Is Dars-e-Nizami still relevant in our times?

The fading use of Urdu in Islamic seminaries, especially in the west, reflects the slow death of the language.

However, learning Urdu has never been easier than it is now. Online dictionaries, to some extent even AI can assist. Roman Urdu books for reading improvement. Online free courses on youtube.

 

Shaykh you can correct me, but I feel his books are for students who are week in sarf and nahw as they have diacritical (Tashkeel) marks in the text.

Yes quality of the books is amazing but many teachers recommend avoid using such texts (including translations) as students become lazy to make tarkeeb when studying.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JazakAllah for you guidance on the topic. I really pray your opionion on the changes to darsi nizami get published soon. May Allah bless you abundantly and grant you barakah in your time to fulfil all these tasks aameen

 

It's slowly being replaced by 'Hinglish' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglish

 

Only the script. The language spoken by most "Hindi" speakers in India is actually hindustani that contains many urdu words. "Hindi" movies use urdu in their dialogues and songs. Imagine if they supplanted manzil, faasle, mohabbat, waqt, inquilaab, giraftaar, zamaanat, wakil, haqiqat, khubsoorat, dil, jism, khayal, et al, with non urdu words in their lyrics and dialogues; it won't work.

 

As a brief digression, and perhaps a topic deserving its own thread, how do you foresee the future of the Urdu language? Its popularity appears to be waning, even within Pakistan and India. I've heard speculations that within the next 100 to 150 years, only a very limited number of people will 'know' Urdu.

 

In terms of language, ideologies and culture, as an ummah, we are caught in a whirlwind period of rapid transition - social mores and philosophies are changing at break-neck speed compared to ancient times, when Greek or Roman remained more or less static for generations.

As such, we can't be content with one or two languages. We have treasures and cures and charms all in mostly eastern languages (Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Trukish) and we need to turn that entire corpus (or as much as possible) into the modern western language or languages to keep their benefits universal. I don't mean "translation" per se - but being able to understand ancient and old world wisdom and transmit it in any modern language (philosophy, culture implicitly included).

Arabic is the language of revelation - and as such it will always live on - but the rest have not been granted this Divine protection - and might well end up like Latin - a ghost language in a sense.

Allah knows best.

 

i had a list of all dars nizami books and links to pdfs on my blog (which is under maintenance/overhaul):

https://web.archive.org/web/20200913221652/http://tanwir.org/?page_id=577

 

my earlier posts on this and contributions by others:

https://sunniport.com/index.php?threads/mufti-fazl-e-subhan-on-dars-e-nizami.15785

https://sunniport.com/index.php?threads/teach-these-in-madrasas.14992

https://sunniport.com/index.php?threads/dars-e-nizami-course-details.9877

https://sunniport.com/index.php?threads/becoming-an-alim-by-self-study.6845

https://sunniport.com/index.php?threads/critical-thinking-and-criticising-those-who-came-before.9674

 

we cannot be blind followers of dars nizami. as i have noted elsewhere, it was cutting edge 400 years ago, but it requires major updates and especially the ma'qulat dept needs a complete overhaul.

the works on logic, philosophy and math included in dars nizami are not a part of islamic sciences per se. "the tools" ulum al-aalah. some of the outstanding scholars didn't even touch these works - imam jalaluddin suyuti being a prominent example.

we need these 'sciences' for a purpose - to enable us to reason properly, avoid fallacies and help formulate cogent arguments.
philosophy was needed to learn what others were saying, how they contradicted islamic aqidah and how to counter them.

earlier scholars were not very enthusiastic about formal logic - imam ibn SalaH even deemed it impermissible! and in his opinion, a faqih has natural abilities of reasoning. [quote from memory]

so we do not have to be tied down by aristotlean logic.

---
the math of dars nizami - or the method of teaching math - is ancient and useless in our time. high-school math (cbse or igcse) in our time is more organised, easier to teach and useful. https://www.manyagroup.com/academic-tutoring/igcse/grade-11th/

the reed pen was replaced with fountain pens; fountain pens with ball-point pens... pens replaced with computers for composing books. one can have a nostalgic affiliation to calligraphed works - but i bet the most tied-to-dars-nizami-enthusiast will go for the latest prints of hidayah and quduri. [try sa'id bakdash editions, they are good].

---
as for philosophy, shaykh asrar also does not want them - and i have been saying this for ages too. we need to teach students western philosophy and their approach to religion. we point out how they depart from islamic approach and point out the flaws in their argument. instead of philosophy of the ancient greeks.

i have said this more than once that curated topics from standford encyclopedia of philosophy, are more beneficial than philosophy of dars nizami.

https://plato.stanford.edu/

Allah ta'ala knows best.

 

apart from fatawa ridawiyyah, a brief list of prominent fatawa in urdu - including translations of shah abdul aziz and fatawa alamgiri. if you learn farsi, you have access only to 2-3 works.

 

from another thread:

this is the point i wanted to make about shaykh asrar's insisting on farsi.
in his speech shaykh asrar recommends more emphasis on farsi. but i beg to differ.

---
[note: the context is muslims from the subcontinent and farsi; not farsi as the major language - in fact the native tongue of people in iran, afghanistan etc.]

farsi was the language of the literate and elite class until fifty years ago [in the sub-continent]. and 300 years ago, it WAS the first language in subcontinental schools and shah waliyullah translated the qur'an to persian for this reason.

the main purpose of learning another language is to use it - i.e., read literature in that language and acquire knowledge from sources in that language.

in the context of the subcontinent, urdu has overtaken farsi in this department. the amount of islamic/sunni literature available in urdu is perhaps, next only to arabic. in the past 50 years, fiqh, hadith, tafsir, commentaries of hadith, tasawwuf, sirah, tarikh - all important works have been translated to urdu. and for the muslims in the subcontinent (and the diaspora) - urdu is easier and more accessible than farsi. [even for muslims from kerala, simply due to exposure of spoken urdu].

on the contrary, i insist that emphasis must be made on urdu for dars nizami graduates (indo-pak madaris anyway teach in urdu, our discussion is in the context of the diaspora) and learning urdu will help immensely in learning arabic.

apart from translations, fatawa for contemporary issues [nawazil/fatawa-hadithiyyah] and scholarly work in the past 150-200 years is in urdu. every successive generation of scholars builds on the observations and fatawa precedents of previous ulama - if you take out urdu, you take out a significant chunk of research, observations and conclusions of nearly 200 years.

after shah waliyullah and shah abdul aziz - you land directly into our times, without any insight into masayil/problems and their solutions in the past 200 years. and how!

----
and it is not practical. shaykh asrar may be fortunate to have learned from a native farsi teacher - but how many of us can do that? the works of shah abdul haq dihlawi and mujaddid alf saani - in terms of sheer numbers how many in a 1,000 madrasa graduates can read in farsi as compared to urdu translation?

putting it in another way: in a gathering of 50 graduates and 1000 common people (literate) from the subcontinent, what is the percentage of a) grads, b) laity - accessing madarijun nubuwwah and maktubat imam rabbani?

urdu translation or farsi original?

----
in the same thread:

again i disagree. you don't learn language by 'simplifying' it. you learn by using it. yes, annotations are useful, bowdlerising is like committing seppuku.

reading dickens and stevenson or tolkien in original is not the same as reading an abridged version. shakespeare's original, though difficult for beginners - even inaccessible - is not the same as retelling by charles and mary lamb. before we hit teens we would read 'abridged' versions of classics, and anyone who has not read the original is missing out big time.

it is the same thing with the urdu of alahazrat and other masters. the richness of the original cannot be captured in a 'simplification'.

such a venture would certainly be dead in water. if you take out alahazrat's words, and replace them with "simple" alternatives, you take out the soul of that fatwa and many a time you stub out the allusions to some reference. like replacing rice with poha in a biryani - and replacing meat with mushrooms. you can call it a biryani, but those who know, will know.

====
i am all for learning farsi, but not at the expense of urdu. (for the indo-pak muslim/diaspora). and putting it bluntly, the benefit of learning urdu (for an indo-pak muslim) far outweighs learning farsi.

 

been listening to some ulama - if i have any comments i will. but i caught this in the beginning of shaykh zulfiqar's speech. (still on..)

a bio of sharif jurjani in the risalah of sharif jurjani on usul hadith along with list of his works.

 

Keynote speech was of Shaykh asrar.

One of the key takeaways from the discussions below is that Farsi should not be removed from the syllabus due to the amount of works that are available in the language such as nahw mir.

Shaykh asrar mention 21 sciences of knowledge whose primer books need to be studied to gain a good grasp of Arabic. He mentioned a few in the mehfil yesterday.

Does any of Shaykh asrar students know the names of The 21 primer books? Would highly be appreciated if someone can find out and post here.

---‐-------------------------------------------------------
On the other hand Shaykh Zulfiqar mentioned that there is no need to change the syllabus. He believes that no change should be made at all as this has been the way of his teachers.

Keep the above in mind can we then draw up a perfect syllabus that maybe all institutes can follow?

 

Live now, Present there are ulama such Shaykh asrar, Shaykh naveed jameel, The aalim below Shaykh zulfiqar pirzada and many others.

https://www.youtube.com/live/_HR6SvKmdAs?feature=shared

 

I am creating this thread for the Grad ceremony taking place at Greengate islamic college where many ulama who are running institutes teaching thy syllabus will discuss this topic. I hope the ceremony is recorded.

I remember partially Ml abu HASAN recommend a few books that could be added/replaced to the syllabus especially for old texts of mantiq etc. I want to add those discussion which are scattered around the forum on one thread so that students of knowledge can benefit.

I think this discussion should continue so that the ummah and next generation scholars can benefit from the recommendations posted here.