QUAESTIO - Social Sciences Division - UCLA

Colonial Influences on Traditional Islamic Learning in India
they could interact with and utilize for their own purposes. It
signified an instance of a mutually complicit and interpenetrated
relationship between the colonizers and the colonized, where the
ideals and actions of each party were renegotiated and carried
through in new environments and settings.
The strong British connection to the institutions did not
seem to form a cause for Muslim suspicion and distrust,
probably because the British still made sure to give it a strong
Muslim and Indian character. In fact, the founding of a madrasa
in Calcutta had been requested by the “gentry of Calcutta”
themselves, to help the “poor Muslim community who could not
afford to send their children in expensive schools and colleges,”
though it is not exactly clear which expensive schools they were
referring to. The first “head moulana” would be Mawlana Majd
al-Din, 15 a scholar who had the honor of studying directly under
Shah Wali Allah Dehlavi, an intellectual giant and reformer of
Indian Islam in the eighteenth century. 16 Thus, an undeniably
traditional personality, who gained his knowledge and credibility
solely through traditional means, was now rerouted to work and
serve under a British system. This marked a major victory for
Hastings, who vigorously supported this project. Initially, the
madrasa also started out in a traditional fashion – it began in a
15 Apart from Majd al-Din, I’ve also seen names such as “Muiz-ud-din” and
“Mulla Madan” to describe the same person.
16 Mojibur Rahman, History of Madrasah Education, 75.
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