Dr T B Jayah Oration:

National hero, freedom fighter and brilliant orator

Contributed to Muslim education:

Text of Dr T B Jayah Oration delivered by Justice Saleem Marsoof PC at last year’s 120th birth anniversary commemoration

Marhoom Al Haj Dr Tuan Branudeen Jayah, as we all know, was a great visionary to whom the Muslims of Sri Lanka, whether they be Moors or Malays, are greatly indebted. In fact, in my humble opinion, he was a blessing (nigkmath) sent to this world by the Almighty to guide the destiny of the Muslims of Ceylon, at a time when they were faced with the great dilemma posed by the advent of English education under British rule, which was considered by our community at that time to be an obstacle to the spiritual life of a good Muslim.

Consider the life of young Tuan Branudeen himself, born on the first day of January exactly 120 years ago, in the year 1890 in Galagedera, in the Central Province, where his father Police Sergeant Cassim Jayah was then serving, Branudeen was the second in a family of four children.

His elder brother Tuan Arifeen and younger brother Tuan Baris, were his childhood companions as his sister Devi passed away at a very tender age. His parents, who were the descendants of the original Malay settlers in this island home, and were pretty modest in their upbringing, saw to it that the sons were well instructed in a spiritual sense.

Childhood companions

His father Cassim, who wanted to get the best tutors for his sons, chose Capt A T Morseth, a devout Muslim to teach his sons the Holy Quran. Capt Morseth was a man of letters and his influence on Branudeen was most beneficial. Later on, two others who were equally proficient, Noordeen Raleen and Omerdeen Lebbe of Kurunegala gave Branudeen a sound grounding in the reading of the Holy Quran, an accomplishment he treasured for the whole of his life. But until he was 10 years of age, he did not have the benefit of formal schooling, a handicap which would have made many total failures as far as material education was concerned.

Indeed, the predicament of Marhoom Tuan Branudeen Jayah illustrates the psyche of the Muslims of the time, who believed that Western education would have an adverse impact on their children, and did not want to send their children to school. It was one year after the birth of Marhoom Jayah that a historic public speech was made by M C Siddhi Lebbe in 1891 at the Maradana Mosque premises, in which he appealed to the Muslim community to unite and promote the educational advancement of the community. He emphasized that unless the children are given instruction in English and other subjects taught in formal schools to supplement their Quranic studies, the community will not be able to emerge out of its abysmal state.

Muslim Educational Society

It was this historic address by Siddi Lebbe that led to the formation of the Colombo Muslim Educational Society, with Siddhi Lebbe himself as President and I L M Abdul Aziz and A M Wappitchi Marikar as Secretary and Treasurer, respectively. They, with the help of Ahamed Orabi Pasha, a freedom fighter and an Egyptian exile in Ceylon, established Al-Madrasathul Zahira, in 1894 which later on was registered as a grant-in-aid school with the name Maradana Mohammedan Boys School, the predecessor of Zahira College, Maradana, of which Marhoom Tuan Branudeen Jayah was destined to be the principal in 1921.

But, before getting to all that, let us first welcome the 20th century, which dawned when young Branudeen was only 10 years old, and well versed in the Holy Quran, Masha Allah, and very little more.

His first school was the Anglo Vernacular School Kurunegala which he attended only for a few months, as fortunately his father was transferred to Colombo. He was admitted in 1901 to SPG School, Kotahena, which I believe was the name given to St. Paul’s College in Kotahena. He was then eleven years old, and he entered what was called ‘the baby class’ which preceded the lower kindergarten and upper kindergarten after which came the first standard.

Multiple promotions

A boy too old for his class becomes a target for the mischievous. He was fortunate in having understanding school authorities who realized his predicament.

They were impressed by his intelligence. At the end of the year his father was gratified to learn that he had been given multiple promotions to enter the third standard in 1902. This was not the end of his triple jumping, as the very next year, due to his sheer brilliance, he was given a treble promotion from third standard to sixth standard, the equivalent of Year Seven. In 1903, he won a scholarship to enter St Thomas’ College, where Jayah passed the Cambridge Junior Examination in 1906 winning the J A C Mendis Junior Mathematical Prize, a highly commendable performance indeed.

He soon became one of the most brilliant classics pupils of Warden Stone, himself a first-rate classicist who, in his pre-Ceylon period of school-mastering at Bristol Grammar School, had produced a very scholarly edition of Sallust’s Catiline, and under Warden Stone’s watchful eyes, in 1907 he passed the Cambridge Senior Examination winning the Dr Ebell’s Latin prize, showing the shift of his studies towards specialization in the Classics, which was crowned with the annexation of the Christoffer Obeysekera’s first Classical prize. It was a remarkable record for a boy who began his formal studies in the Infants’ class in 1901 to pass the London Matriculation in 1908, completing a course of studies spanning eleven years of the general education course, with distinction in just seven years - a performance that rightly belongs to the realms of the near impossible all through grit, industry and brains.

Intellectual giant

Unfortunately, mere grit, industry and brains are not enough for someone to graduate. He needs money or educational support, which young Jayah did not have. He was compelled by circumstances to seek employment before completing his education and joined Dharmaraja College, Kandy, as an Assistant Teacher in 1910. In the same year, however, he was able to assume duties as Classics master at Prince of Wales College, Moratuwa. It was while he was serving at Prince of Wales College that he passed the Intermediate Examination in Arts of the University of London in 1913 reading English, Greek, Latin, History and curiously enough, Mathematics.

This combination proved what an intellectual giant Jayah was turning out to be, as much as the combination with which he obtained his degree of Bachelor of Arts from the University of London in 1917, which included Latin, Greek, History and Economics, demonstrating his extraordinary versatility of mind, and infinite capacity for acquisition of knowledge of all disciplines.

Branudeen’s specialization in the Classics brought its own reward. In May 1917, he was accepted as a teacher at Ananda College, the heart and core of the Sinhala Buddhist revival in Ceylon. He was chosen for his extensive knowledge of the Classics in the teaching of which he had few rivals. In due course he achieved fame as a Classics Scholar and teacher equalled by few, surpassed by none.

At Ananda he taught Greek, Latin and History in the Upper School. Although these were his specific subjects, he led his pupils effortlessly into other fields of knowledge in which he was equally at home.

This demonstrates the universality of his outlook and the role he cast for himself as a teacher to help in the development of the mind, not fill it with pre-conceived notions, as while being by nature very conservative in political ideology, he produced fiery radical leaders like Philip Gunawardena, father of the left revolution, and Dr N M Perera, who was called the ‘golden brain’.

Both attained Cabinet rank and notwithstanding ideological differences they never failed to express their high regard for Jayah as a teacher.

It was this erudite scholar of classics and wonderful teacher who was doing so well at Ananda, who was invited in 1921 by N M Abdul Cader, on behalf of the Maradana Mosque Committee, to accept the principalship of Zahira College, Colombo. Marhoom Tuan Branudeen Jayah, had by then realized that despite the great debt the Muslim Community owed to its ulemas, the Alims and Moulvis who defended Islam from inroads from the West by moulding the youthful minds of the community, it was necessary to strengthen general educational standards of the community.

English education

Jayah persisted in arguing that English education was essential for progress and had urged the Muslims in a memorable public speech he made two years before at the Maradana Mosque to cast aside their prejudices and send children for English education.

Though opportunity had thus come to Jayah to serve the community, the prospect was bleak and dismal, as Zahira College was not doing too well as a viable educational institution after its management was handed over by its Manager Wappitchi Marikar to the Maradana Mosque in 1917, despite being lead by two Englishmen, O E Martinus and J C McHeyzer as Principals. In 1921, it had only 59 students and six teachers, and the number of student and staff had been diminishing. P de S Kularatne, the Principal of Ananda College used every argument in pressing Jayah to reject the offer, not for the selfish reason of keeping a great teacher with Ananda College, but out of his fear for losing a close friend in what he believed was the wilderness of Zahira, which was at that time suffering from inadequate funding and due to lack of popular support its prospects were bleak.

S L Naina Marikar Hadjiar himself had said in 1917 that Zahira College “is only in name a college and it will not attract our boys as long as it remains what it is today”. But, to the great astonishment of all who knew Jayah closely, and the great benefit of the Muslim community, Jayah decided to accept the challenge.

Zahira College

Jayah had the best interests of the community in accepting the Principalship of Zahira College, which position he held for 27 long years of great toil and success, only to relinquish the position in 1947 to accept the post of Labour and Social Services Minister in the first Cabinet of Ceylon, which gained independence from the British in the very next year.

It is a well-known fact that he was drawn into politics while engaged as an educationist-principal of Zahira College, and that from 1924 to 1931 he was a member of the Legislative Council of Ceylon, and from 1936 to 1947 he was a member of the State Council, and was elected in 1947 as a member of the first Parliament of Ceylon under the Soulbury Constitution.

Dr Jayah’s selection to the Legislative Council in 1924 was a result of the agitation for increased representation of Muslims to that body. The Ceylon Moor Union formed in 1900 and replaced by the Ceylon Muslim Association founded in 1920, spearheaded these agitations. Consequently, Muslim representation was increased to three members, Jayah being elected third Mohammedan Member (and later referred to as Muslim Member on the initiative made by him). It was in these years, that the Islamic zeal implanted on Jayah by Captain Morseth and other tutors in his childhood was to bear fruit.

To be continued