Islam, Politics and Society in South Asia

197 Pages·1991·38.732 MB·English

by  André Wink

ISLAM, POLITICS AND
SOCIETY IN SOUTH ASIA
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UNIVERSITA usott stunt 111 VENEZIA
DIPARTIMENTO m stunt EURASIATICI
Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Modern South Asian
Studies, Venice 1988
Trade and Politics in the Indian Ocean: Historical and
Contemporary Perspectives (ed. Giorgio Borsa)
Regional Disparities in India: Rural and Industrial Dimensions
(eds. Dietmar Rothennund and Suranjit Kumar Saha)
Rites and Beliefs in Modem India
(ed. Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi)
Language versus Dialect: Linguistic and Literary Essays on
Hindi, Tamil and Sarnami (ed. Mariola Offiedi)
Islam, Politics and Society in South Asia
(ed. Andie Wink)
Nationalism, Ethnicity and Political Development in South Asia
(ed. Diethelm Weidemann)
Capitalist Form of Production in South Asia: Consequences of
British Policies (ed. Franco Farinelli)
Gender, Caste and Power in South Asia: Social Status and
Mobility in a Transitional Society (ed. John Peter Neelsen)
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%5LAM, POLITICS AND
s CIETY IN SOUTH ASIA
Editor
André Wink
K
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1991
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This volume is sponsored by the Iu.]ian- National Research Council
(CNR - Committee 9 )
ISBN Bl-85425-31-U
First Published 1991
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Contents
Preface
1. Islam as a Social and Political Ideal: The Role of
Mohammad Iqbal in Muslim Reawakening
RM. Molik
2. Evolution of State and Political Structure and
the Role of Islam in Pakistan and Bangladesh
V.N. Moscalenko
3. 'l11e Islamisation ofPakistan and its International
Context
A. Wink
4. Islamizing the Financial Sector in Pakistan:
Main Participants and Final Product
Ch. Gieralhs
5. Change in Traditional Institutions: Waqf in Pakistan
S. Jan-tel Molik
6. Islamic Tradition and Universal Brotherhood
in the Writings of Two Contemporary Deccani Sufis
H. van Skjyhavvk
7. Religious Identities and Indian Politics:
Elections in Aligarh, 1971-I985
V. Grqfi
s. The Babflri Masjid Controversy in India
tuP1w@mh
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Contributors
Christine GIERATHS, Schubertstr. 18, 6904 Eppelheim, Germany.
Violette GRAFF, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 54
Boulevard Raspail, ‘T5006 Paris, France.
Fateh Mohammad MALIK, National Institute of Pakistan Studies,
Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
S. Jamal MALIK, Stldasien-Institut d. Un. Heidelberg, 69 Heidelberg I,
Im Neuenheimer Feld 330, Germany.
Vladimir N. MOSCALENKO, Institute of Oriental Studies, U.S.S.R.
Academy of Sciences, I2 Ulitsa Zhdanova, Moscow 10377,
U.S.S.R.
Hugh van SKYI-IAWK, Siidasien-Institut d. Un. Heidelberg, 69
Heidelberg 1, Im Neuenheimer Fold 330, Germany.
Andre WINK, Institunt Kern, Witte Singel 25, P.0.B.9515, 2300 RA
Leiden, The Netherlands.
Theodore P. WRIGHT Jr, Department of Political Science, State
University of New York at Albany, 135 Westem Avenue,
Albany, New York 12222, U.S.A.
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Preface
This volume contains the proceedings of panel 4 (‘Islam, Politics and
Society in South Asia’) of the 10th Eruopean Conference on Modem
South Asian Studies held at Venice from 28 September to 1 October
1988. Two of the papers presented, by R.M. Eaton and G. Minault,
have been withdrawn as they are to appear separately in monographs,
while the paper contributed by Ch. Wagner is available in another
volume of the conference proceedings. The other eight papers are
reproduced here, with slight modifications, as they were read at the
conference and in the same order.
To have as many as eleven papers presented to a panel on Islam
in South Asia appears to be without precedent in any of the earlier
European Conferences on Modern South Asian Studies.‘ Until the
1978 Conference at Paris there was no panel exclusively devoted to the
subject and the convenor, P. Hardy, concluded that the idea should be
dropped for lack of interest. But in 1986 it appeared possible to have
another panel which again dealt with Islam in South Asia and generated
a substantial number of papers. Then as now most of the papers focused
on Northern India and Pakistan. The present conference however no
longer dealt primarily with the rise of Muslim separatism in connection
with nationalism and communalism but most of all with Zia‘s
Islarnization policy. This came as no surprise as the conference was
held shortly after Z.ia's death.
As a result the volume has an uneven regional coverage,
containing five papers on Pakistan and its antecedents (including
Bangladesh in one case), and three on India. The editor has attempted in
his own paper to give some additional attention to the intemational
context of Zia's Islamization policy which it is hoped will redress this
imbalance to some degree.
A.W.
"' Cf. M. Gab-orieau, ‘The Smdy of Muslim Communities in the European Conferences
on Modern South Asian Sntdiea‘, Paper presented to the Ninth European Conference
on Modem South Asian Studies, 9-12 July I936, Heidelberg.
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1
ISLAM AS A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDEAL:
THE ROLE OF MOHAMMAD IQBAL IN MUSLIM
REAWAKENING
Fateh Mohammad Mali]:
Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938), the spiritual father of Pakistan
dominates Islamic thought in the twentieth century. He sang for the
spiritual regeneration of the whole of mankind. He was a poet-
philosopher with a universal message to ‘lay the foundation of a new
world by wedding intellect with love.'1 But in spite of his abiding
universal outlook and his compelling international concern, he was
intensely preoccupied with the future of his own people and with the
spirit of his own times. He was educated in the Punjab, Cambridge and
Munich. He composed poems of rare vitality and sustained emotional
power in Urdu and Persian and attempted to reinterpret Islam in modem
philosophical terms in his English work entitled Rccortrtrnerion of
Religious Thought in Islam. He was bom in a slave country. During
his lifetime almost all the nations of the East were either groaning
under the mighty sway of British imperialism or under the yoke of
Arabian imperialism. He perceived imperialism as a worldwide system
getting its strength from old and new vested interests within the nations
of the East. He declared war on this order and called upon Muslim
masses to rise against their oppressors, both local and foreign. I-Ie used
his poetry as a powerful weapon to combat political tyranny, social
injustice and economic exploitation. Using ‘Afrang‘ as the metaphor for
western imperialism and ‘Bu Lahb' as the symbol of Arabian
imperialism, he wrote poem after poem in Urdu and Persian to expose
the inner mechanics of this exploitative order. His was the first voice in
the East to be raised against the ‘acquisitive economy which the West
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IalamasaSocia1an-dPoliticalIdeal 2
has developed and imposed on the nations of the East and which has
looked upon man as a thing to be exploited and not a personality to be
developed and enlarged by purely cultural forces‘.3
Economic exploitation, both at the local and the global level, is
one of the recurring themes of his poetry. His political activity is
motivated by the desire to translate his dream of building a universal
community free of fearand want, into reality. During his term of office
as a legislator (1926-30) he subjected the unjust revenue system and the
more-royalist-than-the-Icing landed aristocracy to relentless cfiticism. He
termed the British theory of the Crown's ownership of land as
‘barbarous’. While rejecting the concept of individual ownership of land
as a means of production during his speech in the Legislative Council
on 5 March 1927 he retorted:
We are told that the Mughals claimed such rights; but the people
of the Punjab owned and possessed the land of ‘this country long
before the race of Babur entered into history — the unmistakable
lesson of which is that crowns come and go; the people alone are
immortal.4
The idea of collective ownership of land is the theme of one of his most
fascinating poems in Bal-i-Jibril (Gabriel's Wing) where he bluntly
challenged the landlord:
Landlord! this earth is not thine, is not thine,
Nor yet thy father‘s: no, not thine, nor mine.5
The economic plight of the common mart figured prominently in his
mind. The Presidential Address delivered at the annual session of the
All-India Muslim Conference at Lahore, on 21 March I932 gives a
glimpse of the economic dimension of his vilalist philosophy of Khudi
(the self). In order to rouse and organize the dormant energies of the
‘progressive forces of the community‘, Iqbal suggested, among other
things, formation of youth leagues and volunteer corps for social
service and economic propaganda throughout the country. Referring to
the egalitarian spirit of Islam, he asserted:
I want the proposed youth leagues to specialise in propaganda
work in this connection, and thus to help the peasantry in
escaping from its present bondage. The future of Islam in India
largely depends, in my opinion, on the freedom of Muslim
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