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REFORM AND THE RELIGIOUS SPHERE 79but without the immediate provocation of any impending governmentsponsoredreform.Taking it as a given that the system of education established in Indiaby the British was meant to undermine Muslim identity and culture, andthat it remains largely intact in Pakistan, Ludhianawi argued that to integratemadrasas into this educational system could only mean destroyingIslam itself: the government of an Islamic state would thereby achievewhat the British never could! 88 The madrasas are the “defenders of thereligious sciences” in society, he said; their integration with the state-sponsoredsystem of education would signify nothing but to “prevent themfrom their purely religious services and to subordinate them to [literally:make them the servants of] the modern [Western] sciences.” 89 Thoughin other contexts what we might characterize as Islam’s “worldliness”—encompassing life in all its fullness—is a major theme in the ‘ulama’s religiousdiscourse, it becomes necessary to deemphasize this ‘worldliness’ inthe face of the madrasa’s reform. In Ludhianawi’s view, the madrasasguarantee the preservation of religion in society. That is, there is a separateand independent sphere of religion to be so preserved; and only the independenceof the madrasas can assure its continued existence.Ludhianawi’s critique of the Report of 1979 makes explicit an issuethat is central to all discussion of madrasa reform: the question of religiousauthority. Any attempt at reform that is perceived to threaten theidentity and the authority of the ‘ulama is by definition suspect. The Reportof 1979 had attempted to devise a curriculum that would be acceptableequally to all sectarian affiliations—to the Deobandis, Barelawis, andAhl-i Hadith among the Sunnis, as well as to the Shi‘a; the establishmentof a national board of madrasas was also visualized, and all sects were tohave equal representation on it. But if the authority of a religious scholaris based, in part at least, on his sectarian identity and on his ability toappeal to (and foster) that identity in his audience, then a “mixed” orhybrid (makhlut) curriculum can scarcely be acceptable. Further, as Ludhianawiput it, any “equality” between the sects is conceivable only “inthe purely worldly sphere; but no convergence is possible from the pointof view of religion.” 90The Report’s insistence that madrasas open themselves to the modernsciences and, more generally, that religious education be integrated into theeducational mainstream, was likewise unacceptable, but not only becausethe latter is a legacy of the British and therefore detrimental to Islam. Fora “mixed” curriculum, with something from both the religious and themodern sciences, will not produce men who “combine the medieval andthe modern. ...[Rather], the products of such a system would be uselessequally for religion and the world.” 91 What the reform seeks to create is not‘ulama, Ludhianawi concluded, but “only loyal government servants.” 92