Traditionally & Modern Educated: Not Much Difference

For long I have been wondering if there is really any substantial difference between the ‘traditionally’ and ‘modern’ educated among the Muslims. I kind of think that there is not. At least not much. In fact, I have seen many modern educated “ulama”. Them I mostly come across, in reality.

They both are steep in the division of deen and dunyaa. They both have huge gaps in their thoughts. They both do not worry about the common link between their speeches and writings. They both have incoherence in ideas. They both have their preconceived notions which they are not ready to part with. They both are farther away from the real concept of knowledge. They both have mostly predictable behaviour patterns.

They both are not quite rational and scientific in their outlook. If the graduates of Darul ‘Uloom Deoband remain mentally confined to their alma mater, the graduates of the Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh stay glued to Aligarh – as an example. They both seek friendship and association with the ‘like-minded’ – generally speaking.

There isn’t much difference in rigidity either. Most strikingly. Weaning the traditionally educated from their respective ‘school of thought’ is as difficult as is weaning the modern educated from the wrong notions of religion and the self-doubt which are deep rooted in them.

The rigidity is expected more from the traditionally educated as their training is in the light of those universal principles which are fundamental to human existence and are never changing. Though exactly for the same reason they should be more flexible and more open to new ideas. This sounds self-contradictory and strange, though!

They both complain about the environment a lot but are happy with their respective situations – both at the same time. They both do not seek any cross-fertilization. They both do not seek any long-lasting engagement with each other. They both represent what Qur’an describes as: “Yet they divided themselves into factions, each rejoicing in what they had. So leave them in their bewilderment for a while.” (al-Mu’minoon, 23: 53)

They both (are) search(ing) for the needle on the road under broad day light and not in the dark corner of their house where actually they (we) have lost it. They both will strongly ‘believe’ in the Book and will do most of the things contrary to It. They both are doing mostly those things which their previous generations have done. They both will talk of the challenges a lot and will not have any worthwhile strategy to meet them.

They both will deal with symptoms and not the diseases. They will do so in different terminologies and different languages. They both will mostly keep away from one language each – Arabic in the case of modern educated and English in the case of traditionally education. They both will mistakenly relate a specific language with ‘deen’ or ‘dunyaa’ (as the case may be) and will not go beyond the surface.

Both of them I have found mired in the details – seeing the trees and forgetting to look at the jungle. Both of them are not quite concerned about putting all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together in order to see the full picture. In short, both of them are farther away from Cognitive Empowerment.