ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that ‘Islam’ itself is a matter of fierce debate and madrasas are concerned with the transmission of their own denominational understanding of Islam. It presents an elaboration of the processes and strategies through which maslaki identity is appropriated by an average madrasa student. The chapter discusses several examples of the finer distinctions between the two maslaks; it is sufficient for now to mention that the basic difference stems from the ways of understanding the person of Prophet Muhammad. Like most Indian madrasas, Ashrafiya also teaches what it calls the Dars-e Nizami. In popular imagination, madrasas are solely associated with religious learning, a perception which is shared as well as defended by the ulama of different madrasas. When contemporary madrasas say that they teach Dars-e Nizami, they refer to this reformed curriculum adopted by Deoband madrasa in the late nineteenth century.
