By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
01 May 2018
Shah Waliullah
(1703-1762) is considered one of the foremost intellectual figures
within the Islamic world and more so in the South Asian context. His
intellectual imprint can be seen in all divisions within the
sub-continental Islamic wetenschhaung: from the Barelwis to the
Deobandis to the Ahle Hadees, all claim him to be their own. Within much
of the literature produced on Shah Waliullah, he is considered a
reformist par excellence. It is this legacy that the present article is
considered about. I want to ask how his reformist ideas have panned out
and whether his ideas have any value in relation to the question of
diversity and pluralism. Specifically within the Indian context, I want
to ask what relevance do his ideas have in the present context.
One of the first
charges against Shah Waliullah is that he did not have the interest of
India at heart. In trying to save the Mughals from the Marathas, he
wrote to Ahmed Shah Abdali to invade India and save the Muslims here.
Now, there is every possibility that one can read this act as an
instance of pan-Islamism and national betrayal. But then, he is not the
first or the only one to do so. We have many more such examples, where
‘foreign’ powers have been besieged by Indians, both Hindus and Muslims,
to intervene for one reason or the other.
We also need to
understand that the idea of nation was very feeble during the 18th
century: the period in which Shah Waliullah was living. As such his call
to the Afghans should not be seen as an anti-national act but rather to
re-energise the supremacy of the Mughals, something which Shah
Waliullah was committed to. However, it cannot be overlooked that Shah
Waliullah was primarily looking at events around him through an Islamic
lens. Moreover, he was convinced of the superiority of Islam over all
other religious traditions. For him, the re-establishment of the
supremacy of Islamic rule was a religious act and not a result of the
tottering fate of an empire in India. His constant use of the word
infidel to describe the Marathas and other Hindus only betrays the
mind-set within which he was operating.
He was very
categorical that Islam had to become the ruling dispensation of the
world. And for this reason, he quite early understood the power of a
centralised authority to enforce and establish Islamic regime. His
notion of the caliphate therefore is central to his understanding of
Islam: without the caliphate, Islam can never be enforced. Thus, rather
than the caliphate being a moral compass, in Shah Waliullah, it becomes
an agency in express service of Islam. Years later, Maududi would take
the same concept forward and argue that the modern state was
fundamentally important for the existence of Islam. For it was only
through the agencies of the state that the Sharia could be implemented.
Shah Waliullah would brook no opposition to the enforcement of Islam.
Completely assured of the superiority of Islam, he would go on to argue
that Islam had to be forced down the throat of the non-Muslims like a
bitter pill. But for that to happen, leaders of non-Muslim communities
who refused to accept Islam should be annihilated, the strength of that
community reduced and their property confiscated.
Furthermore, when in
position of strength, Muslim Imams should preach against the falsity of
other religious traditions (read Hinduism). Other religious communities
should be stopped from worshipping their Gods. And discriminatory social
and political laws should be imposed on non-Muslims so that they are
forced to convert to Islam. Clearly then, this Shah was writing from a
position of power: assuming that Islam would be the dominant political
force.
However, he was also a
realist and in the Indian context, he also had a solution for Islam in
case the religion did not ascend to a dominant role which he really
hoped for. In a context in which Muslims were to find themselves without
the patronage of the state, they should strive to strengthen what Shah
Waliullah called the Batini Khilafa (inner caliphate). This was necessarily a re-negotiation of Islam through a non-dominant position. Whereas in the Zahiri Khilafa (outer caliphate), he gave the ruler the absolute authority to enforce Islam as he deemed fit, within the Batini Khilafa,
this role was to be played by the Ulema. Without the backing of
political power, the Mullahs were to tread carefully but essentially the
role ascribed to this class was the same: to become the custodian of
Islam. More than anyone else, it was Shah Waliullah who gave a new lease
of life to the Mullahs and thought of them as a political class. Much
later, his ideas would be put into action by Gandhi who pandered to the
Mullahs during the Khilafat agitation thus giving a legitimate political
role to the Mullahs for the first time in Indian history.
But what were these
custodians of inner caliphate supposed to do? The blueprint had already
been given Shah Waliullah. He argued that Muslims had lost their prime
political position because they had strayed from the true path of Islam.
The rediscovery of this supposed true path lay through the study of
Hadees.
Not surprising
therefore that Shah Waliullah would popularise the study of Hadees
within his intellectual circle. It is also not surprising that the prime
mover of Waliuallahi though in the sub-continent was Deoband madrasa
which is till today known for its Hadees studies. The politics behind
this hermeneutical move towards Hadees was simple: it would provide the
standard and the rationale through which the Islamic habitus will be
created. In the absence of any law enforcing agency, Muslims were
supposed to become embodied living Hadees themselves. The popularisation
of Hadees studies would also serve another purpose for Shah Waliullah:
it would rid the Muslims of the sub-continent of any trace of shared
cultural and religious memory with other communities.
Thus more the
knowledge of Hadees became embedded within the Muslim community, more
the distance with other communities, particularly the Hindus. The Muslim
must become puritan in order to relive the supposed lost glory of
Islam. For this, purging itself of all accretions and all traces of
syncretism was to become the sine qua non of Indian Muslims. As a
political project, this tradition continues to this day through the
activities of Deobandis, the Ahle Hadees and even the Barelwis. More
than anything else, Shah Waliullah’s writings seem to be a fatal recipe
for the political future of Muslims in India.
Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism
8:11 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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