Brief introduction of dars-e-nizami

At the age of our Prophet (peace be upon him), the commencement of education had started from Masjid. At the time of Hazrat Umar’s khilaft, it was to teach Hadith along with the Holy Quran. And then with passage of time, academic field was extended and other tools of education were also added. Upto the half of second century of hijrat, Islamic education and other sciences started is taught to the extent of Quran, Hadith, fiaqh and poetries of the Arabs. From then to the last fourth century of hijarat is called the age of codification and classification in which translations and new other branches of sciences as required were included in teaching and learning, such as Hadith, tafsir (commentary and explication), usul-e-fiqh, (jurisdiction) surfnawh, (Arabic grammatical rules), lughat (rules of dictionary), poetry of Arab and so on.

In between fifth and seventh century of hijrat, ilm-e-kalam was introduced by Imam Ghazali and to support this new kind of ilm (ilm-e-kalam) , other subjects of learning such as mantiq (logic), philosophy and other sciences related to rationalism, besides the above-mentioned learning’s, became the parts of education in Islamic seminaries. Though, all these subjects of learning’s were taught nearly in all Islamic countries, but there were some countries which got known in teaching of some subjects, such as Iran is known in mantiq and philosophy, Khurasan and its adjacent regions were known for fiqah, usul-e-fiqah and tasawuf, including other subjects being taught as per the requirements of that country’ environment and conditions.

During the age of emperor Shahabuddin Gahuri, faiqh, usul-e-fiaqh, tasawuf, sirf, nawh, blaghat, adab, mantiq, and ilm-e-kalam were considered as standard subjects of learnings along with tafsir and Hadith in Khurasan and in its adjacent regions, but still fiaqh and usul-e-faiah were on the top. Muslims who came to India belonged to those countries mostly, so, with them, their trends of learning’s were inevitable to come together, thus, all those prevailing learnings were familiarized in the in the syllabus, which already existed here, to teach.

At the end of ninth century of hijrat, books named matale, and mawaqif written by Qazi Izuddin and miftah by Allamah Sakkaki were also included in the curriculum for a better gradated education. In this period, students of Mir Sayyed Shareef Jurjani wrote sharah-e-matale, and sharah-e-mawaqif while the students of Allamah Tuftazani penned down mutawwal, mukhtasrulmani, talweeh w tashree and sharah aqaid nisfi and all these added as subjects for teaching and learning. Shaikh Abdul Haq Muhaddis Dehalvi, after learning ilm-e-Hadith from the Ulama of Harmain, tried to propagate this very learning, after him, his son Shaikh Noorul Haq also did his best in this regard. But to upgrade the standard of learning, Mir Fathullah who came to India from Shiraz, introduced some more subjects to the already prevailing syllabus which was accepted by the Ulama, with no time.

Hazrat Shah waliullah Muhaddis Dehlavi, a great and prominent alim, went to Harmain Sharrfain, learnt Hadith from Shaikh Abu Tahir Kurdi, and came back India and started teaching it which continues today. Hazrat Shah waliullah Muhaddis Dehlavi and his successors and students struggled a lot to teach sihahsitta (six books of Haidht) and finally made it an integral part of the syllabus.

On twelfth century of hijrat, Hazrat Mulla Nizamuudin Delhavi, a contemporary alim of Hazrat Shah Waliullah Muhaddas Dehlavi, presented a news prospectus while adding some other subjects to the previous syllabus which is now known as dars-e-nizami, being taught in all Islamic madaris. One of the most peculiarities of this syllabus is that it helps students enrich deep and better quality of education. It is right to say that after completing this syllabus, a student is not understood to have a special command on any subject, but he surely becomes able to go ahead and be expert in any field of knowledge on further self-study based on this syllabus (dars-e-nizami) .

On fifth decades of thirteenth century of hijrat., there were three centers for learnings and education, namely, Delhi, Lucknow and Khariabad, and interestingly, they followed almost the same syllabus mentioned above, but they had different views and thoughts. Delhi had focused on tafsir and Hadith the most and the family of Hazrat Shah sb, was busy teaching the same, while Lucknow preferred faiqh and usul-e- fiaqh , there in jalalain and baizawi on the subject of tafsir, and miskhat in Hadith were considered enough to teach, and Khairabad engrossed mostly only on mantiq and falsafa (philosophy), besides these two subjects, other subjects were nothing but to show apparently.