Islamic education is in dire need of reform because it does not equip Muslims with the ability to understand modern political structures. This has devastating consequences, both from the side of takfir, because Muslims don’t understand the limitations that Muslim leaders face in trying to secure the needs of those under their care and cannot contextualize decisions, but also from the side of establishment scholars who seem to be unaware of how modern institutions contradict Islam and are used by the kuffar to maintain political and economic dominance over Muslim lands and to impose un-Islamic beliefs onto the Muslims.

The solution to this problem is the development of genuinely Islamic educational institutions that are capable of raising Islamic scholars who have both rigorous grounding in Islamic sciences and strong understanding of modern realities.

This is all the more important considering that the kuffar have been waging war and colonizing Muslim countries for centuries, and have gained a lot of experience in this time. From this experience, they have learned ways to work secretly and to manipulate Muslims without us realizing it. The kuffar realized long ago that the key to manipulating the Muslim masses is to manipulate the scholars. In India under the British, for example, the British patronized Islamic educational institutions extensively. Even those institutions that were financed solely by Muslims were still influenced by the legal environment of British India, most notably secular policies.

Although Deoband was very much an anti-colonial project and had many successes in this project it was also affected by the colonial context, much in the same way that some Muslims in the age of the Mu’tazilah were affected by Greek ideas in the process of refuting them. Deoband was formed in the aftermath of a jihadi insurrection against the British in 1274.

One of the ways the British responded to this rebellion was to expand “religious freedom,” which was actually a program of drawing a border which restricted religion to the private sphere, although it expanded some freedoms within that limited domain.

After the British reforms, the colonial government gave up any control over awqaf, but reserved the right to supervise “secular” aspects of religious education, and these aspects of education are areas that could actually threaten British power.

This represented a divergence from the Islamic tradition. Abu Bakr, radhi Allahu anhu, for example, was famed for his knowledge of genealogy and of the tribes of Arabia, which would today be seen as part of history, sociology, and political science.

A’ishah, radhi Allahu anha, was known for her knowledge of medicine in addition to her knowledge of Islamic sciences, although her education took place in the home and not in a formal institute. Later Islamic scholars also studied topics that now would be considered “secular.”

Separating religious and worldly education served to reduce the prestige of religious people and raise the prestige of irreligious servants of the British. Still, this “freedom of religion” afforded some space, and it was in this space that Darul Uloom Deoband was founded.

Deoband was able to use the religious/secular divide to find a space which was covertly political by having an overtly religious (in the sense of being separate from worldly knowledge) appearance.

It must be said, though, that this restriction certainly affected the structure, if not the nature, of the knowledge which the ulema there gained. Based on the kind of curriculum offered there, one can hardly expect graduates to understand the concrete details of how Western intelligence agencies work to influence and shape public opinion among the Muslims, or methods of maintaining neo-colonial economic coercion.

This is normal since many of these processes are deliberately hidden or made to appear as something other than what they are. Islamic education needs both to raise up Muslims capable of understanding these processes, and this can be best accomplished by the same method by which the sahaba, radhi Allahu anhum learned, which is by directly fighting and opposing shirk and the mushrikeen.

No one understands a gazelle better than the hunter who must know what the gazelle likes to eat, when it eats, when it drinks, when it sleeps, etc. so that he can find it. He must also know the sensitivity of its hearing and smelling to approach without being detected.

The process of hunting contains a lot of information and learning. This applies to every field of knowledge. A doctor with 20 years of experience is much more qualified than a doctor fresh out of medical school, though the theoretical basis of their knowledge is the same.

When it comes to the issue of repelling the influence of the kuffar from Muslim lands, fatwa on this matter are much better taken from those who have experience in this field. This doesn’t mean to take from those who lack Islamic learning totally but have fought.

A man who has no medical knowledge but who works as a doctor will cause more harm than benefit, even if he does it for many years. He may learn the techniques well, but he won’t have the understanding to know when to apply them and when not to.

This brings us back to the extremes – those who excel in action but lack theory, and fall into shedding inviolable blood and other mistakes, and we have those who excel in theory but lack in action, and are unable to apply their knowledge to the present reality and end up defending institutions and governments that are ultimately detrimental to Islam and the Muslims. Attempts to bridge this gap are very worthy of praise; one such example is Abu Zaid al Kuwaiti, rahimullah, leaving his job as a professor in Kuwait to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Another example is Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, hafizahu Allah, attempting to initiate dialogue with mainstream Pakistani scholars. These efforts must be in both directions, as we need those who are strong in action and strong in theory working together.

Education must reflect this, and the Pakistani madrasas deserve praise for this, as they acted as a recruiting ground for the struggle in Afghanistan. Functional education is a pipeline to action, and the method of the sahaba, radhi Allahu anhum, was to implement knowledge immediately. If you can support an institution involved in this kind of education, it’s great, but if not you can start by yourself. Small good actions lead to bigger good actions, just as small evil actions lead to bigger evil actions.