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| Islamia College is 100 years old |
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Monday, November 16, 2009
Aziz Akhmad
Islamia College Peshawar, or ICP for short, is one hundred years old. That is, if you count from the year the idea of the college first sprouted in the minds of its founders, in 1909. The work on the building started in 1912 and, within a short period of time, the main college building, along with a high school and three hostels, was completed. The college was elevated to a university in 2007.
When one looks at the faded, old black-and-white pictures of the college taken at the time, one can’t help noticing the stark contrast between this amazingly beautiful building, built in copper-coloured bricks and in British-colonial-“Mughal” style, and the surrounding empty area — almost wilderness. It is as if the building was delivered, overnight, by a genie to grant a boy’s wish in a fairytale.
Who was the boy in this fairy tale and who the genie? Actually, there were two “boys,” one a British and the other a native, who, after making their wish, which was not much different from a child’s fantasy, transformed themselves into a powerful duo of genies and delivered this treasure of a building and an outline of a concept.
The former was George Roos-Keppel, a “soldier-sahib,” that peculiar breed of British officers in India whose careers crisscrossed between army and civil service and who, during their long stints in the frontier regions, got to understand the native people so well that their relationship with them developed into one of mutual respect and admiration. Roos-Keppel was a three-times chief commissioner of the province (equivalent to governor) between 1908 and 1919. He not only spoke fluent Pashto but also wrote books on Pashto language and grammar.
The other “boy” in the story was Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum, a native Pakhtun. He started his career as a naib tehsildar and, through diligence and loyalty, after serving in different districts and tribal agencies became Political Agent of Khyber. After retirement from service, Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum joined politics, but that is a different story.
Keppel-Qayyum was a synergic pair. They had the vision and drive, and the influence, to raise the required funds for their project. The names of these two individuals are synonymous with ICP just as Sir Syed’s is with Aligarh Muslim University. Their life-size paintings hang in the main college hall named Roos-Keppel Hall.
The college was conceived as a liberal arts college emulating the Aligarh model, which, in turn, tried to emulate Oxford and Cambridge. Among other things, the student uniform for ICP — black sherwani and white shalwar — was an import from Aligarh.
A liberal arts college, by definition, is a college that follows a curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge of social and physical sciences and developing intellectual capacities of students, as opposed to a professional, vocational or technical college. Notwithstanding the prefix “Islamia,” the college was not meant to give priority to religious studies over social and physical sciences and languages that formed the core of college curriculum.
The only religious instruction was a weekly class of Islamiat taught by Nurul Haq Nadvi, popularly known as Dean Sahib, for he was also the dean of the Faculty of Theology. This was a separate faculty for students who wanted to specialise in theology. The Islamiat class was held in the college mosque. The only scriptural inscription anywhere on the building was in the college’s emblem painted on its façade—“Rabb-e-zidni ilma.” (O Lord, enhance me in my knowledge.)
“Dean Saab,” over the decades he served the college, came to symbolise what was meant by Islamiat in the college. It was basically “akhlaqiaat,” or etiquette and morality. Many of the alumni may not remember the names of some of their professors, but no one seems to forget Dean Saab.
Unlike the present lot of maulanas of different stripes, who wear a permanent frown on their face, Dean Saab wore an easy smile, a short and tidy beard, a round karakul cap and sherwani and shalwar. In the afternoons, he was seen on tennis courts, in white trousers (pants) and white shirt (the tennis attire those days), playing tennis. Dean Saab had a delightful sense of humour and laughed heartily. He never talked of divisive religious issues. If he did, none of his students remembers it.
He was a keen observer. He would observe the students and their lifestyles during the weekly inspection tours of the hostels and comment on them during the Islamiat class. Two of his lessons, among many, that are etched in my memory, not because of what they were, but how he told them, in his inimitable style were: One, don’t display your portrait in your rooms or on your tables. (Hostel rooms were also your sitting rooms where you received friends and guests.) He didn’t say it was in bad taste or that it was narcissist, because that would be too mild a disapproval, or the students would not understand it. He said: it made the room look like a barbershop. Everyone understood that.
Another lesson: never brush your teeth out in the open. (Students had a habit of walking around in the verandas in the morning, brushing their teeth.) It makes you look like mad animals foaming at the mouth. Do it in the washrooms —- and don’t gargle loudly as if you are throwing up. These were his sermons. Of course, he talked about the essential history of Islam and the importance of other rituals, but his sermons, if we can call them that, were most interesting when he talked of day-to-day human behaviour.
When I consulted the official website of the college recently, it said, among other things: “…the college is culmination of beautiful traditions of Aligarh and Deoband.” Not true! There is no evidence of Deoband either in the conception of the college, its curriculum or its practices—at least not until 1970. So, please let us not distort history. And, by the way, combining Deoband with Aligarh sounds too incongruous. To my knowledge, the two were the opposites of each other.
I checked some of the facts with my friend Mian Jameelur Rahman, a former banker, with whom I shared Room 51 in Hardinge Hostel. He is a goldmine of information, with an excellent memory for names and little incidents. He, too, denied any overt Deobandi presence in the college, and added, as proof, that out of the 50- or 60-odd students in our hostel, only one student wore a beard, and two regularly went to the mosque to pray.
There were no “vice and virtue squads” implementing morality. There were only college proctors who ensured that when students went to town to watch movies or to cafés, they wore the college uniform and didn’t get involved in any unruly behaviour, and that they were back in their rooms when the “sign hour” bell rang at 7:30 p.m. in the winters, and a little later in the summers. Other than that, everyone did as he pleased.
Let me share with you another story. My long-time friend, Nazir Swati, who joined the college two years before I did, and who still serves the government in a responsible position, told me this about Dean Saab: One of the first-year students, a “day scholar,” soon after the physical training class in the morning, walked into the mosque for the Islamiat class in the same dress—shorts and a shirt. Not out of defiance or mischief but sheer ignorance of the rules. He was too new to the college and had an English mother.
Dean Saab gave him a quizzical look and said, “Bachiya, za, nan sta chhutti da, o bia uniform ke raza.” (Son, take the day off today, and next time come in college uniform.) There was no anger in his admonition, only amusement. When the boy left, Dean Saab, rather impishly, told the class that bare legs could be distracting for the class. The boys broke into laughter. We went to the Islamiat class for such useful nuggets, not for angry sermons. No, sir, ICP had nothing to do with Deoband. It was a liberal arts college, and one hopes it remains that way. What can the alumni do to help ICP remain the college of humanities and sciences? Hopefully, in the next article.
The writer is currently based in Philadelphia. Email: azizakhmad@ gmail.com
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ISSN 1563-9479 
