Today there are lakhs of madrasahs spread all over the country. The old madrasahs, like those of Nadwatul ‘Ulema in Lucknow and Darul Uloom in Deoban… - Wahiduddin Khan

Had they made a timely assessment of what created the hiatus between Muslims and other nations, they would have set the feet of Muslims on the path of education, and would, in the process, have enabled them to acquire the strengths of the modern world. Their energies would then have contributed to a positive struggle, instead of being frittered away in negative reaction. Up till now Muslims have tended to attribute their problems to prejudice and discrimination and to waste the better part of their time and energy in railing against offenders who often exist only in their own imaginations. What I have to say is simply that it is high time they changed their way of thinking and devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the processes of self-reconstruction.

Judged by Qur'anic standards, Muslim journalism falls far below par. While the Qur'anic 'periodical' was run on positive lines, the entire Muslim press of the present day is plunged in negativism. Where the Qur'an stressed the importance of action and the avoidance of reaction, present-day Muslim journalism as a whole is oriented towards and motivated by reaction. During the last days of the Muslims in Mecca (shortly before the emigration when they had been cruelly persecuted by the Meccan non-Muslims, this verse of the Qur'an was revealed: 'Truely with hardship comes ease, truely with hardship comes ease' (94:5-6). That is to say that for this world God has decreed that facility, or ease, should exist side by side with difficulty and hardship. You should, therefore, ignore difficulty, seek opportunities and avail of them. But today Muslim journalism has devoted itself entirely to the ferretting out of difficulties, mainly plots and conspiracies of others against them. If were to place the revelations of the Qur'an on a parallel with the investigative, informative, and advisory functions of the modern press, the most appropriate, although anachronistic term for them would be 'constructive journalism'. Where the parallel ends is in the failure of modern Muslim journalism - unlike the Qur'an - to be constructive. I would say that, on the contrary, it is run on the very opposite principle.

Indeed, if you make a survey of the economic ans social condition of any Muslim family before and after 1947, you will see that it has made remarkable progress. If in pre-independence days, a Muslim owned a bicycle, today he owns a car. If, then, he had a small house, today he owns, if not a mansion, then at least a house of comfortable proportions. Where, before, he could only afford to telephone from a public booth, today he has his own telephone. Where his family had to depend on limited local opportunities, they now regularly travel and work abroad, and hold superior positions.