Routledge

293 Pages·2012·1.74 MB·English

THE SHADE OF SWORDS

THE SHADE OF SWORDS
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M.J. AKBAR
London and New York
First published in the UK in 2002
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published
in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
by Roli Books
M-75, Greater Kailash - II (Market), New Delhi - 48, India
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2002 M.J. Akbar
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-415-28470-8
To the memory of Ammiji and
Abbaji, who are still with me

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Preface xiii
Introduction xv
1 Chapter and Verse 1
2 The Joys of Death: A Bargain with Allah 12
3 Rebellions in the Dark of the Night 26
4 A Map of Islam 40
5 Circle of Hell 52
6 Allah! Muhammad! Saladin! 67
7 The Doors of Europe 83
8 Jihad in the East: A Crescent Over Delhi 99
9 The Holy Sea: Pepper and Power 113
10 The Bargain Goes Sour 131
11 The Wedge and the Gate 145
12 History as Anger, Jihad as Non-violence 160
13 Islam in Danger Zone 177
14 Jinnah Redux and the Age of Osama 189
Glossary 214
A Suggested Reading List 218
Thumbnail Sketches 228
A Relevant Calendar 239
Index 251

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Authors are loath to admit it but they labour under both conception
and misconception. Time is one judge of the difference. This book has
had an exceptionally tortured pregnancy, so the list of those in whose
debt I am is long, much longer than the few names that will appear.
One of the first essays that I wrote on the shifting mood of the Islamic
world emerged out of travel in the 1980s through the debris of a collaps-
ing Soviet Union, and the sudden surge of Islam through some of the
oldest Muslim countries in the world, in Central Asia. Faith quickly filled
the space left behind by retreating communism.
My first visit to the region was in the same year that Margaret Thatcher
tested Mikhail Gorbachev’s dawn by lighting a candle in a church in
Moscow. The cue was irresistible. I insisted to my guide on a conducted
tour of Dushanbe that on the coming Friday I wanted to pray at a mosque
since I had been informed that Comrade Mikhail had released religion
from Marxist chains. Allah knows how many telex messages were ex-
changed between my guide and his masters in Moscow. (Remember the
telex? This book began in the pre-e-mail age and this is as good a time as
any to acknowledge that this book could never have been completed in
time without the blessed e-mail. So thank you, Bill Gates, or whoever.)
When Friday arrived they drove me through some exquisite country for
a couple of hours till we reached a mosque adjoining the shrine of a Sufi
pir, or master. They had not been able to locate a mosque nearer than
that.
The startled mullahs offered me a mute and suspicious welcome, very
apprehensive at the thought of Marxist Moscow bringing a believer to
their doorstep. They spread the finest melons, pomegranates and dry fruit