OUR SOLAR SYSTEM.

 

Now, why do we call it Our Solar system? That is because our Sun is one of the huge number of stars in the Universe which have planets orbiting them. Our Solar system is but one of them, so we have to categorise it as our solar system.  

The centre of our Solar system on the very basis of which it exists is the Sun, which accounts for 99.86% of the mass of the solar system.

Our solar system comprises of planets, their moons, Comets and Asteroids.

The weight of our Sun is 1.99*10 raised to the power of 27 tons. It has 8 planets orbiting it as you all know. At one time the number of planets was considered to be 9, but later Pluto was downgraded as a dwarf planet and has thus gone out of the list of Planets brining their number down to 8. 

Earths average distance from the Sun is equivalent to about 150 million Km. This distance is known as the Astronomical Unit or AU.

Apart from the Planets and their Moons, the solar system also consists of the Asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars & Jupiter. The Asteroid belt consists of millions of asteroids which are irregular in diameter. There are 1 million asteroids in the belt that have a diameter of 1 Km or over along with Ceres the dwarf planet which has a diameter of about 950 Km. and accounts for 35% of the mass of the asteroid belt. Ceres weighs app. 9.4* 10 raised to the power of 17 tons which is large, but nowhere compared to our moon, Ceres only has about 1.5% of the our moons mass. It is called a dwarf planet because it has enough gravity to have a round shape unlike the other asteroids whose shape is irregular.

The ASTEROID BELT is a remnant from the formation of the solar system which got formed 4.6 billion years ago. The gravity of Jupiter has prevented the belt of asteroids from forming into a planet. Although there are millions of asteroids in this region, most of it is empty space and spaceships can easily travel through it without any harm.  

The KUIPER BELT is an icy region consisting of many millions of icy fragments and stretches from the end of the orbit of Neptune the last planet about 30 AU from the Sun to 50 AU. It is more like the Asteroid belt but it is far larger. While most asteroids are composed of rock and metal, the Kuiper belt objects are highly frozen containing Methane, Ammonia and Water. The Kuiper belt consists of the dwarf planets like Orcus, Pluto, Haumea, Quaoar and Makemake.

The OORT CLOUD is a theoretical vast spherical shell surrounding the solar system containing billions of icy objects (comets) and is located between 2000 and 200,000 AU from the Sun. It marks the outermost boundary of the solar system. All the Comets come in from either the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud. Like the Asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt, this too originated at the time of formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago. The Oort cloud is home to long period comets which have orbits varying from decades to thousands of years.

The 8 planets of the solar system can be classified into 2 distinct groups: 1. Terrestrial & 2. Giants (Also known as Jovian)

TERRESTRIAL PLANETS are much smaller and have rocky hard surfaces, while the Jovian planets have gases and ices with a low density but with Giant sizes. They lack a solid surface, have extensive ring systems and have many moons.  

TERRESTRIAL PLANETS 

JOVIAN PLANETS are comprised of Hydrogen and Helium with traces of methane, ammonia, water and other gases in their atmospheres. Although to us only Saturn appears to have rings but all the Jovian planets have them but their rings are less brighter than those of Saturn which is the reason why we don’t see them. All of them have numerous moons with Jupiter and Saturn have more than 60 moons each, Uranus more than 20 and Neptune more than 10.

JOVIAN PLANETS 

All the 4 Jovian planets are massive in size but are very low on density. Jupiter is the largest of them all with a 1,43,000 Km diameter. Neptune is the smallest with a 49.500 Km diameter compared to earth’s 12,750 Km.

MERCURY.

Mercury is the smallest and the closest planet to the Sun. It is only slightly larger than our Moon. It has a very minor atmosphere as most of the gases on its surface have escaped due to its extreme heat as well as Suns gravitation. It has a bare atmospheric layer and it does not have any moons at all. Its temperature ranges from 430 degrees Celsius to -180 degrees Celsius and it is a barren and rocky world like our moon.

Mercury orbits the Sun in just 88 days, but it is very slow on its rotation and takes 59 days to complete one rotation. 

Mercury’s thin exosphere consists of Oxygen, Sodium, Hydrogen, Helium and Potassium. It has a diameter of 4880 km compared to about 3500 km for our moon. It is at a distance of 58 million Km from the Sun.

Two spacecraft “Mariner 10” and “Messenger” have gone to Mercury. Messenger mapped Mercury by taking pictures of its surface. 

MERCURY

VENUS.

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is almost like a twin to Earth in size. It has a diameter of about 12100 Km compared to Earth’s 12750 Km. It is at a distance of about 108 million Km from the Sun.

Surprisingly despite being the 2^nd planet in the solar system and being almost double the distance of Mercury from the Sun, it is much hotter than Mercury and is the hottest planet in the Solar system. The heat is because of its thick atmospheric layer consisting of Carbon Dioxide and clouds of Sulphuric acid.

Venus has an atmosphere that is far thicker than any other planet in our solar system. It has an average temperature of 465-470 degrees Centigrade. There is hardly any variation between its day and night temperatures because of its thick atmospheric cloud.  

Venus is earth’s closest planetary neighbour and it is only about 40 million Km away from the earth on average. Apart from the sun and the Moon, Venus is the brightest object visible to us in the sky.

Venus has a retrograde spin that is it spins in the opposite direction than most other planets. Venus is the only planet named after a female God Venus. Venus has valleys and high mountains filled with volcanoes.   

Venus does not have any Moon, but it has a quasi-satellite known as “Zoozve”. Quasi satellites, sometimes called Quasi moons are actually asteroids that orbit the Sun while staying close to a planet. Zoozve ranges in size from 200 to 500 mtrs across.

VENUS

 MARS THE RED PLANET.

Mars had fascinated many an astronomer and there had been many science fiction novels about Martians visiting us. The HG Wells “War of the Worlds” is a classic work creating a fascinating tale about the Martians despite it not being a nice one. 

I always fondly remember the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs which I read a long time ago and found them fascinating. It used the low gravitation of Mars which is about one third of the earth and gives higher muscle power to a guy named John Carter from Earth who accidentally gets transferred to Mars. 

That transfer is certainly impossible but that was a fantasy. Edgar Rice Burroughs really gives rein to his full imagination in that first Mars series novel named “Princess of Mars”.   

Mars is a desert like planet with a thin layer of atmosphere, that too consisting of Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen. This is the only planet in the solar system where we sent rovers to roam the landscape. We have found strong evidence that Mars was much wetter and warmer with a thicker atmosphere billions of years ago.

MARS

Mars was named by the ancient Romans in the name of their God of war as the Planet appeared red which reminded them of blood. Iron minerals in the Martian dirt oxidize (rust) to give it its red colour.  

MARTIAN LANDSCAPE 

Although Mars is unlikely to have any life forms today, there are strong indications that life exited once on Mars.

Mars has a diameter of 3390 km which is about half the size of Earth. Mars is 228 million Km from the Sun (average). The distance of Mars from the earth varies from just 54 million Km to 225 million Km as both the earth and Mars are orbiting the Sun.  

Mars rotates on its axis in about 1 day just like the earth, but the year on Mars is a little over double that of ours. Surprisingly even the axis of rotation of Mars is tilted somewhat similar to earth giving it seasons. 

Mars has 2 moons: Phobos (20 odd Km across) and Deimos (13 odd Km across), both of which are too small and were probably captured asteroids unlike our moon. They are uneven in shape with Deimos being more distorted.

Mars has a very large canyon which is 4800 Km across and is 320 Km at the widest, and 7 Km at the deepest.

Mars has the largest volcano in the solar system named Olympus Mons. It is 3 times taller than Mount Everest.

     OLYMPUS MONS-TALLEST VOLCANO IN THE SOLAR  SYSTEM

There are a number of evidences that water existed in plenty on Mars at about 1 billion years ago. There is water on Mars today but it is only found as ice under the surface in the Polar Regions.

Mars has very thin atmosphere which mostly consist of Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen and Argon. It does not offer any protection against the hits of asteroids, comets and meteorites not to speak of Cosmic rays.

                                   MARTIAN LANDSCAPE

The Martian temperature varies between 20 degrees Celsius and -153 degrees Celsius where nothing can survive.

In one billion years, Earth too would become as uninhabitable as Mars but for different reasons. The Suns luminosity would increase by 10% by then, causing global temperature to increase, the oceans would start to evaporate and our atmosphere would lose Oxygen which would wipe out most complex life forms and leave a dead desert planet which Mars is today but only much hotter. Anyway 100 crore years are far too many to be worried about, because the human species was born only 300,000 years ago.

Look at the terrain of Mars in the following video filmed by one of the Rovers, it is almost similar to the Earth but the difference is it is barren and is without water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy_RPd0rblI

JUPITER 

THE BIG BROTHER OF PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM.

Jupiter is the first of the Jovian planets and it is also by far the biggest planet in our Solar System. Jupiter alone has a mass that is equal to more than 2.5 times of all the other planets combined. Like all other Jovian planets it is full of gases and lacks a solid surface. It weighs 318 times the weight of the earth.

Jupiter has a diameter of about 139,800 Km. If Jupiter is hollow it can take 1000 Earths into it. It is also the oldest planet of all. It rotates the fastest of all planets and completes a rotation in just 9.9 hours despite its huge frame. So it has the shortest day in the solar system. Jupiter’s average distance from the Sun is 778 million Km. Jupiter spins almost upright with very little tilt in its axis and hence does not have any seasons.

JUPITER

Jupiter is full of Hydrogen and Helium and it has swirling clouds of Ammonia and water. It has an extreme climate that cannot support life. But one of its moons “Europa” is a most likely candidate to have life in the ocean underneath the ice sheets. The cloud tops of Jupiter have a temperature of -110 degrees centigrade. However as one descends into Jupiter’s gaseous atmosphere temperature starts increasing drastically and reaches tens of thousands of degrees at its core.

Jupiter has some 95 moons and those include “Io”, “Europa”, “Ganymede” & “Calisto” all of which were discovered by Galileo with a Telescope made by him in 1610. Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system and is bigger than Mercury.

In our solar system, Europa is the best candidate to have life after the earth. It has seas of frozen water and beneath the ice sheets life is likely to exist.

Jupiter too has 4 main rings around it even though we cannot see them from the earth. The composition of Jupiter is more like the Sun full of Hydrogen and Helium. Deep down the atmosphere the temperature and pressure increase compressing Hydrogen into a liquid. This gives Jupiter the largest ocean in the solar system but made of Hydrogen and not water.

There is no surface on Jupiter for the landing of any craft. It is filled with swirling hot gases under tremendous pressure and temperature so no craft can land on Jupiter. Not only that, it cannot fly through its atmosphere either because it would be crushed, melted and vaporized.

Jupiter has colourful stripes and spots on its surface when seen by us through telescopes. Winds on Jupiter reach over 500 km an hour and the stripes may be swirling gases of sulphur and phosphorous.

The famous great red spot of Jupiter, a swirling accretion of clouds is twice as wide as the Earth and has been seen for the past 300 years.

Jupiter has a magnetic field is 20,000 times as powerful as that of the Earth.

SATURN.

Saturn is the 2^nd largest planet in the solar system and the special thing about it is that it is surrounded by beautiful rings which are visible through small telescopes. Although all Jovian planets have rings, those of Saturn are much more thicker and more visible. Saturn has a set of 7 main rings with spaces between them. The ringlets are made of ice and rock.

Like Jupiter, Saturn too is full of Hydrogen and Helium. Saturn rotates on its axis in about 11 hours but its year is fairly long and is equal to 29 earth years. Saturn is the farthest planet that can be discovered with the naked eye.

                                             SATURN

Saturn has a shocking number of 274 moons. 4 Robotic spacecraft visited Saturn and they are Pioneer 11, Cassini, and Voyager 1 & 2. Saturn’s moons are very varied and many of them present a different terrain.

Saturn has a diameter of about 120,000 Km. It is at an average distance of 1.4 billion Km from the Sun.

There are a number of mysteries in Saturn that are yet to be uncovered. Its moon Enceladus has jets of water that spray from it and its another moon Titan has lakes of Methane.

The major moons of Saturn are Titan which is the largest, Mimas, Tethys, Enceladus, Dione, Rhea, Hyperion and Lapetus.

There is absolutely no chance of life on Saturn but there is promise of life on its moons Enceladus & Titan which have oceans.

Saturn’s ring system extends up to 282,000 Km from it but the vertical height is just 10 meters.

Saturn is the only planet in the solar system whose density is less than that of water, so it would float in a gigantic ocean of water if there is one.

Like Jupiter, there is no surface on Saturn for the landing of any craft. It is filled with swirling hot gases under tremendous pressure and temperature so no craft can land on Saturn. Not only that, it cannot fly through its atmosphere either because it would be crushed, melted and vaporized.

Saturn’s magnetic field is 578 times as powerful as that of the earth.

URANUS.

Saturn is a gas giant. Most of the planet is made up of water, ammonia & methane. It has a thick atmosphere consisting of Hydrogen & Helium with traces of carbon dioxide and Carbon Monoxide and has a temperature of -224 Degrees Centigrade. Uranus’s atmosphere winds have a peak wind speed of 900 Kmph. and it remains unexplained as to why that is so. The planet also has very less internal heat compared to other planets and why that is so is not clear. The blue green colour of Uranus comes from methane in its atmosphere.

URANUS

Like all the Jovian planets Uranus too has a ring system, a magnetosphere and many moons. Uranus has 29 moons of which 5 are major and are known as Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania & Oberon.  It has 13 faint rings around it.

 Uranus can be barely seen with the naked eye. It has a sideways 98 degree tilt in its axis that causes extremely long 42 yearlong seasons. Uranus has a Cyan colour (between blue and green) because of the presence of Methane in its atmosphere.

NEPTUNE.

Neptune is the last planet of the Solar System now as Pluto has now been classified as a dwarf planet. It is at a distance of 4.5 billion Km from the Sun and has a diameter of 49500 km. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 165 earth years.

 

NEPTUNE

It has an intense blue colour on account of its atmospheric methane absorbing red light. It is an ice giant with thick and windy atmosphere of Hydrogen, Helium and Methane. It has a mantle of water, ammonia and methane ices.

Neptune has atmospheric winds of extremely high speeds of up to 2000-2100 km per hour.

Neptune has 16 moons and is surrounded by 5 main rings. Triton is the only major moon of Neptune. Voyager 2 spacecraft is the only one that visited Neptune. It is the only planet to be discovered by mathematical prediction rather than by observation.

Neptune is the only planet in the solar system that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

IMPORTANT MOONS OF THE PLANETS WHICH HAVE CHANCES OF SOME FORM OF LIFE

Technically none of the far off planets from the Sun in our Solar system should be able to have any sort of life forms due to their extremely cold conditions. However, although they themselves do not have any chance of having any life, they exert tidal forces on account of large gravitational forces on their moons on account of which some heat is generated and that enables water to be present on some of the bigger moons which have atmosphere. There is also a phenomenon called orbital resonance when multiple moons are there for a planet. In this, when their orbital periods are separated by small round integers they exert gravitational tidal forces on each other.  

1.      GANYMEDE.

Jupiter’s Moon, Ganymede is special because it is the largest and most massive moon in the Solar System. In fact, it is bigger than the planet Mercury. It has a diameter of 5270 Km and a mass of 1.48*10 tons.

GANYMEDE.

Ganymede is composed of silicate rock and water in equal proportions. It has a liquid metallic core. Its underground ocean contains more water than all the water on the earth combined. Ganymede has a thin Oxygen atmosphere consisting of Oxygen, O₂ and O_3. The Hubble Space Telescope discovered the presence of a thin oxygen atmosphere on Ganymede.

Several spacecraft have explored Ganymede. The probe Galileo discovered its underground ocean and magnetic field. Ganymede is tidally locked to Jupiter with its one side always facing Jupiter.

Ganymede is in resonance with Jupiter’s other moons, Io and Europa and for every orbit of Ganymede Europa orbits the Jupiter 2 times and IO 4 times.

Although the weather on Ganymede is too cold, its sub surface ocean may be much warmer. The ocean exists inside 150 Km of icy crust and may be able to sustain some sort of life just like in the case of Europa.

Another moon of Jupiter Callisto is also considered to Europa and Ganymede and some form of life may be present in its oceans which are warm to tidal forces by Jupiter.

2.      EUROPA

One of the Moons of Jupiter known as Europa is something special for us because it is a most probable candidate for finding life in another planet. It can be viewed from the earth by way of small binoculars.

EUROPA.

Europa is an icy moon and is the closest Moon orbiting Jupiter. In size Europa is only slightly smaller than our own Moon. It consists mainly of Silica rock and has a molten core at its centre. It has a thin atmosphere consisting of Oxygen.

It has a smooth surface and lacks any sort of substantial craters or mountains which are rather surprising. Europa is the smoothest object known in the Solar system. Europa has salty liquid oceans of water on its surface whose extent is more than the oceans on earth.

Its closeness to Jupiter gives rise to tidal heating that keeps water from forming into ice. There is every chance that there is life in those seas if not on its other surface. However, in March 2024, scientists have reported that Europa has much less Oxygen than what was previously thought.

The Hubble space telescope took an image of Europa in 2012 which had a jet of water erupting near its South pole. The image suggests that the plume may be some 200 km high.  In 2018 there was supporting evidence for these water plumes in the data from the Galileo space probe.

3.      CALLISTO.

Calisto is the 2^nd largest moon of Jupiter next to Ganymede and is as big as Planet Mercury. It is the outermost moon of the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter.

CALLISTO

The surface of Calisto is the most cratered in the Solar System with its surface mostly covered with impact craters.  It is formed with 50% rock and 50% ice. Compounds detected on the surface of Calisto include water ice, carbon dioxide, silicates and organic compounds. Calisto has a small silicate core. The Galileo space mission has indicated that the moon may have an ocean of sub surface water at a depth greater than 100 km.

It is not in orbital resonance with Jupiter like the other 3 major moons Io, Europa and Ganymede and is therefore not tidally heated and therefore has fewer chances for life to evolve.

4.      TITAN.

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the 2^nd largest moon in the solar system after Ganymede. It is larger than planet Mercury, and is the only moon that has a dense atmosphere in the solar system. While Mercury has mainly iron and rock while Titan has mostly ice and water. When viewed from Saturn it would take up as much as 11 times space than our own moon does from earth. Of course that is from above its thick atmosphere.

TITAN.

In fact Titan is the only body in the entire solar system with water on its surface (and not beneath an ice sheet) excluding our own planet Earth.  Titan has a rocky core surrounded by layers of ice and sub-surface ammonia rich liquid water.

Its thick atmosphere prevented us from knowing about it till the CASSINI HUYGENS mission of 2004 provided much information about it. It was discovered that Titan had lakes of Hydrocarbon at its polar regions. It was also discovered that Titans atmosphere had Super Rotation i.e. its atmosphere rotated much faster than the planet. The surface of Titan is generally smooth with only some impact craters.

The atmosphere of Titan is mainly Nitrogen & Methane. There are hydrocarbon clouds and heavy organo-nitrogen haze. Its wind and rain creates surface features similar to earth like dunes, rivers, lakes, seas (probably of liquid ethane and methane). Titans Methane cycle resembles Earths water cycle but at a much lower temperature at -179 Degrees Celsius. Due to these features Titan is called the most Earth like object in the Solar System albeit with a different chemical composition of its atmosphere. Its surface pressure is also similar to earth at 1.45 times that of earth.   

 

INDIA BHARAT PAKSITAN-J SAI DEEPAK AND MY COMMENTS ON IT.

 

Sai Deepak ( Sai Deepak Iyer) is from Kerala and is a prodigy. He did his Law from IIT Kharagpur and is a practicing advocate at the Supreme Court. In the Ayyappa temple non entry for females controversy, he represented the Ayyappa Temple. He lost the case but became quite famous, especially among the right win Hindu intelligentsia. I have seen him speaking for the first time on Republic TV. His knowledge is immense and his logic even if one does not concur with his views, is irrefutable.

Words flow out from his mouth effortlessly. He has written two massive books 1. India That is Bharat-over 400 pages & 2. India, Bharat, Pakistan-over 600 pages. I had the chance of reading the 2^nd book in which he has studied all the Muslim movements in India which led to partition. I do not claim to have completed reading the book but read a large portion of it. As I read I abridged the matter and took notes as I always do. I am giving those abridged notes as a Word file. What amazed me was that Sai Deepak’s focus on the work and his extensive reading on Muslim movements that could bring out the book.  

This is a very informative work. Sai Deepak has delved deeply into the Islamic Wahabi movement in India to prove that it always had the intention of Jihad with which it wanted to establish an Islamic Caliphate. Muhammed Ibn Abd al Wahab founded this movement. It was later led by Shah Waliullah Dehlavi and later by Syed Shahid Ahmad Barelvi. The Faraizi movement in Bengal founded by Haji Shariatullah which is similar had later merged with the Wahabi movement.

SAI DEEPAKS THOUGHTS ON THE IDEOLOGY OF PAN ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS AND MY COMMENTS ON THEM: 

How to deal with the Pan Islamic movements? Sai Deepak has 3 lines of thought on that 

1.       Sai Deepak-Indic consciousness must revive its own ability to produce society based institutions and individuals who can constantly and uncompromisingly advance the Indic civilizational cause and space.

My comment: That means Sai Deepak wants to straight jacket Hinduism merely based on an assumption that non institutionalization of Indic consciousness has led to vivisection of India. On the contrary, for me the vivisection and bifurcation of India has helped the country to stem the rot that has set in by pitting one religion against another. The most virulent proponents of the theme have left the country. If that population had been present in India it would have been chaos today. Partition had been a case of unmitigated benefit and a boon for present day India. Such strong Indic consciousness as Sai Deepak indicates would turn more people towards religion. Religion is an intensely personal thing and depends on the faith of the believer and it should not be dictated by anyone or any institution. If that is done, then the result would be the same as what happened to Islam. That religion had been totally distorted by commentators and its original simplicity was lost.

2.       Sai Deepak-The importance and criticality of Indic oriented state power must not be undermined, since that gives the society the means to implement and amplify civilizational goals.

My comment: This is a joke on Sai Deepak’s thinking. Is he indicating a Hindu theological dictatorship for that? So what Sai Deepak wants is Hindu institutions modelled on the ways of Islam. For all his brilliance he has fallen prey to this.

3.       Sai Deepak-Creating a civilizational safe space in the immediate neighbourhood of Bharat is imperative so that pax indica becomes a reality, at least in the sub-continent, before we aspire for the Vishvaguru status.

My comment: This is a joke. Why should we aspire for a Vishwaguru status? Let us first lift the remaining people out of poverty and insecurity before we aspire to teach others. And then how does Sai Deepak think we would be able to create a civilizational space in the neighbourhood? Forget about creating anything, right now we have differences with Pakistan obviously because of ideology and can never bridge that gap ever. So Sai Deepak can forget about pax indica which is a myth.

MY CONCLUSION: Sai Deepak is brilliant, but he is trying to prove something by assumptions here which just does not get him anywhere. What I wonder is, how can such a brilliant guy lull himself into believing something impossible as possible? Is he trying to fool himself, or is he trying to fool others? With this exposition of his, my respect for the guy has come down a notch. I still respect him as a brilliant intellectual, yet he let his thought go astray as he has some pre conceived notions which he holds supreme and he tries to use his amazing intellect towards building a thought process on Indic consciousness based on his thinking. So what he is professing to do is to formulate an Islamic Wahabi like movement in Hinduism while he criticises the Islamic one.  

To get into a discussion with Sai Deepak on this topic and besting him is impossible because he is extremely erudite on the subject, and Saraswati (for the believers because I am an atheist) sits on his tongue and words pour out of his mouth like a torrent with great and unmitigated power. A most brilliant speaker but despite all that reading and intellect he goes by strong pre conceived notions to prove what he believes as the truth.

 

ABRDIGED MATTER FROM SAI DEEPAK’S WORK-BHARAT INDIA PAKISTAN.

The Wahabism comprises of 4 tenets 1. Montheism, 2. Ijtehad which says right of interpretation was given to the Muslims, 3. No intercession which means they do not believe in mediators like the saints, 4. Innovation- the Wahabis condemn any sort of innovation and oppose the other religious practices. They oppose ceremony and even the celebration of the Prophets birthday. They oppose tomb worship and veneration of peers.

Shah Waliullah Dehlavi is the son of Shah Abdul Rahim one of the founders of the Madrasah Al Rahimiyah in Delhi. Dehlavi mentions in his work Tafhimat-i-Ilahiyya that swords should not be sheathed till Allah has separated Muslims from Polytheists and the rebellious Kafirs and the sinners are made absolutely feeble and helpless.

The point Sai Deepak is making from this is that Islam, even in India had always been opposed to other religions and had never been accommodating as some secular scholars lead us to believe.

Sai Deepak did his Engineering from Anna University at Madras and then did his Law from IIT, Kharagpur. He was the counsel for Lord Ayyappa in the women’s temple entry case.

Dehlavi as part of his teachings exhorted Muslims of the Sub Continent not to integrate into society, since contact with Hindus would contaminate their Islamic purity. He mandated that the Muslims of the Sub Continent follow the customs of the Arabs as they were the original followers of the Prophet.

Dehlavi translated the Quran into Persian, thereby making it understandable to people who did not know Arabic and the official language of the Mughal Empire was Persian. According to Dehlavi it is Jihad that makes Islam the most perfect of all revealed religions, as it had enabled the Islamic Prophet to conquer territories.

Dehlavi also took forward the work of Syed Ahmad Sirhindi, a contemporary of Akbar. Sirhindi strongly espoused the cause of Islamic reformation and revivalism by seeking to re-establish Islam  in Bharat in its most pristine form through strict adherence to the Shariat and by purging it off its heresies such as Sufi mysticism and its attendant un-Islamic practices. He sought imposition of Jizya on Hindus and exhorted Muslims to subordinate non-Muslims instead of integrating with them.

While Sirhindi lived in the old Mughal times when Akbar flirted with other religions, Dehlavi lived in modern times, but this did not prevent him from being as orthodox. Dehlawi considered the Muhammed of Ghazni as Islam’s greatest ruler. He wrote letters to Ahmad Shah Abdali inviting him to attack India and conduct a Jihad. Of course neither the Nizam to whom Dehlavi also wrote, nor Abdali gave any credence to his writings and ignored them.

After Dehlawi’s death, his son Shah Abdul Aziz Dehlawi took the leadership of the movement. In 1803 after British gained control of Delhi from the Marathas he issued a Fatwa- Fatawa-e-Azizi which declared Bharat to be a house of war in control of the infidels. The fatawa took note that while the Christian rule extended from Calcutta to Delhi it left the religious affairs of Muslims untouched.

The Fatawa created a confusion among Muslims in North India, the other parts of India gave rise to Pan Islamic movements.

The Faraizi movement that finally led to the partition of Bengal in 1905 was founded by Hazi Shariatullah of Faridpur. Around 1820 he started a movement in Bengal similar to the Wahabi movement in Arabia. Shraiatullah declared Bengal under British rule as Da al-Harb, which is portrayed as a movement against the British by Islamic scholars but it also included the breaking of Idols of Hindu deities, destruction of Hindu temples and slaughter of cows.

After Shariatullah, his son Muhsinuddin Ahmad (Dudh Mian) took up the movement and extended its influence. He rallied the peasants (predominantly Muslim) against the landlords (predominantly Hindu) and the English. The movement was shown as a rebellion against the British by contemporary scholars just like in the case of Moplah rebellion.

The Faraizi movement later merged with the Wahabism then under Syed Ahmad Barelvi. Barelvis disciple Mir Nisar Ali led the Wahabi movement in Bengal.

The Wahabi movement flowered under Syed Ahmad Shahid Barelvi up till 1831. Barelvi was born in 1786 at Rai Bareli and he was the 36^th direct descendant of Hasan, the son of Ali ( son in law of the Prophet). Barelvi came under the tutelage of Dehlawi’s son  Shah Abdul Aziz Dehlawi. He was also initiated into the Quadiriyya, Naqshbandiyya and Mujaddidiyya sufi orders by Shah Abdul Aziz. 

Barelvi after becoming Khalifa joined as a preacher and mercenary under the Nawab of Tonk named Amir Khan Pindari who himself was a well-known mercenary at that time. He gained a reputation of a camp sage after the preaching he undertook. However, the rising power of the Sikhs under Maharaja Ranjit Singh and also the British made it difficult for him to continue as a mercenary. He then quit and returned to Delhi in 1817. The members of the Dehlawi family of this time like Maulana Abdul Hai and Maulana Muhammed Ismail (Dehlawi) were taken in by his personality and his approach supported him and asked him to resume his preaching. They became his close companions. Ultimately as his grandson and other relations were following Barelvi, Shah Abdul Aziz was forced to accept Barelvi as his father’s successor for restoring Tariqa-e-Muhammadiyyah in Bharat knowing fully well that Barelvi preferred means was a physical or armed Jihad.

The growing clout of the Sikhs worried Barelvi. He began emphasizing a large-scale militarization of the Muslim community and led by example by bearing arms on his person. Barelvi created a vast and organized network carefully chosen stationary and roving preachers by establishing a permanent centre at Patna. There he appointed 4 Caliphs and a High Priest. These Caliphs were sent to different parts of Bharat to Bombay, Madras, Hyderabad, Bengal and Bihar to spread his message and attract more Muslims to his cause.

From Patna Barelvi travelled to Calcutta in 1821 which led to the absorption of the Faraizi movement into Wahabism. However, the growing power of the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh troubled him no end. To check this Barelvi followed what Dehlawi did and urged the Nizam of Hyderabad, Prince Kamran of Herat, Amir Nasrullah of Bukhara and the Pathan tribes in the Northwest Frontier province to liberate Bharat from the British as well as the Hindu infidels.

Of these only the Pathans of NWFP heeded him as also the Bengali Muslims who travelled to NWFP to participate in the Jihad against the Sikhs called by Barelvi. Barelvi now left for the NWFP where he issued Fatwa for Jihad against the Sikhs. This began a series of bloody battles starting with the battle of “Akora” between the Wahabis and the Sikhs. These went on till the annexation of Punjab in 1847 by the British after Ranjit Singhs death in 1839 and Barelvis death at the battle of Balakot in 1831.

Barelvi wanted to liberate Kashmir from the Sikhs but was foiled in his attempt by the Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa. Before this, by June 1830 the Mujahadeen under Barelvi made significant progress and had Peshawar under their control and the Wahabi state so formed had an army of 1,00,000 soldiers. This naturally posed a threat to Ranjit Singh who used his diplomatic skills to bring a schism between the Pathan and non Pathan Muslims which culminated in a bloodbath between the 2 factions in which Barelvi barely escaped with his life. Finally in May 1831 at the battle of Balakot (remember the Balakot airstrikes) Prince Sher Singh led the Sikhs where Barelvi was beheaded. Also killed in the battle were Shah Ismail Dehlawi and Sayyid Ahmad of Rae Bareli.

Growth of the Wahabi Movement after Barelvi (1831-1858):

After the death of an Icon like Barelvi and other influential men of Balakot, the Wahabi movement should have  withered away. However, Barelvi put up an excellent network in place to propagate the movement. The Ali brothers (Wilayat ali, Enayat Ali) from Patna (not to be confused with the Jinnah brothers) took over the movement after the death of Barelvi. The brothers propagated the movement very well and ensured its continuity up till 1915. 

While Wilayat Ali focussed on expanding the movement in Bombay and the South, Enayat Ali propagated it in NWFP and Bengal which finally led to the partition of Bengal on religious lines. Enayat Ali exhorted the members of the movement to avoid all forms of interaction and transaction with kafirs including the state apparatus set up by the British.

At the Patna centre students who showed aptitude for Islamic studies were educated in it, whereas those who are more inclined to action were sent to the NWFP to take part in the war against the infidels.

The Ali brothers intensified their action after the death of Ranjit Singh in 1839 when the British were pre occupied with the Afghan war till 1842. Enayat Ali was sent by Wilayat Ali from Bengal to NWFP to conquer back the territories lost to the Sikhs in 1831. Accordingly by 1846 Balakot and 22 other forts were captured by the Wahabis. Wilayat Ali too left Patna and moved to NWFP for a showdown with the British who have by this time established their dominance over the Punjab.

The Wahabi campaign started with the battle of the Doob pass which proved disastrous for the Wahabis. It resulted in the surrender of the Ali brothers to the British who were sent to Patna in 1847 and asked not to move out of there for 4 years. However, by 1850 both the brothers moved back to the NWFP. Till that time the British were not aware of the extent of the Wahabi movement.

In 1852, treasonable correspondence from the Wahabis to the British troops was transmitted, specifically to the native infantry stationed at Rawalpindi. This opened the eyes of the British to the extent of the Wahabi problem. Then Lord Dalhousie decided for a war on the NWFP and also a number of British Muslim soldiers were convicted for treason.

By this time the Ali brothers developed a difference of opinion with Wilayat Ali felt that the English are better organized than the Sikhs and therefore should not be confronted without adequate preparation but Enayat Ali disagreed with it. Enayat then moved to another place and came to take charge only after Wilayat’s death. When Enayat tried to implement his program he could get nowhere as his brother had been right and after a series of defeats by the British he died of starvation as a disgruntled man in 1858.

Enayat’s ill prepared campaign made the British aware of the Wahabi network all over India. Before he died the Sepoy Mutiny broke out, and it was believed by the Indian leaders that the Wahabis of NWFP sided with the mutineers, but that was not the case as the movement’s wars started immediately after the death of Wilayat Ali in 1852 itself. The Wahabis attacked the British before and after the mutiny but stayed out during the most important part of the mutiny. 

The aloofness of the Wahabis in 1857 was consistent with their belief that Bharat was Dar al-Harb as long as it was ruled by non-Muslims and the British, Hindus and Sikhs were infidels in their eyes. The Wahabis were the first to originate an organized attempt on a large scale to drive out the British from India, but their grounds were religious and not nationalistic

After the death of Enayat Ali, the leadership of the movement fell on Ikramullah, Nurullah and Mir Taqi. After the Sepoy Mutiny was supressed, the British handled the Wahabis of NWFP very firmly with 20 expeditions and 60,000 troops and they have clamped down on everything in Patna so that no flow either of men or money flows to the Wahabis of NWFP. Despite this as the movement was widespread through most of Northern India it took many years for the British to put them down and even then there were minor incidents in 1915 as well.

Section 124(a) of the constitution which deals with Sedition had been brought in with a view to the Wahabi movement. Nevertheless, the movement may have been supressed by the British, but not its ideology. The trials of the Wahabis in 1863 and after drew a lot of public attention and attracted more Muslims towards themovement despite not being able to participate in the movement on account of the law of sedition. So, they in turn did not call themselves Wahabis but founded their own respective movements based on it.

These spin off movements  avoided naming Syed Ahmad Barelvi and instead opted for Dehlawi and reiterated their commitment to the two pillars of Islam, the Quran and the Hadith and discarded the un Islamic variants of Sufism. Some of these movements went on to establish Madrassas to institutionalise the teachings of Dehlawi. Some of them did not oppose the British as long as the British did not touch their beliefs and practices. Some few others went on to establish institutions that blended Islamic education with English education. The Ahl-i-Hadith, Deobandi, Barelvi, Nadwah and the Aligarh movements fell into this category. 

Of course these Sunni reformist movements had their own differences in ideas, but their basic idea is to purge Sufi excesses and Shia/ Hindu influences from the practice of Islam with a long term goal of restoration of Islamic sovereignty over Bharat.

The following are the individuals and the movements that have come out of that churn.

1.       Maulana Syed Mohammed Nazir Husssain Muhaddith Dehlavi (1805-1902) founded the Ahl-i-Hadith movement along with Nawab Sidiq Hasan Khan Bhopali at Patna.

 

The Ahl-i-Hadith movement formed in 1864 from Tariqa-i-Muhammadiyyah/Wahabi movement and established separate mosques, madrasas and seminaries. After the 1857 struggle it became clear to Nazir Hussain that physical jihad against the British was suicidal and this movement was founded to avoid being branded them as Wahabis. They expressed vehement opposition to shrine based Islam of veneration of Pirs/Muslim saints and sufi practices pitted them against the other major movement the Barelvi. 

In a short span of time this movement rose to become one of the most important theological seminaries in Northern India. As of 2005, it had 400 madrasas in Pakistan which are linked to the Lashkar e Tayyiba. It also produced the Ahl-i-Quran movement whose founder Maulvi Abdullah Chakralawi rejected even the authority of the Hadith and made Quran the only authority in Islam. 

2.       Maulana Mohammed Qasim Nanuwatavi (1833-1879) Maulana Rashid Ahmad Gangohi founded the Deobandi movement  which was modelled on Dehlawi’s Madrasah-i- Rahimiyah.

This movement actively rejected un-Islamic sufi mysticism and also Shia/Hindu influences were actively rejected. It became actively involved in the politics of the North West Frontier Province. In 1919 the political wing of the movement the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH) was established. By 1924 it had a strong presence in Peshawar which led to the establishment of Jamiat-e-Ulema-Sarhind for NWFP. Allegations were made on Hindu shopkeepers in Nowshera of misbehaving with Muslim women. Hindus were declared enemies of Islam and were economically boycotted. By 1936 Hindu girls were being abducted, converted to Islam by force and married to Muslim men. By 1945 the movement split into JUH and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan (JUI-P). The JUI-P had leaders like Shabbir Ahmad Usmani one of the leading lights of the Pakistan movement and was one of the founders of Jamia Milia Islamia.

In the 1980’s the JUI-P split into JUI-F & JUI-S. It was in JUI-S, the future leaders of Taliban like Mullah Omar were educated. Pakistan had become a Barelvi-Deobandi state. The golden age of Deobandi’s arrived with the rise of Taliban in 1979 which led to a Deobandi-Wahabi alliance with the arrival of Osama Bin Laden. For Kashmir the Deobandis created the terror outfit Harkat-ul-Ansar.

Many Deobandis went to establish their own movements. In the 1920’s Maulana Mohammed Ilyas founded the Tablighi Jamat. It believed in taking Islam out of the seminaries into the society.

Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi founed the Jamat E Islami party in 1941. According to him Jihad was central to Islam because Islam’s stated objective was to alter the social order. He therefore believed that for the welfare of humanity Muslims had an obligation to destroy all states and governments that were opposed to the ideology of Islam and this was the essence of Jihad. For him dance, music and art are remnants “Jahilliyya “ or ignorance. Mawdudi (a distant relative of Syed Ahmad Khan) initially opposed partition because it would divide the Muslism of the sub-continent. After partition, he moved to Pakistan and founded Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan. He supported the Taliban against Russian invasion and also supported Zia Ul Haq’s policy of turning Pakistan into a Shariat compliant state. 

With over 30,000 seminaries the world over, the Deobandi movement is the most influential that drew inspiration from Dehlawi.

3.       Ahmad Raza Khan (1856-1921) founded the Barelvi movement.

The movement was founded as a reaction to both Ahl-i-Hadith and Deobandi movements on their negation of saints or pirs and shrine based Islam. Another founder Raza Khan rejected Jihad against the English as they were found to accommodate Islam. 

4.       The founders of Nadwatul Ulama movement in Lucknow founded by a group of Ulema and Muslim officials in the employ of British.  Mohammed Ali Mungeri is one of them. It looked up to Dehlawi. This movement is not against English as it felt that people from England and the US had to be converted to Islam later. The focus of this school was defence of Islam from the west and from Hindu resurgence. 

5.       Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) founded the Aligarh movement is one of the earliest proponents of the two nation theory.