By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
23 March 2019
Ever since India’s strike on a Jaish e
Muhammad (JeM) camp, there is much spotlight on Balakot. Indeed Balakot is not
just the name of a place; rather it is fundamentally an idea, the dissection of
which remains central to decoding the narrative of Islamists of much of South
Asia. The selection of Balakot by the JeM is not just for strategic
consideration, but is also a symbolic continuation of the first jihad that saw
so called martyrdom in action at this place. The characters were different but
the cause and the underlying motivation was the same. And this motivation was
to reclaim the land of al-Hind for Islam as it was supposedly under ‘Islamic
rule’ back in the historical past. It is interesting to understand the
trajectory of this first jihad which purportedly wanted to throw out the
British from India. But perhaps more importantly, it is important to understand
the central character who led this so called jihad movement.
A mightily maverick character called Sayyid
Ahmed Barelwi and some of his followers like Shah Ismail were responsible for
what is known as the mujahidin movement. Various interpretations of the fatwa
issued by Abdul Aziz exist, including one by Sir Syed which expressly states
that he (Abdul Aziz) never intended to fight the British and that the fatwa was
primarily to ask Muslims to engage themselves in non-Islamic practices like
interest since the country was no longer governed by Islamic precepts. Of
course, the anxiety over the waning of the ‘Islamic regime’ started with Shah
Waliullah, who in his infinite wisdom invited Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India
and establish ‘Islamic’ rule once again. For his successor, Abdul Aziz, the
British power seemed much closer for comfort and that’s why he proclaimed in
his famous fatwa that India had become Dar Al Harb or enemy land and
therefore jihad became necessary for Muslims.
The most important person to heed this call
for jihad was Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi.
Perhaps a mercenary in the rag tag army of Amir Khan, Sayyid Ahmed
indulged in wanton looting and destruction of property during his days as a
‘warrior’. As his many hagiographies suggest, this looting was legitimate as
per the Islamic theological position of raiding enemy property witnessed during
the formative years of Islam. It so happened that Amir Khan was eventually
domesticated by the British and bought over by making him lord over a small
patch of land. For reasons which are not very clear, Sayyid Ahmed left the
company of Amir Khan and shifted briefly to Delhi. Here, under the influence of
Abdul Aziz, he would make some followers who would be loyal to him throughout
his life. One of them was Shah Ismail who would emerge as the intellectual
ideologue of the so called mujahidin movement. As for Sayyid Ahmed, he remained
incorrigibly non-literate throughout his life and all attempts to teach him the
letters came to a naught. No matter what the various hagiographies tell us
about the mysterious reasons behind his inability to read and write, the fact
remains that leader of the mujahidin movement remained illiterate throughout
his life yet was followed by people who were highly literate and theologically
trained.
Despite the popular rhetoric that Sayyid
Ahmed waged a jihad against the British, there is hardly any concrete evidence
that he planned to do anything remotely like declaring a war against the
British. His journey to Afghanistan went through some of the important cities
of India like Patna and Calcutta, where he received obeisance from many
Muslims. All through this while, it was the British who gave him easy passage
throughout India and eventually oversaw his migration into Afghanistan. If the
British wanted, they could have easily arrested him, something which they did
to many others fighting for the freedom of the country. There is one
possibility: that the British did not consider him too much of a threat. However,
what looks more plausible is that the British effectively used him to wage war
against the Sikhs. And for this reason alone, he and his preaching were
tolerated by the British. Eventually, they were able to convince Sayyid Ahmed
that the ‘real’ jihad should be done against the Sikhs, who were allegedly
killing Muslims and burning down mosques. There is perhaps no other explanation
as to why Sayyid Ahmed would be left free to preach against the British but
eventually declare a jihad against the Sikhs.
Sayyid Ahmed remained a bully at heart.
Once in Afghanistan, he started enforcing his conception of the Sharia.
This meant, among other things, covering of women from head to toe and asking
the locals not to take bath in lakes without their clothes on. He also started
forcing the local Afghans to pay him a tribute, calling it the religious tax or
the Zakat. At times, he is known to have publically whipped men and
women for not obeying his orders. Perhaps he thought he was doing the right
thing by following the practices of the first caliphs of Islam. The trouble was
that Afghan culture was much more rooted than the so called Arab culture which
is what Islamic Sharia is all about. The local chieftains started
protesting against this new caliph and his new mores and eventually conspired
with the Sikhs to deceive him at Balakot where he died battling the Sikhs.
But Balakot is not just the name of a
place. It is also an idea. An idea which still captures the imagination of many
Indian Muslims and mostly the Ulama. Ali Mian Nadwi, wrote two full volumes of
his biography where he heaped fulsome praises on Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi. It is
important to note that the Nadwa seminary is a very influential and important
madrasa of Indian Muslims. A critique of Nadwi’s position on the so called
jihad of Sayyid Ahmed is yet to be published which can only mean that by large
Nadwi’s position on the first so called jihad movement still remains the
accepted position. In the same fashion, the madrasa at Deoband too has not come
up with a critique of Sayyid Ahmed’s position. Rather, they have tried to
justify in all possible ways the tract of Shah Ismail called the Taqwatul Iman,
which condemns the popular expression of Islamic religiosity in the
subcontinent. I have personally spoken to many Barelwi Ulama, who are very
critical of the text written by Shah Ismail, but they justify the jihad
movement of Sayyid Ahmed. Thus, there seems to a consensus among the different
maslaks of Indian Muslims that the jihad movement of Sayyid Ahmed was truly
Islamic and that is a model worth emulating. Till the time this consensus
exits, the idea of Balakot will not be defeated.
Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com
10:54 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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