Note: To read the first part of The Story of Indian Muslims, click here.
The decline of the Mughal state provided “one of the strong boosts” to strengthening the hold of orthodoxy and hastening the pace of Islamisation. Muslim divines widely attributed the loss of Kingdom to religious and communal laxity and pressed for a return to the pure faith and political militancy. They began to actively exhort against the customs which so many Muslims shared with Hindus — intercession at the tombs of saints, consultations of Brahmins, even vegetarianism and aversion to the remarriage of widows. Muslims were made aware of all they did not share with their Hindu neighbours. India was made to feel not like a home, but like a habitat.
The revivalist movement of Indian muslims
The revivalist movement began in the 18th century. Leading this movement was Shah Waliullah (1703-62), son of Shah Abd al-Rahim, who was closely associated with the compilation of the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri in the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb and was the founder of Madarasa Rahimiyah in Delhi.
In 1732, Shah Waliullah went on Hajj to Mecca where he stayed for over a year and continued his studies in Hadith and mysticism. One of his teachers also influenced Muhammad ibn Add al-Wahhab, the founder of the militant reform movement in Arabia. On his return to India, Shah Waliullah began his prodigious efforts to harmonise and integrate the entire body of Islamic tradition (the four schools of Islamic law and Sufism). His works were designed to demonstrate that an ideal Islamic life could be lived only in accordance with the Qur’an and Hadith.
Shah Waliullah held that the Islamic community was originally created to ensure that no other religion be allowed to exist. He estimated Mahmud Ghaznavi as Islam’s greatest ruler for he launched and sustained the first real Islamic conquest of India. He alleged that historians were unaware that Mahmud Ghaznavi’s horoscope matched that of the Prophet, which assured him victories in battles for the propagation of the faith.
After Shah Waliullah’s death, his ideas continued to inspire religious revivalists both in India and outside. The Wahhabi movement has in fact been described as “the practical culmination” of Shah Waliullah’s teachings, though it also bore the imprint if the movement in contemporary Arabia associated with Muhammad Ibn Abdal-Wahhab. In India, Shah Waliullah’s successors, reaffirming his views on the imperative for Hindus and Muslims to remain apart, focused on the study of legal codes and the writing of judicial opinions to guide individual Muslims in matters of daily life. His legacy ensured that Indian Muslims not only looked different from non-Muslims but also would not do, learn, consume, or use things that might bear resemblance with non-Muslims.
These revivalist movements continued well into the nineteenth century, the most popular of them was Tariqah-i-Muhammadiyah, launched by Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (Shahid). He, along with his followers, set out to cleanse Indian Islam of practically all borrowings from Hinduism, or superstitious degradations shared with Hinduism. He emphasised the fundamentals of Islam, focusing more on the points at which it differed from other faiths.
Sayyid Ahmad launched a jihad against the Sikh territory on the northwest Frontier of India. He hoped to create a facsimile of the early Muslim community in the belief that it would one day inspire Muslims to conquer India for God. Several contemporary accounts attested to the profound impact of Sayyid Ahmad’s jihad. The British Resident at Delhi reported to the Governor-General, “Syed Ahmad, Maulvi Ismail and their colleagues have established a very extensive, if not universal, influence over the minds of our Mohammedan subjects. During the period of their attacks on Ranjit Singh’s territories, the most fervent anxiety for their success pervaded the Mohammedan population in Delhi. A number quitted their houses and marched to join them, including some who resigned their employment in the Company’s service, both the military and civil branches, for that purpose. It is said that the King of Delhi encouraged this spirit.”
All these were the early signs that the Indian Muslims were seeking a separate space for themselves, which would eventually go on to lay down the foundation of Pakistan.
To be continued…
Reference books
Parallel Pathways: Essays On Hindu-Muslim Relations (1707-1857)
Kalampedia 