Islamia College Peshawar Turns 100
I
Islamia College Peshawar, where I spent two memorable years, turned one hundred in 2013. The idea of building the college first sprouted in the minds of its founders in 1909, and within a short period, the main college building, along with a high school and three hostels, was completed in 1913.
Though faded, the old black-and-white pictures of the college at the time show the stark contrast between this amazingly beautiful building and the surrounding wilderness. It is as if a genie delivered the building overnight to grant a boy’s wish.
Actually, there were two “boys” in this fairytale, one a British and the other a native Pashtun. After making their wish, which was not much different from a child’s fantasy, they transformed themselves into a powerful duo of genies and delivered this jewel of a building along with a blueprint of modern liberal arts education.
The British “boy” was George Roos-Keppel, a “soldier-sahib,” that peculiar breed of British officers in India whose careers crisscrossed between the army and civil service and who, during their long stints in the frontier regions, got to understand the native people so well that they developed a relationship of mutual respect and admiration. He was a three-time chief commissioner (the office was later replaced with that of governor) of the province between 1908 and 1919. He spoke fluent Pashto and wrote books on Pashto language and grammar.
The native “boy” in the story was Sahibzada Abdul Qaiyum, a Pashtun. He started his career as a naib-tehsildar, serving in different districts and tribal agencies. Through diligence and loyalty to the service, he became Political Agent of the Khyber Agency. After retirement, Sahibzada Abdul Qaiyum joined politics, but that is another story.
Keppel-Qayyum was a synergic pair. They had the vision, drive, and influence to raise the required funds for their project. These two men's names are synonymous with Islamia College Peshawar, just as Sir Syed’s is with Aligarh Muslim University. Their life-size portraits hang in the college's main congregation hall, Roos-Keppel Hall.
The college was modeled after the Aligarh Muslim College, which, in turn, tried to emulate Oxford and Cambridge of those days. The black sherwani, which became the college uniform, was also imported from Aligarh.
Islamia College was conceived as a liberal arts college aimed at imparting general knowledge of social and physical sciences and developing students' intellectual capacities instead of a professional, vocational, or technical college imparting education in specialized fields.
Notwithstanding the prefix “Islamia,” the college was neither meant to nor did it prioritize religious studies over social and physical sciences and languages, which formed the core of the college curriculum.
The college emblem, painted on the façade overlooking the college quadrangle, carried the Quranic inscription “Rabb-i-zidni ilma” (O Lord, enhance me in my knowledge), which countless schools and colleges all over the country have copied as their emblem over the years.
II
The Englishman everyone remembers.
Any old student of Islamia College Peshawar, during the 1950s and 60s, if asked who they remember the most from among their teachers, would invariably name an Englishman other than Dean Saab.
His name was Hubert Michael Close or H. M. Close or simply Close for his students and colleagues. After graduating from Cambridge, Close went to teach English at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, in 1937. However, his teaching career was interrupted by World War II when he joined the army and ended up in Cyprus and other Mediterranean islands, commanding a Pathan Company.
At the end of the war, Close returned to St. Stephen’s and, after the Partition, migrated to Pakistan and taught English at Islamia College Peshawar.
In his book A Pathan Company, published in 1993, Close warmly describes the “boys” in B Company he commanded, admiring their sturdiness, simplicity of habits, sincerity, and loyalty to their commander. His affection for young Pathan soldiers probably motivated him to move to Peshawar.
I first saw Close when I entered college and was allotted Room 52 in Hardinge Hostel, a room I shared with three other students: Ayub Kundi from D.I.Khan, Sahibzada Ayaz from Mansehra, and Mian Jameel from Moosa-zai, Peshawar. Close also lived in Hardinge hostel, in a one-bedroom apartment immediately above our room. Because of our proximity to his room upstairs, we often saw him going or coming to and from his apartment and, in the process, developed more than a nodding acquaintance with him.
I remember him as a lean man of medium height, probably in his mid-forties, with a ruddy complexion, thinning brown hair, small penetrating eyes, and a rather shy demeanor.
In the early years of Pakistan, elementary military training, called Compulsory Military Training or CMT for short, was introduced in the college. All first-year students had to undergo CMT for three months.
With his army background, Close was a natural choice to head the CMT, and he plunged himself into the task with passion. At daybreak, he would blow a whistle to pull the students out of their beds, sometimes literally, make them change into the prescribed uniform—shorts, shirt, and what we called PT shoes — and after a few drills, take them on a run-and-crawl routine all the way to Jamrud and back, a distance of 3 - 4 miles either way.
CMT became synonymous with Close, and students called it Close Military Training. Close demanded and instilled a discipline that the students, mostly from the rural areas of the province, were not used to. Not many relished the rigors of CMT, but every one of the old students you talk to remembers it fondly.
Donating blood was another of Close’s passions. He not only donated blood himself — repeatedly — but also encouraged students to donate. He would go around the campus looking for potential donors, talk to them, befriend them, persuade them — almost compel them — and ultimately lead them to Lady Reading Hospital, the only public hospital in Peshawar. Without Close’s efforts, the blood bank at the hospital could not have remained solvent.
During summer vacation, Close would lead teams of students on anti-malaria campaigns (another of his passions) in the remote villages of Hazara. They would go from village to village, spraying houses, cowsheds, and ponds of stagnant water with insecticides. Those campaigns not only helped save villagers from the ravages of malaria but also helped the students gain insight into the lives of ordinary village folk. They also inspired some to explore the surrounding mountains at the end of their social work projects.
I remember a hiking trip when, at the end of an anti-malaria campaign in Balakot and the surrounding villages, five of us climbed Musa ka Musalla, a 14,000-foot-high peak in the Himalayas. We didn’t quite reach the top, but it was, and remains, the most incredible adventure of my life.
Donating blood or joining his summer social work campaigns was the quickest way to get into Close’s good books, better still, if you did both.
A lifelong bachelor, Close lived a Spartan life. During the summers, he was usually seen in a white shirt and khaki trousers, and in winters, in a tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbows.
Close was also a biking buff. I don’t remember seeing him travel by car or the college bus. He always rode his Raleigh bicycle, his khaki trousers clamped at the ankles, going around the campus, whistling a classic tune and taking in the fragrance of bitter-orange blossoms that filled the campus air in March and April.
During the month of Ramazan, Close would get up at sehri along with everyone else and fast until the iftar. Students jokingly referred to him as Hafiz or Haji M Close, playing on his initials. On Sundays, he would ride his bicycle to the city to attend his church service, a 5-mile ride either way. He was a religious man.
Other than social work, Close’s pursuit of happiness included smoking a pipe and listening to Western classical music. We could trace his movements to and from his room by the fragrant trail of the pipe smoke he left behind him. Occasionally, when we went upstairs to his room to ask something and found the door half ajar, we saw him humming along with his gramophone, vigorously chopping the air with his hands as if he were conducting the symphony. This was our introduction to Western classical music.
Close is remembered today by his students not for what he taught in the classroom but for what he taught outside it: Discipline, compassion, social work, and adventure, and to us, in Room 52, the names of Beethoven and Mozart and the sound of their music.
Close remained at Islamia College until his retirement and then moved to Edwardes College and remained there until his death, in 1999. According to his wish, he was buried in England.
III
The ‘Maulana’ We Miss
In Islamia College Peshawar, the religious instruction, or what was then called deeniyat, was limited to a weekly, hour-long class that was held in the college mosque. Nurul Haq Nadvi, popularly known as Dean Saab or Dean Seb, for he was the dean of the Faculty of Theology, taught this class.
Older college alumni may not remember many of their teachers, but everyone you talk to not only remembers Dean Saab but would fondly tell you a story or two about him.
Unlike the present-day clerics who usually wear exotic attire, long beards, a stern, and sanctimonious expression, Dean Saab wore a well-tailored sherwani, a grey karakul cap, a tidy beard, and an easy smile. In the afternoons, he was seen on the tennis courts, in a white shirt and trousers (the standard tennis wear those days), playing tennis.
Other than receiving his formal religious education in Nadva, Lakhnow, Dean Saab had also spent time at Jamia al-Azhar, in Egypt. His sermons were not the usual fire and brimstone we hear from loudspeakers these days. They were mostly about ikhlaqiyat — good conduct and manners. He talked more about life in this world than the hereafter. He never discussed any divisive religious issues.
Dean Saab had an impish sense of humor. He observed students, both on and off-campus, and then used his observations as examples to talk about social niceties and manners in his deeniyat class. His ‘advisories’ generally came as digressions from the main lecture. They were blunt but laced with humor.
Once, during an inspection tour of a hostel (a weekly routine carried out by different faculty members to check the orderliness of the rooms), he noticed that some students had their portraits hung in their rooms or displayed on their bedside tables. In the next lecture, he digressed to talk about narcissism. Sensing that the students did not understand a nuanced message, he summed it up thus: “Displaying your own portrait on the wall makes your room look like a naai ki dukaan, a barbershop.” Everyone understood that, and many, if not all, portraits came off the walls and bedside tables in the dormitories.
Of course, Dean Saab also talked about Islam, its history, and the importance of some of the religious rituals, but his lectures were most interesting when he digressed, which he often did, and talked of day-to-day human behavior. We always looked forward to those digressions.
One morning, a first-year student walked into Dean Saab’s class wearing shorts. It was right after the physical training class in the morning and the student hadn’t had enough time to change into the regular college uniform. Also, he was new to the college — and had an English mother, which was probably why he was not fully aware of the cultural sensitivities. Dean Saab gave him a quizzical look and said, in Pashto: “Bachiya, za nan sta chhutti da, o bia uniform ke raza.” (Son, take the day off, and next time come in college uniform.) There was no admonition, only helpful advice in a bemused tone. The boy understood and left, and Dean Saab returned to the class with this nugget: “Bare legs can be distracting”. The class burst into laughter.
We went to Dean Saab’s class for such impish ‘nuggets’, not for angry sermons.
IV
The College Turban Unravelled
Along with the black sherwani and white shalwar, which continue to be the college uniform even today, the Fez, or Rumi cap as it was then called, was also introduced as the headwear in the very early years of the college. As a concession to the local customs, it was later replaced with the Peshawari turban (kulla or patkai) But the kullah didn’t last long and was discarded in favor of no particular headwear. One probable reason for giving up the turban was that it didn’t sit too well on 16–18-year-old freshmen, especially those who were a bit too skinny. The other reason was more interesting and requires a bit of explanation.
Soon after breakfast and before the college started, a “dress parade” (that is what it was called) was held in all the hostels. At the sound of the bell, boarders would stream out of their rooms, and line up in the hostel courtyard, dressed up in sherwani and shalwar, black shoes or chaplis, and, of course, the turban. First, there would be a roll call to ensure that everyone was present, followed by an “inspection”. The hostel superintendent or the senior monitor walked past each student to see if he was properly dressed, sherwani buttoned-up, its collar hooked — no azarband dangling loose — shoes shined, and the turban sitting properly on the head.
Ditching the “dress parade” or turning up improperly dressed was considered a near felony and the culprit was fined.
Students couldn’t help pulling pranks on each other. At the sound of the bell when everyone was rushing out of their rooms to join the “dress parade”, one tug at the tail of someone’s turban was enough to unravel it. Those who have ever worn a turban would know that tying a turban is not as simple as buttoning a jacket or tying shoelaces. It takes some skill and time. The student whose turban came undone at the last minute would end up missing the parade and being fined. And this happened not infrequently.
Some students kept an extra turban, like a spare tire of a car, as insurance against such mishaps. If one came loose the “victim” would quickly don the other, and rush to join the parade. But the “victims” were not always amused, and sometimes reacted rather inelegantly. So, the legend has it, the college administration decided to abandon the turban altogether, to the relief of the later generations, including mine. End
