Dr MOHAMMAD AKRAM NADWI is a renowned Islamic scholar, and Dean and founder of Cambridge Islamic College, UK. A former research fellow at Oxford University, he is popularly known for his ground-breaking research on the female scholars of Islam in the field of Hadith. This research spanned a period of 15 years and resulted in the 57-volume work detailing and analysing the biographies of over 9000 female scholars. Dr Nadwi, at the request of Maulana Abul Hasan ‘Ali Nadwi, joined the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, University of Oxford, as a research fellow in 1989. He has also authored and translated over 30 titles on Language, Jurisprudence, Qur’an and Hadith. Dr Nadwi started his Islamic education in Madrasah al-Islah and thereafter joined Nadwatul ‘Ulama. He completed his BA ‘Alimiyyah Degree and MA in Hadith Studies. While teaching at Nadwatul ‘Ulama, he completed his BA in Economics from Lucknow University and also a PhD programme in Arabic Literature. He is widely recognised as one of Western Europe’s leading Islamic scholars and thinkers. In an interview to MOHD NAUSHAD KHAN, he said madrasa curriculum needs to be changed completely. Today audience is different, their questions are different; we need to be adept at answering the doubts and questions from madrasas accordingly. It is the need of the hour to reform the curriculum of our madrasas.
First of all, I would like to know the growth and impact of Islamic teachings in the UK?
Since I arrived in the UK; I have always been in Oxford. One thing, I have always experienced that when students come to the University of Oxford to study Islam, they study with the Orientalists and very often they create doubts and raise questions about Islam, about Hadith and the Prophet, about the Seerah of the Prophet and even the Quran itself. Many students also ask questions to clear their doubts. I used to help them and most of the time they come with the same questions. So I used to guide them properly so they can have the proper knowledge of Islam and its teachings. I taught men and women both including students and professors.
When they came to know about Islam and when their doubts are cleared by us then their trust in Islam and its sources grew. They started to believe more and became more believers. This is the noticeable growth and impact and we consider it to be a big achievement. Many students have said to me that after learning Islam, Hadith and Fiqh from you, we believe that the methodology that the Muslims have followed is much more powerful and convincing than the methodology followed by the Orientalists and the West. Truly, people had no idea about what Bukhari has done. Everybody says that it is Sahih Bukhari. These students came to know what Sahih Bukhari actually means and like many other aspects of the Quran and Hadith. And we are happy to see Islamic teachings becoming more effective here and people’s trust in Islam and its teachings growing by the day. Many people from across the world come here to learn Islam.
Islamophobia, as we all know, has been a major concern all through the ages. What according to you is the way forward and how it can be tackled?
There are Muslims who are working in this field and they are making efforts as to how to face this challenge and they are working for the last 10 to 12 years. I have asked them that they have been working in this direction for quite a long time to solve this problem, but tell me, has the Islamophobia increased or decreased over the years? They replied it has increased. So it means, the effort has gone in vain and it has not yielded any fruit. I asked them, if the desired results are not coming then there might be something wrong. They say Islamophobia has been increased by multiple times. I told them, it is so because they have the wrong approach. The problem is people don’t know us. If I don’t know, who they are, and if I hate them then whatever people may say about them, I will believe that. They live next to us but they don’t know us. The best thing is to meet them, come in contact with them and build rapport with them. Supposedly, my neighbour is a Christian and he does not know me. He has come to know about Islam through the media or from people who have prejudiced feeling towards Islam.
People-to-people contact is important. Alhamdulillah, the people who came to learn from me have changed a lot and possess a good understanding of Islam and Muslims. If you meet people and treat them well, they will surely understand you more. A Muslim friend of mine came to me and complained that all his Christian neighbours hate him. I also have Christian friends but they don’t hate me. The Christian neighbours generally complain that Muslims make foods and the smell that comes out from their house troubles them. I said to Muslim friends, when you make food, share it with them, invite them to your house and give the best of hospitality and thereafter their perception towards Muslims and Islam will definitely change.
When people know you then they cannot hate you. I don’t like the way people deal with Islamophobia. The Quran said, we made people different not to hate. Differences are there to increase knowledge and not to hate each other. People don’t understand this. I teach the students about this. Let us introduce and start mixing with each other to bridge the differences.
So you mean to say social mixing is important to overcome this problem?
Actually, we know people have always neighbourhood meetings, but I have started a new project called “neighbourhood eating.” In this programme, I used to say make food and invite your Hindu, Christian and Jew neighbours and just eat together and don’t discuss religion. Gradually, cordial relations will develop and the hate will convert into love and care and misunderstanding and negative impression would go away thereafter.
When you look at the Muslim world today, what troubles you the most and what makes you happy?
We people have become like any other nation and we treat people like any nation. We are not like the messengers of Allah. We have to make efforts as to how to get Paradise and how other people can get Paradise through us. We should love them, we don’t understand that. Actually, this religion has become just an identity. Islam is not an identity. Islam is a real religion. What I believe, don’t teach Islam like identity, teach Islam in such a way that it can make people nearer to Allah and save them from the hell fire.
So what are the challenges before the Islamic world today and what is the way forward?
Challenges are Muslims themselves. We Muslims don’t understand our religion. This religion has come to us, we don’t make effort to understand what it is all about. It is such a great gift from Allah; we have no idea. The Quran is there but we have made it a customary affair. This book came for life and we use it for death time. We celebrate Miladun Nabi but we don’t care for what the Prophet came and what was his message. So what I believe is that we should start from the beginning and not from the middle. And I believe there is no Islam without iman; if iman is not there, Islam will be just a culture and nothing else. What I say if you don’t think, you cannot be a Muslim. So start thinking. Then only one can understand the value of the teachings of Islam. Thinking has finished and the religion has become a culture.
As we all know you have extensively worked on Sufism. Can you tell us how it has impacted our socio-cultural landscape of India?
I have studied the whole history of Sufism. Sufism has something good and also some problem. Sufism came for a purpose and they wanted to bring a reality in the society away from materialism and all. It had some benefit. But later on, Sufism adopted many cultures, identities and forms. Today Sufism has the same problem as anything else or any other movement. It actually started for a good purpose. In Sufism, many ignorant people entered. Sufism became so much corrupted. It has now become very difficult for Sufi people to make them come to the Quran and Sunnah. The teachings of their own saints are a source for them; they rely more on that than anything else.
You have contributed a large number of volumes on Muslim women scholars from the time of Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) till date. What important message has come out from there which you would like to share with us?
The message what I have realised is that we Muslims don’t respect women. And this research, I believe will bring some respect to them in our heart. Once respect will come, many other things will change. We really don’t take women’s issue seriously. We generally hide it or want to cover it. We don’t think that there is a problem. The reason there is so much problem is that they believe they don’t get respect.
What’s your take on the teachings of Islam and the growth of Islamic scholars in India?
India’s education was very good until Britishers arrived. Indian educational system was the best in the world before the advent of the Britishers and many people considered it to be even better than Oxford. But after they came, instead of teaching Islam and how to think and understand, our whole effort has been to answer. Be it Barailvis, Ahle-Hadith, Salafis, they all only argue or answer but the real research has gone now. The sectarian divide is on the rise. When they teach Hadith, they do so only to refute another school of thought or to demean them or to let them down and least care about teaching the real message of the Hadith and the spirit of the message of the Hadith. They teach Hadith only to bring their own ideas.
We don’t learn Hadith for the sake of Hadith and we don’t learn the Quran for the sake of guidance. This was not there in India before. Everything is done to divide the group and group has become more important than religion. My identity is with the school of thought to which I belong to and not as a Muslim first. Like Hanafi, Shafi, Maliki, Hanbali, Barelvi, Deobandi and so on. If you say the Prophet said not to stop women from coming to the mosque. But if there is a fatwa from any (quarter), it will carry more value than what the Prophet had said. Our own immediate leaders have become the source of our knowledge than the Quran, Hadith and the Prophet.
Do you think Pluralism is a way forward and what are the Islamic teachings towards Pluralism?
We should understand that we are one race. We are the human race. We need to explain to the people if they accept, it is fine; if they don’t accept, still they are fine. Still, they are human being. Maybe their future generation can understand. We should not hate anybody. We should make efforts towards our duty as messenger.
Anything you would like to say to Indian Muslims?
I think the Indian curriculum of madrasa should be changed. This curriculum was to achieve a different goal. When Deoband started, the goal was something else and India has changed a lot since then. It is very important in the life of an institution that sometimes people take painful decisions even if they had the need to change the direction. They should be able to change the direction. Now our curriculum needs to be changed completely. Today audience is different, their questions are different and we need to be adept at answering these doubts and questions. It is the need of the hour to reform the curriculum of our madrasas.