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Islam et société en Asie du Sud

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Marc Gaborieau

Islam, ethnicity and the State : models of political leadership Among South Asian Muslims1

Akbar S. Ahmed

Résumé

Cet article vise à démontrer deux points qui sont étroitement liés. Premièrement les musulmans de l’Inde, confrontés à une des grandes religions mondiales qui avait l’adhésion de la majorité de la population, ont dû faire face à ce défi qui mettait en cause continuellement et sérieusement leur propre religion et leur identité culturelle. Deuxièmement au cours de l’histoire ils ont relevé ce défi en adoptant l’un ou l’autre de deux modèles opposés de comportement socio-politique: l’un orthodoxe, légaliste et formaliste; l’autre hétérodoxe, syncrétique et informel; un troisième modèle s’est développé comme conséquence directe de la colonisation britannique. On comprendra beaucoup mieux l’Islam contemporain au Pakistan, en relation avec les problèmes politiques et ethniques, si l’on utilise ce cadre conceptuel. Cet article vise donc à élucider des principes qui permettent de percevoir, sous la surface, la structure des nations.

Texte intégral

Introduction: Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan

  • 1 Paper read at the American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council Conference, (...)
  • 1 Abdali was the founder of a dynasty in the eighteenth century whose members ruled Afghanistan until (...)
  • 2 The difference is further exaggerated by the social ramifications of Iran’s Shia form of Islam (Fis(...)

1In certain important ways Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan share a regional identity underlined by a common religion and a similar historical progress. These are medium-size countries with large rural and tribal populations coming to terms with central – sometimes Imperial – authority. There are figures who feature in the history of all three. Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Afghan ruler, is one such example.1 Today, each state uneasily contemplates its larger neighbours, who are seen as minatory. Yet in equally important ways Pakistan is different from Afghanistan and Iran.2

  • 3 There is an extensive literature on the services in British India. Woodruff 1953 and 1954, provides (...)

2The difference is fundamental to structure and arises from the thoroughness with which the British colonized India. Apologists for empire enumerate the extensive network of rail, road and canal among its blessings. More important was the widespread educational system which by the late nineteenth century was well established. Schools and colleges, using English as the medium of instruction, in almost every district, produced a stream of native candidates for service in the army and civil services.3 They were the product of Macaulay’s historic Minute of Education, 1835, which hoped to create a class ‘ Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect ’. Cricket, which is not played in Iran and Afghanistan, is a national game in Pakistan.

3For north Indian Muslims education at such institutions – Chief’s or Aitchison College and Government College in Lahore or Edwardes College in Peshawar – became a symbol of status and a passport to the services. Even girls, contrary to traditional Muslim practice, were sent to convents and colleges. The Jesus and Mary Convent in Murree, organized by Catholic nuns, celebrated its centenary a few years ago. Today, the same institutions continue to produce the future elite of the country.

  • 4 Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan in the 1960s, best represents this ethos. Even as a politician he (...)
  • 5 My argument does not take into account Bangladesh. The events of 1971 which clearly saw a breakdown (...)

4What does this mean for our comparative statement regarding Afghanistan and Iran? As a result of its educational system the Pakistan ruling elite reflected values which were partly westernized and partly liberal. These values formed the ethos of the army4 and the civil services, the steel frame ’ which held the state together and were perpetuated in service clubs. There was thus an in-built structural mechanism to check extreme forms and expressions of politics in Pakistan.5

5How, then, are we to explain the current Islamization programme of General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime? Is Zia a deviation from the westernized ethos? An isolated visionary imposing his views on society? Are the various ethnic zones in step with him? Or does he represent what western observers call a ‘ resurgence ’ or ‘ revival ’ of Islam? Are we witnessing the permanent shift away from the westernized liberal ethos? And, finally, does this imply that Islam is not compatible with the liberal ethos? These are complex and important questions requiring diachronic historical perspective if we are to tackle them satisfactorily. I suggest that an examination of the late seventeenth century in India would assist us in illuminating some of the current intellectual and ideological political problems of Pakistan.

Social Developments in India in the late seventeenth century

  • 6 Aurangzeb, who ruled India for over forty-eight years, dying in 1707, is particularly well covered (...)

6The dilemma facing Aurangzeb,6 the last great Mughal emperor of India, in the second half of the seventeenth century was not a new one. All Muslim rulers of India had to confront it to a degree. Simply put: was Aurangzeb the impartial emperor of a poly-ethnic, multi-religious state or the Muslim leader of the Muslim community in India, the umma, exclusively treating non-Muslims as lowly conquered subjects? But unlike his predecessors, developments in his century forced Aurangzeb to grapple with the issues around the dilemma. The question is related to fundamental theological issues.

7Was Mughal India, for Muslims, the ideal State, madīnat al-tāmma, or the imperfect state, madinat al-nāqiṣa ? If the latter, was India the dār al-ḥarb, the land of war, as distinct from dār al-Islām, the land of Islam? To make matters more complex for Muslims Islam in India confronted a highly established and sophisticated world religion to which the majority of the people belonged. In India Islam faced its most interesting set of challenges.

8But what was happening in the seventeenth century to make it different from the previous centuries? A number of factors combined to create the most severe intellectual and socio-political crisis of confidence for the Indian Muslims. It was the beginning of the end of Muslim power in India and corresponded with the emergence of the colonial era of Indian history. I shall briefly touch on the main developments below:

  1. First and foremost, the political crisis of Mughal India was reaching a climax. The very size of the empire – stretching from Kabul to Chittagong – in those days of poor communications foretold its disintegration. At the height of its greatest physical expanse the empire was at its weakest. Mughal princes, waiting for Aurangzeb’s long reign to end, led armies against him and each other, sapping the strength of the empire. But empires have held for centuries, as had the Mughal empire, and we may turn to other factors behind the crisis.

  2. There were important cultural-religious developments which applied internal pressure on the empire. Assertive Hindu revivalist movements were spreading rapidly in India and often assuming an anti-Muslim shape. Tulsi Das translated the Rāmāyaṇa into Hindi from Sanskrit providing access to it for the majority. In particular, the bhakti movement made its impact on northern India. Although the bhakti movement had originated with figures like Kabir preaching universal peace and borrowed certain features of Islam, such as monotheism and egalitarianism, by the late seventeenth century it became an anti-Muslim movement. Perhaps more important,

  3. non-Muslim religious movements converted into nationalist-ethnic armed struggle against the Mughals who were identified with Muslim power.

  • 7 A notable exception are the tribal groups such as the Baluch and Pukhtun for whom tribal identity – (...)
  • 8 For a perceptive anthropological comment see Geertz 1973.

9The emergence of ethnic identity was a new social-political phenomenon. Whereas previously political conflict was based on dynastic, religious or caste differences, now ethnicity was emerging as a major factor.7 Ethnicity as a political force was destined to grow over the centuries. Today it threatens the integrity of the contemporary state in the sub-continent.8

10Of the ethno-religious movements those of the Marathas and the Sikhs were the most significant in the part they played in debilitating the Mughals. Their leaders, Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singh, after his predecessor was killed by Aurangzeb, were personally committed to fighting the Mughals. Aurangzeb spent the entire second half of his long reign in a seemingly futile attempt to crush the Marathas in the south. The Sikhs, until then a syncretist religion between Hinduism and Islam, thenceforth moved toward the former in their ideological and political position. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries they were to rule large Muslim populations in north India – constantly in rebellion – with an iron hand (Archer 1946; Singh 1963-1966).

  • 9 The earlier comparative economic position of Mughal India and England is represented by the followi (...)

11d. An equally important development and posing an external challenge was the appearance of the Europeans in India. New ideas, military techniques and new technology from a Europe about to launch into the industrial revolution which would change the map of the globe burst upon the Mughals just when they were at their weakest.9 By the last decades of the seventeenth century it was clear that the English were winning the colonial race against the other Europeans. They had established important factories – which soon became organized military forts – in Bombay, Madras and, by 1690, Calcutta. These were to become the future Presidencies – the nucleus of civil and military activity – of the British Indian empire.

  • 10 It is no accident that the early eighteenth century produced one of the greatest Muslim reformers i (...)
  • 11 The earlier Mughals move in a more relaxed and more confident world. The threat around them appears (...)

12The combination of these internal and external developments created a deep sense of crisis among Muslims.10 Their world was beginning to shrink and crumble. The slow process of decadence and political degradation would continue for the next few centuries, providing the major themes of lost glory and sense of despair for Muslim literature (for instance, see the poetry of Hali and Iqbal). In the late seventeenth century the Muslims faced two choices: they could either firmly re-draw the boundaries of Islam around themselves, shutting out the emerging realities, or allow the boundaries to become elastic and porous thereby effecting synthesis with non-Muslim groups. The two alternatives delineated were clear: legal, orthodox, formality on the one hand and eclectic, syncretic, informality on the other. It is no accident that these two clearly differentiated and mutually opposed choices emerged in the person and character of the sons of the emperor Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh. No such dramatically extreme and opposed positions in the sons of the rulers of Delhi are recorded in earlier Muslim history.11

13One of the two would succeed Shah Jahān to rule India and thereby influence the course of future history, casting shadows on contemporary events in Pakistan.

The A and B categories

14Orientalists perceive two distinct, contradictory and exclusive alternatives of Muslims and their society: ‘ westernized modernists ’ or ‘ traditional fundamentalists ’ (Watt 1961), a lead followed somewhat uncritically by scholars of Pakistan (Ahmad 1967, 1969 ; Binder 1961 ; Bolitho 1964 ; Callard 1958 ; Sayeed 1960 ; Stephens 1964; Wilcox 1963; Williams 1962). The former are seen by Westerners as ‘ liberal ’, ‘ humanist ’, ‘ progressive ’, and by implication the ‘ good guys ’. The latter are ‘ fanatic ‘ retrogressive ’, and the ‘ bad guys ’. The application of these western labels best suited for political analysis in western democracies, could be misleading in South Asia. The labels do not take into account the complex and dynamic interplay of local religious, cultural and ethnic factors. Such simplistic labels cannot satisfactory illuminate the complexity of South Asian Islam; they may aid in obfuscating it.

15To my mind anthropologists, perhaps because they are trained to be sensitive to society and culture, have presented a more satisfactory analysis of Muslim society. Gellner, working in Morocco, suggests a ‘ pendulum swing theory ’ between P – urban, puritan, literate society – and C – rural, informal, illiterate society – (1969) and ‘ flux and reflux ’ (1981) in understanding Muslim social groups. Adding data to the Moroccan’ material from the other end of the Muslim world, Indonesia, Geertz (1968, 1969) distinguishes santri groups (Islamic, traders) in opposition to abangan and prijaji ones (animistic, peasant), the former seeing the latter as idol-worshippers.

  • 12 See Chand 1943 and Qanungo 1934, in addition to the literature on Aurangzeb contained in footnote 6 (...)

16A kind of pendulum swing theory provides us with a useful conceptual framework to understand South Asian Islam. For our exercise we could list the characteristics of Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh12 to provide us with the two models of Muslim leadership in Muslim society between which it oscillates. We may label them, for we cannot completely escape labelling exercises, A and B respectively. There is a third type of Muslim model which developed as a direct consequence of western colonialism and we may call it C. Another model, D, does not concern us in South Asia. D is secular and totally committed to modernism in its west European – or more recently Marxist – shape. Kamal Ataturk is the best example of D. The model has not commanded any significant following among South Asian Muslims, perhaps for the reasons we touched on in the previous section.

  • 13 In reading Al-Ghazzali, Aurangzeb was following a tradition established by Akbar, his great grandfa (...)

17Let me summarize the chief distinguishing characteristics of Aurangzeb (A) and Dara Shikoh (B) to illustrate their anti-thetical nature :13

18A glance at the characteristics of A and B may lead us into the same trap into which the Orientalists have fallen. We may be tempted to reject B as an apostate. There is no problem with A. He is the model of pious orthodoxy. But do we simply reject B as an apostate?

19Although the charge sheet drawn up by Aurangzeb on the basis of which Dara Shikoh was executed centres around apostasy, he at no point renounces Islam. His understanding of Islam is wildly extravagant and at times incorrect but in an earlier phase his orthodoxy is irreproachable. For all his syncretism his ideal – like that of Aurangzeb – remained the holy Prophet of Islam. The dilemma for South Asian Islam becomes acute when both A and B refer to the Prophet. We are thus not talking of two or three types of Islam but different aspects of Islam.

20The adventurism comes later in B’s life. But even then he wished to extend, not reject Islam. Indeed he sees the Hindu holy scriptures – the Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita – in the Holy Koran. The tragedy of his life is not the lack of commitment to religious ideals but excess of it.

21So we have before us two models created as a consequence of the socio-political crisis in the seventeenth century: A, orthodox, legalistic, formal; and B, unorthodox, mystical and informal, reflecting two aspects of Muslim society. However, it is not a question of either A or B but a variety of computations of A and B. But the story does not end with the Mughals.

  • 14 A study of the complexity of Mr Bhutto’s character within a socio-cultural context is awaited in sp (...)

22Drawing genealogical lines – so to speak – from Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh to the leaders of Pakistan illuminates the problem further for us. Mr Z. A. Bhutto, the late Prime Minister of Pakistan, in a significant and historical manner – and despite Oxford and Berkeley – reflects the conceptual position of B.14 Both were eclectic and syncretist. While Dara Shikoh wished to include Hinduism in Islam, Bhutto attempted a similar exercise with the dominant rival ideology of his time socialism, evolving the concept of ‘ Islamic socialism ’.

  • 15 The song of Shah Baz Qalandar acknowledges the supremacy of Hazrat Ali the Prophet’s son in law – a (...)

23In particular the Sufi elements in the character of the two are worth noting. I do not wish to push the argument portraying Bhutto as a mystic Sufi too far but his devotion to Sufis – especially to Shah Baz Qalandar, the ‘ saint of the beggars ’ who traced his spiritual lineage to al-Hallaj – is well known. His fascination with Shah Baz Qalandar converted the devotional hymn – the dhammāl – about the saint almost into an informal national song. Audiences at public meetings burst into it, accompanied by clapping and often dancing, on seeing Bhutto.15 He frequently recited the verses of the other great Sindhi Sufi, Shah Abdul Latif. By his public association with the Sindhi Sufi saints, whose poetry is explicitly populist, he was making a political point to the dispossessed in society and Sindhis in particular. To the former he appeared as a champion of their rights and to the latter of their ethnicity. Rural Sind, no matter what his politics, would remain loyal to him.

24Bhutto’s death at the gallows merely confirmed an established Sufi tradition stretching back to the spiritual mentor of Shah Baz Qalandar, al-Hallaj. The Sufi prepares to meet death, and his Maker, as the famous Persian line on Shah Baz’s tomb says, ‘ dancing on the gallows ’ (Schimmel, personal communication).

25While many saw Bhutto’s behaviour as highly unorthodox, excessive and – at shrines, for instance – ecstatic, others read in it signs of Sufism, no matter that his practical life was not sublimated by mysticism, an observation also made of Dara Shikoh (Chand 1943).

26Conceptually General Zia is a spiritual descendant of Aurangzeb. He is personally austere, committed to Islam and the umma, and a regular visitor to the orthodox holy places of Islam in Saudi Arabia. The question of adding to Islam ‘ socialism ’ – or any ‘ ism ’ – does not arise for him as Islam is a perfect and complete system in itself. However, his education at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and career in the elite corps of the army, the Guides, indicate wide networks.

27In terms of modern Islam, ethnicity and the state the characteristics of Zia (A) and Bhutto (B) provide an interesting comparison with the previous chart and bring into relief the arguments in this paper:

  • 16 For scathing ethnic contemporary references to Aurangzeb see Khushal Khan Khattak, the Pukhtun warr (...)

Critics of both A16 and B accuse them of exploiting religion to further political ends.

28Some anthropologists studying religious behaviour are inclined to be cynical of what they observe. Others are more believing (Spiro 1973: 112). I am in agreement with the latter position. As social scientists we are interested in basing conclusions on regularly observed – or recorded – social behaviour. So although their critics would accuse A and B of manipulating religion I maintain that Bhutto’s tears as a result of listening to Shah Latif’s verses or Zia’s when praying in the holy ka‘ba in Mecca are genuine. In those moments, they are not Prime Ministers and Presidents but worshippers responding genuinely to deeply felt emotion. For our purposes of analysis it is interesting to distinguish the different contexual framework of the stimuli that moved them. Both A and B respond to Islam but, significantly, to different aspects of it.

  • 17 Aurangezeb’s letters and notes reveal a man conscious of attempting to hold a difficult position wi (...)
  • 18 Mr Q. Aziz, Minister for Information at the Pakistan Embassy, London, assures me that not a single (...)

29The question that arises is: how accurate are the stereotypes of A and B, the one a rigid fanatic, the other a syncretic humanist? Are Aurangzeb17 and Zia the extreme orthodox fanatics portrayed by their critics? Recent historical research indicates that Aurangzeb was not the destroyer of temples he is popularly pictured as. On the contrary, records exist showing numerous grants to Hindu temples (Ahmad 1969: 191-200). Similarly, although Zia’s image in the western press is that of a harsh Islamic judge ordering criminals to be stoned to death or lashed, and their hands cut off, the facts show a very limited use of this punishment.18 Type A suffers from a bad press.

30On the other hand just how far has B drifted – consciously or unconsciously – from religion? Here, too, the answer is interesting. B does not see himself as leaving Islam for non-Islamic ideologies but rather as bringing the latter into the former. His understanding of Islam may be faulted, not his intentions. With Iqbal, himself a Sufi poet hovering between B and C, B believes ‘ at critical moments in their history it is Islam that has saved Muslims and not vice-versa ’ (Presidential address 1930).

31It appears that the confrontation between A and B is destined to end by the death of B at the hands of A. There is no compromise or synthesis between the two. The death warrants signed by Aurangzeb and Zia thus reflect the unresolved dilemmas of South Asian Islam and illustrate the continuity of the tension between A and B in historical perspective.

Islam, ethnicity and the State

32Do A and B as the two traditionally anti-thetical but related models of South Asian Islam also explain recent Muslim history? I think they do with minor local operations.

  • 19 See note 4.
  • 20 In times of crisis C leaders like Mr. Jinnah, have fallen back on Islamic themes: ‘ I say to every (...)

33Although A in the main remained unchanged over time, B adjusted to changing circumstances, both thus behaving in characteristic structural fashion (one orthodox, the other syncretist). However, the full impact of the colonial era produced a third and almost distinct category which we are calling C. I use ‘ almost ’ advisedly for in certain parts C reflected some of the features of A and B. C may be labelled, indeed calls itself so – ‘ liberal ‘ modern ’ and ‘ educated ’ (usually in English). C, educated in western institutions and employed in the colonial services, demanded a synthesis between tradition and the contemporary world.19 C is – and remains – scarred by the colonial experience, unlike A and B who possess internal defensive mechanisms to shut out the world. Most significantly, the concept of ‘ nationalism ’ is developed and incorporated in C for the first time among South Asian Muslims. C remains as uncomfortable with orthodox formal Islam as it does with mystical or ecstatic behaviour.20 Let me attempt to draw a grand generalized, genealogical charter relating the major links of Muslim history and making allowances for ‘ lost ’ and ‘ telescoped ’ ancestors:

34Two key educational institutions which came to symbolize A and C in South Asia, and whose alumni were to play an important role in the creation of Pakistan, are the ones at Aligarh and Deoband. Generations of Aligarh men have served in the services and held high office in India, and after 1947 in Pakistan, including that of President. Aligarh, founded by Sayyed Ahmad, attempted to seek ‘ modern ’ answers to the problems of the Muslims. Compromise with the British, it was argued by him, would prevent the Muslims from being swept by resurgent Hinduism. Sayyed Ahmad was trained in the orthodox traditions of Shah Waliullah. Deoband remained an orthodox Islamic centre. The diametrically opposed positions of the two centres is illustrated by the behaviour of their leaders during 1857. Sayyed Ahmad supported the British while Maulana Nanautawi fought them.

  • 21 When asked whether he was a Muslim by an interrogating British official after the 1857 uprisings, M (...)

35Under British rule in the late nineteenth century A, B and C adopted different strategies of survival. A, biding their time, remained hostile and aloof, which discouraged participation in government service. While some of B also took the easy path, lamenting lost glory in intoxicants and verses,21 others diverted their energies from pacific Sufi activity to aggressive movements of rebellion, especially among tribal groups. Illiterate, ill-armed and ill-prepared tribal groups followed their leaders in suicidal encounters with European armies. Jihād, holy war, was declared by Sufi leaders such as the Sanusi of Cyrenaica, the Mahdi of Sudan and the Akhund of Swat, among tribal groups throughout the Muslim world (Ahmed 1976). C joined the colonial services and in some cases rose to eminence. Their assimilation was sometimes so successful that they opened themselves to charges of having become kālā ṣāḥib (black Englishman).

36Political parties, too, aligning themselves with their leaders leaned to A, B or C. The Muslim League of Mr Jinnah in the 1940s, until that of Ayub Khan in the 1960s could be classified as C. The League argued for a liberal, democratic – and at one time – almost secular state. Mr Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party falls, like he does, into B. The Party is an unresolved mix of populist, socialist and Islamic ideologies. The ambiguity partly explains its phenomenal success at the polls – it was all things to all men. The Jamā‘at-i-Islāmī, like its founder and leader, Maulana Maudoodi, is placed unequivocally in A.

37The movement for Pakistan in the 1940s brought out the unresolved problems of Muslim self-perception in India and the inherent tension between A, B and C. The problems were not resolved with the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Generally speaking, C leaders ruled the country imposing their vision of society upon it. Maulana Maudoodi was thus provoked to remark about the first constitution: ‘ If a secular and Godless instead of Islamic Constitution was to be introduced, what was the sense in all this struggle for a separate Muslim homeland? ’ (Tinker 1962: 206). The Maulana himself was a late comer to Pakistan as his party had not joined the struggle for Pakistan on ideological grounds and therefore remained suspect as far as B and C were concerned.

38In the end, we may elucidate principles which assist in understanding Pakistan society and politics in relation to the themes of this paper which suggests ours is a predictive model. Type A focuses on Islam, plays down etnicity – in the ideal the umma supersedes tribal or ethnic loyalties (‘ there are no genealogies in Islam ’ the Prophet had said) and emphasizes a strong centralized state. The concomitants of the last are seen as a highly centralized bureaucracy consisting mainly of the army and civil services, a national lauguage, Urdu, and a high degree of commitment to Pakistan. The entire package is described as the ‘ ideology of Pakistan ’. B and C, while not necessarily playing down Islam, also pay attention to other issues emanating from regional or ethnic compulsions. They are supportive of ethnic culture and languages, in general, groups with a strong sense of tribal identity, such as on the west of the river Indus, would be more in harmony with B than with A. However, the picture is not so simple. The fighting in Baluchistan by the Pakistan Army to make Baluch leaders malleable to Islamabad was severest in the Bhutto period. Those ruling in Islamabad, whether A, B or C, would be equally defensive if external threat were perceived. Thus the state emerges as a strong centralizing force under A, B and C.

  • 22 Mirza Ghalib, an eye-witness of the events of 1857 in Delhi wrote in a letter: ‘ Wallāh! Ab shahar (...)

39Pakistanis, and there is an entire generation that has come of age in Pakistan, cling tenaciously to the ‘ ideology of Pakistan ’. The greater the threat perceived, the more rigid will be the adherence to the ideology (and towards A). Indeed, Pakistanis have cause to be apprehensive. The world of the north Indian Muslims since Aurangzeb has been contracting slowly, sometimes punctuated by dramatic – and for Muslims often devastating – events. In 1857 at one stroke they lost an emperor, a capital and an empire.22 However shrunk in importance, they were the last symbols of Muslim imperial power.

40Recent Pakistan history generates similar fears for Pakistanis. In 1971 Pakistan was split in two. External threat and internal tension will continue to create tension but also act as a cement to bind different ethnic groups together.

41The leaders of Pakistan need to strike a balance and create a synthesis between A, B and C if they are to create a healthy polity for the future. Ideologically the issue of dār al-Islām or dār al-ḥarb has been settled in 1947. Pakistan – literally land of the pure – is dār al-Islām. But the repeated collapse of different national government argues that there is a problem. At times of extreme national crisis aggravated by external hostility the pendulum will swing with violence from one to other model, as after the break-away of East Pakistan in 1971 when it swung from C to B. The severe crisis of 1971 is largely responsible for jolting C out of power, ruling Pakistan since 1947.

42The pendulum in the mid-1970s swung again dramatically from B to A, but it may well swing away from A in the future. If it does some of the internal tensions may be articulated through aggressive ethnicity – particularly in Baluchistan and rural Sind – posing a threat to Pakistan (Harrison 1981; Ahmed 1982c).

  • 23 It is said of his major work, Iḥyā-ul-‘ulūm, ‘ If all the books of Islam were destroyed it would be (...)

43The similar though not identical intellectual crisis for Muslim Arabs between orthodox and Sufi forms of Islam was resolved by Imam Al-Ghazzali after intense soul-searching in the eleventh century. In addition, Hellenistic intellectual and ideological influences pressurized Islam then as do Western ones now. The genius of Al-Ghazzali23 (Watt 1953, 1963), who has often been called ‘ the greatest Muslim after the Prophet Muhammad’ (Schimmel 1975 : 91), lay in reconciling the three major influences of his time to each other: the more formalistic, orthodox aspects of religion (A), to inner Sufic experience which relates worshipper and worshipped (B) in the context of external western influences (C). Pakistan society destined to oscillate between seemingly opposed positions, A, B and C, and surrounded by powers it perceives as less than friendly, awaits its Al-Ghazzali. Until the reconciliation of these fundamental issues takes place the problems of Islam, ethnicity and the State will remain pressing.

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Notes

1 Abdali was the founder of a dynasty in the eighteenth century whose members ruled Afghanistan until the pro-Soviet coups in the 1970s. See note 10.

2 The difference is further exaggerated by the social ramifications of Iran’s Shia form of Islam (FisCHER 1980).

3 There is an extensive literature on the services in British India. Woodruff 1953 and 1954, provides a general – if nostalgic – view which is worth consulting. For the continuing colonial impact on Pakistan administrative structure see Braibanti 1966 and Goodnow 1964; and for an examination of this impact through an extended case-study see Ahmed 1982a and 1983; and as a consequence the creation of artificial “district ethnicity” see AHMED 1982b.

4 Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan in the 1960s, best represents this ethos. Even as a politician he never quite managed to shake off the values and change the behavioural patterns he acquired at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and in the Indian Army. His impressive bearing, clipped moustache and haircut – the prototype general – faithfully reflected an inner commitment to these values. At home, shooting grouse on the demesnes of Scottish lords, on the golf-course and in a dinner-jacket, he ruled Pakistan as a ‘ benevolent dictator a stern but sympathetic schoolmaster. His views clearly reflecting his position are expressed in his autobiography (Khan 1967). In him Macaulay stood vindicated. For the changing social structure of the Pakistan Army see Ali 1984; Cohen 1984.

5 My argument does not take into account Bangladesh. The events of 1971 which clearly saw a breakdown in these values require a separate discussion outside the scope of this paper.

6 Aurangzeb, who ruled India for over forty-eight years, dying in 1707, is particularly well covered in history. For standard references see Datta et al. 1956; Irvine 1971; Sarkar 1912-1924, 1938- 1950; and Spear 1965.

7 A notable exception are the tribal groups such as the Baluch and Pukhtun for whom tribal identity – or ethnicity – has always been of highest importance in self-perception.

8 For a perceptive anthropological comment see Geertz 1973.

9 The earlier comparative economic position of Mughal India and England is represented by the following figures: the salary of a manṣabdār of 5,000 – the senior troop commander – was equivalent to £ 24,000 of English purchasing power when the total revenues of England were less than a million pounds (Spear 1965: 46).

10 It is no accident that the early eighteenth century produced one of the greatest Muslim reformers in India, Shah Waliullah, who sounded the orthodox alarm as a result of the social condition of the Muslim. He emphasized a reversion to pristine Islam and rejection of Hindu accretions such as tomb worship, consulting Brahmins for omens and celebrating Hindu festivals. Pointedly, he wrote his major contribution to theological dialectics, Ḥujjat Allāh al-bāligha, in Arabic not Persian. In spite of bitter polemics by the traditional ‘ulamā’ he translated the Holy Koran into Persian for it to reach a wider readership; his sons translated it into Urdu. Shah Waliullah’s ideas were to shape the Islamic college at Deoband and influence Muslims of all opinions. Significantly, one of his greatest heroes was Aurangzeb.
It is believed that his urgent letters to Ahmad Shah Abdali may have influenced the Afghan ruler to come to India and challenge the rapidly growing and victorious Maratha confederacy. By defeating the Marathas in the third and last battle on the fields of Panipat in 1761 Abdali provided Muslims breathing space for a while. See note 1.

11 The earlier Mughals move in a more relaxed and more confident world. The threat around them appears containable. If not entirely at peace with their environment, they are ready to come to terms with it. Babar, founder of the dynasty, drunk one night and fired with religious zeal the next, who discusses his most personal problems in his autobiography, symbolizes the earlier position. Babar was somewhat inclined to mysticism, professing he was the “servant of derwishes”. More remarkably, Mughal women established themselves as brilliant poets, painters and writers. The tension felt so acutely by the latter Mughals had not developed.

12 See Chand 1943 and Qanungo 1934, in addition to the literature on Aurangzeb contained in footnote 6. Dara Shikoh’s contribution to Sufic thought is acknowledged by contemporary twentieth-century Sufi masters (Lings 1975: 99).

13 In reading Al-Ghazzali, Aurangzeb was following a tradition established by Akbar, his great grandfather, who is accused by the orthodox of drifting away from Islam. So much did Akbar admire Al-Ghazzali that he ordered in a farmān issued to his governors that they spend their spare time reading the major works of Al-Ghazzali and Maulana Rumi (Rizvi 1980: 34-35).

14 A study of the complexity of Mr Bhutto’s character within a socio-cultural context is awaited in spite of numerous biographies (Mukerjee 1972; Mody 1973; Schofield 1979; Taseer 1980; Burki 1980). There are many, sometimes contradictory, facets to his personnality: but for purposes of analysis we are concentrating on one and isolating it from the others. Thus is B highlighted and C – which Mr Bhutto at times appeared to adhere to – moved to the background.

15 The song of Shah Baz Qalandar acknowledges the supremacy of Hazrat Ali the Prophet’s son in law – as ‘ number one among the great saints ’ – Ali da pehla number, and therefore establishes the Qalandar’s impeccable spiritual lineage. The onomatopoeic refrain – dama dam mast Qalandar – is known to induce trance-like and ecstatic behaviour in believers.

16 For scathing ethnic contemporary references to Aurangzeb see Khushal Khan Khattak, the Pukhtun warrior-poet (Howell and Caroe 1963), and for a religious attack Shah Kalim-Allah Jahanabadi (Rizvi 1980: 108). Both ridiculed his austerity and condemned him as a hypocrite.

17 Aurangezeb’s letters and notes reveal a man conscious of attempting to hold a difficult position with high moral courage and diligence. They also reveal a sensitive and often despairing man. I shall cite two examples to support my point. Aurangzeb bitterly commenting on his education is said to have taken his mentor to task thus: ‘ You taught me that the whole of Franguistan (Europe) was no more than some inconsiderable island – and the sovereigns of Franguistan – resembled our petty Rajas; and that Persia, Usbec, Kachguer, Tartary, and Catay, Pegu, Siam, China and Matchine, trembled at the name of the Kings of the Indies ’ (Bernier 1891: 155-61). In another example, he wrote across the petition of a Sunni noble who led the Mughal army against the Marathas and who wished for advancement by abolishing the high post of a Shia, one of the ‘ accursed misbelievers ’: ‘ what connection have worldly affairs with religion? For you is your religion and for me is mine (Sarkar 1963: 88-89).

18 Mr Q. Aziz, Minister for Information at the Pakistan Embassy, London, assures me that not a single hand has actually been amputated nor a single death caused by stoning for adultery, as punishment in Pakistan.

19 See note 4.

20 In times of crisis C leaders like Mr. Jinnah, have fallen back on Islamic themes: ‘ I say to every Muslim that Islam expects you, one and all, to do your duty ’ (Saiyid 1953: 4-6). Although some Pakistanis believe ‘ there can be no doubt that Jinnah was a secularist and against theocracy (Munir, 1981: XV) Mr. Jinnah’s cultural identity with Muslims is established in his statements like: ‘ I shall never allow Muslims to become slaves of Hindus ’ (Sayeed 1960: 215).

21 When asked whether he was a Muslim by an interrogating British official after the 1857 uprisings, Mirza Ghalib, probably Urdu’s greatest poet, and author of significant Sufic verse, replied: only half. I don’t eat pig but I do drink. ’ Ghalib was underlining in a light vein his rather personal and free interpretation of Islam.

22 Mirza Ghalib, an eye-witness of the events of 1857 in Delhi wrote in a letter: ‘ Wallāh! Ab shahar nahīṅ hai. Kamp hai, chā’ūnī hai. Na quil‘a, na shahar, na bazār, na nahar ’ – ‘By God, there is no city, it is now a military camp; there is no fort (the Mughal Red Fort), no city (Delhi), no bazaar, no canals ’ (Ghalib 1973: 16).

23 It is said of his major work, Iḥyā-ul-‘ulūm, ‘ If all the books of Islam were destroyed it would be but a slight loss if only the Iḥyā of Ghazzali were preserved ’ (Al-Ghazzali 1980: 13).

Notes de fin

1 Paper read at the American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council Conference, New York, November 1982. The following are gratefully acknowledged for their general comments on this paper: P. Addy, Q. Aziz, R. Boase and I. al-Faruqi; especially useful were the comments related to their academic interests which, respectively, are Indian history, Pakistan politics, Sufism and Islam.

Auteur

National Center for Rural Development
Islamabad, Nov. 1984.

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