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 2nd
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 36th 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.
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