Education in Afghanistan

See also Chapter 95, 'The Heart of Asia' in The Republic of Rumi: a Novel of Reality

Iqbal visited Afghanistan with Sir Ross Masud and Syed Suleman Nadvi to advise the Afghan government on the new education policy in October 1933. The following statement summarized his observations and was published in newspapers on October 19, 1933.

An educated Afghanistan will be the best friend of India. The building of a new University at Kabul and the development of the Peshawar Islamia College into another University on the western border of India will very much help in the uplift of the shrewd Afghan tribes who inhabit the country that lies between our frontier and the Afghan frontier.

His Majesty the King of Afghanistan invited us [Iqbal, Sir Ross Masud and Syed Sulaiman Nadvi] to advise his Education Minister on matters connected with the proposed University at Kabul. We felt it our duty to respond to his call. It appears from the various publications emerging from Kabul that the younger generation of Afghans are thoroughly in earnest about modern knowledge, and its co-ordination with their religion and culture. The Afghans are a fine people and as Indians it is our duty to help them to advance as much as they can. There are very clear indications of the development of new consciousness in that people, and we hope we may be able to advise them on matters of education in the light of our Indian experience. Personally I believe that complete secularisation of education has not produced good results anywhere especially in Muslim lands. Nor is there any absolute system of education. Each country has its own needs and its educational problems must be discussed and solved in the light of those needs.