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Muslim Modernism in the Indo-Pakistan Sub-Continent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

Just before the intellectual impact of Britain on Indian Islam a religious reform movement had swept over Muslim India. Although this movement itself does not come into the scope of the present essay, we note it at the outset because: (a) Intellectually it sought to regenerate Islam by going back to the pure and simple Islam of the early period and tried to weaken the hold of medieval authorities on the Muslim mind. Consequently, although reactionary in itself, its ‘purification’ impetus prepared, in some measure, the way for subsequent intellectual developments.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1958

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References

page 82 note 1This is the so-called ‘Indian Wahhābī Movement’ with which W. W. Hunter dealt in his The Indian Mussalmans. There is, however, so far no comprehensive treatment of this important development in the pre-modern Indian Islam.

page 82 note 2Professor Smith, W.C. is quite right in saying in his Modern Islam in India, London, 1946Google Scholar, that this movement was not strictly speaking communal for Communalism is a later growth. The essential point, however, is that the only community which mattered for this movement was the Muslim Community. It ignored other communities except in so far as it came into conflict with them.

page 83 note 1See Shaikh Muḥammad Ikrām, Mauji-i-Kauthar (in Urdu), last edition, Lahore (n.d.), the chapter on Sir Sayyid Aḥmad Khān; also Smith, op. cit., p. 25.

page 83 note 2See his Essays on the life of Muhammed, his Urdu Commentary on the Qur'ān, etc.

page 84 note 1Quoted by Smith,op. cit., 29.

page 84 note 2On the emphasis on the person of Muḥammad see Smith, op. cit., 65 ff.; Gibb, H.A.R., Modern trends in Islam, Chicago, 1946Google Scholar, and Rahman, F., ‘Internal religious developments in the present century Islam’, Journal of World History, II, 4, 1955, 862–79.Google Scholar

page 84 note 3These men were not actually part of the Aligarh Movement.

page 84 note 4See Shaikh Muḥammad Ikrām, op. cit., chapter on the reaction to the Aligarh Movement.

page 85 note 1Lahore, 1952, 10.

page 89 note 1Ikrām, op. cit., chapter on the reaction to the Aligarh Movement. Both Muslim Indian Nationalism and religious revivalism in this phase were reactions against Western influences of which the Aligarh College was the chief representative. (The two were generally speaking found together as in the case of the general body of the Muslim theologians gathered in the Jam'iyat-ul- ‘Ulamā' and elsewhere; but sometimes nationalism rejected not only Westernism but also Islam inasmuch as the latter necessarily implied an extra-Indian supernational reference. This last factor was basic to the Muslims’ subsequent rejection of Indian Nationalism.) It was Westernism itself, however, which was responsible in producing both, nationalism in the manner self-propagation of an idea ; religious revivalism as a reaction.

page 93 note 1La réaction contre la culture occidentale dans le Proche Orient, Paris, 1951.Google Scholar

page 95 note 1Before the idea of Pakistan actually crystallized and was accepted by the majority of the Muslims, a semi-militaristic semi-social religious movement called the Khāksār Movement had gained wide popularity in Northern India. The ideology of the Khāksār, formulated by their leader, ‘Ināyat-Ullāh Khān Mashriqā, although vague in its goal, aimed at creating an Islamic Nationalism (almost Fascism) which it directly deduced from the Qur’anic verse ‘You shall be supreme, provided you have Faith’ (in Islam). This movement actually opposed the idea of Pakistan and ridiculed the Muslim League but lost its force in the early forties partly due to successive government suppressions and partly due to the fact that its raison d'être was really taken over by Pakistan.

page 96 note 1Since this essay was written the Constitution has been completed and adopted.

page 96 note 2See Smith, W.C., Pakistan as an Islamic state, Lahore, 1951Google Scholar; Lewis, B., ‘The concept of an Islamic republic’, Die Welt des Islams, NS, iv, 1, 1955, 19.Google Scholar

page 98 note 1For a general picture of the state of Muslim affairs in India see Kamali's, S.A.Muslims in India since partition’, Muslim World, XLV, 1, 1955.Google Scholar

page 98 note 2Chaudhri Muhammad ‘Alī resigned from office in the autumn of 1956.