7 - The Taalib as a Bricoleur: Transitioning from Madrasah to University in Modern Britain

Summary

Our Majnun, by contrast, is seeking a narrative with claims to transcendent truth and soteriological promise.

Murad (2020: 217)

University education is about getting you a job, so that you earn money, pay tax and then spend it. Because you’ve spent money you need more. So, you go back to work and repeat the whole process. We’re all slaves but slaves of different things. But is this why Allah really sent us here?

Interview with a seminary student

Introduction

After completing the darsi-i nizami, a classical form of Islamic education at a dar al-ulum in modern Britain, I enrolled at a university to complete a BA in Economics and Social studies. A few years later, an opportunity arose to pioneer a partnership with a university in offering the first two years of a BA in Islamic studies at the dar al-ulum. At the time, I saw the partnership as the beginning of a broader project to address the educational needs of future Muslim scholars, or the ulama, in Britain. I wanted to be part of the discourse that improved the understanding of dar al-ulums, and Islam more generally. As a young British-born Muslim, I was a student, or taalib, when 9/11 happened. I went on to complete a doctoral thesis, which was the first-ever ethnographic account of a Deobandi dar al-ulum in Britain.

As we will see, the ulama were not only ‘religious’ but were open to and engaged with various epistemologies. With colonial modernity, this horizon became narrow. Deoband, as it emerged in 1866, was in response to and with modernity (Ingram 2018: 33). However, what we are observing in modern Britain is the early signs of an epistemic openness. This presents an opportunity for dar al-ulums and some of their taalibs to work with(in) British universities. The universities can also benefit from this rich tradition, though the challenge will be whether they are open to such overtures in advancing the quest of providing a public good and exploring alternative paradigms of knowledge-production.