The Muslim Question

Title: The Muslim Question – Understanding Islam and Indian History

Author: Raziuddin Aquil

Publisher: Penguin, 2017 (First published 2009)

ISBN: 9780143428916

Pages: 289

Secular historians attribute the entire blame for the incendiary religious scenario at the time of India’s partition on the British. They argue that the British policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ sowed the seeds of mistrust and mutual antagonism between the Hindus and Muslims. This leaves the hinted conclusion that they were living in a fraternal spirit before the Europeans arrived. But is this true? Even with the heavily and selectively edited accounts of the Sultanate and Mughal periods of Indian history that are then sanitized by Marxist historians, we presume that not everything was alright for the non-Muslims in India in those times. We frequently read about murder, rape, pillage, forced conversion, temple destruction and disenfranchisement of the non-Muslim populace at the hands of Muslim rulers. In short, we were divided and they ruled. A glorious example like the latter half of Akbar’s rule is an exemption rather than the rule. Raziuddin Aquil is an associate professor of history at the University of Delhi. He has published widely on Sufism, religion and political culture, literary and historical traditions and questions of historiography in medieval and early modern India. He examines a few representative samples of Islamic books penned during the period from Sultanates to the beginning of the twentieth century and presents its synopsis with evaluation in a free and lucid manner, quite unlike other secular historians who often have an agenda to perform.

Sufism is widely touted as the middle ground between Islam and Hinduism in medieval times where Sufi shrines were frequented by Hindus as well. Its syncretistic spirit is claimed to have grouped the whole society under its fold without concern for their caste or religion. Aquil puts paid to this pious falsehood. Sufism was always just another weapon in the arsenal of Islamic occupation of India. Sufis who undertook an active part on behalf of Muslim rulers include such eminent figures as Nizam-ud-Din Auliya who sent his khalifas with the army. Chishti Sheikh Muin-ud-Din Ajmeri greatly helped the Turkish conquest. Nur Qutb-i-Alam of Bengal and Abdul Quddus Gangohi of North India’s attitude towards non-Muslims can be discerned from the letters written by them to the ruler of the state (p.188). Non-Muslim disciples of a Sufi master usually joined the master’s faith with their old customs and practices intact. Another Sufi guru, Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, suggested that the honour of Islam required the humiliation of infidels, who were to be oppressed, treated like dogs and mercilessly forced to pay jizya. He also emphasized that a very effective way of establishing the supremacy of Islam was the slaughter of cows (p.67). While one stream of conversions flowed through the Sufi route, the other proceeded apace with the battle cry of Imma’l Islam, Imma’l Qatl (Islam or death), by the conqueror’s sword. Sufis contributed to the spread of Islam by conversion is attested to by the numerous examples seen in authoritative Sufi texts that can’t be simply wished away as useless accounts of Sufi exploits. Secular scholarship ignores all these to declare that the Sufis were never interested in the propagation of Islam.

This book delivers a hard knock on the secularist agenda of medieval historiography. His erudite attack on the left-oriented scholars who deny the existence of any religious struggle between Hindus and Muslims prior to British rule invalidates and ridicules the weak homilies of the Marxist historians. He states that in the blatantly present-minded scholarship, modern ideological concerns such as secularism and nationalism etc. are projected backward in time to present a sanitized picture of medieval India. It is shocking to learn that for nearly four decades, the history of religion or ideas was a neglected area because of the dominance of leftist historians in medieval Indian historiography (p.31). Aquil exposes revivalist Islamist theologians like Ahmad Raza Khan Barelwi, who treated all infidels as untouchables. We know from history that Husain Ahmad Madani of the hardline Dar-ul-Ulum Deoband School opposed the partition of India in 1947 on the principle of composite nationalism. Many appreciate him even today for his unusual position towards partition among Muslim clergy. But his real motive is laid bare in this book. Madani wanted composite nationalism so long as Muslims were in a minority, so that they couldn’t be expected to fight with the Hindus and British simultaneously. In such a situation, it was advisable to fight against an enemy of Islam with the help of another! In contexts where Muslims were numerically stronger and controlled political power, there was no need to enter into such a political alliance and make compromises. He then went on to castigate the ‘falsehood’, ‘intolerance’, ‘insensitivity’, ‘illegitimacy’ and ‘immorality’ of other religious traditions including Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. (p.186)

We have seen everywhere in the world where Islam is in the majority to enforce the Sharia law, which claims that only Islam is true, or haqq, and all other religions are falsehood, or batil. During the early centuries of the Muslim era, this could go on as their armies were victorious in battle everywhere. The first jolt to wake them up to reality came in 1257 when the pagan Mongols sacked Baghdad and killed the caliph in a humiliating way. The idea that Sharia shouldn’t be the sole criterion of governance was propounded first in Akhlaq-i-Nasiri of Khwaja Nasir-ud-Din Tusi (d.1274), which was dedicated to Maraghah, a non-Muslim Mongol ruler in Azerbaijan. Even with that forced moderation, the ulema didn’t take kindly to the concept of wahdat-ul-wujud (human soul could achieve union with god) of Sufism. The puritans considered it heretical as it challenged the primacy of the divine. Aquil presciently notes the similarity of the idea of wahdat-ul-wujud to Shankara’s Advaita philosophy.

As far as the destruction of temples is concerned, the author takes a casual stance like although-some-temples-might-have-been-destroyed. He later comments that places of worship were generally plundered for their wealth. Their despoliation was aimed at hammering home the point that the old regime was overthrown and that it could no longer protect the people and their religious places. So far so good. But his ‘theory’ falls to the ground when the contestants in a battle were Muslims like Babur’s defeat of Ibrahim Lodi or Nadir Shah’s triumph over Muhammad Shah Rangila or the Ghurid victory over their Ghaznavid predecessors. We don’t hear of any mosques being destroyed or desecrated in any of these cases! Our historians continue to shy away from identifying fanaticism as the true motive of temple destruction.

The core of the book covers the little known political and religious treatises of the medieval period. The examined works are Zia-ud-Din Barani’s Fatawa-i-Jahandari and Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, Abdul Qadir Badauni’s Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, Sheikh Abdul Haqq Muqaddis Dehlawi’s Adab-us-Salihin and Mir Muhammad Jafar Zatalli’s Zatal Nama. Needless to say, that all of them encapsulate extreme hatred towards infidels. Still, Barani is sanitized by secularist historians even in spite of his tirade against infidels. However, Zatalli is a different issue altogether. He attacked all nobles without reference to their religion, in a language and symbolism unbefitting to cultured speech. A few examples cited in the book helps to gauge the audacity of the man, but is hardly decent enough even for a mention. However, it serves to assess the wide variety of literature produced during the period.

Aquil’s book is refreshing to read. Hardly do the secular historians come out with a candid work such as this. He justifies the shift in perspective with the assertion that ‘in these times of intolerance in religion and politics, it is imperative to develop a new theoretical framework through which one may re-examine the past’. The book is well-researched and illuminates some of the dark corners of the medieval mansion of history. It contains a lot of Notes as a separate section, an excellent glossary and a superb index.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star