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Islamic Revival in South Asia

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_102-1

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Islamic Revival in South Asia

Asif Mohiuddin

Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Globalization and the Reification of Islam in South Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Cultural Interactions, Reciprocities, and Muslim Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Muslim Reformist Movements: From Appropriation to Collision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Muslim Communities and the Quest for a New Islamicity: The Case of Deoband . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Mawdūdī’s Evolutionary Approach to Societal Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
From Reform to Revolution: Jamā‘at e Islami and Political Transformation in Pakistan . . . . . . 13
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Abstract
It has been widely argued that in the face of massive and unrelenting changes in
the globalized world, Islamic revival not only confirms the well-known theses of
a coming “clash of civilizations” but also responds to the displacements and
uncertainties produced by economic, political, cultural, and military enforced
globalization. While not entirely inaccurate, such interpretations present a mis-
leading account of externally generated processes of global change and do not
take into account the myriad conceptualizations of contemporary Islamicist
ideologies which draw upon particular forms of informational and cultural
exchange. This chapter offers an alternative perspective on Islamic revival in
South Asian context by putting Islamic reform movements into the context of
large-scale social transformations. It explores the intricacies of traditionalist
approach to politics, which the seminary at Deoband and the movement that
emerged from there came to represent in the wake of Muslim decline in the
nineteenth century. To elucidate the directives that are inherent to religious

A. Mohiuddin (*)
Department of Higher Education, Government Degree College, Larnoo, Anantnag, Jammu and
Kashmir, India
e-mail: asif.mohiuddin09@gmail.com

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

M. Woodward, R. Lukens-Bull (eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim
Lives, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_102-2
2 A. Mohiuddin

reformist discourse, the chapter pinpoints various milestones in the transforma-

tion of the Jamā‘at-e-Islami, focusing on its organizational evolution and the
social and intellectual base of its leadership structure. The chapter proposes to
briefly explore the evolution of revivalist movements in South Asia to show how
these movements have preserved the continuous religious vitality of Islamic
tradition understood in terms of different facets of cultural praxis.

Introduction

In the expanding literature on globalization, contemporary worldwide Islamic resur-

gence, or what is often referred to as “the return of the sacred,” has been interpreted
as a response to the perception of the world as “a single place”: a space in which
conflict dramatically intensifies relationships across societal boundaries (Robertson
and Chirico 1985: 220; Robertson and Lechner 1985: 110). Advancing the cause of
an alternative form of globalization based on traditional ideologies and localized
alternative positions, this characterization applies to transnational Islamic move-
ments, which articulate the experience of actors on the receiving end of globaliza-
tion. Islamic praxisitioners, particularly those with a scholastic background, have a
more sophisticated understanding of globalization than many modernist (and post-
modernist) theories allow for. They question the polarized characterization of con-
temporary Islamicist ideologies as traditional or reactionary and oppose a broadly
Eurocentric view of the process (Sutton and Vertigans 2005: 91). For them, eco-
nomic globalization is an unbalanced process that defines relations between the
global North and the global South on the basis of a global growing gap, which not
only impacts cultural institutions and traditional structures but also engenders ethnic
conflict and various forms of communalism throughout the world. In this context,
while the affluent resort to consumerism, disenfranchised people throughout the
world are responding to experiences of insecurity by seeking to restore collapsed
identities through broad based yet diverse social movements to meet the future on
their own terms.
Islamic revivalism is such a defensive political and social movement, which
cannot be reduced to militant fundamentalism which has captured the attention of
the media in recent years. According to Lapidus (1997: 45), Islamic revivalist
movements emerged as a response to the evolution of nation states, the formation
of capitalist economies, scientific and technological developments, and the social
and cultural changes affecting the conjunction of historical cultural norms and
contemporary circumstances in Muslim societies. In the global South, particularly
South Asia, since the eighteenth century, Muslim communities have been subject to
a prolonged and deeply felt process of renewal which, for the ‘ulamā, meant “the
reorganisation of communities... [or] the reform of individual behavior in terms of
fundamental religious principles,” a development known as revivalism/reformism
(Lapidus 2002: 457). Expressed in different movements ranging from the Iranian
constitutional revolution, the jihads to the great spread of reformed Islamic
Islamic Revival in South Asia 3

knowledge in South Asia, these processes have mutated to develop a new strand of
reformism premised on the idea that revelation has the right to control all human
activities and that state power must be mobilized to achieve this end. This great
movement of religious change addressing grievances of disenfranchised and down-
trodden people and opposing individualistic gratification in favor of moral commit-
ment has helped to mold the inner and outer realities of many Muslims across the
world.
Although coinciding with a Western engagement of growing intensity, this great
movement of reform “precedes the Western presence, its roots lying deep in the
Islamic past, and being represented classically in the eighteenth century by the
teaching of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab in Arabia and Shah WaliAllah in
India”(Robinson 2013: 27). From the beginning of the nineteenth century, Western
powers intervened in the Muslim world, and in the first half of twentieth century,
only few countries were free from Western domination. During this period, elites in
Muslim societies with strong external allegiances, who later on served the Cold War
rivalries of the Great Powers, played their role in submitting their societies to the
influence of global economic forces. Thus, over two centuries, the old ways of
managing societies were supplanted by those of industrializing ones, giving way to
the emergence of new knowledge that challenged the old knowledge, hallowed from
the Islamic past, along with powerful material symbols of these changes in the form
of new Western-style cities growing up alongside the old Islamic cities.
In the context of rapid erosion of old ways and cherished values, the process of
renewal, while opposing Western cultural and political hegemony, took place com-
pelling Muslims to make their faith live to the best possible effect via making
appropriate use of Western knowledge and technology to drive forward its purposes.
Taking into account the Western experience and noting the trajectories of modernity
vis-à-vis Western social sciences, these transformations were associated with a
myriad set of changes: (a) the rejection of the total authority of the past as Muslims
sought new ways of interpreting revelation; (b) the new emphasis on human will that
would help them in realizing the law of God on earth via political power; (c) self-
reflectiveness, growing individualism, and self-affirmation; (d) the scriptural ratio-
nalization of Islam; (e) and finally a process of secularization which arguably has
been followed by a revival or renewal of Islam (Robinson 2013: 28).
This chapter discusses Islamic revival in South Asia in some of its diverse
historical and geographical expressions. At the theoretical level, it is argued that
despite polemical critiques and mutual vilification of groups, the divisions among
Muslim reformist movements are in many senses ambiguous and fluid. However,
there are discernable differences between scripturally oriented and reformist Mus-
lims with regard to strategies, application, and modus operandi of reform. In this
context, although the Deobandi school shares the common doctrinal orientation with
mainstream reformist movements, it accentuates the study of Jurisprudence and of
the authoritative texts (Qur’ān and Sunnah), as well as a self-consciously reformist
thought defined in opposition to existing forms of popular Muslim belief and
practice. Also, exceptional in this case is the evolution of reform into the Islamism
of Jama‘at-i-Islami, which has shifted its focus from being a quietist movement
4 A. Mohiuddin

concerned with Islamic revival to using political power as an alternative engine for
defining and facilitating Islamic reform. Paying particular attention to both Deobandi
and Jama‘at-i-Islami movements will broaden our understanding on how such
organizations embraced a religious change, which arguable drove broader set of
transformations in the Muslim world that we might associate with modernity.

Globalization and the Reification of Islam in South Asia

If we define globalization as a process of integration in which events and develop-

ments occurring in one region influence other regions, we may argue that this
discourse implies nothing new as such processes have existed in earlier history.
Islam, for instance, played a prominent role in globalization processes affecting
economic, political, and cultural life. This is thrown into sharp relief when we look at
the emergence of Islam in South Asia, with many historians emphasizing the role of
a global commercial network in this expansion. They argue that at a time “when
commerce within Europe and the role of Mediterranean as a bridge commerce
between Europe, Africa, and Asia declined. . ., the Indian Ocean became the centre
of a new trade network, dominated by Muslim traders” (Meuleman 2002: 10).
However, in negotiating Muslim expansion, one is confronted with perceptions
that focus on the coercive expansion of Islam, with fanaticised holy warriors and
tribal elemental forces using force to expand Islam within territories. These percep-
tions have not only helped establish master narratives on administrative, judicial, and
political structures of Islamic rule that are difficult to deconstruct and counteract but
also provided explanations for the fulminate wave of expansion shaping the self-
image and the development of Muslims. As noted by Malik (2008: 32), the concept
of futuh (opening of non-Muslim lands for Muslims) played an important role in
managing strategy of Muslim conquests, which were quick and constant but hardly
centrally planned and managed by the caliphs. For the most part, different Muslim
units favored only a few but major battles and operated autonomously. The caliphs
could hardly intervene in the division of booty, which was stipulated by Qur’ānic
injunctions (8: 41 and 59: 7) in reference to the tribal societies of the time. Although
the spectacularly swift spread of Islam was a unique experience of preserving
collective identity of Muslims, yet it was too complex a process to be explained
by the simple illustrations pointing out that religion was the prime factor behind this
mobilization (Noth and Conrad 1994: 3; Donner 1981). In fact, there were a number
of other factors such as the surrounding Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, the local
populations desire to end the domination of these Empires, and the ability of
Muslims to integrate both themselves and new subjects by adapting themselves to
new situations.
Muslim expansion into the East was aided by the perception that “India was a
fabled land of dreams and legends,” which had taken roots in the Arab region during
the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires. This perception was carried by Arab tribes
“moving on the traditional trade routes through the Arabian Peninsula permitting
trans-regional trade” (Malik 2008: 36). Arab Muslims were exposed to the region
Islamic Revival in South Asia 5

through their consistent, albeit limited trade-contacts and interactions. Conceptual-

izing South Asia as a civilization, they adopted a preexisting Persian term, al-Sind
wa al-Hind, for the region, and extended the boundaries of al-Hind from Makran and
Sind to Southeast Asia and Indonesian Archipelago. In this way, the Arab Muslims
not only provided room for the development of a flexible Muslim culture capable of
adjusting to a new location but also provided South Asia with a distinct cultural and
regional identity that has never lost its significance.

Cultural Interactions, Reciprocities, and Muslim Responses

In South Asia, the settlement of Muslims was highly influenced by trade and
economic interaction that affected the social structure and material culture, resulting
in various types of accommodations. In some cases, the accommodation was based
on acceptance of other religions, whereby Islam existed as parallel to other systems.
In other cases, it was based on identification with the local traditions, whereby Islam
accommodated other local traditions and finally displaced other traditional religions,
leading to obliteration of autochthonous ideas and institutions. At the same time,
Islamic reform added to socio-political developments sanctifying bureaucratic
authority of holy men that served, in terms of multidimensional intermingling of
the sacred and profane, to deeply establish Islam in the cultural memory of the
people so that Islamization outstripped the process of indigenization. However,
following the decline of Muslim political power and the rise of Europe, the socio-
economic and political developments had a profound impact on the underlying
process of colonization, eventually affecting the mode of intervention by assigning
a negative identity to colonialized “other.”
This process of “othering” had different objectives: to denigrate the “other” and
(for the purpose of control) generate its identity in a specific colonial context to
consolidate the notion that Europeans by virtue of their racial, ethnic, and religious
superiority had the right to dominate the world (Said 1979). Faced with actions and
norms that questioned their assertions on domination, they tended to accept some of
these bizarre ideas, and thus exposed themselves to a type of cultural hybridization
which could only be mitigated by restricting their own culture as something “pure,”
in contrast to the “inferior” culture of the East. This discourse based on hybridity and
purification played a significant role in establishing a unilateral power-relationship
that helped foster a global cultural identity that led European enlightenment scholars
to critically evaluate the Oriental crusades, which, for the first time, were perceived
in terms of cultural clash (Young 1995). Thus, in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, both Asia and Europe were constructed in terms of arenas of power
politics.
Growing foreign interest in India made many Europeans to visit the country,
where they saw the cultural space diametrically opposed to the values of Europe. The
social evolution in Europe transformed the continent into an embodying hegemonic
power, promulgating the societal decline, despotism, dogmatism, and irrationality of
the Orient. Historiography was a major means to this end. In his History of India,
6 A. Mohiuddin

James Mill (1773–1836) created the powerful periodization, dividing Indian history
into Hindu, Muslim, and British epochs. Interestingly, he acknowledged that Mus-
lims only “substituted sovereigns of one race to sovereigns of another; and mixed
with old inhabitants a small portion of new; but it altered not the texture of society; it
altered not the language of the country; the original inhabitants remained the
occupants of the soil; they continued to be governed by their own laws and
institutions. . .” (Brajadulal 1998: 14).
Feeling heavily inclined towards Indian Muslim scholars, the British officials
took their advice in religious matters and paid them immense respect, as in the case
of Shah ‘Abd al-Azīz (1746–1824). Shah ‘Abd al-Azīz was one of the renowned
scholars of British India, who issued interesting legal opinions, condemning folk
religion, particularly the Shi‘ite denomination of saints. He also called for jihād
against certain groups, in his famous fatwa arguing that India was no longer land of
Islam, but dār al-harb (abode of war) (Aziz 1412h/1992–93: p 454). However, the
main reason behind the proclamation of the fatwa was to legitimize economic
relations and social interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims, rather than
taking up of arms against those groups vilifying Muslims or calling for the necessity
of emigration. In this context, while advocating teaching and learning of English
language without which there was no possibility to enter into British higher service,
Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz attempted to integrate the Muslim community to gain greater
access to employment and economic development. The reforms postulated by Shah
‘Abd al-‘Aziz were welcomed by many British officials, which not only gave a
platform to Muslims for their action, but also provided the colonialists with access to
the contemporary Muslim discourse. For colonial officials, such legal opinions
facilitated the implementation of British law in territories not dominated by Mus-
lims, which were later on collected, written down and published by the authorities.
For those who were critical of seeking employment under the British, for example,
the group headed by Shah Ghulam ‘Ali (d.1824), who led the khanaqah of Mirza
Jan-e Janan, the eighteenth-century Muslim scholar from the silsila of Shaikh
Ahmad Sirhindi, it was important to keep a distance from worldly power (Malik
2008: 249). In “entertaining a particular notion of the British, these dignitaries
created and perpetuated an exotic image of the farangi ‘other’, paving the way to
Occidentalism” (Malik 2008: 250). For them, the emulation of Prophetic tradition
served as a vehicle for reform which endowed the community with solidarity and
identity, bringing those affected by the colonial economy to guild-like organizations
to bolster the Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandiyya in Delhi (Dahnhardt 2002).
With increasing colonial settlement, new cultural voices providing points of
departure for chiliastic insurrections, which triggered off resistance against the
material exploitation by local traders, landowners, entrepreneurs, and economic
elites, were articulated like the above-mentioned “integrationist” and “essentialist”
ones (Ahmad 1975; Ahmad 1966; Rizvi 1965; Dale 1980; Siddiqui 1971: 408–420;
Gilmartin 1988: 56). During this period, several contesting movements based on
ethnicity and religion maintained relations with the Arab world – notably through
pilgrimage (i.e., hajj and ‘umrah). Inspired by the spiritual atmosphere prevailing
there, these movements were based on a three-fold set of objectives: to reorder
Islamic Revival in South Asia 7

society in terms of social behavior and custom, that is, providing normative guide-
lines; to stand for change in the state sector; and to legitimize ideology by religion
(Jones 1989). While using new religious rituals of conversion, they not only
contributed to an organized philanthropy via the establishment of hospitals, orphan-
ages, schools, and relief programs but also focused on an innovative approach to
reform based on reinterpretation of scriptural sources through the codification of
their charismatic leaders’ messages. Originating in the precolonial and the colonial
world, these religious movements led to the modification of social behavior in light
of the sunnah of Prophet, which served as a source of continuity with the past
(Brown 1999: 1). Thus, the ideas of plurality, individuality, and reflexivity generated
a colorful diversity of individualized movements. These movements stood for
reformist traditions adhering to the wide network of the Sufi orders and gradually
became active in the anticolonial struggle.

Muslim Reformist Movements: From Appropriation to Collision

In South Asia and other parts of the Muslim world, different Muslim groups
contested for Islamic supremacy. In this context, it is important to mention
Tariqah-ye Muhammadi or Mujahidī n movement, established by Sayyid Ahmad
of Rae Bareli (a disciple of Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz) and the powerful preacher Shah
Isma‘īl Shahīd (d.1831). Interpreting the fatwa pertaining to abode of war (dār
al-harb) by Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz in terms of a call for jihād, the members of the
movement waged war against Sikhs who had consolidated their position in Punjab.
However, it is not clear whether the followers of this movement were supported by
the British in their march against the Sikhs. Fact is that both Punjab and Sindh were
annexed by the colonial power in 1843 and 1849, respectively. An important
development in this context is the immigration of the members of Tariqah-ye
Muhammadi from Delhi to the Northwest Province in 1827. Some historians have
argued that the prime reason behind this immigration was Sayyid Ahmad Shahīd’s
polemic, Taqwiyat al-Iman (The Strengthening of Faith), which led the representa-
tives of the traditional service elite to expel him from Delhi. This book was more like
the one written by Muhammad b. ‘Abdul Wahhab (d.1792), who rejected any sort of
veneration of saints and adherence to schools of law (Malik 2006: 100–110).
Although the Tariqah-ye Muhammadi gave much credence to orthopraxy and the
Sunnah, normative regulation on rejecting innovation was based on the teachings of
a madhhab (in this case the Hanafi school). Using Shah ‘Abd al-‘Azīz’s fatwa to
mobilize the masses, the Jihād-movement set up a system with new methods of
societal and political centralization, contrasting sharply with the tribal society in
today’s North Pakistan. The efforts of the members provided solidarity to the social
fabric and fostered reform movements in the cities of Deccan and Central India in the
midst of colonial marginalization that these movements faced while entering public
space (Bayly 1990: 166). As Marc Gaborieau (1989: 198) has noted, an important
characteristic feature of the movement was that it made succinct use of new means of
communication such as printing press to disseminate ideas of pure Islam in local
8 A. Mohiuddin

languages such as Bengali and Urdu (Gaborieau 1995: 170–191). It was during this
period that Shah ‘Abd al-Qadir (d.1815) and Shah Rafi‘al-Dīn (d.1818) produced the
first Urdu translation of the Qur’ān. These transformations stimulated by the “ver-
nacular media supported the development of diversified Muslim publics, which
gradually became literate and emancipated to enter public spaces” (Malik 2008:
255).
The British erroneously identified this movement with the Wahabiyya movement
of the eighteenth century. According to Malik (2008), the term Wahhabiyya “sheds
light on the creativity of encounter and translational deviations between Europeans
and South Asians” (Malik 2008: 256). Criticized incisively by the opponents, the
Wahabiyya movement was repudiated for having deviated from the mainstream
Sunnite Islam, as well as reducing the movement to the personal convictions of
the founder. Documenting the doctrines of the Arabic Wahhabiyya movement,
European travelers were at the forefront of passing on these debates from Asia to
Europe (O’Fahey and Radtke 1993: 52–87). In so doing, the Western scholars
introduced quotations from a reformist treatise written in a local language, indicating
that Indian Wahhabis profusely used press and lithography during the first half of
nineteenth century (Houtsma et al. 1987; Ismail 1832: 479–498; Ismail 1852: 310–
372). These developments transformed “Wahhabi” into a religious concept, thereby
setting in motion the “othering” of this movement which came to be interpreted
through the lens of Indian “Wahhabiyya.”
Rooted in the widespread colonial ignorance, this identification was testified by
the lack of dialogical engagement corresponding to the contemporary colonial
hermeneutic monologue, which by now had become a dominant narrative empha-
sizing the role of Islamic culture in the identification process so that the “other”
re-emerged in the midst of structures of meaningful. It was only in 1886 that the
government stopped using the term “Wahhabi” in official matters. However, repres-
sive colonial policy fostered the emergence of other jihād movements in Bengal, the
Malabar Coast, and Punjab. Prominent among them was Haji Shari‘at Allah’s
Faraidiyya movement. This movement opposed innovative practices in religion
and referred to scriptural fundamentalism, calling Muslims to act Islamically, and
thereby sticking to basic religious ideals and duties, that is, fara’id. According to the
General Committee for Public Instruction in Calcutta, when the socio-economic
situation of the Muslims became dismal, the Faraidis turned against the factory
owners creating “an effective organisational structure in order to oppose the
landlords. . .” and even postulated “that no human being had the right to levy taxes
on God’s earth” (Bayly 1990: 175). During this period, other movements such as the
Shafi‘i Mappila, whose foundations were laid before Muhammad b. al-Qasim’s
conquest of Sind in 711–13 C.E, responded to a seemingly hopeless situation.
This resulted in violent acts committed against the British and Hindu landlords,
who had cut off the lucrative Arab trade. Later they played an important role in the
Khilafat movement (Panikkar 1989).
The conflict between landholders, tenants, laborers, tribals, artisans, and nobles
paved the way for the emergence of revivalist movements, with Islamic tradition
replacing local cosmologies, shared beliefs, and practices embedded in indigenous
Islamic Revival in South Asia 9

societies. In this context, the Prophetic example played a central role in

distinguishing between pure and syncretistic forms of knowledge and the evaluation
of contingency and individuality (Eaton 1993: 281–290). As already noted, initially
there were many scholars who interacted with the British officials by offering
guidance to them while at the same time issuing flexible legal opinions to pacify
Muslim communities in various parts of India to facilitate the emancipation of
evolving new Muslim publics who opposed authoritarian colonial interests (Bayly
1990: 115). However, for the British, “traditionalization” of India was to be achieved
in order to hinder economic and social development, which could have seriously
challenged foreign domination. Based on the transformation of South Asian dis-
course, the turn from cultural encounter to appropriation was thus completed.

Muslim Communities and the Quest for a New Islamicity: The Case
of Deoband

Following the cataclysm of the Mutiny in 1857, Muslims, particularly the ‘ulamā in
north India, shared in the general political quietude as they were sobered by the
excruciating events of oppression and persecution, which resulted in killing of a
great proportion of ‘ulamā in cities such as Punjab, Peshawar, Ambala, Agra,
Jhelum, and Aurangabad (Zaman 2017). In response, many took service under the
British in the protected Muslim states of Hyderabad and Bhopal. For most of the
‘ulama, the main objective of their work was to create, in any domain available, a
community both committed to realizing the religious law and dedicated to a spiritual
life as well. To do so was, in general terms, to return to the classical Islamic tradition
without oscillating between participation and the exercise of independently based
local leadership. Choosing the latter, they adopted a well-known strategy with
historical precedent, making the establishment of religious schools or seminaries
as the institutional basis of their work. Yet the new schools were distinctive in their
organizational style, which was to be soon set by a seminary founded by a group of
Muslim scholars, including Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (d.1905) and Muhammad
Qasim Nanaotawi (d.1879), in a town called Deoband in the context of British
India (Metcalf 1982: 87–89). The main reason behind the establishment of the
seminary was to rectify the lack of religious education among Muslims of British
India, as religious leaders were apprehensive of a loss of identity in the midst of the
spread of English-language education and Western values in society. A more radical
section of the seminary’s teachers, including Husain Ahmad Madani (d.1957),
Mahmud al-Hasan (d.1921) and ‘Ubaidullah Sindhi (d.1944), represented a highly
politicized thinking that challenged the British rule, which they saw as a major
impediment to the proper representation of Islam across the globe. As Reetz (2007)
has noted, the major task of the seminary’s educational program was to deal with
deviant concepts and provide guidelines for correct religious practices not only for
adherents of the Deoband tradition but also for Muslims of other orientations.
10 A. Mohiuddin

. . . [T]he school championed religious discourse in the reformist fashion of islah, where its
founders and generations of students were seeking to spread the true Islam. Its views were
characterized by a marked orthodoxy but also by puritanism and asceticism. Its relations
with other Islamic schools of thought, what they called maslak, were troubled by contro-
versy. Deobandis attacked dissenting views in Islam, particularly the Barelvis, representing
the culture of the shrine-based Sufi Islam. Yet most Deobandi divines were themselves active
Sufi sheikhs, following the path, or tariqa, where they saw it in consonance with the law and
word of God, or Sharia. Being staunch followers of the Hanafi school (mazhab) they were
wrongly labeled Wahhabis, with whom they shared only a certain bent for the radical and
puritan interpretation of Islamic tenets. They anxiously marked themselves off from other
sects, notably the Shia and especially the Ahmadiyya, which was considered as heterodox
(Reetz 2007: 144).

Inspired by the thought of the classical teaching and interpretation of Islam, the
seminary gradually expanded its network of schools and activities, introducing
religious mass education through a number of branches and madrasas by exerting
its influence across South Asia and beyond as a learned reference institution of
Islam. With the entry of the Ottomans into World War I, their defeat by the allies
caused much anxiety among Muslim scholars, who saw Ottoman caliphate as the last
hope for the consolidation of Muslim state power and military might. While the
seminary was not alone in hosting pan-Islamic activities, the three clerics – Mahmud
al-Hasan, Husain Madani, and ‘Ubaidullah Sindhi – were at the forefront of
expanding the horizon of political activism in the direction of Pan-Islamism. In
1914–1916, these clerics played an important role in the “silk letter conspiracy,”
which was hatched to raise an Islamic army with the support of the Turkish sultan
(The Silk Letter Case 1918). With the hope of establishing the army headquarters at
Medina, and other local centers at Constantinople and Tehran, the Deobandi cleric,
Mahmud al-Hasan, was assigned as its general-in-chief. Shuttling between the
Frontier Province and Kabul, the conspirators received support from radical nation-
alists and Islamic socialists, who had established a provisional government of India
under the leadership of Raja Mahendra Pratap, for the overthrow of British rule over
India. With this intension, they also sought support of “a German-Turkish military
mission, which had arrived in Afghanistan in 1915” (Rizvi 2004: 1; Raja 1947; Talib
1988; 194–95).
The Deobandi clerics played an important role in the caliphate movement.
However, they looked at the transformations mainly through the prism of their
aspirations, often overlooking the ground reality in Ottoman Turkey. As they pinned
their hopes for the revival of caliphate, they were severely disappointed by Ataturk’s
secular bent in politics. As a result, they demanded to draw perfect lessons from the
collapse of the caliphate. Some scholars saw the main reason in the skeptical attitude
of modern Muslim intellectuals, which was to be countered by introducing an
Islamic system in India and throughout the Muslim world that would properly
guide Muslims in a religious spirit. This system was based on public interest
(maslahah), taking into account modern requirements of the day and developing a
framework of Islamic governance for addressing issues relating to Muslims in India
(Rozinah 1981: 271). In this way, a framework for authority “was envisaged headed
Islamic Revival in South Asia 11

by the amir for all Indian Muslims who would pledge allegiance to a new caliph as
soon as one was installed” (Reetz 2006: 100).
Along with Jamiyat al-‘Ulama I Hind (JUH), the Deoband school remained
prominent throughout the anticolonial movement in India. The school sided “with
the Indian National Congress over the future of rights for Indian Muslims,” favoring
“a nonterritorial solution based on religious rights and opposed the creation of a
separate state of Pakistan” (Reetz 2007: 145). Before independence, the JUH
evolved into a regular political party and participated in elections. However, it
achieved minor success in consolidating its position because of the political conflict
between the congress and Muslim league. A section of its scholars led by Shabbir
Ahmad Uthmani (d.1949), who supported the creation of Pakistan, separated from
JUH and laid the foundation of organized Deobandi activity there by supplementing
the Deobandi school network. In India the JUH focused on social and religious
activity and along with the Deobandi school resumed political intervention in the
1970s, when the congress party suffered defeat in elections. The congress was the
major political ally of Deobandi School till then.
The Deoband School was severely affected due to this reorientation, which lead
to a dispute between two families for control of its affairs. The defeated faction was
led by the relatives of Qari Muhammad Tayyib (d.1983), who was a descendent of
Muhammad Qasim Nanotvi, one of the founders of the seminary. They set up a rival
institution (Dar al-‘ulūm Waqf), headed by Muhammad Salim Qasmi (d.2018) on
new premises, causing havoc in the old seminary, which came under the control of
the descendants of Husain Ahmad Madani. Yet the old school also recovered from
this shock and has introduced new departments for enhancing the capacity of the
school for global networking.

Mawdūdī’s Evolutionary Approach to Societal Transformation

During the first two quarters of the twentieth century, the effort for revival of Muslim
tradition had given rise to the idea of an Islamic state, advanced by a certain type of
nationalist historiography, as expounded by Muhammad Iqbal who played a prom-
inent role in advancing the idea of creating a separate homeland for Muslims. Taking
into account that Iqbal was defending Muslim interests in the first place, his political
views formed the basis of a movement that advocated partition of India and creation
of Pakistan, a Muslim state as heralded by the Muslim league. In this backdrop
another prominent movement known as Jamā‘at-e-Islami, which was originally the
brainchild of Abu’l-A‘la Mawdūdī (1903–1979), emerged when new ideas about
state and government were formulated in the Muslim world (Nasr 1994: 11).
Mawdūdī realized that the existing dehumanizing order cannot be transformed
into a humane order unless there is a fundamental change in attitudes and values that
could check the corrupting influence of power by adhering to moral principles and
bringing about voluntary and peaceful changes that are more enduring. Throughout
history we have seen how nonviolent participatory changes have occurred. As Erich
Fromm has pointed out, “the liberation of the working class from the status of objects
12 A. Mohiuddin

of ruthless exploitation to that of the influential economic partners in Western

industrialized society is an example of non-violent change” (Fromm 1964: 5).
Such changes have occurred in exceptional circumstances, but it is this exception
that Mawdūdī aimed at in order to transform society which began with the personal
reformation of the individual. Thus, Mawdūdī differed profoundly from the tradition
of violence as he viewed revolution as involving more than the overthrow of a
political establishment, which requires, first and foremost, changing the man him-
self, his attitude, his motivation, and his character. He not only opposed all unlawful,
illegal, and subversive acts and distrusted political radicalism of any kind but also
emphasized respecting law and order. He cautioned the activists to resist the temp-
tation of resorting to the methods and techniques of violence. While explicating
Mawdūdī’s approach to violence, Motin argues:

Mawdūdī justified his predilection for a non-violent approach on theoretical as well as

practical grounds. Thus one argument was that it is against the natural order of things to force
change: “We should not overlook the basic law of nature that all stable and far-reaching
changes in the collective life of people come about gradually.” From the practical point of
view, if change was to be lasting it had to be carried out slowly; for “the more sudden a
change, the more short-lived it generally turns out to be”. A perusal of the Qur’an and hadith
reveals that the last Prophet of Islam had adopted a gradual but effective approach to
translate Islamic ideals into reality. He did admit, however, that the Prophet Muhammad
did resort to force but only to resist persecution, and yet no more than 1200 people were
killed on both sides in the course of all the wars fought during the Prophet’s time. Keeping in
view the history of violent revolution in the world, the prophetic revolution deserved to be
called a “bloodless revolution” (Moten 2006: 188).

Focusing on the revolutionary approach, Mawdūdī emphasized that the purpose

of resorting to force is only to establish conditions conducive to free propagation of
Islam, which was to be used in exceptional cases to resist ruthless persecution and
never to be used to compel anybody to embrace Islam against his will. As per
Mawdūdī, force plays an important role in creating an Islamic character in the people
which could to accomplished by following the order of precedence in the Islamic
movement based on a fourfold set of objectives: (a) to reform people’s character
through education and engagement; (b) to transform their character along Islamic
lines; (c) to prepare strong public opinion which fosters virtue and suppresses evil;
and (d) to create a balanced order that facilitates doing good deeds and shuns all evil
practices. If all these attempts to transform society fail, then force is to be used as a
last resort and should be used openly that it deters all criminal tendencies (Robinson
2013: 28).
This approach to societal transformation paved the way for the revolutionary
movement to capture state authority, because without such an initiative it is not only
impossible to establish the pious order that Islam envisages but also to act upon the
party’s revolutionary ideals under an alien state system. As Mawdūdī has observed:

A man who believes in communism cannot order his life on the principles of communism
while in England or America, for the capitalist state system will bear down on him with all its
power and it will be quite impossible for him to escape the retribution of the ruling authority.
Islamic Revival in South Asia 13

Likewise, it is impossible for a Muslim to succeed in his intention of observing the Islamic
pattern of life under the authority of a non-Islamic system of government (Mawdūdī, 1981:
19).

For Islamic revolution to succeed, Mawdūdī saw the need for enlightened
Muslims who, unfortunately were in retreat and in his own words “[t]heir minds
and souls have passed under the sway of the West. Their thinking is being molded by
Western ideas and their intellectual powers are developing in accordance with the
principles of Western thought. . .” (Mawdūdī 1966: 10). This situation gave rise to a
polarized spectrum of opposing groups: the “static” and the “defeatist. Opposing
technology and scientific progress, the “static” group argued for the moral failure of
the West and asserted the relevance of the Muslim tradition as a whole. Mawdūdī
repudiated the members of this group for rigorous formalism and for their unwill-
ingness “to comprehend the principles and essential features of the new civilization
of the West ... and to fit these new instruments of progress, in keeping with the
principles of Islam, into the educational system and social life of the Muslims”
(Mawdūdī 1966: 11). The negative response came from the modernist Muslims who
acknowledged the superiority of Western culture attempting to liberalize Islam along
Western lines. However, they failed to provide a framework for safeguarding the
ummah from dogmatism and the abstract values of science and reason. Since
Western sciences were seen as value neutral, many Muslim reformers argued for
the addition of these sciences to the existing curriculum of Islamic disciplines, which
instead of defending Islam, presented a truncated and deformed interpretation of
Islam. For Mawdudi, such reforms would prove to be counterproductive because
what is needed is to reorient the system and to Islamize the knowledge. This could be
accomplished by critically analyzing “the Western humanities and sciences and to
bring them into line with the teachings of Islam” (Ibid. 17–18). The aim of the
process is to critically appreciate Western thought, to subject knowledge to a process
of sifting, filtering, and reconstruction (as opposed to wholesale rejection of Western
thought) and reformulate social sciences within the framework of Islam. As argued
by Mawdudi, the process of Islamization addresses the problem of education and
provides a framework for a general revival of the ummah by revamping the existing
system of education. The proposed framework not only focused on reforming
educational system at secondary and higher secondary levels but also emphasized
implementing reforms at university level to promote research of all kinds and
encourage scholars to produce textbooks in all fields.

From Reform to Revolution: Jamā‘at e Islami and Political

Transformation in Pakistan

After the partition of India in 1947, Mawdūdī along with some prominent party
members moved to Pakistan embarking upon a comprehensive movement to bring a
revolutionary change in political leadership of the country so that the resources of
state are optimally utilized for the purpose of serving Islam (Moten 1982). Some
14 A. Mohiuddin

scholars have blamed Mawdūdī for restricting the scope of the party’s activities to
the exclusive concern for transforming the Jamā‘at into a nationalist organization
serving the cause of Islam in Pakistan (Ahmad 1990: 123–126). According to
Mawdūdī, for an ideology to be useful, it must build a pattern of life by making
reference to particular cases or examples and demonstrate its worth by encouraging
the evolution of a happy and successful system of life. Hence, it was essential to
establish the Islamic state in one country, so as to be emulated worldwide later
(Mawdūdī 1973: 36). For this purpose, the Jamā‘at intensified its efforts through
public meetings, introducing Islamic idioms and concepts to the evolving national
discourse and launched a forceful campaign for the Islamization of Pakistan. In
response, the government banned some of the organization’s literature and incarcer-
ated some of its leaders, including Mawdūdī. This, however, did not stop the Jamā‘at
from pursuing its higher objective, that is, the capture of state power. While taking
part in provincial elections in 1951, the Jamā‘at adopted a novel method of recruiting
candidates for elections and formed voters councils, who were “assigned the respon-
sibility of nominating those candidates whom they judged virtuous and favorably
disposed towards the Objectives Resolution” (Moten 2003: 395).
Given the corruption of secular parties, several members of the Jamā‘at noted that
some workers of the party were influenced by the demands of the electoral campaign
and transgressed the ethical and moral code of the organization. To investigate the
matter, the Jamā‘at appointed a committee which confirmed these accusations
suggesting that the Jamā‘at must refrain from taking part in future elections and
continue working in the educational and religious fields (Afaq 1971: 454). After this
event, known as Machi Goth affair, the organization decided to follow the “top-
down” approach to reforming society by taking part in all elections so that the
governmental bodies would be dominated by pious and committed Muslims of
impeccable character. For the purpose of capturing state authority, the Jamā‘at
entered the Karachi Municipal Corporation election and won 19 seats, which
emboldened it to forge political alliance with the Nizam-e-Islam Party (Saeed
1957: 64). Due to the imposition of martial law in 1958, which was seen as a
conspiracy to foil the elections and to deny the Jamā‘at access to power positions,
the Jamā‘at failed to achieve success. Nevertheless, the Jamā‘at became more
determined to move in the political direction charted at Mach Goth.
From 1958 to 1969, the Jamā‘at forced the Ayub regime to reassert Islamic
principles and make an alliance with the Combined Opposition Parties (COP), an
electoral association for the presidential election of 1965. The Jamā‘at agreed on
COP’s nine-point election manifesto that contained one Islamic reference (Qazi
2017). The Jamā‘at also endorsed the candidacy of Miss Fatima Jinnah by invoking
the “doctrine of necessity” to mitigate the situation that existed in the country.
However, this manoeuver opened the Jamā‘at to a barrage of criticism and ironically
led the regime to victory, despite Mawdudi’s strong opposition (Sidiqui 2010). After
the elections, the Jamā‘at realized that piety, sincerity, and honesty were exception-
ally important to consolidate a moral order, “but the support of the masses could not
be enlisted only by dint of these qualities” (Saulat 1979: 48). Several members
observed that Mawdūdī, due to his ill health and old age, was not capable of
Islamic Revival in South Asia 15

disseminating the teachings of the organization among the people. In 1972,

Mawdūdī stepped down as a leader of the organization. In the same year, Mian
Tufail Muhammad was appointed as a new leader of the organization, who continued
to put pressure on the government for retaining Islamic ideology. During the Bhutto
era (1972–1977), the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), a coalition of political
parties opposing Bhutto regime, launched an opposition movement “that ended
when the military staged a coup and imposed martial law throughout the country
on July 5, 1977” (Moten 2003: 199). Led by General Zia-ul Haq, the coup not only
transformed the attitude, behavior, and policy orientation among the elite and the
main protagonists within the PNA movement, but also forced the Jamā‘at to
cooperate with the new government. Giving legitimacy to Zia led government for
supporting Islamization, the Jamā‘at was placed in a very difficult position and could
no longer participle in the activities of government for fear of losing mass appeal.
However, it warned the government of dire consequences if there was delay in lifting
martial law and restoring a civilian government.
As stated by Mumtaz Ahmad (1991), the Jama‘at’s decision to support Zia was
based upon the President’s promise “to make the Shari‘ah the supreme law of the
land, to restore the 1973 Constitution, and to lift martial law without delay” (Ahmad
1991: 483). The unfolding of the constitutional order was accompanied by the
parliamentary and provincial elections in 1985. Despite the vigorous campaign
launched by the Jamā‘at promising an end to the martial law regime, the election
results disclosed that the Jamā‘at lacked a mass support base in Pakistan. As per
Motin (2003), to make matters worse, “President Zia not only betrayed the expec-
tations of the Jamā‘at by coming down hard on its student and labor wings, but even
cultivated an alliance with the non-Jamā‘at ‘ulamā to bolster his Islamic legitimacy”
(Moten: 2003: 400). In response, Mian Tufail stepped down and decided not to seek
reelection, paving the way for other members to lead the organization in its quest to
Islamize society (Hameed 1987). Qazi Hussain Ahmad, whose first priority was to
provide the organization with a mass base, was elected to the office of the Amir
(Ahmad 2017). Accusing President Zia of undermining the democratic character of
the country, he threatened to launch an antigovernment movement in cooperation
with all opposition forces if Zia did not dismantle the military regime and organize
fresh elections to elect a civilian government (Siddqui 2006). After the death of Zia
ul-Haq in 1988, the Jamā‘at embarked on a critical program of eulogizing the virtues
of the Islamic system and repudiating capitalism, feudalism, exploitation, and
American hegemony in the country. In 1991, the Jamā‘at, against the official policy
of the government, took a pro-Iraqi stand and “called upon the government to expel
the U.S. ambassador as a protest against the genocide of Iraqi Muslims by the United
States government” (Moten 2003: 406).
By early 1997, the Jamā‘at reached the conclusion that the government will not be
successful in promoting democratic values in the country since it has miserably
failed to eradicate corruption. Consequently, the Jamā‘at adopted a basic strategy of
educating the public about Islam and to reconstruct the collective life of the
community along Islamic lines, while also identifying and reforming all those
desiring to establish a virtuous society under the banner of the Jamā‘at. After the
16 A. Mohiuddin

withdrawal of troops from Kargil Heights in Indian occupied Kashmir in 1999, the
Jamā‘at intensified its movement, calling for jihād against the government and
showing its willingness to lead other parties towards the formation of a provisional
administration. From 2002 onwards, Jamā‘at-e-Islami continued its crusade against
the American led war in Afghanistan, terrorism, and drone strikes in Pakistan. The
leaders also opposed efforts to reform Islamic law in Pakistan, arguing that the
hudood ordinance was devised by highly erudite scholars and is beyond question
(Harvard Divinity school: Religious Literary Project).

Conclusion

The growth of Islam in South Asia has been one of the most interesting develop-
ments in the history of the region. Now almost one third of world’s Muslims live in
South Asia. This has given rise not only to a multitude of factors allowing Muslims
to interact fruitfully with South Asia’s many local cultures and traditions, but also led
to a cultural synthesis paving the way for the further spread of Islam in the region. In
the premodern period, Muslim power produced the greatest of the Muslim empires,
for example, the Mughals, who “ruled 100 million people, as compared with the
22 million of the Ottoman Empire and the 6 million of the Safavid Empire”
(Robinson 2017). During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, South Asia started
to export ideas to sustain an Islamic society under colonial rule. As a result, a
remarkable revival developed and the scholars came to have a greater say in affairs
than ever before. These transformations while producing certain modernizing effects
in state and society promoted bureaucratization and centralization along with height-
ened personal responsibility for life in an attempt to ideologically instrumentalize
confrontation with the confessional other. For in the course of events, it was
precisely these effects that led to the transformation of religion and ushered in
various levels of local and regional integration, whereby religion went hand in
hand with patriotism and bureaucratic system of accountability.
During the colonial phase, national markets were used as springboards for
economic and political conquest, which lead elites to run the virtually independent
states. The elites also called for processes of religious individualization among
reformers challenging the system. At the same time, “the reinforcement of ijtihād
increased reflexivity and individualisation of religion, while Prophetic sunnah was
considered paradigmatic for social and political reform” (Malik 2008: 462). In the
face of a wide array of changes, it took Muslims many decades to revive Islam as a
normative force with emphasis on scriptural texts and their characteristic media of
expression that facilitated the dissemination of Pan Islamic sentiments across the
Muslim world. Characterized by a high degree of diffusion of Islamic learning, this
phase of neo-confessionalism played an important role in expanding the role of
religion from scriptualist to contextualist/Sufi reformist thinking, which was integral
to society, as radical reformist movements were trying to get rid of it.
Muslims were at the forefront of responding to the challenges of the technolog-
ically and militarily superior West in different ways. While some advocated
Islamic Revival in South Asia 17

acceptance of Western education and adoption of the Western way of life, “excluding
religion from their discourse almost entirely,” others started “defining politics in
religious idiom, insisting that Islam offered a complete way of life distinct from that
offered by the colonial powers and their modern ideas” (Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace 2004). These movements, which attempted to historically posi-
tion Muslims in regard to the ruling circles varied considerably in different Muslim
societies, were products of a time of great ferment in the history of South Asia. The
movement associated with the seminary of Deoband was a response to these
challenges. As we have illustrated in this chapter, the Deobandi ‘ulamā responded
to the situation by taking systematic recourse to facets of the Islamic religious
tradition to affirm Muslim identity in a hostile and unfamiliar ambience. The
‘ulamā inaugurated important changes in this process. They emphasized the study
of hadīth and adopted the technology of print, which along with their use of the local
language enabled them to reach new audiences (Zaman 2002: 12). In this way, the
Deobandi orientation represented a certain interiorization of Islam, an emphasis on
the reform of the believer as an individual. The “ulama fostered a kind of turning
away from issues of the organization of state and society, toward a concern with the
moral qualities of individual Muslims” (Metcalf 1982: 351).
With the end of the colonial era, a new struggle emerged between Islamic
traditionalists and modernizers. In the case of Pakistan, Jamā‘at-e-Islami, which
emerged as an ideological revolutionary movement to revive and preach Islam,
shifted its focus from being a quietist movement with the objective of Islamic
resurgence to an active political party bent upon seizing power from “the leadership
of the wayward and of those gone astray” (Mawdudi, 1972: 143). However, in its
attempt to reform Pakistan, the Jamā‘at was forced to choose between principles and
power, which it refused to recognize in an attempt to seize power, but at the same
time remained faithful to democratic procedures embracing public discussion, press
conferences rather than terrorism and violence. The irony is that despite its tolerance
for democratic norms and values, the Jamā‘at failed to capture political power. This
failure, notwithstanding the adverse effect of electoral practice on Jamā‘at members,
is due to the fact that those who opposed the organization did not abide by the rules
of democracy.

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