How the long journey began

There are around two hundred villages in Hathras, Aligarh, Agra, Mathura, and Bharatpur districts mainly inhabited by Muslim Rajputs who are leading a life of extreme poverty and ignorance. These villages span an area of 120 to 230 km south-east of Delhi.

This community traces its descent from persons who embraced Islam during Mughal dynasty. They have traditionally been illiterate living in clans and ghettos. They are educationally and economically backward and because of ignorance, illiteracy and poverty, have become vulnerable.

This area lacks schools (barring a few small Maktabs linked with Masjids), where their children may get proper education. It is shocking that neither the Government nor any secular organization has come forward to work for their educational, economic and social uplift. Muslims too failed to open schools where their children could be provided quality education.

A few small Maktabs available in this area, which impart education only in Qur’an, are reluctant to introduce modern education. Madarsas in general do not teach modern scientific education. Muslim intellectuals who have been concerned about the future of Madarsa students and have since long been advocating the introduction of contemporary secular education in Madarsas have not had much success. The Government has also introduced schemes to modernize Madarsa education, but these have not taken off. On the other hand the schools and colleges teaching modern education do not provide education in Islam.

Noorul Uloom Education Society is of the view that, instead of coaxing the Madarsas or Maktabs to change their curricula, the best solution is to practically establish schools, where modern scientific and religious education is provided together. This would, therefore, provide a practical alternative to this issue.

The economic and social backwardness too is due to their illiteracy. The Society, working in this remote area, has realized that the remedy of this problem lies in education and in education alone on the lines proposed above and has, therefore, been trying to fill this vacuum with its limited resources.

The first school of this king was started with only three students near the village Allahpur (Dist. Hathras) in January 1989 under a tree. This school, now grown to the Junior High School level, is running successfully and has attracted a large number of students from all sections of the community including Muslims. It is heartening to observe that this teaching system i.e. combining religious and modern scientific education together has caught on, which is evident from the large number of students seeking admission to our school. Migration of students from other neighboring schools to our school is on such a scale that it has forced some of them to close down.