The making of the modern maulvi

The process of political ijtehad has sharpened the sectarian political conflict, of Shias being pushed out by Sunnis.

In the previous parts of this series, I have tried to trace an outline of (i) how the professional maulvi emerged as a modern social and political actor in the subcontinent during the later part of the colonial era, (ii) how he transformed himself according to the needs of the time to serve his own interests and those of the powerful Shurafa castes, and (iii) how he used the authority of ijtehad — interpreting specific religious texts to issue fatwas on contemporary questions. This process needs to be studied and understood as it has deeply influenced the social and political life of the Muslim communities in the northern subcontinent. Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi was chosen as an example for this study for two reasons. One, the Deoband movement has played, since its inception, a vital role in shaping the educational priorities among the north-Indian Muslim communities on the one hand and, by launching a strong campaign against the lived popular forms of Islam, managed to divide communities, even families, on sectarian lines, on the other. This campaign was directed at replacing the dargah with the masjid-madrassa as the religious power centre. Influence of Deoband can be seen not only in the abundance of the new kind of masjid-madrassa complexes that dot our cities and towns today, but also among the myriad jihadi outfits that are active everywhere. (In their frustration with the deep-rooted popular religion, some of them have even started destroying the more famous dargahs.) Two, Thanvi himself is an influential figure, given the large body of writings he produced during his busy life. Also, he has gained in importance in the context of the Pakistani intellectual life during the previous two decades that saw people such as Muhammad Hasan Askari and Dr Muhammad Ajmal become his disciples, and his devotees occupy places in the academia and the so-called learned bodies.

As the power of ijtehad was used to create a professional class of maulvis against clear pronouncements in the Holy Quran, hadiths and the Sunni authorities of fiqh, so was it used subsequently to serve certain interests and suppress certain others. Since there is room for several competing interpretations of these texts, the process of political ijtehad has sharpened the sectarian political conflict handed down by the history of Islam — in which Shias have always resisted being pushed out of the mainstream by Sunnis. In addition to that, it has resulted in the emergence of a number of new sectarian divisions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the background of the caste differentiations, made part of local Islam by Muslim invader-rulers with the help of earlier maulvis, the politics of identity among Muslim communities became a struggle to safeguard the economic and political interests of the upper castes. The idea of caste hierarchy was borrowed from the Hindu society and was mixed with Islamic injunctions dealing with slaves in order to concoct the social category of ‘khidmati qaumain’ who existed only to serve the Shurafa and whose women could be used by the upper-caste men without a nikah. The changes wrought by developments in means of communication provided an opportunity to these downtrodden masses to aspire for knowledge, modern professions and eventually an improved life for themselves and their communities. The modern maulvi himself was a product of the same process of socio-economic change, but he threw his weight behind the upper-caste forces that have consistently been resisting this huge change.

The modern maulvi used all the modern means of communication — print, post, railways and so on — to develop a national agenda that had no relation with the aspirations of those disadvantaged on the basis of caste, religious sect and gender. Unlike Hindu society, which set out to mitigate and ultimately abolish the social inequality born out of centuries of caste and gender discrimination, Muslim politics, thanks to our religious, educational and political leaders and opinion-makers — all coming from the Shurafa castes — insisted on a flat denial of this fundamental social condition. After 1947, the maulvi became an active player assisting the anti-social change political forces who wanted to thrust on the new nation state an ideological agenda which could be used to keep the benefits of modernity out of the reach of the historically disadvantaged groups.

How the fine art of ijtehad is selectively used for one’s purpose can be seen in an example that relates to Thanvi’s death in 1943. Syed Suleman Nadvi had travelled to Thana Bhavan to visit him on his deathbed but could not stay with him in his final days. When Nadvi got the news of Thanvi’s passing away, he declared him a shaheed, citing some obscure religious text according to which anyone dying of a stomach ailment is a martyr!

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th, 2011.