A VISIT TO MAULANA AZAD NATIONAL URDU UNIVERSITY

Front Gate, MANUU

Yesterday, I paid my first visit to one of the local universities - Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), named after “Maulana” (“Our Master”) Abul Kalam Azad, a senior political leader of the Indian independence movement, India’s first Minister of Education, and scholar of Islam and Urdu literature.

Campus Building, MANUU

MANUU is a secular university. Chartered in 1998, MANUU was established (1) to promote and develop the Urdu language, (2) to impart education and training in vocational and technical subjects through the medium of Urdu, (3) to offer programs in on-campus and distance education, and (4) to focus on women’s education. It is interesting to note that the university has not one, but two entities dedicated to women’s education: a Centre for Women Studies and a Department of Women Studies.

Indian States with Urdu as Official Language

Urdu, by the way, is a variety of the Hindustani language that is closely related to Hindi, almost like Hindi written in Arabic font. It is the national language of Pakistan and an official language in six of India’s 29 states (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Telangana, and Jammu & Kashmir, plus the capital New Delhi).  I recently discovered that without the interference of the British, there may never have been a separate “Urdu” language. Prior to the British Raj, the official administrative language on the Indian subcontinent had been Persian. In order to counteract the Persian influence, the British promoted the use of Hindustani written in Arabic script (“Urdu”), which in resulted in a linguistic backlash by those who argued that the language of the land ought to be written in the native Devanagari script. This, in turn, resulted in a sectarian divide between Urdu as the language of Muslims and Hindi as the language of Hindus, a division cemented by the division of Pakistan and India in 1947. 

Hindi (Devanagari) vs. Urdu (Nastaliq) Script

Whereas the Urdu spoken in Pakistan has absorbed Persian, Pashtu, Uzbek, and Turkmen vocabulary, though, the Urdu spoken in India has absorbed Sanskrit and English vocabulary. In India, Urdu is spoken in places where there are large Muslim minorities or cities that were bases for Muslim Empires in the past. While not all Urdu speakers are Muslims, it is correct to say that all Indian Muslims understand Urdu. India – I have learned – has more than 3,000 Urdu publications including 405 daily Urdu newspapers. Enough now about the Urdu language, though, and back to my visit to MANUU.

Dr. Shahida Murtaza

The empowerment of Urdu-speaking women through teaching, research, training and advocacy is one the explicitly stated objectives of the university.  Toward this end, MANUU has both a center for women’s studies and a department of women’s studies (which offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs).  

Friday Prayer in the MANUU Indoor Sports Gym

Our first speaker was Dr. Shahida Murtaza, the head of the department of women’s studies who specializes in research methodology, women & media, and women & health. As the group of Dutch pastors was visiting MANUU to learn about Islam, Dr. Shahida  distinguished in her passionately feminist talk between the Quranic teachings about women vs. how women’s rights have been curtailed and distorted in Islamic cultures. She then went on to talk about the current topic of the day, divorce according to Muslim personal law (shariat).

MANUU Students, Staff, and Faculty Extended a Warm Welcome

The group also attended the Friday prayer (“namaz”) which was peaceful and beautiful in the calm synchronized prayer movements. After a tasty lunch, we met another member of the MANUU faculty, Dr. Mohd. Fahim Akhtar, the head of the Department of Islamic Studies. Established in 2012, the Department of Islamic Studies offer courses in Islamic studies in a modern perspective, focusing on the history of Islam, Islamic literature, culture, and law. 

Dr. Mohd. Fahim Akhtar

Dr. Akhtar’s lecture aimed at providing a “Brief Introduction to Islam” – the basic theological concepts and practices of Islam.

Group Photo with Dr. Akhtar & Students in Front the Social Sciences Building