Discourses on violence, peace and Islam after 9/11: a critical reading of Asghar Ali Engineer

104 Pages·2015·0.83 MB·English

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Surname, Initial(s). (2012) Title of the thesis or dissertation. PhD. (Chemistry)/ M.Sc. (Physics)/
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DISCOURSE OF PEACE, VIOLENCE AND ISLAM AFTER 9/ 11:
CRITICAL READING OF ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER

By
Ashraf Kunnummal

MA DISSERTATION
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements
for the Degree
in
MASTERS OF ARTS
in
SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
in the
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
at the
UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG

SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR F. ESACK
2014
AFFIDAVIT: MASTER’S AND DOCTORAL STUDENTS
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
This serves to confirm that I ASHRAF KUNNUMMAL, Indian Passport Number H0543931, student number 201241817 enrolled
for the Qualification of MASTERS IN ARTS in the Faculty of Humanities herewith declare that my academic work is in line
with the Plagiarism Policy of the University ofJohannesburg, with which I am familiar.
I further declare that the work presented in the dissertation is authentic and original unless clearly indicated otherwise, and in such
instances full reference to the source is provided. I do not presume to receive any credit for such acknowledged quotations, and
there is no copyright infringement in my work. I declare that no unethical research practices were used or material gained through
dishonesty. I understand that plagiarism is a serious offence, and that should I contravene the Plagiarism Policy, notwithstanding
signing this affidavit, I may be found guilty of a serious criminal offence (perjury). This would among other consequences compel
the UJ to inform all other tertiary institutions of the offence and to issue a corresponding certificate of reprehensible academic
conduct to whoever requests such a certificate from the institution.

Signed at Johannesburg on this day of 20 .

Signature______________________________
Name_____________________________

STAMP COMMISSIONER OF OATHS
Affidavit certified by a Commissioner of Oaths
This affidavit conforms with the requirements of the JUSTICES OF THE PEACE AND COMMISSIONERS OF OATHS ACT 16
OF 1963 and the applicable Regulations published in the GG
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..............................................................................................................
ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................
INTRODUCTION
Contemporary Islam, Reform and Asghar Ali Engineer ...........................................................................................
The Discourse on Violence and Peace after 11 September 2011 ................................................................................
A Critical Engagement with Islamic Reform ..............................................................................................................
Asghar Ali Engineer’s Writings ...................................................................................................................................
Theoretical Framework.................................................................................................................................................
Structure of the Dissertation .........................................................................................................................................
CHAPTER 1
ISLAM AND VIOLENCE: A CRITIQUE
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................
11 September 2001 and Contemporary Form of Violence .........................................................................................
Islam and Violence: A Critique ....................................................................................................................................
Violent Acts: Pre-modern and Modern .......................................................................................................................
Inhuman Act and Human Response ............................................................................................................................
Text and Violence ..........................................................................................................................................................
Violence, Text and the Reader ......................................................................................................................................
Islam, Left and Violence................................................................................................................................................
Left, Violence and Terrorism .......................................................................................................................................
Feminism, Violence and Terrorism ..............................................................................................................................
Conclusion: Global Public Sphere and the Politics of Hearing and Speaking about Islam ....................................
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CHAPTER 2
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF ISLAMIC REFORM
Islamic Reform: Problematising History .....................................................................................................................
Major Issues in Islamic Reform: Context of Colonialism .........................................................................................
Context of Post-colonialism ..........................................................................................................................................
Revivalists and Islamic Reform ....................................................................................................................................
Islamic Reform and Muslim Modernists .....................................................................................................................
‘Fundamentalists’ and Islamic Reform .......................................................................................................................
Progressive Islam and Islamic Reform after 11 September 2001 ..............................................................................
The Dissents of Islamic Feminism ................................................................................................................................
Islamic Reform: A Postcolonial Critique .....................................................................................................................
Problem of Definition and Naming: Salman Sayyid ..................................................................................................
Islamic Reform and Hegemony: Readings of Saba Mahmood and Hamid Dabashi ...............................................
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................................................
CHAPTER 3
LIFE AND TIMES OF ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER
Locating South Asian Islam ..........................................................................................................................................
Islam in India .................................................................................................................................................................
South Asian Islam and Reform ....................................................................................................................................
Sociological View of Reform .........................................................................................................................................
Social Location of Asghar Ali Engineer .......................................................................................................................
Communalism and Asghar Ali Engineer .....................................................................................................................
An Indian Debate on Communalism ............................................................................................................................
Communalism: Critiques of Engineer .........................................................................................................................
Asghar Ali Engineer as a Bohra Reformer ..................................................................................................................
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Tharkunde –Nathwani Commission. ..........................................................................................................................
Incidents of physical assaults ........................................................................................................................................
Social Movements by Asghar Ali Engineer .................................................................................................................
Engineer and Islamic texts ............................................................................................................................................
Note on Indian Muslim Biography ...............................................................................................................................
Limits of Liberation: Dalit Muslim Critical Perspective ...........................................................................................
CHAPTER 4
PEACE AND VIOLENCE AFTER 11 SEPTEMBER 2001
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................
Newer Discourse ............................................................................................................................................................
Asghar Ali Engineer on September 11 .........................................................................................................................
Engineer and 11 September 2001: A Counter Narrative ...........................................................................................
Gandhi, 11 September 2001 and Muslims ...................................................................................................................
Nation State and Violence .............................................................................................................................................
Is there an essential Islamic response? ........................................................................................................................
From Jihad to Ijtihad ....................................................................................................................................................
Naming the Violence ......................................................................................................................................................
Empire, Peace and War ................................................................................................................................................
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...........................................................................................................................

5
Acknowledgement
I owe special gratitude to Professor Farid Esack for everything that he has done for me which I
might not be able to sufficiently express in words. He has been a constant source of inspiration
and an excellent guru who has love and compassion from which I have benefited throughout my
stay and study in Johannesburg. During the writing of this dissertation his advice, suggestions and
encouragement led me to its completion.
The Department of Religion Studies at the University of Johannesburg was an excellent space for
meaningful debate and conversation. I thank Dr Shahid Mathee for many intellectual exchanges
and his ability to listen with heart was important for me during the time of writing. I also wish to
express my deep sense of gratitude to my colleague Jameel Asani for the assistance that he gave
me throughout the time of the writings. There are three people to whom I owe special thanks:
Shameer K S, Nadeem Mahomed and Abu Bakr Sadiq Abdul Kadir. I also like to extend my
gratitude to Charlene Louw, Gadija Ahjum, Mustafa Mehta and Elina Hankela for their support
during the work of this dissertation.

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Abstract
The aim of this dissertation is to offer a critical, postcolonial reading of Asghar Ali Engineer (d.
2013)’s work on violence, peace and terrorism. The context of this work is the aftermath of 11
September 2001 in India where Engineer’s intellectual ideas on violence and peace evolved and
received extensive coverage. In order to attain the goal of this study the following objectives will
be pursued: 1) An acknowledgement of the immense contribution of Engineer to Indian Islam. 2)
An evaluation of his ideas from the critical perspective of the recent debates on Muslim minorities,
Indian nationalism and secularism. 3) A presentation of the complexities of Engineer’s activist
intellectual life through the recent debate on Islamic reformism as a global phenomenon and
through the lens of post-colonialism. The theoretical framework for this study is based on
postcolonial theory. It is an intellectual discourse that presents an analyses of, and responses to,
the cultural legacies of colonialism and of imperialism and its new forms. Using this theoretical
framework, firstly, this dissertation provides an overview of recent theoretical approaches to global
violence and peace including recent theoretical understandings on religious violence and Islam.
Second, this dissertation focuses on Islamic reformism, reformist intellectuals and their approaches
to violence. Third, this dissertation presents a detailed biographical engagement on Asghar Ali
Engineer. His personal story and intellectual background will also help to understand his
theoretical framework and intellectual leanings. Finally, this dissertation reads Engineer’s
writings and activism with regard to peace and violence after 11 Septemberk2001.
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Introduction
Contemporary Islam, Reform and Asghar Ali Engineer
Discussions about Islam and violence have a long history and can be traced to the Middle Ages
(Mastnak 2010:32). The relationship between Islam and violence has seen historical, political and
religious shifts, reaching a particular historical and rather dramatic juncture with the 11 September
2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the United States of America. This
cycle of violence continued with some of its more spectacular displays being the London bombings
on7 July 2005 and the Mumbai attacks on 26 November 2008, among others. It is in this context
that the late Indian reformist-intellectual Asghar Ali Engineer (d. 2013) was an important figure
in analysing the contemporary discourse on Islam and violence. Engineer was an Indian Muslim
scholar who engaged extensively with the question of reform within Islam (Hunter 2009:179).
Engineer, who was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2004, had just two years prior to his
demise released his autobiography entitled A Living Faith: My Quest for Peace, Harmony and
Social Change (2011). His Bohra1family background in Maharashtra, in pre-partition India, is
essential in understanding his reformist agenda (Taib 2006:56). As a student, Engineer was
influenced by the Indian nationalist movement, Islam and Marxism. Most of his works are the
fusion of these intellectual traditions (Engineer 2011). He was the founder of the Institute of
Islamic Studies (est. 1980) and the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (est. 1993) in
Mumbai, India. Engineer wrote extensively on Sufism, liberation theology, Marxism, modernism,
gender, caste, secularism, communalism, nationalism, violence, Islamism, and postmodernism
(Engineer 2011). He was also a leading figure in the formation of the Asian Muslim Action
Network (AMAN), an organization working towards social justice and combating violence (Taib
2006:55). Engineer did extensive work on communalism and communal violence in post partition
India since the first major riot in Jabalpur, India in 1961. His work in this field is considered
pioneering, and in recognition thereof, Calcutta University conferred an honorary degree of D.

1 Bohras are a sect of Shi’ia Muslims known as Musta’li Isma’ilis. They are mainly concentrated
in the North Indian states particularly Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra (Engineer 2011:3). For a
more detailed discussion on Bohras, please see Blank 2001.
1
Litt. on him in 1983. Engineer’s works are mostly non-academic in style although he has both a
popular and academic readership (ibid. 2006:2).
Engineer’s work focuses on the question of peace and harmony, specifically in the context of
Indian nationalism, the partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947, and
the numerous Hindu-Muslim riots that followed it in various parts of India. Achin Vanaik and Paul
R Brass (2002) edited a volume titled Competing Nationalism in South Asia in honour of Engineer.
Which offers a collection of essays of uneven quality on competing nationalism in South Asia
(Harshe 2003:1773). Subsequently Engineer tried to understand the plight of Indian Muslims as a
minority in order to develop a religious discourse. This he does while remaining loyal to the Indian
nation state by following a Gandhian framework of social analysis throughout. The Gandhian
framework of social analysis is significant in that it was grown out of the Indian nationalist
movement that criticized colonial modernity in relation to the traditional Indian social fabric
(Nandi 1987:35-64).
Engineer’s major intellectual concern is the violence occurring in the Indian nation state. Amir
Mufti (2007:1) observed that collective violence is the dominant language that communities in the
Indian subcontinent used to communicate with each other after the formation of postcolonial nation
states. Engineer frames the fundamental and dominant mode of violence that exists within the
Indian nation state to be the Hindu-Muslim riots which Indian nationalist historiography terms as
communalism (Pandey 2012). Engineer tried to understand and solve the issue of communal
violence through various ways of Islamic reform and inter-religious conversations. He attempted
to reread the Islamic texts, history and tradition in order to reshape the violent present. For instance,
he believed that the classical Islamic tradition in the form of Sufism will resolve this tension among
the two communities. He said: “We are faced with a very serious problem of communal conflict
in our contemporary society […]. We must look up to our past heritage, especially to those that
belong to the Sufi or Bhakti Movement” (Engineer 2008: 52). Engineer’s engagement was limited
to the Indian Subcontinent and he was regarded as an expert in the field of inter-religious violence.
After 11 September 2001, there was a growing demand to reform Islam from within, due to the
shifting interests of global power (Mahmood 2008:84). With an immense experience of addressing
violence in India, Engineer became an active and prominent international public figure who
addressed the question of violence due to this historic condition (Engineer 2011). He consistently
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