Aboobakker siddhuique darul huda islamic university kerala, india

3.1.1 Madrasa system

According to Keralite people, the basic religious awareness and educations are given from familiar religious educational systems or institutions called Madrasa.¹⁰⁴ These were considered as the first step for religious education, because the students are given basic religious teachings like writing Arābic, reading Qurān, etc from these centeres. These are the developed structure of othupalli ¹⁰⁵ (religious school) system. The historians see this system as a main factor to raise the religious awarenss among the people of Kerala than in other states.¹⁰⁶ According to the census of 1991, totally, there were 80,676 students studying in different madrasa.¹⁰⁷ Under the madrasas of SKIMVB (Samastah Kerala Islam Matha Vidyabyasa Board), there were studying 1,004,650 childerens and 78,709 teachers teaching in these systems.¹⁰⁸

3.1.2 Dars system

Dars system is the secondary form of religious institutions from where the students from different part of the state came and studied under a teacher called Mudarris.¹⁰⁹ In the period of C.M Usthād, these dars were the important religious educational centre. The dars system is being considered as the main source of Islamic teachings and educations from the historical periods of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) in past times. Therefore, the students from different parts of country reached in these educational institutions to study. Palli dars had a great role in evoking the religious emotions of Kerala Muslims, as Ponnāni did, the gradated scholars from these dars spread across the district by imparting knowledge to others.¹¹⁰

According to 1991 census there was 1,074 dars in Kerala, about 31, 7721 students were studying under 1,109 teachers using this dars systems.¹¹¹ In this time, the mosques were the centre of Muslim from the educational issues to his family affairs were solved from these dars. Because it was by following the traditions of prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as he, (PBUH) was usually solving all problems in Medina mosque. His mosque was same time a court, educational centre, spiritual guiding school, and so on. The villagers fed students from their homes and thus the educational system attached to mosques was known as Dars.

Thalangara, Ichilangod were the important dars of that time. This progress continued until 18^th century, but due to the economical and social issues, the processes of dars began to slow down, for the lack of enough facilities, interference of modern cultures, and insufficient scholars.

According to Kasaragod people this period was time difficult and examines, there were many obstacles to gain the education in both religious and material fields. Especially for further studies, they went to the Islamic colleges in other states, like Baqiyyath College in Tamil Nadu, and Nadwa College in Uttar Pradesh. By observing all problems, C.M Usthād began to build new colleges to help students, so he could build many Islamic colleges, like Sasdiya, MIC, etc.

3.2 RECONCILIATION OF TRADITIONAL AND MODERN IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION

C.M Usthād played a big role in improving the educational systems of North Malabar by paving the way to the starting of combined education. He was very eager to introduce the combined educational system. According to the researcher, he was the first person to introduce the idea of combined education in north Malabar. Therefore, he is called as “father of combined education of North Malabar”. In his view, education was not limited in to two, religious educations and Material educations, but he considered both of it as one, because the knowledge is weapon of a man so there is no limit in acquiring the knowledges. In addition, in his opinion the combined education is not to build many colleges within a compound but to fascilitate the students to acquire material and religious knowledge equally.

In that time, there was no further facility to study both knowledge of religious and material. Therefore, some people studied by hard work. C.M Usthād was not satisfied in the educational situation of his time. Therefore, he tried his best to make the combined education a trend between the people.

For this purpose, he prepared a new curriculum and educational system. By using these systems, the students can acquire skilled knowledge both religious and material by blending science and mathematical subjects. In addition, they will be able to convey the ideologies of Islam in a revised way in variety of languages like English, Urdu, Arabic, and Malayalm.

3.2.1 Finding new ways of education

C.M Usthād tried to start an educational institution in his own village, to teach the children and make them proficient to prevent Islam interior from and exterior attacks and abusements, and convince the people about what is the Islam in reality. Therefore, he started his first attempt in 1968, to start an Islamic college in Kasaragod. He approached many great personalities for this purpose and he accumulated many friends for initiate this planning among them Edneer E.Muhammed Kunchi Musliyar, Kasaragod Karippodi Abdulla Sahib, Nellikun Masjid Mudarris, Shareef Musliyar, UM Abdul Rahman Musliyar, were among them.

He contacted many rich persons to the purpose of land for a new collage, finally he met with Muhammed Hāji Edirthod, who gave him land to build an Arābic college, but it was not sufficient. Later he got another site in Cherkala. They registered it as the property of new college but it was also, not appropriate to build a college. Filanly, he came to meet Kallatra Abdul Khader Hāji.¹¹² He offered the money to buy a site for the college but following the rumors and actions of some wicked persons, he said to C.M Ustahd, there is no need of building a new college; instead of it let us work for the development of now existing Aliya College. So, instead of new college let try to rewind it instead of new college. However, C.M Usthād was not satisfied to take care of this college because it was runnig under the management of innovative people (mubtadi) and their ideologies. He thought that consequently, they would not cooperate with us. However, Kallatra Abdul Khader Hāji convinced him to take care of this college and finally, he agreed and started his service to the field of combined education through this college.