Less than a week after the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam celebrated what can be termed as a century of ulema (Muslim religious scholars) in politics, a lynch mob of university students in Mardan brutally murdered a fellow student on the accusation of blasphemy. Can we see this incident as the culmination of a process that was set in motion by a group of religious scholars a hundred years ago in Delhi?
The Mughal Empire was shattered into pieces and its capital, Delhi, was overrun by a Muslim invader, Nadir Shah, in 1739. However, it was the final defeat of the symbolic Mughal king at the hands of the East India Company that carried the most scars for Muslims, particularly in the Gangetic valley. Interestingly, the areas that are now Pakistan had changed hands from the Persians to the Afghans, from the Afghans to the Sikhs and finally from the Sikhs to the British.
Following the 1857 War of Independence, ulema led a number of revivalist movements, all based on the premise that Muslim decline in India was caused by the lack of adherence to the Shariah. Glory, therefore, could be regained only through purifying religious beliefs and practices. Their analysis, based on spiritual, religious and cosmological reasons, saw modernity as a problem. It also put ulema at the centre stage and declared the secular elite to be a cause of Muslim decline.
On November 19, 1919, a group of leading religious scholars founded the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH), electing Maulana Syed Hussain Ahmad Madani of Darul Uloom Deoband as the head of the party, a position he held until his death in 1957. Though it was founded by religious scholars from different denominations, the JUH soon turned into the political arm of the Deoband and still retains that sectarian orientation.
On September 6, 1920, less than a year after its founding, the JUH issued its famous fatwa of tark-e-mawalat. As a result of this fatwa, hundreds of thousands of Muslims returned their titles and stopped sending their children to government schools; many young Muslims bartered their government jobs for petty private employment. The aim was to support the declining Ottoman caliphate against the British Empire.
Two great religious scholars of their time, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Maulana Abdul Bari, came up with an even more innovative form of resistance. They issued another fatwa declaring India ‘Darul Harb’ (Land of War), making it mandatory upon Muslims either to fight the British Empire or migrate from India. This fatwa earned widespread support in the community of religious scholars who urged the Muslims of India to migrate to Afghanistan.
This great scheme turned GT Road into a graveyard of Muslims. Those who migrated or tried to migrate fell victim to death, disease and destitution as Afghanistan stopped them from entering into the country; those who had arrived there were forced to retreat in extreme weather conditions. The politics of the ulema had thus resulted in a grave human tragedy and in disastrous consequences for the Muslims of India.
The failure of the idealism of the Khilafat Movement meant that the experiment of leadership by the ulema had failed miserably. This failure resulted in two interesting consequences. It gave birth to Islamism, a new kind of religious movement, led by scholars who came from the background of secular education and wanted comprehensive Islamisation of the state alongside some kind of marriage between faith and modernity. This brand of religious politics was born in India in the hands of Maudoodi who founded the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1941.
The failure of the ulema also pushed Muslims back to the traditional elite and to a new kind of middle-class elite who had been educated at modern Western institutions and saw a solution to the problems of Muslim community in separatist politics, modern education and modern institutions. People in Muslim majority areas never trusted ulema in politics again.
Alongside the ulema, most Muslims also lost trust in Gandhi who had fully backed the ulema on these adventures. The Jamiat, led by Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni, however, kept working closely with the Congress from 1920 to 1947. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who had never left India despite his own fatwa, became one of the top leaders of the Indian National Congress.
In 1945, a faction of Deoband scholars, led by Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, parted ways from the JUH and founded the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam to support the Muslim League, a party that had been able to win the support of the Muslims of India.
In India, the leadership of the Muslim community has largely remained in the hands of religious scholars; this is one reason of their economic and social decline. In Pakistan, however, people have never trusted them with their votes. However, it is in Pakistan that we have seen ulema, in alliance with the state, wreaking havoc upon society.
Both the JUH and the JUI have been staunch supporters of their respective states and have worked closely with the ruling elite. In India, the JUH supports secularism and considers it a part of the social contract between Muslim and the state of India. To explain this social contract, the Deobandi scholars in India give the example of the contract made between Jews and Muslims during the time of the Holy Prophet (pbuh).
In Pakistan, however, the JUI aspires to make Pakistan a Shariah-compliant state run by ulema. Though unable to win popular support, ulema have formed a close alliance with the secular ruling elite of the country. This alliance helps the ruling elite in ensuring their legitimacy, promoting a national identity based on religion and recruiting religiously motivated young men for the jihad project. The ruling elite also pampers the religious groups out of the fear and, in the case of the political elite, due to the greed for votes.
This has resulted in a unique fusion of religion and the modern nation-state – which has proved to be a catastrophic combination. While ulema aspired to occupy the state – like in Iran – they have ended up making a gainful accommodation with the state, something that resembles Saudi Arabia.
The ulema can claim this situation as a great success, but their followers see it as a failure, which has resulted in violent religious groups and religious vigilantism. The Deoband movement in Pakistan first gave birth to the Sipah-e-Sahaba and then to the Taliban and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
These kinds of religious parties hold that any act done in the name of Islam should not be questioned. Their strength does not lie in numbers but in blackmail and nuisance value, which make them both useful and threatening to the ruling elite and helps them in cutting deals with them.
The deathly silence from religious leaders over the lynching in Mardan is not without meaning. Maulana Fazlur Rehman has ironically condemned American bombing in Afghan while keeping silent over this most gruesome murder in his own area of influence.
The JUH has harmed Muslims in India and the JUI, and other ulema, have harmed Muslims in Pakistan. The failure of the ulema in 1920 had turned Muslims away from ulema. Their failure, a century later, is turning people away from Islam. Congratulations on the centenary of the Jamiat-e-Ulema.
The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.
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