Markaz ul-Maarif’s centre in Mumbai. Maulana Burhanuddin Qasmi, its editor, and most of its senior staff members are Deobandi maulvis (also known as ‘Qasmis’) who learnt English only after undergoing the two-year course at the centre, before which most of them had little or no familiarity with the language. And, judging by the generally high quality of the articles that they, along with a team of mainly Muslim writers, both maulvis and others, contribute to the magazine, they seem to be doing a great job. Quite atypically for a magazine run by maulvis, the strictly religious content is minimal, because scores of other Indian Muslim magazines, in Urdu, English and other languages, serve that function. Instead, most of the articles are about serious social, economic and political issues to do with the Indian Muslims—subjects that are generally ignored both in the Muslim-owned and in the non-Muslim media. Which is another thing that makes the magazine special and unique.

Modestly priced at a hundred and fifty rupees a year (life subscription is five thousand rupees), Eastern Crescent provides a different perspective on Indian Muslim issues—that of an influential section of the traditional ulema who are trying to relate to a host of contemporary challenges in some very creative (and, for some, unexpectedly progressive) ways.
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(For more details about the magazine, see the Markaz ul-Maarif’s website www.markazulmaarif.org)