Himalayan Times (1959)

Um '. fttassBVtfu «*— Jfouary 4, 1960

AKBAR-AGREAT MODERN THINKER IN 16th CENTURY

SRIMAT1 PARBOTI SIU, r*.A.,B.T.

Akbab(«5«-1j803)w»|
the moat brilliant of all
the Mogul emperors, bat
it is rem irk Able that he
is generally supposed to
hive been unable to read
or write. We do not
exactly know whether it
is true or falae but a
diacumion of the early
Mohammedan education
and Akbar's eduoational
theories may throw a
flood of light to appre-
hend the correctness of
-the situation.

If we mike an his-
torical study of the an-
cient Mohammedan edu-
cation we will aee that
"Education" was regard-
ed as a saored duty in
the Quran So it was
natural that in Islamic
India it had a permanent
place in life. The Mus-
lim rulers took kern in-
terest in education and
founded schools, colleges
and libraries for the spread
of education.

Muslim educational
institution* were called
inaktahs .and m*dar,e*s.
A maktab *as * j}r,tm*ry
■ohool attaohed to a mos-
que where portions of the
Quran and sometimes the
three R> (i.-e reading,
writing . and arithmetic)
were tought. Madarsas

were also attaohed to
mosques whioh were, equi-
valent to oollegee where
the oourse included gram-
mar, rhetorio, logio, theo-
logy, metaphysics, litera-
ture, soienoe and jurispru-
dence.

The aim wae to aquire
a religious position in
the society er to become
a teacher. ,

The Method of tea-
ching was mere or less
the Monitorial sjBtem in
which the more advanced
pu pile i were associated
with the masters in the
work of teaching. Rea-
ding occupied the main
position and writing was
introduced after it. .Learn-
ing ,by Wrt »V vin-
couraged by the leachera
Thus we seo that mecha-
nical arts of reading and
.writing was practised.
The dry reading of the
above aubjtcts helped
rery ljttlejn tb«4>r,aotioal
life.

Akbar .had a great
ooneem , for education He
intended to bring about
<>W*s>ip reforms ,ip the
prevalent Muslim system
of education. Ho,thought
that too- much time was
.spent in learning the me-
0*PH*l arts #f rpading
'Mft-jMritiRfc He tried <o

introduce a quicker me-
thod of teaching these
Bubjeots. §0 he propound-
ed some theories in whioh
it is stated that writing
should be taught before
reading and the pupil
should run his pen ovor
letters traced by his mas-
ter which was prevalent
in the Hindu system of
education.

With regard to his
regulations for . learning
by heart he intended to
make several reforms. He
stressed the responsibility
of the teacher in the
field of education. The
teacher ought to look
after five things—know-
ledge of letters i.e every
school boy should first
learn to write the letters
of the alphabet, and also
learn to trace their seve-
ral forms He ought to
learn the shape and name
of each letter, and thus
procred from the simple
to the complex lesson.

l»P»der to reduce the
time spent cn learning
J>^ in,.L»A'M An.? ,RW"'» t0
.understand the\y,(ajo
learning and .writing .pot
what they learnt. ,.'

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