Madrasa

noun (countable)

/məˈdrɑːsə/

A madrasa (also madrassa/madrasah) is an Islamic educational institution providing instruction in the Quran, hadith, Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), Arabic language, and related subjects; in the classical period it also taught philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. Introduced into India during the Delhi Sultanate, the Dars-e-Nizami curriculum (formulated by Mulla Nizamuddin at Lucknow, c. 1748 CE) standardised madrasa education in the subcontinent and remains influential. In contemporary India, madrasas are regulated under the respective State Madrasa Education Boards; the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has recently questioned their recognition under the RTE Act.

✍️ Usage in a UPSC answer

The Dars-e-Nizami curriculum, introduced at the Farangi Mahal madrasa in Lucknow in the 18th century, privileged rationalist philosophy and logic alongside traditional Islamic sciences, producing a generation of scholarly administrators in Mughal and successor-state bureaucracies.

Synonyms

Islamic seminaryreligious schooltheological collegemaktab (elementary level)dar ul-uloom

Antonyms

secular schoolstate schoollay collegepublic university

🌱 Word Family

madrasa (noun), madrassa (variant noun), dars (Arabic noun — lesson), darsgah (Persian noun — place of lessons), maktab (related noun — elementary Quranic school), mudarris (Arabic noun — teacher/lecturer)

🔡 Root

Arabic madrasa = place of study; from darasa (to study, to lecture) + place-noun suffix -a

📜 Etymology

From Arabic madrasa (school, place of study), the noun of place derived from the verb darasa (to study, to tread over ground — metaphorically to study text repeatedly). The first formalised madrasas appeared in Khorasan (northeast Iran) in the 10th century CE, with the Nizamiyya madrasa of Baghdad (c. 1065 CE) founded by Nizam al-Mulk establishing the institutional model. The term reached South Asia via Persian administrative and scholarly vocabulary.

🧠 Memory Hook

MADRASA = MAD-RASA (course of study): darasa in Arabic means to study repeatedly, to tread over the text. A madrasa is where you 'tread over' the Quran until it is memorised.

🏛️ History & Culture 📖 Seen in: Indus Valley Civilization (Mature phas...

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