ABSTRACT
Deoband was a new kind of madrasah in the sense that it did not rely on rich patrons for donations; rather it for the first time successfully experimented with the idea of popular financing through subscription. According to the founders of the Deoband madrasah, the Muslims in India had lost power because they were not true to their deen (faith). Madrasahs were quick to position themselves as belonging to the 'private sphere' of the Muslim community, which made them somewhat immune to the influences of the modern colonial state. Leaders like Syed Shahabuddin argued that the madrasah modernising programme of the state was the proof of distrust that it harboured against the Muslim community. For the madrasahs, reform means a very different thing: it definitely does not mean the addition of modern subjects as for them this constitutes a dilution of Islamic content of the curriculum.
