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October 8, 2005

India: Deoband And The Seminaries of Islamic Intolerance of Western Values

The term "Deobandi" often appears in articles about Islam, and is rarely questioned. The Deoband approach however, is behind many of the more extreme examples of Islam's refusal to mesh with western secular values. We have all heard of the term "madrassa", and on this site we have shown numerous examples of how jihadism has been actively encouraged from within these schools.

Without Deoband, there would probably be no madrassas, or at least not as we now would recognise them. Indeed, most of the Taliban leadership were educated at Deobandi-influenced schools, and the Jamaat -e-Islami political parties of Pakistan and Bangladesh are also Deobandi influenced.

An article in yesterday's Daily Star from Pakistan, in which Yoginder Sikand describes the attitudes of a Deobandi Mullah, Maulvi Abdul Basit Hamidi Qasmi of Bihar, inspired me to write this posting. Qasmi, in a recently published book, argues that girls should only be educated in religious madrassas. As well as religion, girls should also be taught vaious domestic skills.

Qasmi is a graduate of the Muslim seminary known as the Darul Uloom, or "House of Knowledge". This seminary is now the second largest centre of islamic study on the planet, second only to Cairo's al-Azhar University. Darul Uloom is located in the Indian town of Deoband, 90 miles northeast of New Delhi. It was in this town in the nineteenth century that, born out of contempt for the rule of the British Raj, who in 1857 had deposed Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the Moghul emperors, and shut down Muslim schools, Sunni Muslim scholars had gathered to seek to continue their traditions.

The scholars, Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Qasim Nanautavi and Hazrat Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi founded the Darul Uloom in 1866, laying the foundation stone of the academy on May 30. By 2001, 65,000 Muslims had graduated from Darul Haloom.

Deoband teachings emphasize the veiling of women. Women must not mix with men in public. Deoband tradition teaches that men are more intelligent than women and that there is no point in educating girls beyond the age of eight. Students at Darul Uloom may use computers, but may not use the Internet. They are permitted to watch TV news, but may not watch movies.......Most students enter the schools at age five and graduate when they are 25 years old.

So here maybe is part of the root of much of the Islamic consertavism and distrust of our societies in the West, where we accept women as equals and tolerate those who are different. The Darul Uloom supported the actions of the Taliban when they destroyed the Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, despite their status as part of a World Heritage Site. There are 15,000 madrassas in Asia calling themselves "Deoband", 150% more than there were in the 1960's.

The Deoband do not encourage violence, but they do teach their students to distrust other cultures, and not to partake in the hedonism and cultural laxity of the west. They officially profess loyalty to the Indian government, even though, according to one source:

The Deobandi interpretation holds that a Muslim's first loyalty is to his religion and only then to the country of which he is a citizen or a resident; secondly, that Muslims recognise only the religious frontiers of their Ummah and not the national frontiers; thirdly,that they have a sacred right and obligation to go to any country to wage jihad to protect the Muslims of that country.

Perhaps one should leave the last words to the Darul Haloom itself, from its website

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.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 8, 2005 12:15 PM

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Posted by: WEST_MIDLAND at September 25, 2006 1:31 PM

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