Daily Times

In the last years of the 17th century in India, a league of zealots stormed a house; killed its owner and set the entire house on fire. In less than an hour, everything, including a private library, was reduced to ashes. Qutbuddin–an exceptional philosopher and the owner of the house–was dead. His assassins were enraged by the efforts of Qutbuddin to foster the spirit of philosophical reasoning in Islamic sciences.

Aurangzeb Alamgir, a close friend of Qutbuddin, made up his mind to compensate for the loss of the great Indian philosopher. He ordered a villa to be vacated in Lucknow; ushered the household of his fallen friend to it and endowed the family of the departed soul with territorial and financial largesse. Vacated by a French merchant, the villa continued to be recognised as the Farangi Mahall in history.

Qutbuddin was survived by four sons. Noted for intellectual ingenuity, all four gravitated the scholarly elite of Lucknow to their villa. In a few years, the villa of Farangi Mahall developed into a college of Islamic learning with an emphasis on rational sciences. Mulla Nizamuddin–one of the sons– took upon himself the responsibility of building a comprehensive academic syllabus for the Islamic college of Farangi Mahall. The syllabus that came into being after years of scholarly effort was called Dars-e-Nizami. The college of Farangi Mahall and the syllabus of Dars-e-Nizami generated a fresh wave of the intellectual renaissance in India.

The curriculum of Dars-e-Nizami divided the sciences into two broad categories: the rational sciences or the Aqli Ulum and the traditional sciences or the Naqli Ulum(terms of Manqulaat and Maqulaat were also used interchangeably). The rational sciences included logical syllogism, Iranian Gnosticism, dialectics, Greek philosophy, Iranian illumination, speculative reasoning and arithmetic.

Greater emphasis was laid on the rational sciences. Logic and philosophy were accorded priority over others. The traditional sciences included Quranic exegesis, scriptural hermeneutics, Hadith literature, legal formalism, mysticism, textual genealogy, Arabic grammar and syntax, Arabic Literature and Islamic History. Attentive to the recent Iranian intellectual renaissance in the School of Isfahan, Mulla Nizamuddin also incorporated in his curriculum, the vast works of philosophy contributed by Mulla Sadra, Mir Damad and Mir Fendereski. The curriculum of Dar-e-Nizami was later on adopted by all major colleges of law (Madarrisahs) scattered in Muslim India with certain modifications. Though Shah Wali Ullah of Delhi also developed a comprehensive syllabus for the higher studies of Islamic learning, Dar-e-Nizami continued to gather attention.

Dar-e-Nizami carried on the legacy of medieval Islamic scholasticism. Islamic Theology came into being as a response of Islamic scholars to the Hellenic strands of thought. It transformed itself into a science of dialectics; resulting in a vast mass of scholarly literature. The intellectual engagement with the Hellenic corpus of knowledge paved the way for the crystallisation of theological schools. Resultantly, the guilds of dialectics, known as the schools of theology, dominated the mainstream intellectual discourse. The guilds of Maturidism, Aashirism, Hanbalism, Iranian Gnosticism, and Mutazilism came to the forefront. Of them, the school of Mutazilism excessively emphasised the need for the use of reason. The school coalesced around the emerging centres of Basra and Baghdad. It was patronised for a brief period by the state in the early ninth century, but fell from grace, and eventually tapered off by late 11th century.

Farangi Mahallis insisted that the attainment of ultimate contentment is possible through the instrument of reason

Taking a cue from the school of Mutazilism, college of Farangi Mahall also pressed for legal eclecticism, formal pluralism and cross-denominational dialogue. It rested on the postulation of defying the boundaries of religious dogma in pursuit of the truth. It maintained that the independent exercise of the reason was encouraged by the religion of Islam.

Religion, in essence, is liberal and aims to safeguard liberal values. Drawing on the works of Mutazilism, Farangi Mahallis insisted that the attainment of ultimate contentment is possible through the instrument of reason. The primary aim of an intellectual should be to interpret religion in an idiom of modern language. Steeped in the rationalism of Greek Philosophy, Gnosticism of Iranian ratiocination, illumination of Sufi-mysticism and formalism of juridical law, the college of Faranghi Mahall dominated the intellectual landscape of India for a century. Famous for its rational bent, the college was the alma mater of some of the brainiest philosophers India has ever produced in the last three hundred years.

The colonial enterprise of the British Empire made inroads in India and stamped its authority by the late 18th century. A gruesome spree of loot, plunder and massacre unfolded itself. The intellectual elite of Muslims spent its energies to confront the onslaught of the colonial territorial ingress. Resultantly, the passion for the acquisition of knowledge was replaced by the fervour of revenge for the colonial wrongs. By degrees, the college of Faranghi Mahall lost its significance and was reduced to a mere embodiment of architecture. The number of scholars continued to dwindle and a climate of despondency set in for good. The college of Farangi Mahall ceased to thrive further as a heartbeat of intellectual life in India by the end of the 19th century.

The foundation of Farangi Mahall was contemporaneous with the universities of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in the West. Established with the same vision to foster an environment of logical reasoning, rational argumentation and philosophical engagement, Farangi Mahall had to grapple with the vicissitudes of colonialism. The vagaries of the colonial project in India stymied the organic growth of Farangi Mahall and paved the way for its inevitable death. Harvard, Yale and Princeton rode the wave of independence to attain academic excellence while Farangi Mahall was suffocated to a rueful death under the debris of colonial rampage. Colonialism might have robbed us of our “Harvard in the making.”

The writer is a prospective candidate for the PhD program at NYU