The Calcutta "madrasa" was one of the many institutions which witnessed recurrent attempts at reform in Muslim societies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since the eleventh century, when "madrasas" first emerged as the principal institution of higher Islamic learning, it has undergone many changes, adapting in varying degrees to local cultures and changing times. Given the centrality of the Calcutta "madrasa" in the preservation and production of knowledge as well as in the formation of the religious elite, the "madrasa" was crucial to the construction of religious authority. This paper attempts to arrive at a deeper understanding of the origin and nature of the Calcutta "madrasa." The first half explores the impact of British educational policies and conceptions of knowledge on the very "traditionalists" attempt to protect Islamic knowledge and learning from its feared extinction under colonial rule. The "madrasa" institution established by and during colonial rule emerges as a more complex entity that absorbed both colonialist and traditionalist conceptions, which continued to be renegotiated even after the "madrasas," had been firmly established. This aspect will be discussed in the second part of this paper.