Al-Azhar goes to India in 1936

Al-Azhar goes to India
A team from Al-Azhar visited India in 1936 to spread Islam, especially among the untouchables. Professor Yunan Labib Rizk says how the scholars fared

That Al-Azhar should be a source of knowledge is only normal. For it to have drawn Muslim scholars from around the world is also understandable, given the ancient Islamic university's long and illustrious history and given the stability and traditions in Egypt that have enabled this institution to grow and develop, as is evidenced by the many sections that have been added over the years to accommodate a large and diverse student body. But that Al-Azhar would play a religious role in India, and among a class of non-Muslim peoples at that, comes as a surprise.

The people in question formed what was formerly known as the untouchables. In India's once rigidly structured caste system there were four closed, hereditary classes, or Varnas, that were traditionally proscribed in social dealings with others. In this system, "untouchable" did not designate a fifth caste but rather a general class of people abhorred by the higher social orders. The untouchables were regulated to the basest most unclean occupations, such as street sweeping, and were thus considered as a polluting people. They were therefore forbidden to touch persons of the four Varnas, to enter their homes or temples and to use their wells, and, in public occasions, they were supposed to sit well apart. In some areas, even touching the shadow of an untouchable was considered polluting, requiring the defiled member of the upper order to immerse himself immediately in water to purge himself of the impurity.

By the mid-1930s Mahatma Gandhi had become the symbol of Indian pacifist resistance to the British occupation. In 1934 he ceded the chairmanship of the Congress Party to Jawaharlal Nehru so that he could devote himself full-time to social reform. One of Nehru's major concerns was the plight of the untouchables. As part of his campaign to end their stigmatisation, he proposed renaming them Harijan -- the children of the god Hari. The untouchables themselves opted for a name with a more political ring: Dalit, which in Hindi means "the persecuted". Also, inspired by Gandhi's campaign on their behalf, many believed they could free themselves of their stigma by embracing one of the major religions of the subcontinent, such as Hinduism or Islam. As the latter was more readily open to converts, many turned to this divinely revealed religion, which explains why Al-Azhar now felt it its duty to send a mission to that vast and populous land.

The first report on the Al-Azhar mission to India appears in Al-Ahram of 9 September 1936. After learning of the situation of the untouchables in India, the newspaper relates, a group of Al-Azhar scholars decided to send a delegation to India "to make contact with the untouchable classes and then submit a report stating its opinions on the procedures followed by the members of these classes in their conversion to Islam". The delegation consisted of four senior members of the venerable Islamic university: Ibrahim El-Gibali, Abdel-Wahab El- Naggar, Mohamed Ahmed El-Bedawi and Mohamed Habib.

From the outset the members of the delegation realised that theirs would be a delicate mission. No sooner was the news of their mission out than they were cautioned that their arrival in India would spark animosity between Hindus and Muslims because their mission would be seen as an attempt to openly proselytise for Islam. The rector of Al-Azhar wisely thought it best to defer the departure of the delegation until he could better ascertain the situation.

A week later, another Al-Ahram item underscored the potential difficulty of the mission. Al-Azhar officials, it writes, "have received an alarming letter from the head of a major Muslim society in India, stating that the Hindu sects are working round the clock to collect money and produce the publications necessary to combat this delegation. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of donations have already been collected. The members of the delegation are greatly apprehensive that their arrival in India under such circumstances would be too risky."

No further news was heard for more than a month. During this time, however, continued inquiries of Al-Azhar officials led them to the conclusion that the reports were exaggerated. Suddenly, on 24 October Al-Ahram reports that the rector of Al-Azhar applied to the British Consulate in Cairo for travel permits for the members of the expedition.

After yet another month without news, Al-Ahram reports on 23 November that all obstacles had been overcome and that the mission would be departing on 2 December. Its purpose: "To contact Islamic universities and academic institutions in diverse parts of India in order to promote cooperation in the spread of Islamic culture. It will then study the situation of the untouchables who are disposed to embrace Islam and consider the most suitable procedures for effecting their conversion."

The day before the mission was due to depart, its leader, Sheikh El-Gibali held a lengthy interview with Al-Ahram reiterating the objectives of the mission, which included "determining how Egypt can best contribute to spreading Islam among [the untouchables]". He also informed the newspaper that the delegation's mission in India would last three months.

At 11.00am on 1 December, the Al-Azhar delegation boarded the train from Cairo to Port Said. On hand to see them off was a large gathering of Al-Azhar officials -- the rector, the deans of the university's three faculties and the heads of Al- Azhar's other academies -- and students from Al-Azhar and the Egyptian University. At 5.15pm that same day, the delegation members boarded ship bound for Suez, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and their final destination, India, with its population of millions, among whom were the object of their mission, the untouchables.

As was its custom with such important events, Al-Ahram attached a correspondent to the mission. His first report was from Bombay: "There is a constant flow of Muslim leaders to the hotel throughout the day and into the night, eager to discuss general Islamic issues, the status of Al-Azhar in the Arab world and its responsibility to the Islamic nation at large.... Their reverends performed Feast of the Sacrifice prayers with no less than 40,000 worshippers in Bombay's largest square, which had been equipped with amplifiers to broadcast the sermon and the speech of the head of the delegation." The correspondent also reports that the delegation's leader delivered a lecture in Bombay University's Faculty of Languages and Literature on the history of Al-Azhar. Culminating his overview of the successive eras through which the famous Islamic university passed was a discussion of the modern revival during which the university was divided into three faculties -- theology, Islamic law and Arabic -- and these in turn into diverse departments of specialisation.

In early January 1937, the delegation left Bombay bound for Delhi, which it reached on the fourth of that month. Continuing its programme of establishing communications with Islamic universities and institutions, the delegation visited an Islamic school attached to a mosque. "One of the mission members told me that the mosque and its school resembled Al-Azhar as it was some 20 or more years ago, the only difference being that Al-Azhar had many more students," wrote the Al-Ahram correspondent.

Also in Delhi the delegation engaged university professors in long and fruitful discussions on matters of concern and benefit to the greater Islamic community. The next stop was a mosque built on the ruins of a Buddhist temple and its embellishments, therefore, incorporating a blend of Buddhist and Islamic motifs. More important, however, was the visit, on 7 January, to Aligarh. The tour of this Islamic university, founded in 1875, took the delegation members through the Arabic language and theology departments, and then to the mosque where they met with both Sunni and Shia professors of theology, after which they were introduced to the history department, in which they sat in on a lecture on how to achieve world peace. In the evening, the Egyptian visitors were shown a wing in the boarding school where students eagerly rained them with questions on student life in Al-Azhar. The following day, after Friday prayers in the university mosque, the head of the delegation delivered a lecture to an assembly hall packed with students from the Arabic language and literature department on reviving the glory of Islam. The lecture, Al-Ahram reports, "was greeted with loud and enthusiastic applause".

Disturbed that he had to rely exclusively on Al-Ahram for information on the mission, Al-Azhar Rector Mustafa El- Maraghi instructed the head of the delegation to keep him updated. Sheikh El-Gibali's reports started coming in towards the end of January when, as he pointed out in his first report, the delegation had completed only a quarter of its time in India. He adds: "So enthusiastic has the response been to our mission that we have repeatedly had to readjust our travel plans so as to extend our stays and expand the scope of our visits. I cannot tell you how many hundreds of times officials, journalists and ordinary visitors have asked us why Al-Azhar delegated us to visit this country. Our answer has been that Al-Azhar, that venerable university of the Orient, sought to strengthen the bonds of friendship and affection with Muslims of distant countries in order to promote intellectual and scholastic cooperation... And how often we have conferred with distinguished well-wishers among the Muslim community, of whom we have many in India, over the question of spreading the Islamic call and expanding the scope of its message. We will soon apprise you in detail of the many opinions we have received in this regard."

El-Gibali's letter helps to clarify the Al-Ahram correspondent's silence on the second task of the mission, which was to spread Islam among the untouchables. The issue was clearly so delicate that the delegation members felt they could only discuss it under conditions of confidentiality with leaders of the Indian Muslim community whom they felt they could trust.

Throughout the remainder of its trip, the delegation adhered to its policy of openly seeking to promote closer educational and cultural bonds with Indian Muslims while keeping its proselytising interests under wraps. In subsequent reports, therefore, we read only of the many religious and academic institutions they visited on their tour.

In Rampur, a Muslim state that was incorporated into Uttar Pradesh in 1950, the Al-Azhar team visited the private library of its prime minister, which contained 20,000 Persian and Arabic manuscripts, and Rampur's historic festivities palace, the venue for celebrating three annual events: Eid Al-Fitr after Ramadan, the Feast of the Sacrifice and the birthday of the ruler. They also took in the Islamic college "which now follows the theological pedagogy that has been in practice in Egypt for decades", and the Husseini Mosuq, which contained "a tomb made of pure silver on the model of that in Karbala" and "a spacious hall for the celebration of the Day of Atonement".

Back in Delhi they visited the Noamaniya school for religious studies and the Red Citadel "which served as the headquarters of the rulers of the glorious Islamic eras until just before the great Indian mutiny in 1858". They then went to Amritsar "where they met its president and discussed the state of Muslims and Islamic education in that city", after which they travelled to Lahore. Apparently, word had quickly spread of their visit to this city, for when they visited one of its mosques, they found it filled with thousands of people who had come especially to see the delegates from Al-Azhar. After prayers, El-Gibali graciously obliged and addressed the large gathering.

To Al-Ahram correspondent the visits to Lahore and then Karachi were one of the highlights in the tour. The cities in what was then known as Sind had a majority Muslim population. In what had been administratively subordinate to Bombay until only a few months before the Al-Azhar mission arrived and the delegates were accorded a warm and enthusiastic welcome. "The mission arrived in Karachi at 8.30am on Wednesday 17 February to find the station platform packed with people to meet them in spite of the early hour of the day. As the members stepped off the train they were greeted by cheers of 'God is great!' and presented with wreathes. They were then escorted to automobiles in which they were escorted in procession to the Hotel Bristol."

The following morning, the delegation was taken to an elementary through secondary school for girls founded by a wealthy merchant of Karachi, after which they went to Sind Madrasa, the city's major Islamic school, and then to a religious college modelled on the old Al-Azhar structure.

But beneath all these educational and religious visits were political currents. There was, for example, the meeting with Sir Mohamed Iqbal. Once a foremost supporter of Hindi- Muslim solidarity, he became in 1930 head of the Islamic League and one of the first proponents of the establishment of an Islamic state. Although he died in 1938 and therefore did not live to see the fulfilment of this dream in 1947, Pakistanis regard this politician, thinker and poet as the spiritual founder of their state and commemorate him annually on the anniversary of his death on 21 April.

The meeting took place in his home at 3.00pm on 10 February. The topic of conversation, as reported by Al-Ahram 's correspondent, was a project for founding a higher level school for girls, on which subject "the members of the Egyptian delegation were asked to explain the system used in Egypt for primary and secondary religious education for girls." Our suspicion, however, is that the members of the delegation also took this opportunity to raise the question of their other mission in India, which was to promote Islam among the untouchables.

Another meeting, in which the political undertones were unmistakable, was with Mahatma Gandhi. The meeting took place in Wardha, a town that, in spite of its small size, acquired great symbolic importance in India because, as Al-Ahram 's correspondent relates, "this is the town in which Gandhi chose to establish his residence and, therefore, it has become a frequent destination of Indian politicians eager to seek out the leader of India for his views and advice." He also informs us that only two days before the Al- Azhar delegation arrived, Indian political leaders who were members of the Congress Party had just left "after having come here especially to consult him on policy questions following the recent sweeping electoral victory of the Congress Party in most districts".

On the meeting itself, the correspondent recounts: "The Al-Azhar mission made an unscheduled stop in Wardha. It arrived at the city's train station last night and was put up in the government rest house. Soon after the delegates reached the hotel, they were contacted by Gandhi's secretary and the mystery of this unscheduled stop was solved. The following morning -- 2 March -- Gandhi's secretary escorted the delegation members by car to the village in which Gandhi had taken a humble but immaculately clean hut, his home for himself and his two daughters. The Mahatma was clearly delighted by the visit and I learned that he told the delegation leader, 'If you hadn't made this call I would have had to scold Al-Azhar.' In the course of the long conversation that followed, Gandhi presented the delegation with a block of sugar which, he said, the Indians made from the sap of a certain type of palm tree. In presenting it he said, 'This keepsake will help you understand my principles. The tree was once useless to us, but now we have succeeded in extracting sugar from it and, therefore, no longer have to buy it.'"

Following the meeting, the delegation visited the model school "which seeks to overcome the differences that separate Muslim from other communities". They also toured "the industrial institutions espoused by Gandhi and that all rely on manual labour and require little capital investment".

As Hyderabad had close relations with Egypt because it regularly sent students to Al-Azhar and the Egyptian University and because it had a 30,000-strong Arab community, there was a political substance to the visit to this city as well. Even so, the promotion of educational and cultural bonds was still billed as the purpose of the visit, as can be discerned from the Al-Ahram correspondent's description of its ruler: "His Highness Ali Khan, the seventh in line of the Khan dynasty, is an ardent promoter of Islamic studies and the study of Arabic language, literature and culture. Towards this end, he has lavished enormous efforts and expenses in order to create the institutions that will entice Arabic-speaking scholars to his country. The University of Hyderabad is reputed the best school in all of India in which to study Arabic language and literature and Islam."

Arriving in Hyderabad on 4 March as personal guests of the ruler, the delegation members met with several top officials who, Al-Ahram notes, were well informed about Egypt in general and Al-Azhar in particular. "The minister of education lauded Egypt's contributions to science and education in the ancient and modern eras and he spoke at length on the history of Al-Azhar, demonstrating his thorough familiarity with both the past and present circumstances of this venerable institution."

Information on the progress that the delegation was making on its mission would only be revealed following its return to Egypt, and then only after some time. They arrived in Alexandria on 19 March 1937, having chosen to return by plane via Iraq rather than ship. The flight went smoothly, Al-Ahram relates, "although during the last leg of the journey the plane was buffeted somewhat by the wind causing Prof El-Bedawi some discomfort".

Egyptians were naturally eager to learn the results of the mission, for which reason Al-Ahram 's correspondent in Alexandria was on hand at the airport to interview them. El- Gibali's response to his question on his mission's work among the untouchables would not satisfy readers' curiosity. These people, he said, were to be found throughout the length and breadth of India. His team had succeeded in learning much about their circumstances and the contempt with which the Hindu people hold them. The delegation added that it had met one of the three untouchable leaders. The Al-Ahram correspondent could only comment vaguely, "It appears that the members of the mission have acquired a thorough understanding of the curious situation of these people."

Information was not more forthcoming in the parliament meeting of 13 April 1937 during which MP Ahmed Thabet Marafi asked the minister of awqaf about the purpose of the Al-Azhar delegation's visit to India. The minister said no more than that the purpose of the mission had been made public in advance of its departure and that he was now waiting for the delegation's report.

Egyptians had to wait three months until the newspapers published the delegation's report to the rector and senior ulama of Al-Azhar. The delegates declared that they had been successful in "establishing bridges between religious and secular scholars, eliminating barriers between Muslims and organising Indian study missions to Al-Azhar". With regard to the untouchables, the report recommended establishing "cultural and information centres in various locations, such as Surat in the state of Bombay, Dakafi in Bengal Minor and Nagaur in central India." It further recommended that Al-Azhar invite five untouchables to complete their religious studies in Egypt, furnish financial aid to the League of Ulama in exchange for which that society would accept 20 untouchables into its religious education programme, and to offer financial aid to the Islamic Association in Nagaur to enable it to open new classes for outstanding students from the untouchable community. These were some very modest recommendations when compared to the mission's original ambitions and the fanfare that surrounded it.

source:
al-ahram

Aligarh Muslim University

1877 : AMU started out as Mohammaden Anglo Oriental College, Aligarh by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan.

1920 : It became Aligarh Muslim University by an act of Indian Legislative Council.

1968 : Supreme Court in Azeez Basha Vs. Union of India case gave judgement that AMU as a University was established by the an Act of Parliament and not by the Muslims of India thereby stripping its minority status.

1981 : AMU amendment Act passed restoring the minority status of the University. "the educational institution of their choice established by the Muslims of India."

2005 : Allahabad High Court declared AMU amendment act unconstitutional thus in its opinion AMU is not a minority institution.

Babar's will

"My son take note of the following: Do not harbour religious prejudice in your heart. You should dispense justice while taking note of the people's religious sensitivites, and rites. Avoid slaughtering cows in order that you could gain a place in the heart of natives. This will take you nearer to the people.

Do not demolish or damange places of worship of any faith and dispense full justice to all to ensure peace in the country. Islam can better be preached by the sword of love and affection, rather than the sword of tyranny and persecution. Avoid the differences between the shias and sunnis. Look at the various characteristics of your people just as characteristics of various seasons."

--- Islamic Voice, June 2006.
[A copy of this will is preserved in State Library of Bhopal.]

Coromandel Muslims

Rise and fall of Coromandel Muslims
COLOMBO DIARY | PK Balachandran
January 16, 2006

Before the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English established themselves on the Coromandel or East Tamil Nadu coastline, maritime trade was entirely in the hands of Tamil-speaking Muslims of Arab-Tamil ancestry.

But once the pushy, ruthless, cunning and better organised European merchants entered the arena, the Coromandel Muslims began to lose ground rapidly.

And in their fight for survival, they got no help from the Indian rulers, writes Dr J Raja Mohamad, in his fascinating book entitled: Maritime History of the Coromandel Muslims (published by the Government Museum, Chennai, India, in 2004).

The local rulers were indifferent to the Muslims' plight because they were not interested in maritime trade and the Muslims had not cultivated them.

In the new era, when trade was inextricably tied to political and military power, the apolitical Coromandel Muslims found themselves completely outplayed by the more savvy Europeans, Raja Mohamad says.

The dominant Muslim communities on the Coromandel coast were the Marakkayars, also known as Maraikars, Marikkars or Marcars, and the Labbais, also known as Lebbe or Coromandel Moplahs. Maraikars and Labbais were found in Ceylon too.

These communities dominated trade with Ceylon and South East Asia. So much so, that English records describe the ports on the Coromandel coast as "Moor ports".

Cuddalore was known as Islamabad and Porto Novo or Parangipettai, as Mohammad Bandar.

The Tamil-speaking Muslims of Arab-Tamil ancestry had inherited their dominant position in South and South East Asian trade from the Arabs, who had acquired a virtual monopoly of Indian maritime commerce by 3rd Century BC.

The Arab and Tamil-speaking Muslim traders brought much prosperity to India. The 14th century Arab writer Ibn Fadbullah ul-Omari had written that in India the seas were pearls and the trees were perfumes!

According to Raja Mohamad, Arab contact with Tamil Nadu is mentioned in the Tamil Sangam literature of 2nd Century AD.

He says that the "Yavana" in Sangam literature are not Greeks, as generally presumed, but Muslims from what is now Yemen.

He also says that the term "Sonaka" used to identify Coromandel and Ceylon Muslims of Indo-Arab descent is but a corruption of Yavana. He also points out that the Mapilla or Moplah Muslims of Kerala were known as Sonaka Mapillas.

The Arabs came to the Coromandel coast not as conquerors, but as traders.

Conversions to Islam took place through preaching to the under-privileged sections of the caste-ridden Hindu society, and marriage to Tamil women. Islam came to the Coromandel coast in its earliest days.

The oldest mosque in Tamil Nadu which is near the Kottai (Fort) Railway station in Tiruchi is dated 743 AD.

The native Hindu rulers of what is now Tamil Nadu and Kerala, encouraged the Arab-Muslims to settle down and trade.

The Zamorin of Calicut in Kerala needed Muslims to man his ships. He even decreed that the Arab traders should marry Malayali women and bring up at least one of their children as a Muslim.

The Rowthers, as the name suggests, had made a name for themselves as traders in Arab horses.

The Marakkayars (boat people) and Lebbais were expert mariners and traders. The Marakkayars claimed a higher social and economic status.

Arrival of Portuguese and end of free trade

Prior to the advent of the Portuguese in the early part of the 16th. Century, trade in South and South East Asia was free.

It was the Portuguese (followed by the Dutch and the English) who introduced the system of monopolies and unfair trade regimes based on military might and political clout, Raja Mohamad says.

Cooperation and peace were replaced by discord and war, he comments.

In bringing about this iniquitous system, the Indian rulers had a hand. Indian rulers at that time did not enter trade.

So they did not pitch for monopoly over trade in the Indian Ocean. They extended all facilities to the Portuguese to attract them to their ports, Raja Mohamad says.

He laments that the Indian rulers did nothing to protect the Muslims, who were the only Indian maritime traders operating shipping services to far-flung areas.

The Indian rulers declared that trade in spices, gold and silver were a Portuguese monopoly.

Being virulently anti- Muslim, the Portuguese told the Christians of Kerala not to sell their pepper to the Muslims.

By 1530, the Arabs lost their monopoly over trading in horses. This passed entirely into the hands of the Portuguese.

By 1537 they had converted to Christianity an oppressed fishing community on the Tamil Nadu coast called Paravas.

The rejuvenated Paravas were set up to compete with the Muslims in trade and pearl fishing.

Pearl fishing, which was entirely in the hands of the Muslims for a long time, went into the hands of the Paravas.

To control trade in the entire region, the Portuguese established their power over key points like Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, and Malacca in South East Asia. Ceylon passed into their hands.

Under the Cartaz system, only those ships with a Portuguese Cartaz (document or permit) could trade and enter ports in this region.

Indian rulers favoured Portuguese

To the misfortune of the Coromandel Muslims, the Nayak rulers of Thanjavur favoured the Portuguese, and the latter in turn favoured the Hindu Chettiar merchants, who were taken as local partners.

This affected the Muslims badly because their trade centre was the port of Nagapattinam in Thanjavur.

In Madurai too, the Nayak rulers favoured the Portuguese. This was because the Portuguese helped Thirumalai Nayak in a succession dispute.

Taking advantage of the Nayaks' lack of interest in seafaring and sea trading, the Portuguese took control of the Madurai Nayakdom's ports.

But the Portuguese ran into trouble with the Sethupathi Rajas of Ramanathapuram, who formed an alliance with the Dutch against the Portuguese.

As the Muslims too had complaints against the Portuguese, the Ramanathapuram Rajas helped the Muslims establish themselves on the Ramanathapuram coastline facing Ceylon.

With the local Rajas being generally indifferent, if not hostile, to the Muslims, the Portuguese were able to persecute the Muslim traders with impunity.

Their ships used to be disallowed in harbours even if they had the Cartaz and heavy bribes were demanded. It cost the Muslims a great deal more to get a Cartaz.

When the Portuguese acquired Colombo in Ceylon, they found a strong Muslim population there dominating trade.

Persecution was set in motion immediately. They were driven out of the maritime regions into the Kandyan region at the Centre.

From there they had to go to the Eastern and South Eastern Coast, where they became rice cultivators.

Dutch displace Portuguese

The Dutch set up their first factory in India in 1605, and by 1658, they had displaced the Portuguese from most places on the Coromandel coast.

The Indian princes welcomed the Dutch because they needed help to counter the Portuguese who had become rapacious.

The Dutch were given trade concessions in return for help to counter the Portuguese.

The Sethupathi of Ramanathapuram had borrowed money from the Dutch, and as repayment, he had to mortgage all his ports to them.

In Ceylon, the Dutch confiscated the vessels of the Sethupathi and his allies, the Muslims.

Heavy restrictions were put on the Muslims both in India and Ceylon. In Ceylon, after the Dutch had established themselves, government lands were not rented out to the Muslims and no government work was entrusted to them.

But the Dutch could not stand the pressure from the English who had also started forming alliances with native princes by exploiting differences between them.

By 1783-84, the Dutch East India Company was virtually bankrupt and before long, the Dutch had to quit India.

Muslims turn to smuggling

Raja Mohammad says that because of the restrictions put on them by the Portuguese and the Dutch, Muslim traders and mariners took to smuggling in a big way in the 17th and 18th centuries. Records tended to describe them as smugglers.

The French, who followed the Dutch, were more favourable to the Muslims. The French used Muslim mariners in their trade with Burma.

The Muslims began to operate from Pondicherry, where the customs rates were lower.

Impact of the British

The British changed the character of trade in peninsular India. They entered into deals with weavers and financed their production for export. Many of the weavers were Muslims from the Lebbe community.

But by the first half of the 19th century, all this changed, Raja Mohamad observes. The British began to export cotton from South India and import finished cloth made in Lancashire, England. South Indian cloth lost its market in England.

Muslim traders were disadvantaged by the growth of British Joint Stock Companies in the trading sector.

The system of advancing money to weavers had broken the back of the Muslim trader and exporter.

Local weavers sold their products to the British merchants not the Muslims. The British Indian government favoured British companies and discriminated against Muslim merchants.

Muslims who were in shipping and ship building were badly hit when the British restricted Indian shipping and ships having Indian crew.

A ship entering English waters had to have a White captain and at least 75 per cent of the crew had to be White, Raja Mohamad writes.

The British also preferred to work with the docile Hindu Chettiars rather than the Muslims, he says.

Muslim traders lost out to the Chettiars also because the financial clout of the latter was much greater.

After the revolt of 1857 in North India, British attitude towards the Muslims in general hardened.

Southern Tamil Nadu was the home ground of the Tamil Muslim trader and mariner.

When the British started developing Madras as the main port of the Coromandel coast, the Muslims were highly disadvantaged.

Ports on the southern coast like Kayal, Kilakarai, Devipattinam, Thondi, Adiramapattinam, Porto Novo, and Nagapattinam began to lose their importance.

These remained dominant only in Indo-Ceylon trade, in which of course, the Tamil Muslims had a big role to play till quite recently.

The heavy restrictions on Muslim maritime trade forced the Coromandel Muslims to leave this line and look for other trading opportunities further inland in India and abroad.

Migration to Ceylon, Malaya and other parts of British-held South East Asia began in a big way.

Muslim-owned ships began to take passengers rather than cargo. Many Muslims became traders, peddlers and contractors in South East Asia.

Reasons for the decline of the Coromandel Muslims

Raja Mohamad has identified several reasons for the decline of the Tamil-speaking Muslims of the Coromandel coast:

1) There was a sharp religious and economic conflict between the Portuguese and the Dutch on the one hand, and the Muslims on the other.

2) The Portuguese and the Dutch and later the British preferred to work with the Hindu Chettiar merchants rather than the Muslims.

3) Native Indian rulers, whether Hindu or Muslim, barring the Sethupathis of Ramnad, had no interest in maritime trade and therefore gave away their ports and maritime trading rights to the European powers in return for financial/political/ military help against their rivals.

In the process, the interest of the indigenous maritime trader, the Muslim, was sacrificed.

4) Unlike the Europeans, the Muslims showed no interest in the politics or political conflicts in the areas in which they lived, and therefore failed to take advantage of political currents.

5) Muslims did not modernise their business styles and practices. The British were more innovative and reaped huge benefits as a result.

6) Muslims did not have the financial resources of the Hindu Chettiars or the British merchants. They had to borrow from the Chettiars at high rates of interest.

7) Unlike the Chettiars, the Muslims were not united. And unlike the British merchants, they did not have the backing of the British Indian government.

The British Indian government placed such restrictions on overseas shipping and trade that it was impossible for Muslim overseas traders and shipping interests to survive.

Raja Mohamad ends his book on a somber note. He says that the Muslims of Coromandel, who were the "rulers of the waves, merchant princes at home and king makers and economic builders in far off countries", disappeared from the scene rapidly, because they could not match the strength and guile of the Europeans.

Sadly, the short-sighted Indian rulers had no use for the Muslims and ignored them.

Today, the Coromandel Muslims are a pale shadow of what they were even 200 years ago.

Though their deeds "glitter in the pages of history," they do not remember their past, Raja Mohamad observes.

(PK Balachandran is Special Correspondent of Hindustan Times in Sri Lanka)

source :http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7752_1599649,004100180006.htm

India's first masjid

Cheraman Juma Masjid

India's first Masjid is believed to be built in 628 AD at the behest of legendary ruler Cheraman Perumal, who died in Arabia after embracing Islam.

Legend has it that before he died, Cheraman Perumal sent an emissary to Kodungalloor to seek the help of his descendant there to propagate Islam along the Kerala coast.

The original Hindu architectural scheme of the mosque has been retained intact to a great extent, though essential additions have been made over the years.

Situated at the northern end of the Periyar River, about 50 km from Kochi, Kodungaloor has been the gateway for Christianity, Judaism and Islam in India.

References:

1. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200507171508.htm

2. http://www.keralatourism.org/

3. http://www.jaihoon.com/watan/perumal.htm

4. http://www.bahraintribune.com/ArticleDetail.asp?CategoryId=4&ArticleId=49332

Indian Muslims and relationship with the Ummah

Since 1947 Indian Muslims have been lot of pressure at the domestic front to give any kind of support other than moral and prayers to Muslims in rest of the world. Years earlier, Indian Muslims were very active in supporting their brothers and sisters all over the world.

Periodically, they used to raise funds for constructions in Mecca and Medina. Here we present a similar case of Muslims of India helping Turkey during Word Word I with money and manpower.

The Indian Muslim Red Crescent Society's Aid to the Ottomon State During the Balkan War in 1912

Indian Muslims in India's freedom struggle

THEY TOO FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM – ROLE OF MINORITIES IN FREEDOM STRUGGLE

Asghar Ali Engineer

(Secular Perspective Dece.1-15, 2005)

The new generation of Indians is hardly in know of the role played by minorities in our freedom struggle. They think only majority community fought for it. In case of Muslims partition made them culprits for dividing the country Firstly all Muslims were blamed for partition and secondly it was thought they played no role in the freedom of the country. It is this view with which the whole new generation has grown. Even Maulana Azad’s role has been obscured and our textbooks on history of our freedom struggle either totally ignore him or mention him just casually.

In fact besides majority community all other minorities have played important role in freedom struggle. The Sikhs (Sikhs are a minority with a distinct identity and they resent being clubbled with Hindus) played glorious role and who can ever forget the supreme sacrifice made by Bhagat Singh. He has become an icon of Indians’ hearts. Besides Bhagat Singh Sikhs played glorious role right from beginning. Who can ever forget Ghadar Party which was formed mainly by Sikhs and they went to Canada and America to fight for India’s freedom.

The role of Dalits also has been ignored by and large and also that of tribals from different parts of India. While much light has been thrown on the role of Mangal Pandey (recently a film also has been made on him), a Brahmin, one hardly finds mention of various Dalit leaders who also played role in 1857 war of independence. The Christians and Parsis too were in the forefront of freedom struggle. Who can forget Dadabhai Naoroji and Phirozshah Mehta besides others?

But today we find hardly any mention of these persons who never hesitated to throw themselves in the struggle for freedom of our country. But our school textbooks hardly mention them. If the role of these communities is not highlighted what of Muslims who are thought to be culprits for dividing the country. And during the NDA rule even Father of the Nation Gandhiji’s role was sought to be de-emphasised.

I would like to deal with the role played by Muslims in freedom struggle, as this is important for de-communalising thinking of our people today. However, before we proceed further I would like to point out that while it is important to discuss the religious identity of people who fought for our freedom it is not our intention to communalise the role of those individuals in history. Those Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Muslims and Hindus fought for freedom as they loved their motherland and not simply because they belonged to this or that community. Yet in the Indian subcontinent since nineteenth century religious identity became main identity as the British rulers divided us on the basis of religions and each individual despite his/her patriotism also considered himself/herself as belonging to this or that community. It is for this reason we have to talk of role of minority communities in freedom struggle.

Unfortunately the minority communities have been marginalized in every respect including in respect of their role in freedom struggle. The history of freedom struggle as also that of medieval period is being written today from majoritarian perspective. It thus becomes necessary to emphasise the role of minority communities. While Mangal Pandey, a Brahmin’s role is glorified in the 1857 war of independence (recently a film also has been made on him) the role of dalits has been completely ignored or if at all mentioned, it is mentioned only on the margin. The tribals also played important role but hardly mentioned in history books.

Who can ever forget the role of Sikhs (though Sikhs are often clubbed with Hindus but Sikhs themselves resent being so clubbed) in freedom struggle. The Ghadar party mainly consisted of Sikhs and Ghadar Party played very important role. The members of Ghadar Party migrated to Canada and United States in early twentieth century to fight for India’s freedom.

The Namdhari Sikh movement, which came to be known as Kuka movement and consisted of lower caste Sikhs from artisan class and poor peasant started after occupation of Punjab by the Britishers posed a great threat to the British rule and challenged the role of Sikh elite including the Mahants of Sikh temples. It was the first radical challenge to the British rulers in Punjab. On the other hand the “Punjab Unrest of 1907�, which was spearheaded by Ajit Singh’s Bharat Mata Society or alternatively called Anjuman-e-Muhibban-e- Watan (i.e. organisation of the lovers of the country) was a secular, political struggle of the peasantry against the destructive economic policies and laws of the British Government.

Similarly, our history of the freedom struggle ignores the role played by lower class Muslims led by the orthodox ulama. The Muslim masses were mostly from artisan classes and belonged to poor peasantry. Most of the ulama came from these sections of Muslim society and they fought British rule tooth and nail. When Indian National Congress (INC) was formed in 1885 Maulana Qasim Ahmed Nanotvi (who was founder of Darul Ulum, Deoband) issued a fatwa urging Muslims to join INC to fight against British rule. He also got fatwas issued by several other ulama on similar lines and published them in a book form called Nusrat al-Ahrar (help for freedom fighters) and as a result of his efforts large number of Muslims joined INC.

It is true Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, an ardent advocate of modern education among Muslims and founder of Mohommedan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO) opposed Muslims joining the Congress but it was because of his priority to modern education rather than politics and not because of lack of patriotism. Also, he was representing the interests of upper classes of Muslims i.e. ashraf whereas the ulama in north India represented interests of lower class Muslims know as ajlaf.

But realities in western India were quite different. There Badruddin Tyebji, the retired acting Chief Justice of Bombay High Court urged upon Muslims to join INC and himself joined it with three hundred Muslim delegates and was elected President of INC. It is interesting to note that three presidents of INC were from minority communities in those days. Badruddin Tyebji, a Muslim, W.C. Bonnerjee, a Christian from Bengal and Phiroz Shah Mehta, a Parsi. Dadabhai Naoroji was a critic of British economic policies and was devoted to the cause of India’s welfare.

The ulama, particularly of the Deoband School, were greatly devoted to the cause of Indian freedom. Maulana Mahmudul Hasan of the Reshmi Rumal (silk kerchief) conspiracy fame was stauch supporter of freedom movement. Another important name in this respect is that of Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi. Prof. Barkatullah also played key role in fighting the British in those days.

In fact a provisional Azad Hind Government was formed in Afghanistan with Raja Mahendra Pratap as President and Prof. Barkatullah as Prime Minister. The Ulama urged upon Muslims to migrate from India to Afghanistan as they had declared India as Darul Harb under the British rule. Thousands of Muslims migrated and faced great hardships. Though it was not a wise decision but that is a different matter. What we intend to show here is that Muslims played very important role in freedom struggle.

Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi was very enthusiastic fighter and when he was forced out of Afghanistan by the Afghan King he migrated to Russia through Central Asia and witnessed revolution in Russia and was greatly influenced by Russian revolution. Another very important figure is Maulana Hasrat Mohani who stood for complete freedom along with Tilak. He was great admirer of Tilak and opposed the Congress policy of Home rule in those days. He used to publish an Urdu magazine, which was confiscated by the British along with his press and his valuable books were also destroyed by the British police.

Mention must be made here of Maulana Husain Ahmed Madani, the then President of Jam’at-ul-‘Ulama-I-Hind who was an important ally of INC and was totally opposed to the partition of the country. He opposed two nation theory and wrote a book Muttahida Qaumiyyat aur Islam (Composite Nationalism and Islam). It is a seminal contribution by the Maulana. He argued against separate nationalism and quoted from the Qur’an to support his contention. He gave example of the Holy Prophet who migrated from Mecca and set up a composite city state in Madina with Muslims, Jews and pagan Arabs constituting one political community described as ummah wahidah. All communities were given full freedom to practice their religion and charged with responsibility to protect Madina from outside attack.

Many other Muslim leaders, besides Maulana Azad, who played an important role in freedom struggle and stood for united nationalism, were Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Sarhadi Gandhi), Hakim Ajmal Khan, Dr. Ansari, Rafi Ahmad Qidwai and others. We must also mention the role of Ali Brothers i.e. Maulana Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali who play key role in Khilafat movement along with Mahatma Gandhi and also their mother Bi Amma.

We cannot mention the role of several others in this article for want of space. But it becomes obvious that Muslims played very important role in freedom movement and also opposing two -nation theory propounded by a small minority of Muslims belonging to upper class. Large number of Muslims belonging to artisan classes, poor peasantry and backward caste Muslims, particularly the All India Momin Conference vehemently opposed partition of the country. It would, therefore, be wrong to blame all Muslims for partition of the country. Vast number of Muslims made great sacrifices for the cause of freedom of their motherland.

Konkani Muslims

Lankan Muslims' historical links with India

Lankan Muslims' historical links with India

COLOMBO DIARY | PK Balachandran

April 3, 2006

Sri Lanka's indigenous Muslims, called Ceylon Moors, like other communities in the island, have had historical ties with India, especially Tamil Nadu and Kerala in South India.

Today, sadly, these links are very weak, if they exist at all. And they are neither remembered nor acknowledged.

Political exigencies arising from the redrawing of international boundaries after the collapse of the British Empire have put up barriers between the Ceylon Moors and India.

New identities were created, and are being constantly created. New links are forged in response to new stimuli, both domestic and international.

But India's impact on the Ceylon Moors (a community distinct from Indian Moors who are more recent Muslim migrants from India) cannot be ignored because it can be seen in the language, culture and practices of the community.

The active links have snapped, but the legacy is there for all to see.

Early migration from Kerala

Ceylon Moors are of Arab descent. Although from the earliest times, Arabs from the Gulf had been coming straight to the island for trade, the really significant migration for settlement came via the Malabar coast in what is now Kerala.

Marina Azeez, in her contribution to The Ethnological Survey of the Muslims of Sri Lanka (The Razik Fareed Foundation, Colombo, 1986) says: "The first Muslim fleet is said to have sailed to the Indian Ocean in 636 AD during the Caliphate of Omar; and since then Muslim traders began settling along the Malabar coast of India wherein pre-Islamic-time Arabs had settled as far back as the 4th.century AD."

"According to Tennent (James Emerson Tennent, London, 1859) when these settlements expanded with increase in trade as well as migration, the people spread to the coasts of Sri Lanka, settled here and carried on their trading activities."

By 7th Century AD the Arabs had settled in Kayalpatnam in what is now Tamil Nadu. From Kayalpatnam, they spread to the East and West coasts of Sri Lanka.

Although the Arabs had been traders from the earliest times, Islam gave their occupation a tremendous boost. Expansion of trade meant more settlers overseas and more converts from non-Arab peoples.

"By the 9th century AD all trade between Europe and the East was transferred to the Arabs, and by the 14th. Century AD they were operating in the region of the Persian gulf, the Indian Ocean, the Malay Archipelago and China," says Azeez.

The Arabs had displaced the Greeks and the Romans as the traders in this area.

The Muslims of Arab-Indian origin from Malabar and Kayalpatnam, along with those from Arab lands, settled in Colombo and Beruwela, a coastal town en route to Galle.

Beruwela, which retains its distinctive Muslim character even today, received its first Muslim immigrants in 1024. It is acknowledged that the art of weaving was introduced in Beruwela by migrants from Kayalpatnam.

Colombo, which has a substantial Muslim population even today, was predominantly Muslim when the Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka in 1505, says Azeez.

Muslims of Arab and Arab-Indian descent, married local women in Sri Lanka. They mostly took Tamil wives because the Tamils populated the coast and were the local traders too.

Those who headed for the Eastern Sri Lankan coast, arrived first in Kathankudy near Batticaloa. Today, Kathankudy is perhaps the only all-Muslim town in Sri Lanka. It also has the largest number of mosques per square kilometre in the world.

In Batticaloa, the Muslim Arabs and those of Arab-Indian descent married local women from the dominant Mukkuvar caste.

The Mukkuvars were themselves early migrants from the Malabar Coast, who came to Eastern Sri Lanka via Mannar and Jaffna in the 4th century AD.

The Muslims and Mukkuvars of Batticaloa practiced matriliny or the system of tracing descent through the female line and organised themselves into matrilineal "kudis" or clans.

The administration of temples and mosques was in the hands of the kudis and the chief of the mosque was the head of the kudi with which the mosque was identified.

Adoption of Tamil language

The early Muslim settlers in Sri Lanka adopted Tamil as their spoken language.

This was because Tamil was the language of the traders in South India and Sri Lanka and it is these Tamil trader families the Muslims married into.

The Portuguese chronicler, Duartes Barbossa, wrote in the 16th.century AD that in the port of Colombo, the Muslims spoke a mixture of Arabic and Tamil and used the Arabic script to write Tamil.

Tamil, written in the Arabic script, came to be known as "Arabic Tamil".

Many Muslims in the Sinhala majority areas now say that their mother tongue is Arabic Tamil.

The Muslims of Sri Lanka produced literature in Arabic-Tamil, as well as pure Tamil, using the Arabic script, besides the Tamil script.

However, Arabic Tamil as a literary tool is not in vogue now. The Muslims today use the purest form of Tamil in their writings and formal speech. But their spoken Tamil remains unique, with the use of Arabic and Islamic words, terms and expressions.

In his paper "The Language and Literature of the Muslims" MM.Uwise says that "Muslim Tamil" is different from the Tamil spoken by Sri Lankan Tamils in terms of words used and also pronunciation.

The use of Arabic words and terms is easily noticeable.

But many of the differences could be traced to the Sri Lankan Muslims' historic links with Indian Tamils and Malayalees of Kerala.

To give just one example, "Itam" (Sri Lankan Tamil word for place) becomes "Etam" in Muslim Tamil. But in Tamil Nadu too, Itam is pronounced as Etam or Edam.

Some of the Muslim Tamil words are actually classic Tamil words, which are still in vogue in Tamil Nadu.

The Sri Lankan Muslims use "Nombu" for the "vrat" or "vritham" (fasting). Recitation of prayers is "Odhudhal" not "vaasithal." But both Nombu and Odhudhal are pure Tamil words, which are used in Tamil Nadu as substitutes for the Sanskritic terms Vritam and Vaasithal.

There are signs of Malayalam influence too. "Kudithen" (drank) becomes "kudichcha" which is but a variation of the Malayalam "kudichchu".

In Tamil Nadu Tamil too, Kudithen is Kudichchen.

Uwise says that the Tamil spoken by the Muslims living in the Sinhala areas if very different from the Tamil spoken by Muslims in the Tamil areas. He also says that the Muslims in the Sinhala areas use many Sinhala words.

But the cases he is able to cite are few and far between, and these are used only in common speech.

It cannot be denied that the Muslims in the Sinhala areas speak Tamil at home. They have been responsible for the survival of the Tamil language against great odds in the Sinhala areas.

As the renowned Tamil scholar Prof Karthigesu Sivathamby put it: "If Tamil is heard today in the villages deep inside Sinhala country, it is because of the Muslims. But for them, Tamil would have vanished from the Sinhala areas."

Earlier, Quixotic attempts by some Colombo-based elite politicians to get the Muslims to accept Arabic or Sinhala as their spoken language failed, because the love for Tamil ran in the veins of the Sri Lankan Muslims.

Performing arts

In the field of the performing arts, the influence of Tamil Nadu and Kerala is clear, though MMM Mahroof in his paper "Performing and Other Arts of the Muslims" portrays them as being of Arab origin.

Even if some of them are, they do clearly show links with India.

The Silambam or Silambattam, which shows dexterity in the handling of sticks, is portrayed as being an Arab game. However, Mahroof admits that Silambam is popular in Kerala and the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu also.

The Kali Kambu dance, a dance done by men with small sticks, is also said to be Arab origin. This could well be. But the Moplahs of Kerala have a similar dance.

The Villu Pattu, a very Tamil art, is also part of the Muslim folk arts.

However, these links with Tamil Nadu and Kerala have either disappeared, or are fast vanishing because of the Islamisation of the Sri Lankan Muslims since the 1980s.

Many of these performing arts have been dubbed as being "un-Islamic" and discouraged.

Portuguese era and the Indian connection

The arrival of the Portuguese in 1505 had a devastating impact on the Muslims of Sri Lanka because the Portuguese saw them as rivals in Asian and Euro-Asiatic trade.

The Portuguese took on the Muslims both on the Malabar Coast and Sri Lanka, with an intention to drive them out, cripple them or decimate them.

Force was used unabashedly, though traders in the Asian region, including the Arabs and Arab-Indian/Ceylon Muslims, were men of peace and never used force.

As it happened, the Portuguese came to Sri Lanka via India. On hearing that Muslim ships were dodging the Portuguese men-of-war by going to the Gulf via the Maldives, the Portuguese Governor in Goa sent nine armed ships under the command of his son Don Laurenco de Almeida to decimate them. But because of bad navigation, the Portuguese commander landed in Colombo instead!

The Portuguese began to persecute the Muslims of Colombo from the word go. The Zamorin of Calicut, who had a lot of problems with the high handed Portuguese in Malabar, sent a fleet of ships to help the Muslims of Colombo resist the Portuguese.

But this did not prevent the Portuguese from virtually driving the Muslims out of the Western seaboard of Sri Lanka.

Taking pity on them, the Sinhala king of Kandy, Senarat, gave them land to cultivate in Batticaloa district on the Eastern coast.

This had a deep impact on the Muslims because traders became peasants overnight. Eventually, paddy cultivation became the single most important occupation of the community.

After the nightmare of Portuguese and Dutch rule, the Muslims rose to some freedom under British rule. Tolerance, peace and law and order, helped the growth of Muslim trade.

The Indian influence continued because the British ruled India too. Trade with the Coromandel Coast and Malabar flourished. According to the 19th.century chronicler, Alexander Johnston, the Muslims of Sri Lanka followed the trading practices of the Hindu traders of India.

(PK Balachandran is Special Correspondent of Hindustan Times in Sri Lanka)

source:
Hindustan Times

Muslim ethos in Indian literature

By Mohammad Hassan

Literature is often described as he conscience of a nation. It mirrors the finer sensibility of a people and denotes their intimate responses to the everyday challenges of national life. Hence the cultural ethos of a community is perhaps most faithfully represented in literature, particularly poetry.

Indian Muslims have always been such an integral part of the nation, that it will be nearly impossible to identify their distinct role without considering the whole gamut of the cultural heritage. Practically in all modern Indian languages, their role has been quite significant for one cannot discuss Bengali without Nazrul Islam, or Punjabi without Waris Shah or Kashmiri without Habba Khatoon, or Awadhi without Jaisi or Brij Bhasha without Rahiman or Tamil without Abdur Rahman or Malayalam without K T Mohammad or, for that matter Indian literature without Ghalib; the list is endless.

But let's start from the beginning. Islam came to India in the 8th century and the first Muslims who arrived were the Arabs who landed in Kerala as traders and were warmly received by the Zomorin. Undoubtedly Indo-Arab relations go much further back than the advent of Islam. But the new religion brought by Prophet Mohammad emphasized mono-theism with great vigor and, as a corollary advocated and to a great extent, practiced equality among men of different race, colour and social strata. This message of equality attracted a large number of converts and it soon spread to other parts of the land.

The second major contact developed in Sind-not as traders but as conquerors for here Mohammad Bin Qasim, an Arab lad of 14 years conquered a part of Sind in 712 AD as a reprisal to the looting of a ship of Arab pilgrims by Raja Dahir of Sind. This contact, though political had a cultural impact and it was to this that the Sindhi language and literature owe their origin. To this day, Sindhi is written in a modified Arabic script and bears a strong component of Arab and Islamic influence in the tone and tenor of its poetry.

And it was here that Abdul Latif Bhitai composed his songs of mystic devotion and human love. A new era had already began- the era of cosmopolitan mystic vision.

Undoubtedly mysticism is no monopoly of Islam but in the centuries that followed, several groups of Muslim mystics so swarmed over parts of North India that mysticism began to acquire as a Muslim face. Till today, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti who came from Iraq in the 12th century to settle down in Ajmer as a lonely immigrant is held in high esteem both by Hindus and Muslims and the compositions of one of his disciples, Baba Farid, form part of the holy book of the Sikhs - the Guru Granth Sahib. Both of them emphasized the concept of the equality of man and sang of man's total submergence in the divine existence of God Almighty. The idea caught on and spread with speed and alacrity to practically all the dialects and languages of the land, and assumed different shapes and forms.

One of these was that of allegory and symbolism. Human existence was symbolized as a woman in love who has been unwittingly separated from her beloved and consequently sings the songs of separation form her divine love and thirsts for re-union. Hence, the poet- or human existence was portrayed as a woman in love while God was taken to be the separated husband.

This also took the form of Bara-masa, (Twelve months) in which the damsel describes the charms of every season, month by month, and implores her beloved to take pity on her and to join her in enjoying the seasonal blessings. The first available Bara-masa was written by Addiman, who is believed to be a convert to Islam named Abdur Rahman. He belonged perhaps to the area between the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)and Sind in the 12th century, according to Hazari Prasad Dwivedi and Vishwanath Tripathi, the first editor of the treatise, Sandesh Rasak and this happens to be the first literary work traceable in Awhat, the language deemed the precursor of the present Hindi and Urdu.

This marks the great beginning in practically all-modern Indian languages. The mystic era had begun. The famous Indian historian Dr. Tara Chand has traced the origin and development of the Bhakti movement in the south and its spreading in the north to the impact of Islam and Muslim poets and saints played a very significant part therein.

In Hindi, for instance even before the advent of the four recognized categories of Bhakti poetry Gyana-Kshri, Prem Margi Sufi, Ram Bhakti and Krishna Bhakti , the emergence of Amir Khusrau was noticeable . Though mainly a Persian poet, born in Patiali (Uttar Pradesh) or, according to some scholars, in Delhi Khusrau was a devout mystic and disciple of the Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auslia of Delhi, and his bridal songs, riddles and stray couplets mark the beginning of poetry in a mixed language with an amalgam of Khari Boli grammatical syntax and a sprinkling of Turkish, Persian and Arabic words. He sings praises of his motherland and mixes with the common man of his times so as to give unhampered expression to his feelings with exuberance and spontaneity.

Later on Kabir (whom several scholars consider Muslim) and his followers wrote poetry of iconoclastic humanism and robust commonsense in the Gyana-Kshri and Nirgun Bhakti which are similar in not worshipping idols and believing in the non-material existence of God. Syed Mohammad Jaisi's Padmavat, on the other hand, was the allegorical and anecdotal exposition of man's quest for Divine Beauty, and of self-abnegation in the process, as narrated in the form of Alauddin Khiliji's abortive attempt to conquer Padmini, who burns herself to death and escapes surrender. And the followers of Jaisi's philosophy and diction were many, who adorn the ranks of Prem Margi Sufi poets, including Mulla Daud, Qutban and Manjhan.

Then came the Krishna Bhaktas and these also include a number of Muslim poets. Sri Krishna has often been symbolized as the romantic embodiment of divine existence and not only in Brij Bhasha Hindi poetry of the 16th century but also in Urdu poetry of the 20th century. Poets like Maulana Hasrat Mohani took pride in proclaiming himself a Krishna Bhakt, Hence the continuing tradition from Ras Khan (the famous Brij Bhasha poet) to Hasrat Mohani.

Of course, Riti Kal of Brij Bhasha Hindi poetry abounds in Muslim names and these includes some very distinguished poets, like Akbar's Minister Abdur Rahim Khan Khanan whose dohas are exemplary.

Another branch of the Khari Boli developed as Urdu literature, which claims Amir Khusrau as the common ancestor and extends its frontiers to Gujarat and Deccan (mainly parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra), in the form of Gujri and Deccani. In these literary traditions, too, Indian Muslims played a significant, even predominating, role. In Gujarat, saint poets like Mahmud Daryai, Miranji, Janam and Khub Mohammad Chishti enriched the allegorical mystic tradition while in far off Deccan, first under the Bahmani Kingdom and later on under the Bijapur, Golconda and Ahmadnagar Kingdoms, a whole corpus of literary writings developed with Muslim authorship.

Even prose pieces in Deccani like sab Ras of Wajhi (of Golconda) were written and acclaimed. Wajhi's is a perfect allegory with Beauty, Reason and Heart as symbolic characters and, according to some, draws heavily from a Persian mystic's work and, according to others from Prabhad Chandra Uday, an Indian classic. Earlier, a Muslim saint-disciple of Nizamuddin Aulia of Delhi, living in Gulbarga (Karnataka) had written copiously in prose and poetry for propagating his humanistic teachings, bearing close resemblances with Hindu mystic thought.

In Bijapur and Golconda kings, saints, courtiers and itinerant scholars and poets, all made their contribution in making an indigenous language rich. These included the Muslim ruling monarch Quli Qutub Shah, the first Urdu poet with a regular collection and poets like Nizami, Nusrati, Ibn-Inishati, Ghannasi, Hashmi and a host of prose-stylists like Burhanuddin Janam, Aminuddin Aala, Miran Yakub and others. That their writings are enriched by their cultural environs is beyond doubt as they sought to achieve a blend of cosmopolitan elements with the indigenous traditions.

The development of Urdu language and literature in the north began rather late but the imprint of Indian Muslims on it is so unmistakable that it has been wrongly identified with them though a galaxy of non-Muslim Urdu writers adorn the pages of literary history.

Urdu literature in the north flourished mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries in Delhi , Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where masnavi writers like Afzal, Mir, Mir Asar and Mir Hasan continued to enrich and extend the tradition of allegorical and non-allegorical romantic poetic tales and started writing ghazals in Urdu, thus combining earthly romance with deeper metaphysical thought pattern. Of course, Muslim poets played an important part in giving shape to this new idiom, which heralded a new cultural climate - the climate of secularism, cosmopolitanism and urban sophistication.

The stalwarts included Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib in Delhi whose Catholicism and free-thinking earned for them an eternal place in the hearts of millions; Agha Hasan Amanat's Inder sabha in 1846 attempted an amalgam of Hindu mythology with Awadh culture and ushered in a new era in Indian drama; Mir Anis' religious epics on the battle of Karbala gave its Arab characters local habitation and an Indian look the inimitable Nazeer Akbarabadi of Agra identified himself with the common man and wrote poems on everyday subjects like bread, water melons and the rainy season.

Urdu literature by itself stands witness to the involvement and identification of Indian Muslims with the Indian ethos. Urdu literature particularly the ghazal, gave typical expression to the agony and ecstasy of the national scene throughout the ages. Of course, non-Muslim writers participated equally in the process but any literature can be justly proud of poets like Mir, Ghalib, Iqbal and Josh Malihabadi; fiction writers and movelists like Nazeer Ahmed, Mirza Mohammad Hadi Ruswa, Abdul Haleem Sharar, Sajjad Yaldram, and in our own times, Qurratulain Hyder, Ismat Chughtai, Jilani Bano, Hayatullah Ansari and Khwaja Ahmed Abbas; prose writers like Abul Kalam Azad, Qazi Abdul Ghaffar and Rashid Ahmed Siddiqi; and dramatists like Agha Hasan Amanat, Agha Hashr, Imtiaz Ali Taj and Mohammad Mujib. The whole galaxy of progressive writers who lit the fire for the independence struggle and stormed the citadel of conservatism and obscurantism comprises of names like Faiz, Majaz, Makhdoom Mohiuddin , Parvez Shahidi, Ali Sardar Jafri, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Sahir Ludhianvi, Kaifi Azmi and Majrooh Sultuanpuri. No history of Indian literature can be complete without mentioning the literary and artistic sensibility brought about by Urdu poets and literatures. Every one of them deserves a whole chapter for his or her achievements. K.A. Abbas, for instance, left an indelible mark not only as a storywriter or a novelist but also as a distinguished filmmaker and outstanding journalists.

Iqbal by his philosophy of Self aroused the Asian nations from their long slumber and gave them the message of self-reliance and dignity. His clarion call for the emancipation of the subject nations of the Orient added a new dimension to contemporary literature. Similarly Josh Malihabadi's revolutionary poetry and Abul Kalam Azad's fiery writings made the struggle for national independence an article of faith and extended the frontiers of literary consciousness.

In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the cradles of Urdu and Hindi Khari Boli literatures the galaxy of great names in both poety and prose include Rasikh, Shad, Hasrat Mohani, Jigar, Josh and innumerable others. Yet the Indian Muslims contribution to folk literature of the area should not be overlooked. In local dialects as well as in Khari Boli folk idiom. Muslim writers and composers have made their mark in Kajri, Laoni and other popular folk forms. Recently, Azhar Husain Faruqi's Uttar Pradesh ke lok geet gives a long list of Muslim composers and these represent only a portion of such contribution.

But the contribution of Indian Muslims was by no means restricted only to Urdu literature. In Punjab literature, for instance, mystics and saints left their own indelible marks. Waris Shah and Bulhe Shah composed classics in the 18th century, which are yet to be surpassed in excellence and acceptability. Even when the subcontinent was divided into two hostile countries, India and Pakistan and the border state of Punjab, the land of five rivers, was itself partitioned, the gathering of Punjab soldiers on both sides of the frontier could be seen listening to or reciting Waris Shah's epic Heer Ranjha jointly in the dead of night.

Further North, Kashmiri literature also boasts of its Indian Muslim authors, the greatest of them being, perhaps, Habba Khatoon, a plain peasant girl wedded to a ruling monarch and sharing his destiny in glory and Suffering. Then comes Mahjur, who sang songs of liberty and social justice and enthused Kashmiris to wrest their rights with courage and determination. Of course, these two names are only representative of dozens of other such writers and poets.

Further east, the development of Bengali literature, according to some literary historians, owes much to the patronage of Muslim kings of Bengal. Since its very inception, Muslim poets and writers have been in the vanguard of Bengali literature but the stature of Qazi Nazrul Islam remains unsurpassed. His poetic talent came to a sudden flowering when lying in a trench in a 21-day ambush during the Second World War and he broke into revolutionary song. Nazrul stands next to Tagore in his appeal and artistic excellence and his poetry inspired millions of Bengali-speaking people of India and Bangladesh in their struggle for independence. In fact, Nazrul inspired poets of all the modern Indian languages and provided a model for Josh Mahilabadi in Urdu, Subhramaniam Bharati in Tamil, Vallathal in Malayalam and Dinkar in Hindi.

Bengali literature can boast of other Muslim writers and composers, among them the outstanding literary critic, Kazi Abdul Wudood, Communist writer and intellectual Muzaffar Ahmad and of course, the innumerable Muslim singers and minstrel poets who roam the countryside and compose and sing Baul poetry.

Further down, we come across Oriya in which Mughal tamasha, a distinct form of folk drama, owes its origin mainly to Muslim writers. In Tamil, Abdur Rahman is still considered a major poet. In the sister languages of Kannada and Telugu, the present writer has limited information but the first Urdu poet with a regular poetic collection, the Golconda king, Quli Qutub Shah was also credited to be a Telugu poet. In Marathi, and Gujarati too, Muslim writers made their mark while in Malayalam, the stories and novels of K T Mohammad gained distinction.

This is only a cursory outline of the Muslim contribution to the various and modern Indian languages and literatures. But merely listing names of Muslim poets and writers, does not do justice to their role nor does it evaluate the true nature, extend and depth of their impact. This impact was not restricted only to Muslim writers but percolated to all levels and all kinds of writers irrespective of their religious fidelities.

What does this impact really mean in terms of the literary structure of these languages?

Firstly, it must be appreciated that the word Muslim denotes a much wider cultural domain than Islam. Islam was a set of beliefs but Muslims of different countries, though adhering to these common beliefs, developed their own cultural identities in conjunction with their indigenous environments. Islam for instance, forbids, or at least discourages all arts, frowns on the practice of music, dance and sculpture and deprecates painting, yet in all these fields Indian Muslims, and devout Muslims at that, earned distinction. It has often been the case that the artistic talent of Muslims in the forbidden arts found expression either in permitted media (for example, the expression of painting talent in calligraphy or of sculpture in the carving of Quranic verses on the Qutub Minar) or in the innovative transfer of these talents to other media. Hence the Muslim contribution to literature and poetry should be taken in this context, which in some measure, explains the popularity enjoyed by poetry among Muslims in general so that couplets form part of ordinary everyday conversation.

The second important factor that should be noted is that this contribution was basically secular and cosmopolitan in character. Secular - because Muslim poets and men of letters could not identify themselves with Hindu religious or devotional poetry (barring instances where it had been raised to mystical or allegorical heights) and hence their writings, both in poetry and prose, opened the gates of secular and materialist subjects. What sustained this new poetic idiom was its cosmopolitanism.

To bracket this cosmopolitanism with alien influences would be erroneous. The fact remains that the Turco-Iranian cultural tradition was, in the Dark Ages, the predominant world tradition. Europe was still to emerge as the new arbiter of human destiny and Arabs were dispensing the knowledge acquired from Greek sources, through translations. The Turco-Iranian tradition had absorbed this corpus of knowledge and had become its champion in Asia and the Middle East. Hence, the adoption, or acceptance of these Turco-Iranian influences meant imbibing the impact of the then pervading world culture.

Thirdly, it should also be borne in mind that Muslim contact was not primarily through administrators or rulers but mainly through traders (who purchased handicrafts and other manufactured goods and materials from the Indian towns or trade centres and sold them in Central Asian and West Asian courts and markets), Sufi saints, scholars and mercenary soldiers. Consequently, the adoption of these influences was the acceptance of world cultural norms and values of that period. The literary exchanges between Turco-Iranian traditions and modern Indian languages were therefore a part of this transaction, which can be compared to the impact of the English language and literature on various Indian languages today.

The Indian Muslim writer's contribution to various modern Indian languages and literatures, therefore, is two-fold: first in creating a secular and cosmopolitan literary idiom, and second in forging a new syntactical conciseness and close-knit poetic and literary expression mainly brought about as part of this Turco-Iranian impact.

Though very close to Sanskrit, old Persian had taken a different syntactical line of development. To discuss in detail the nature of the syntactical influences of the Turco-Persian traditions on the modern Indian languages is beyond the scope of this essay but the use of izafat (conjunctional lower apostrophe) alone gave much greater compactness and conciseness to expression.

The same holds good in the case of symbols- and non-religious and non-mythical symbols at that. The Indian Muslim writers in many cases revolutionized the literary idiom by introducing new symbols or by communicating a different conceptual system through old and familiar images and symbols. Even Nazrul Islam, who is greatly influenced by Hindu mythological symbols, introduced several new dimensions to them and introduced a series of symbols from the Turco-Iranian tradition.

The system of symbolism was used in a peculiar way by the ghazal, a poetic genre born in Arabic as an introductory digressive part of Qasida (eulogy) poetry which came to flowering in Persia as a separate form with scattered self-contained couplets bound together by common rhyme and ending with a subjective tone and symbolic expression of its own. Even though the ghazal symbols were not altogether indigenous, its popularity in practically all the modern Indian languages is due to its compact subjectivity and generalised symbolism, which covers at once different fields of human activity. For instance, a ghazal couplet, though apparently addressed to one's beloved can thanks to the prevailing generality of ghazal symbols be recited as a political statement. Hence, the ghazal as poetic form remains popular in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali and several other languages. Not exclusively a contribution of Muslims alone, it has however a Muslim connexion.

This clearly shows that the Muslim contribution to Indian languages and literatures has been a source of strengthening its cosmopolitan links and giving it a modern, secular and worldly look. In fact, this literary contribution was a part of the composite culture, which brought the diverse religious and regional identities together and tried to develop it into a national culture. Unfortunately, the process was rudely interrupted by a long spell of British rule which erected various barriers between the various components and constituents of this composite cultural ethos and the final act of the country's partition undermined the very basis of this emerging synthesis.

In the post-Independence period, Urdu has suffered the greatest setback with total exile from most of the north Indian states and this exile covers schools, libraries, government offices and courts. Yet mushairas are held in almost every important town and attract large crowds. ghazal concerts are a craze and immediate commercial success. Of late, however, Urdu has been accorded the status of the second official language in Bihar and UP and about ten Urdu Academies and a Bureau for Promotion of Urdu have been set up in several states and at the centre.

While Muslim writers are among the prominent literary authors of various Indian languages, in many cases, a sense of alienation separates them from their fellow writers. Recurrent communal Hindu-Muslim riots breed extremists on both ends and create distrust and insecurity. Hence the psyche of the Indian Muslim writer, whether writing in Urdu or Malayalam or Marathi, experiences an ordeal different from his compatriots.

Add to this, the rise of fundamentalism, the eleven year rule of Pakistani military dictators and the reign of orthodox papacy of Imam Khomeini of Iran, which have been posing serious threats to liberalism and rationalism to Muslims everywhere in the world and we get a complete, or a near complete, picture of the context an average Indian Muslim writer finds himself in.

Yet there is a silver lining to this dismal panorama. A number of Indian Muslim writers view their own preservation as well as that of the composite culture evolved through centuries of communion as a part of the defence of democratic values in our land. This crusade cannot be waged and won in isolation but with wider, much wider, cooperation and support of the people. And it is for this that writers, and among them Muslim writers too, though it fit to break the conventional framework of communication media and reach the common man through street theatre. Habib Tanvir attempted to mobilize the actual man in the street and, without any commercialized make-up, express through him the woes and sufferings of a suffocated society. Safdar Hashmi took street theatre to the masses even more vigorously and addressed them on burning topics directly connected with their own lives. For the temerity of criticizing the Establishment he paid the price with his own life, and symbolized the participation and involvement of Indian Muslims in the struggle of making India a safer and a better place to live and in preserving the highest values of a composite culture evolved during centuries of our history.

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The author is a Professor in Urdu at the Center of Indian Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has written 70 books and is an Urdu playwright and literary critic.

Quotations on Muslims in India

© Dr. A. Zahoor 1992, 1997, All Rights Reserved

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (India's Prime Minsiter 1947-64) in ‘The Discovery of India,’ 1946, p. 218, 225.
“The impact of the invaders from the north-west and of Islam on India had been considerable. It had pointed out and shone up the abuses that had crept into Hindu society - the petrification of caste, untouchability, exclusiveness carried to fantastic lengths. The idea of the brotherhood of Islam and the theoretical equality of its adherents made a powerful appeal especially to those in the Hindu fold who were denied any semblance of equal treatment.�
“...his (Babar’s) account tells us of the cultural poverty that had descended on North India. Partly this was due to Timur's destruction, partly due to the exodus of many learned men and artists and noted craftsmen to the South. But this was due also to the drying up of the creative genius of the Indian people.�

“The coming of Islam and of a considerable number of people from outside with different ways of living and thought affected these beliefs and structure. A foreign conquest, with all its evils, has one advantage: it widens the mental horizon of the people and compels them to look out of their shells. They realize that the world is a much bigger and a more variegated place than they had imagined. So the Afghan conquest had affected India and many changes had taken place. Even more so the Moghals, who were far more cultured and advanced in the ways of living than the Afghans, brought changes to India. In particular, they introduced the refinements for which Iran was famous.�

Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Presidential Address to the Fifty-fifth Session of the Indian Congress, Jaipur, 1948.
“(The Muslims had) enriched our culture, strengthened our administration, and brought near distant parts of the country... It (the Muslim Period) touched deeply the social life and the literature of the land.�

Humayun Kabir in 'The Indian Heritage,' 1955, p. 153.
“Islam's democratic challenge has perhaps never been equaled by any other religious or social system. Its advent on the Indian scene was marked by a profound stirring of consciousness. It modified the basis of Hindu social structure throughout northern India.�

N.S. Mehta, in 'Islam and the Indian Civilization,' reproduced in 'Hindustan ke Ahd-i-Wusta ki ek Jhalak,' by S.A. Rahman.
“Islam had brought to India a luminous torch which rescued humanity from darkness at a time when old civilizations were on the decline and lofty moral ideals had got reduced to empty intellectual concepts. As in other lands, so in India too, the conquests of Islam were more widespread in the world of thought than in the world of politics. Today, also, the Islamic World is a spiritual brotherhood which is held together by community of faith in the Oneness of God and human equality. Unfortunately, the history of Islam in this country remained tied up for centuries with that of government with the result that a veil was cast over its true spirit, and its fruits and blessings were hidden from the popular eye.�

Prof. K.M. Panikkar in 'A Survey of Indian History,' 1947, p. 163.
“One thing is clear. Islam had a profound effect on Hinduism during this period. Medieval theism is in some ways a reply to the attack of Islam; and the doctrine of medieval teachers by whatever names their gods are known are essentially theistic. It is the one supreme God that is the object of the devotee's adoration and it is to His grace that we are asked to look for redemption.�

Zaheeruddin Babar in his Autobiography 'Tuzuk-i-Babari,' (Founder of Mughal Dynasty, Ruled India 1526-1530).
“There are neither good horses in India, nor good meat, nor grapes, nor melons, nor ice, nor cold water, nor baths, nor candle, nor candlestick, nor torch. In the place of the candle, they use the divat. It rests on three legs: a small iron piece resembling the snout of a lamp... Even in case of Rajas and Maharajas, the attendants stand holding the clumsy divat in their hands when they are in need of a light in the night.

“There is no arrangement for running water in gardens and buildings. The buildings lack beauty, symmetry, ventilation and neatness. Commonly, the people walk barefooted with a narrow slip tied round the loins. Women wear a dress ...�

Dr. Gustav le Bon in 'Les Civilisations de L'Inde' (translated by S.A. Bilgrami).
"There does not exist a history of ancient India. Their books contain no historical data whatever, except for a few religious books in which historical information is buried under a heap of parables and folk-lore, and their buildings and other monuments also do nothing to fill the void for the oldest among them do not go beyond the third century B.C. To discover facts about India of the ancient times is as difficult a task as the discovery of the island of Atlantis, which, according to Plato, was destroyed due to the changes of the earth... The historical phase of India began with the Muslim invasion. Muslims were India's first historians."

Sir William Digby in 'Prosperous India: A Revelation,' p. 30.
"England's industrial supremacy owes its origin to the vast hoards of Bengal and the Karnatik being made available for her use....Before Plassey was fought and won, and before the stream of treasure began to flow to England, the industries of our country were at a very low ebb."
Brooks Adams in 'The Law of Civilization and Decay,' London, 1898, pp. 313-17.

"Very soon after Plassey the Bengal plunder began to arrive in London, and the effect appears to have been instantaneous, for all authorities agree that the Industrial Revolution, the event that has divided the l9th century from all antecedent time, began with the year 1760....Plassey was fought in 1757, and probably nothing has ever equaled the rapidity of the change which followed....In themselves inventions are passive, many of the most important having laid dormant for centuries, waiting for a sufficient store of force to have accumulated to have set them working. That store must always take the shape of money, and money not hoarded, but in motion.

"...Before the influx of the Indian treasure, and the expansion of credit which followed, no force sufficient for this purpose existed....The factory system was the child of 'Industrial Revolution,' and until capital had accumulated in masses, capable of giving solidity to large bodies of labour, manufactures were carried on by scattered individuals....Possibly since the world began, no investment has ever yielded the profit reaped from the Indian plunder, because for nearly fifty years Great Britain stood without a competitor."

Recounting Untold Story: M. Burhanuddin Qasmi

Recounting Untold Story
Darul Uloom Deoband
a heroic struggle against the British tyranny

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Role of Fatawa in the Freedom Movement

By Zafarul Islam Islahi

It is an established fact that the Muslims after their settlement in India adopted it as their home and considered it their duty to work for socio- economic and cultural development of the country and general welfare of the people. In fact, they took part in the freedom movement with the same sense of duty and worked whole-heartedly along with their country-fellows to achieve the desired goal of the freedom of their homeland. The different sections of the Muslim society, including ulama, utilised their respective resources for this purpose.

As torchbearers of the Muslim community, the ulama employed various methods to serve the cause of the freedom movement. Apart from actively participating in different programmes of the movement which were going on in those days under the leadership of Gandhiji, they did their best to make the movement successful through their speeches, writings and issuing fatwa for creating awareness among the Muslims about the Britishers or in support of the crucial programmes of the freedom movement.

The fatwa (pl. fatawa), as it is well-known, is exposition of the Shariat's point of view by a mufti or a learned jurist with regard to any emergent problem in response to a legal query (istifta) by any person or on his own. As a matter of fact, the institution of ifta (writing or issuing fatwa) is an integral part of Islamic juridical system and has important role in guiding the ummah in emergent problems or new situations. It is pertinent to explain here that the fatwa issued by the competent legal authority about any issue is given much importance by the common Muslims, because it is believed that a fatwa is a declaration of the Shariat's point of view expressed either in the light of the Quran and Hadith or through interpreting their text. As such it is considered binding as a provision of the Shariat, though, of course, a mufti individually can not force any one to follow his fatwa. It can not be denied that in recent times, some of the fatawa issued by certain muftis in haste, without thorough examination of the concerned cases, have undermined the dignity of this great institution of Islam.

The issuing fatwa is not an easy job as it is generally thought. It requires extreme care and utmost regard for the well-defined principles of the ifta. As a matter of fact, issuing fatwa or delivering legal verdict about different issues or cases has a very old history in India. In the modern media, the fatwa is sometimes dubbed as document which negates democratic principles, serves the sectarian approach and undermines the rights of women and non-Muslims. It has been forgotten that it was the fatwa which had set into motion the struggle against the Britishers who had established their control over India and had snatched the rights of the Indians to rule over their country. There are enough evidences to suggest that fatawa of the Indian ulama had mobilized the Muslims to render services and make sacrifices for the sake of their homeland and had boosted the cause of the freedom movement in its several stages.

In the history of the freedom movement in India, the fatwa of Shah Abdul Aziz Dehlawi, issued in 1803, has crucial importance as it declared India of that time as Darul Harb and thus prompted the Muslims to start struggle against the Britishers and permitted them to wage war for bringing change in the situation.

In fact, it was the starting point of the freedom movement in a practical way, though it is rightly said that the ground for the movement was actually prepared by the writings of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (d. 1762 CE) about the political situation of India in the 18th century. The historic fatwa of Shah Abdul Aziz was endorsed by many ulama of that period, including Qazi Sanaullah Panipati, Shah Rafiuddin, Shah Abdul Qadir, Shah Ismail Shaheed, Shah Muhammad Ishaq and Mufti Ilahi Bakhsh. It is noteworthy that the fatwa of some of these ulama had clearly declared that in the present situation it had become obligatory for the Indian Muslims to wage jihad against the Englishmen to change the situation of the country. This edict had certainly given legal sanction for the same to check the enslavement of the country and its inhabitants and had also awakened the people to prepare themselves for further line of action. During the subsequent period, the fatawa continued to be issued by the contemporary ulama in support of the different programmes of the freedom movement. Quite obviously, the fatawa that were issued with the signature of a large number of ulama proved to be more effective. Some such fatawa belonged to the pre- and post-first war of independence. Just before the painful event of 1857, when the Britishers were exhausting their energies to gain full control over Delhi and were damaging the life and property of those who were resisting it, a fatwa was issued with the signature of 31 ulama of Delhi, which declared jihad farz-i-ain for the Muslims of Delhi and farz-i kifayah for those of adjoining areas. The signatories to the fatwa included Sayyed Nazir Husain, Maulana Rahmatullah Kairanwi, Mufti Sadruddin, Mufti Ikramuddin, Maulana Abdul Karim, Shah Abdul Ghani Mujaddidi, Mufti Rahmat Ali Khan and Maulana Ilahi Bakhsh.

It is well-known that after 1857, the main target of revengeful action of the British government were Muslims, as they had led the first war of independence and had posed great challenge to the rising power of the Britishers. In this situation, some of the ulama, including Maulana Kifayatullah of Muradabad reinforced the above edict to motivate the Muslims for struggle against the oppressive Government.

Another important fatwa issued by Shaikhul Hind, Maulana Mahmud Hasan in July, 1920 is related to non-cooperation with the British Government, which was actually an important part of the freedom movement to put pressure on it. The fatwa of the Shaikhul Hind declared it unlawful for the Muslims to join the government service, especially in police and army and to cooperate with it in any way. The fatwa endorsed by a large number of ulama in the meeting of the Jamiatul Ulama (held at Calcutta in September, 1920) was printed with the signature of 474 ulama and distributed in different parts of the country. It contributed a lot to make the programme of non-cooperation more effective as many Muslims following the dictates of the fatwa left the government jobs, discarded the military service and returned the government awards and titles. Moreover, echoing the same edict, a resolution supported strongly by Ali brothers, was passed in the Khilafat Conference session of September, 1921, (held at Karachi) openly declaring the police or military service of the British government unlawful (haram). Subsequently, the resolution was compiled under the fatwa format by Shaikhul Islam Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani and was signed by him along with Maulana Nisar Ahmad and Peer Ghulam Mujaddid. It was also sent in the printed form to several parts of the country, which generated more heat in the freedom movement as the non-cooperation had become a mass programme among Muslims due to the impact of the fatwa. The situation was quite alarming for the government which took steps to suppress the rising impact of the fatwa by seizing it and arresting the compiler and supporters of the same. It was the same fatwa on the basis of which the famous Karachi case of inciting sedition was started against the above prominent freedom fighters who were put to trial and finally awarded punishment of two years rigorous imprisonment. Instead of bringing any setback to the movement, these repressive measures spread the message of the fatwa far and wide and strengthened the people's resolve to go ahead on the path of the freedom.

In addition to the non-cooperation programme, the salt satyagraha movement started by Gandhiji in March, 1930 against the anti-people salt law of the government also proved to be more effective to air the feelings of resentment and anger against the Britishers and exhorted them to work more vigorously to relieve the country from their oppressive and unjust rule. The Muslims, including ulama, actively participated in this historical satyagraha, and worked hard to give it wider acceptance through their speeches and writings. Some of them, like Mufti Atiqur Rahman Usmani, are reported to have given a verdict that no government has right to levy tax on items like water and salt and that it is permissible to make struggle against a government which dares to do it. Such fatwa had led to create more awareness among the common Muslims for participation in the satyagraha.

It is well-known that the freedom movement and the Khilafat Tahrik were interlinked. They got support and strength from each other. The whole-hearted support of Gandhiji to this Tahrik had made it an all India issue. Consequently, the Khilafat Tahrik had given great strength to the Hindu-Muslim relationship and their unity which was obviously the most powerful source for the country to achieve the lofty goal of freedom from the foreign rule. The Indian ulama, as is well- known, had been in the forefront in the Khilafat movement led by Ali brothers. Though I could not come across any formal fatwa issued in support of this movement, but it could not be overlooked that this Tahrik itself was started on the basis of the well-considered opinion of the Indian ulama that according to the Shariat at that time no one was legitimate Khalifa of Muslims except the Sultan of Turkey. So, the Muslims all over the world were required to raise this issue and work for restoration of his Khilafat. Moreover, just about one month before the formation of the Khilafat Committee in India, in a public meeting of Anjuman Muaiyyidul Islam held in Farangi Mahal (Lucknow) in February, 1919 under the chairmanship of Maulana Abdul Bari Farangi Mahli, it was resolved unanimously that a fatwa giving details of the rules of the Shariat about the institution of Khilafat be prepared and after being signed by the ulama of the Arab and Islamic countries be sent to the Governor General.

Another well-known matter which was juridically examined by the ulama in course of the freedom movement was joining the Congress party by the Muslims and working in coordination and cooperation with the Hindus to bring freedom to their country. Some of the ulama of the period put their seal to it by their fatawa to remove any misgiving, if found in this regard. The fatwa in support of joining the Congress party had been issued by the famous freedom fighter Maulana Habibur Rahman Ludhianwi in 1888. It was published with the signature of about 300 ulama and distributed in different parts of country. This fatwa, though confiscated by the government like other important fatawa, had also served the cause of the freedom movement, because it is generally accepted that among the political parties of that time the Congress was playing the leading role in this movement. In the same way, many ulama of the period stressed the need of the Muslims jointly working with the Hindus against the Britishers who had subjugated their country and had enslaved them. What is important in this regard is that some of them openly declared that there was no bar from the Shariat for Muslims working with non-Muslims for a good cause.

In brief, it is quite clear from the above details that many important programmes of the freedom movement were supported by the ulama and given wide acceptance among the Muslims through their fatawa. This was actually an important part of the multi-dimensional role of the ulama (especially those belonging to Darul Uloom, Deoband) in the freedom movement which is generally overlooked by the historians and writers of the modern period. The real importance of their fatawa lies in the fact that they contributed to build up the opinion of the common Muslims against the Britishers who had adopted repressive policies towards the Indians particularly Muslims and under whose rule their life and property was insecure and their religious and political rights were in peril. Besides, these fatawa led to make them more active and dutiful with regard to the struggle for freedom of the country. The Britishers, as also became clear from the above deliberations, were themselves fully aware of the inherent impact of the fatwa and had tried their best, though unsuccessfully, to suppress it by seizing copies of different fatawa and subjecting their authors, printers and propagators to harsh and humiliating punishment. It may be also added here that the fatawa referred to above in relation to the freedom movement are merely a fragmented part of huge fatawa literature of the same nature available in the well-known Fatawa-collections, records of Darul Ifta of different madrasahs and treasures of private libraries. These are required to be brought out, studied thoroughly and compiled systematically to assess their quantum and to find out the real role of this hitherto-neglected literature produced by the Indian ulama.

Lastly, it can not be missed to point out that the ulama, who prepared the above fatawa and took care of their distribution in printed form among the people to make them more effective, were mostly products of the madrasahs or institutions of Islamic learning. This strongly supports the view that they are not only assets to the Muslim community, they are also rendering (as they did in the past) many services (khidmat) to the country – the noblest being promotion of learning, reform of moral life and socio-cultural upliftment of the people. Their good works, undoubtedly, cannot be obliterated by the ongoing hateful campaign and adverse comments about them in a section of modern media.

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Professor Islahi teaches in the department of Islamic Studies, AMU

Source: The Milli Gazette, 1-15 November 2006, p. 16

Seringapatam 1799: Tipu Sultan falls

This website has documents related to this important battle, which brings India in complete control of the British:

http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/digital/seringapatam/index.html