(IPS) feature The Taliban may have been defeated militarily in Afghanistan, but the ideology of the militia lives on at its wellspring - a madrasah in this small town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

''Islam that brought peace to a chaotic world centuries ago, ushering in respect and equality for all, will prevail again,'' said maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi, pro-vice chancellor of Darul-Uloom (House of Knowledge) some 150 km from the capital, New Delhi.

With 30,000 unofficial Darul-Uloom branches across India and its graduates opening new madrasah and preaching at mosques in Saudi Arabia, Britain, the United States and South Africa, the 50-year old scholar is confident that the Deobandi talim (knowledge) will soon spread globally.

''Muslims of the world will unite to defend Islam in eternity,'' Madrasi said, to the approval of two students listening appreciatively to their tutor.

The loquacious maulana , with a droll sense of humour, declared that Muslims live for the ''hereafter'' while spiritually bankrupt westerners exist only for the present.

''Islam needs dedicated soldiers like the Taliban (Islamic students) to defend itself against the depraved West that takes off its clothes in the name of progress and modernity,'' the maulana declared, sitting cross-legged on an intricately patterned carpet in his sparsely furnished, book-lined study.

Spiritual powerhouse

He said the Taliban's ''purist ideology'' coincided with Deobandi philosophy centered around fundamental Quranic tenets and the 'hadith' (the Prophet Muhammad's sayings) and would proliferate across all societies like a soothing balm.

For decades, Pakistani, Afghan and Kashmiri militant groups have claimed as their ''spiritual powerhouse'' the Deobandi School, founded by maulana Mohammad Qasim Nanautvi in 1866 or nine years after the Mutiny - the First War of Independence to most Indians.

Appalled by the execution of hundreds of ulama (scholars) by the British for participating in that revolt, Nanautvi rejected western values, opted for traditionalism and founded the first ''political'' madrasah at Deoband in Uttar Pradesh following an ''inspired dream''.

Today, surrounded by a high wall, Darul Uloom is located at one end of Deoband, a squalid, crowded and nondescript agricultural town in this state famous otherwise for its mango orchards.

Century-old curriculum

The sprawling, stark campus, spread over 40 hectares, is abuzz with construction activity as old hostels are torn down to make way for new accommodation for the 3,300 students.

A grandiloquent mosque, which when completed can accommodate more than 30,000 devotees, presides over the severity and piety that suffuses Darul Uloom.

Two other smaller, older mosques are nearby. Few of the original brick-red buildings with minarets and large arches, other than the library, a senior boys' hostel and staff quarters, survive.

A silent humming noise pervades the many parks of the madrasah as scores of boys rock to and fro as they memorise thick text books cradled in their laps.

Many students have been forced by the rigour of their courses to forego vacations during the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan to prepare for dreaded examinations later this month.

Dressed in traditional white, baggy shalwar trousers, knee-length shirts and starched caps, 3,300 madrasah students - selected after a rigorous entrance test - stroll in and out of a labyrinth of classrooms for eight years.

They study a mixture of Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, imbibing the spirit of a conservative strand of Islam from a curriculum unchanged for 135 years.

Many enter the madrasah at the age of five to leave it 20 years later, sporting beards recommended for Muslim men and steeped in this school's rigid interpretation of Islam.

All students begin by memorising the Quran by rote and pursue a syllabus that stresses behaviour and a spartan lifestyle. ''The Quran dictates everything, about the way we live, behave and conduct ourselves,'' Madrasi said.

Joyless lives

A dash of mathematics and Greek logic are part of the rigorous course that gives students little time for leisure.

A few indulge in rudimentary cricket played with a tennis ball, a makeshift bat and a pile of bricks that serve as the wickets. Namaz (prayer) is said five times every day and television and newspapers are banned as ''un-Islamic.''

Al Azhar University, the world's largest madrasah located in Cairo, Egypt defers to scholarship at the Darul Uloom, which is only second in size. For years, Al Azhar sent its scholars to Deoband for higher studies especially in the area of fatwa or edicts.

Darul-Uloom recently issued a fatwa against Muslims using western products after the US declared war on the Taliban - accused of sheltering Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, whom the United States suspects was behind the Sept 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

''The Taliban brought peace to Afghanistan and took the correct steps to protect Islam that is under assault by Christians and Jews,'' Madrasi declared of the rule of the militia that controlled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until last week.

Like the Darul Uloom students and many among its tens of thousands of its graduates, Madrasi is convinced that the Sept11 attacks were the work of the United States and Israel in order to wage war against the Muslim world.

He justifies jihad (holy war) against the ''perfidious'' west as a ''defensive tactic'' and approves of confining women to their homes, enforcing beards on men and proscription of all forms of enjoyment and entertainment.