Enhancing understanding of Muslim communities in South Asia

Book review: Being Muslim in South Asia

By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net,


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History of Islam in South Asia is almost as old as Islam in Arabia. Population of Arab nations is estimated to be 370 million while more than 500 million Muslims live in South Asian countries. But Arab-centric writings on Islam have done a great disservice.



“Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh are the second-, third-, and fourth-largest Muslim countries in the world, surpassed only by Indonesia,” write editors Robin Jeffrey and Ronojoy Sen in the Introduction to Being Muslim in South Asia: Diversity and Daily Life.

Muslims have been coming to this part of the world as traders, travelers, invaders, seeking employment & education. Mappilas in Malabar are earliest examples of Muslims living as a minority under a non-Muslim ruler. The first book of commentary on Hadith was written in Gujarat. Some of the first translations of Quran were in Delhi. Some of the pioneering work on Sufism and Islamic philosophy was done by South Asian Sufis and scholars such as Yahya Maneri, Ahmad Sirhandi and Shah Waliullah.

So, what explains the lack of research into these resources and communities with such a rich history and contributions to Islam?

The book under review seeks to redress it by making the first attempt to look at all of South Asian Muslim communities. This results in 15 chapters covering topics such as ‘Matrilocal Marriage and Women’s Property among the Moors of Sri Lanka’ to ‘The Ismaili Conciliation and Arbitration Boards in India: A Model of Community Justice?’; from ‘Ilm and the Individual: Religious Education and Religious Ideas in Pakistan’ to ‘‘Being Muslim’ in Contemporary India: Nation, Identity, and Rights’ and to ‘Muslim Aspirations in Bangladesh: Looking Back and Redrawing Boundaries.’

The book contains several articles that enhance understanding about the Muslim communities in South Asia. For instance, the way Muhammad Khalid Masud articulates various responses to “modernity” among South Asian Muslims. In the chapter titled ‘Islam and Modernity in South Asia’ Masud writes that Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was the first Muslim to realized the need for developing a new Islamic theology to respond to the challenges of modernity. “We should either refute doctrines of modern sciences, or undermine their foundations, or show that they are in conformity with Islam,” said Syed Ahmad in 1884. Traditional ulama rejected the need for a new theology and instead scholars such as Jamaluddin Afghani believed regaining political power was the key to Muslim response to modernity. Masud argues that “choosing Afghani over Sir Syed deeply impacted the later development of Muslim societies.”

In the chapter titled ‘Islam and Democracy in India’ famous academician and an authority on South Asian Muslims Barbara D Metcalf profiles Muslim leaders – over the decades – and their political vision within the democratic landscape of India: Muhammad Ali Jinnah of Muslim League, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, Abul A’la Maudidi of Jamaat-e-Islami and Maulana Ghulam Muhammad Vastanvi former VC of Darul Uloom Deoband. “It is clear that even in the face of violence and other challenges, there is a constructive debate going on among India’s most important ulama and among other Muslims,” writes Metcalf.

Drawing attention to Muslims of South India, German researcher Torsten Tscahcher in his paper ‘The Challenges of Diversity’ details the degree of diversity that exists within Tamil Muslims. He blames colonial administrators for creating communities that, like self-fulfilling prophecy, give rise to communities with officially-created identities. “By ‘casting’ Muslim society in south India, the great diversity of Muslim societies in the region could be reduced and assimilated to colonial views of Indian Muslims developed elsewhere in British India.”

Writing about a contemporary development, Dennis B Mcgilvray in his chapter titled ‘Matrilocal Marriage and Women’s Property among the Moors of Sri Lanka’ points out how the aid organization that came to Sri Lanka post-2004 Tsunami damaged the economic position of Muslim women due to lack of awareness about local customs & traditions.

Arif A Jamal provides insight into the functioning of ‘The Ismaili Conciliatino and Arbitration Boards in India’ wherein he writes in detail about how the Ismailis have been able to create a system of arbitration that satisfies the needs of this religious group even while working within the Indian constitution.

Writing on on religious education and religious ideas in Pakistan, Matthew J Nelson gathers data to look at how much influences educational institutions such as madrasas & schools have in shaping the thoughts of an individual Muslim. Nelson found that majority people favored combination of regular schools and madrasas and there were very few who enrolled only in school or only in madrasa. He argues that most Pakistani children are exposed to multiple sources of production of religious ideas. “By focusing on the narrative that madrasas preach extremism, scholars, journalists and others with vested interests give no agency to the individuals and how they deal with religious ideas. Ordinary Muslims draw upon the ideological diversity of their own educational landscape and, then, having done so, go on to refashion that landscape according to their own circumstances.”

The otherwise brilliant compilation has a weak link by way of Taberez Ahmed Neyazi’s chapter on ‘Darul Uloom Deoband’s Approach to Social Issues’. This is a missed opportunity to rigorously look at how the most prominent and influential Islamic education institute in South Asia approaches the modern social issues. At several places, Neyazi fails to provide reference to his claims. He lists some of the issues that Deoband has taken a position on to show how Deoband has repeatedly shown its “progressive stance” e.g. calling India a “darul aman” (abode of peace), criticism of the labeling of Hindus as kafirs, support for the Women’s Reservation Bill and fatwa against terrorism. What would have been a better exercise to do was analyzing Darul Uloom’s fatwas and/or, from an opposite angel, look at the influence of these fatwas on the behavior of Muslims of the subcontinent.

Except for this reviewer’s lone attempt in 2010 to look at a sample of random fatwas, there has been no serious study of Deoband and its infamous fatwas.

Tanweer Fazal’s ‘‘Being Muslim’ in Contemporary India’ captures contemporary identity consciousness of the Muslim of India. Fazal’s sample size is small and only includes Muslims living in Delhi but he has ensured that his sample had social, educational, sectarian, etc diversity. His findings are startling. “The range of opinions … suggests aggressiveness, even brashness, rather than meekness in the face of persistent stigmatization that Muslims face.”

Two chapters on Bangladesh are fascinating and offer high-quality work. Mubashir Hasan writes about ‘Transnational Networks, Political Islam, and the Concept of Ummah in Bangladesh’ and Samia Huq on ‘Muslim Aspirations in Bangaldesh’ that looks at how a new generation of Muslims are redefining what it means to be a Muslim.

Irfan Ahmad’s ‘Kafka in India’ is the only chapter in this book that deals directly with the topic of terrorism. He does so by evaluating Indian media’s portrayal of Muslims vis-à-vis their reporting on terrorism. “Media discourses on terrorism say very little about terrorism or media,” writes Ahmad. “Contrary to denials issued by media pundits and politicians, including mainstream voices, in the so-called civil society, post-9/11 terrorism is ultimately about ‘Muslim terrorists’.”

Ahmad’s detailed analysis also discusses “what remains invisible in the media – the repression of evidence, secret torture chambers and illegal means deployed against those accused as ‘terrorists.’ It is surprising that for such a huge problem that terrorism is, academicians tend to keep a distance. No wonder, even the editors of this book admit to their intention of not discussing the “t word.” Thankfully for the discerning reader, they have included Ahmad’s chapter. Manisha Sethi’s recently released book Kafkaland: Prejudice, Law and Counterterrorism in India is a step in the right direction.

The last chapter of the book, titled ‘A Million Salutes’, is where Ronojoy Sen takes to document the history of Kolkata’s Mohammedan Sporting Club to underscore the contribution of this great institution in shaping the then Muslim identity. “In pre-partition Bengal, Mohammedan Sporting was a source of Muslim identity and pride … those ties have weakened considerably in post-1947 India.”

This club’s golden history is largely forgotten – appearing for the first time in the League it went on to become the first Indian team to win the Calcutta First Division Football League in 1934 and then winning four times between 1935 and 1938. In 1936, Mohammed Sporting won both the League and the IFA Shield becoming the second Indian team to win IFA Shield after Mohun Bagan. Mohammedan Sporting is also credited with producing India’s first international football player, Salim, who played for Scotland’s Celtic Football Club in 1936. They were the first Indian footballers to feature in advertisements.

Sen’s brilliantly-written article not only lists the achievements of the most famous – but now facing financial crunch – club but also provides the social and political context that led to the success of the club, which in turn, fed the growth of the social and political environment that was conducive for the success of the club.

Overall, the editors have done an excellent work in casting a wide net of academics and topics for this book. However, this has also made the book appear disjointed. Despite such issues, the book is a welcome addition to the sparse academic work on Muslims of South Asia.

Title: Being Muslim in South Asia: Diversity and Daily Life
(Hardcover)
Edited by Robin Jeffrey, Ronojoy Sen
Hardcover: 356 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press (July 8, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0198092067
ISBN-13: 978-0198092063

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