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Extremism has gripped Muslims all over the world due to various reasons. The upsurge started in 1700s when Sheikh Abdul Wahab stressed the need to purify Islam of the evil practices it has incorporated in its fold. Saudi Arabia played a detrimental role in the inception of this movement calling for elimination of elements within Islam who have modified the religion. Many scholars of Islam were massacred by the recruits of this newly found movement. Graves were demolished, people were barred from worshipping near the Prophet’s (Peace be upon him) house (the remains were recently demolished by the Saudi government) and any act of innovation in Islam was crushed with iron hands. The followers of Sheikh Wahab are today called as Salafis. They have occupied high positions, and continue to occupy, in the Muslim organizations in the west. They have full political and financial backing from the Saudi government. Their basic ideology calls for return to the basics of Islam and also conversion of as many non-Muslims as possible.
In 1920s Maulana Ilyas (May Allah be pleased with him) started his work of Tabligh, an urdu word which means calling people towards the correct path. The Banglewali Masjid became the headquarters and Mewat, an area spread across Haryana and Rajasthan, became its first testing ground. Even though he was refuted by other learned men, he continued his mission to call Muslims towards Islam. He held the belief that Muslims are suffering because of their own deeds. They need to return to the basics and strictly adhere to the Islamic way of living. The progress was slow initially but now Tabligh has become the biggest religious movement among Muslims. This work has spread from Tokyo to New York and from Australia to Ireland. The Banglewali Masjid is still the headquarter. If you happen to visit Nizamuddin then you will notice the vast variety of people from different nations spread all around the big mosque. The political impact of Tabligh can be gauged from the fact that political leaders including Indra Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi have approached them for support in the polls. As an apolitical organization, Tabligh has always rejected such requests.
People associated with this movement have covered deserts in Africa on foot. They don’t give invitation to non-Muslims but concentrate on Muslims. They don’t, as Salafis, believe that converting others is inevitable for Islam to exist. Tabligh is associated with Deoband, the Islamic school located in UP. Members of Barelvi, another school of Islam located in UP, are opposed to it because of ideological mismatch. In raw terms Barelvis are close to Sufism but Deoband loathes any form of distorted Sufism which includes worshiping at graveyards. Deoband is more rational and open to ideas whereas Barelvis are more orthodox in their approach. They usually come up with inane rulings which have belittled Islam. One of their verdict goes as- if a Barelvi says salaam to a Deobandi then his wife becomes haraam for him, the marriage annulled and they have to remarry!
I mentioned all this background so as to build my case to prove why Indian Muslims have not fallen prey to the extremists. Salafi movement is still to make inroads into India, thanks to strong presence of Deoband and Barelvi school of thought which are essentially accommodative towards non-Muslims. Even though many madarsaas are financed by Saudi, they are sill to impose their Salafi school of thought to them. Both these school of thought are soft towards non-Muslims. This is totally contrary to the ideology terrorist use to justify their killings; a non-Muslim can be killed because he/she will go to hell anyway!
I don’t claim Salafi movement to be entirely responsible for extremism to originate but definitely it served as an incubator. The belligerent attitude that existed among Salafis has translated into global terror. They have not only killed non-Muslims but even Muslims who wanted to reject their ideology. They have ruthlessly suppressed any movement that could challenge its existence in Saudi Arabia. Whereas Deoband and Barelvi have been tolerant towards anti movements. They have shown far greater tolerance towards evil practices that have crept into Islam. They believe in the power of persuasion through words rather than violence. I am sure even with government support these school of thought would never take to extreme ways of dealing with non-believers.
The little support that ‘freedom fighters’ from the across the border generate is due to the internal conflict, the anti-Muslim riots. Kashmir is always projected as a Muslim cause by those fighters. These sporadic incidents cannot categorically prove the involvement of Indian Muslims in terrorism. Plus majority of morons involved in these bomb blasts are from the banana republic with whom, unfortunately, we share our border. Indian Muslims don’t see themselves as global citizens of the Muslim ummah. I have personally observed in almost all cities I have been to, with the possible exception of Hyderabad as a large part of its population find employment abroad and are in touch with Salafi groups working in those countries. Again this is my personal observation and I don’t have any proof of it. It can very well be the hot bed for terrorist activities if the social worker from the Bajrang Dal or RSS try to experiment there Gujarat success there.
The rise and fall of Salafi dawah in the US (in 9 parts) makes an interesting read.
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Sharique, thanks for taking the time to write this up. Informative, so quite helpful, regardless of whether its complete in its analysis of the issue. Its always a pleasure to learn something one did not kow.
I remeber an interview of Azim Premji with Charlie Rose (from a year or two ago) in which I think Rose poses the same question you address – Indian Muslims not falling prey to the global Jihad – to Premji. I’m paraphrasing, and hopefully not altering the message, Premji’s response was that it had to do with the inherently tolerant/inclusive culture of India. I’m not trying to steal anyone’s thunder here, but I think we all should really be proud of this — our land has indeed been a bastion for religious freedom for ages and possesses a great heritage of spirituality. If I’m not wrong, our forefathers have done this by establishing great freedom/democracy in religous/spiritual matters. Lets keep that flag flying high.
Sharique – excellent post.
Question for you – how influential is the Tabligh in India’s immediate neighborhood? Has it had any moderating impact there?
Manu,
I have pointed out that Tabligh is no more limited to India. As far as impact it concerned, well it have had no political impact as it distances away from politics but it has a huge impact on the society in many countries. In Sri Lanka it is estimated that people are flocking to the mosque for the daily prayers, the kind of crowd seen only on fridays in India! Saeed Anwar is the most visible face of Tabligh in Pakistan. In fact many members of the Pakistani cricket team are very closely linked to Tabligh. (Seen the beard on Inzi’s face?). In Europe and Americas it has effected the society to a very great extent.
The dynamic is interesting. Tabligh is influential in India’s neighborhood and yet, the Salafists appear to be popular. How else could one explain the fountain of terrorists on our west?
@ Manu
I am planning to write a series of posts on Tablighi jamaat. Hope that would address some of your concerns.
Mohib, while you are at it, please also address the aspect of conversion: from my next-to-non-existent knowledge of the movement (i must admit i only heard of it after Saeed Anwar and then Inzi became visible faces of it), I have the impression that they are actively looking to convert people to Islam, or at least whatever sect of Islam they represent (Sunni?). Is this true? Etc, etc.. I’d like you to educate us on that.
dear shaarique
i think it is not correct to say tabligh is the reason why indian muslims are soft (if that is what you are indicating here). and the matter of ‘evil practices’ is that of perspective.
Tabligh gives a lot of importance to outward form and show off than spirit. this is my personal view of what ive seen of tabligh
jaleel
Jaleel,
this is clearly a complex topic, but would you care you put down some of your own thoughts on the why? They would compliment /counterweight Sharique’s take, which would be useful especially for the non-Muslim readers of this space.
Wonderful post.
Incidentally, by Sheikh Wahab are you referring to Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab? What you call Salafis here, are they the erstwhile Wahhabis? Assuming this to be true, you might like to know that one of the earliest proponents of the thought was from Bhopal, Muhammad Siddiq Hasan Khan. Bhopalis have seen Wahabism, but very few appear to remember this Nawab.
dear mahi
it surely is a complex topic and am no expert about international muslim issues. here are my thoughts abt this.
it would be difficult to sum up in few lines to why indian muslims have not embraced extremism in ways it happened in other countries. but it is not as good as it looks .. of late indiam muslim youth are moving towards this state of mind that they are targeted and victimised and anger is growing amongst them. (recent incidents from hyd and other cities proves this) i hope that muslim organisations come out and grow awareness amongst muslim youth against getting exploited because of this anger.
it takes a lot for anyone to resort to violent means, in muslim countries i guess there is a growing dissent and anger amongst muslim youth that islam is under attack from the west. there are religious fanatics who flare up this anger and brain wash these people to take up arms and ’save’ their religion. there is no strong check against this there because these countries are ‘islamic’. it is not so with india. indian muslims feel safe here. except for some places where antimuslim riots occur. (this is a very generalised view of things .. i am sure there are different reasons in different countries to why muslims have taken up arms . take chechnya,palestine or iraq. but these get a common ground as fight for islamic cause ).
before coming of tabligh and salafis , islam has spread in india due to sufi saints. this is debated by many as there also is a view that islam has spread due to moghals and other muslim rulers who invaded and ruled india. may be that also is a reason for spreading of islam in india. but definitely sufi saints (you find sufi dargahs everywhere in india ) have had a big role in this. sufis spread the message of love and peace and tolerance to other religions. i feel this is one of the many reasons why indian muslims are more tolerant than their counterparts in other places. it is not that sufis are only in india .. but the major following is in india.
sufis have often been blamed for ‘evil practices’ which include ‘worshipping graves’ amongst other things. but one striking thing here is that sufi shrines have been respected and visited by people of all religions. recently i was surprised to find a hindu couple bowing their heads at the grave of a muslim saint at ahmedabad (which is supposedly a more communally polarised region)
i am not proposing that sufis are right and tabligh is wrong or vice versa. these are my thoughts on why it may be so.
Manu,
Extremist is not necessarily associated with salafis. I think Pakistan has lot of anti-India/Hindu feeling which has lead to the terrorist activities.
Dear Jaleel,
Sufism is definitely a factor in the spread of Islam. But I don’t buy your argument that [quote post="201"]Tabligh gives a lot of importance to outward form and show off than spirit[/quote]
As a matter of fact Tabligh lays stress on ‘ikhlaas’ that is deed only for Allah without any show off. I think you have based your arguments on few who take pride in their harangues.
bhopale,
yes I referred to him. I didn’t call them wahabis because its not correct to call them by that name as Sheikh Wahab’s teachings have not been strictly adhered to by these salafis. And plus I don’t believe in calling someone by the person he follows and thats why I hate being called a Mohammedan!
Thanks for pointing out about Muhammad Siddiq Hasan Khan. I thought ahle-Hadeeth started because of the influence on Saudi Arabia on the Indian expatriate there.
Hi Jaleel – thanks for your excellent post. It is indeed a complex topic, but you’ve done well in highlighting some very good points.
I had never thought of the ‘Islam under attack from West’ angle. Makes sense to me.
About the Sufis — going a step further back, I ask myself why the sufis were popular in India or gain their biggest foothold here or why their message got accepted cutting across religious lines? I think its simply because to our ancestors (as to us now) devotion and love for God as a means of relating to God was quite natural. Its part and parcel of the spiritual clime of India. So regardless of faith, people will respond to this. It is indeed one of my disappointments that Sufism has increasingly been marginalised within Islam. Not sure about the situation in India, but it appears its a fringe player in most Islamic countries. I dont know for sure, but thats what I read.
I’ll end with a note of concern and sadness based on what you say about the increasing anger amongst Muslim youth. This is not at all good. Where does an antidote to this lie, u think? In increased access to education; maybe filtering down of job opportunity with economic growth; better relations with Pakistan; institutional measures enacted as law by our governments to better the lot of Muslims (whether or not the implementation is actually good enough);Muslim community organisations working overtime to eliminate the alienation/anger;…a combination of all these maybe?
salam sharique, the indian muslim is so deeply engrossed in its own complications of daily life, that forget the terrorism, there is hardly anytime to follow the basics of religion. Islam in no form or way justifies killing, even non muslims. Only in retaliation, when it becomes obligatory to save oneself, family and property.As applicable to any other religion.
Life would be much more easier for all of us, if we just stick to the basics of what Rasool taught. In the passage of time new sects came up, as u remember even from hadrat Ali’s time ” the kharjites”, who eventually believed that both Hadrat Ali and Mouwaya, have gone out the fold of islam hence be killed or executed. Later Hadrat Ali was assasinated so was Hadrat Omar and Hadrat Osman. Later the group known as assasians were very active.
Killings got nothing to do with the ideology of islam, but people or factions or individuals always came up with new ideas or insights confusing them with path of virtue. In the passage of time historically speaking we have seen various sects. Wahabi came at the time when islam in “hijaz” now arabia was deterioating, people were back to grave worshipping, he tried revival.
today the world has changed and so is the muslims perception about himself and religeon. in last 60 yrs israel was created, adding new pain to the already suffering arabs, from ottomans n later european occupation, the land most sacred after mecca, medina was suddennly in jewish occupation, and then started the fresh killing of arabs, mostly muslims. what killings we see all over is not only religeous but vengance of an individual who lost all family or a brother or a friend. iraq, bosnia, chechnia are just few names.
we in india are too far from this confusion and misery.
Wassalam Saif,
But this poverty can also lead to terrorism, isn’t it? Are those fanatics in Pakistan, who indulge in terrorist activities, rich? Unemployment and subsequent frustration leads people to such activities.
I agree with you on the situation of Muslims worldwide has lot to do with this growing resentment.
Sharique,
Unemployment and poverty leave room for fanatical notions. They tend to correlate closely with lack of modern education, which CAN (its not a guarantee as Atta shows) act as a barrier against narrow thinking and fanatic zeal. But the relationship between sociao-economic conditions and resorting to terrorism is not causal. An important distinction I believe, esp when you consider implications for policy-making, response-to-terrorism, etc.
The most renowned examples would of course be OBL and M.Atta. Neither was poor or unemployed.
I was just wondering, and to add some fuel to the debate, if creation of Palestine – according to Saif above – can add new pain to Arabs, would Indians be justified in feeling such enormous hatred towards Pakistan/B’desh as Arabs in general tend to feel about Isreal?
I know there will be many people who will unearth ‘historical facts’ to show that the two are not similar cases. We can possibly spend the rest of our lives poring over such facts and analysing them. Instead, we have to be moderate rather than just blindly hate people or countries, like seems to be Isreal’s lot. (FYI, I have my own gripes with Isreal, but mostly they are event/policy based, not visceral).
salam sharique,
you are a learned man and have put much efforts to force an ignorant like me to debate. still i believe poverty does not harbour terrorism. if it was dynasties in past would never have been built.
look at todays youth and compare him to someone from 70s, todays muslim in general indian or arab, knows more about islam, probably prays and follows the basic. women, educated and independent choose by choice to wear hijab. young men sporting beards. its not that all of a sudden we have this love for islam. infact its the fight for our identity. the deterioation of indian muslim has come cause of our stubborn n unflexible nature, we gave islam to maulana and women. Though the majority of fine educated muslims migrated to pakistan, the one who chose to stay, instead of carving a new destiny, gave their destinies up. lack of education, resulted in deterioation in the system as whole. then came ignorance to religion, grave worshipping, and unheard new sects. the revival has started but its a long wait, not for once lost glory but stability.
mahi and Saif,
I understand that poverty cannot be the only cause of terrorism but I believe that it forms a major reason. For the newly recruits of Al-Quaida or LeT, its not terrorism but its fight for justice and a way to earn their livelihood. Why else would an uneducated man take up arms? Just to kill people and take out his frustration at being poor? It has religious reasons as well which I believe are more important than poverty and this also explains the case of Atta and bin laden. Perhaps the single most important reason being political and economic subjugation of the Arabs and the subsequent threat to Islam.
PS Saif- I am no erudite or an authority over these matters. I am just like everyone else, educated so have to have an opinion
Sharique – “Perhaps the single most important reason being political and economic subjugation of the Arabs and the subsequent threat to Islam.”
That again is a weak linkage. In today’s age, Western nations dont generally give a damn about the religious hegemony. They are mostly only interested in economic hegemony. In that environment, one can’t help but think that there is hyper sensitivity in suggesting a ‘threat to Islam’ (again, what exactly is that anyway? Can someone wipe out Islam from your heart that easily?) based upon economic/semi-political subjugation.
Interesting
Sharique, A very good article. Will like to see more such articles that have shaped the thought process of Indian Muslims. We as Indian Muslims are so diverse with so wide thought process. Also saifali i dont believe keeping a beard and hijab is a means to fight for your identity and survival. I don’t think that all Muslims in Arabia or afghanistan are fighting for revenge only. Many of them have taken to terrorism consciously otherwise all battles fought in name of terrorism become relatively very simplified that it is about revenge.
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