Plassy to 1947: Farangi Mahal Ulema & Sufis in Islamic Society

Farangi Mahal: The Nursery that incubated freedom

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From Rupee News archives…..THE ISLAMIC SOCIETY FROM PLASSEY TO SEPARATION

The role of the Sufis of Farangi Mahall in the Pakistan movement

Ira M. Lapidus (The History of Islamic Societies) bifurcates the Muslim struggles in what was then “India” into three sections:

1) Muslim Militancy from Plassey to 1857: While the Muslim political and lineage elites were slow to adapt to the decline of the Mughal state, Muslim religious leaders were immediately shocked and galvanized into action. The Sufi leaders and managers of shrines felt the need to compensate for the loss of Mughal authority and Mughal support by re-affirming Muslim values

2)From the Mutiny to World War 1 The first Muslim response to the imposition of British rule was characterized by the efforts of religious reformers to fuse religious reforms and political militancy, and rally the tribal and peasant population to the defense of their interests and their religion. The Mutiny of 1857 turned Muslim activities into new directions.

The revolt was bitterly suppressed and not easily forgotten. In its wake the British reorganized the government of India. They formally abolished the Mughal empire and the East India company in favor of direct crown government, and proceeded to consolidate their Indian regime…Between 1871 and 18812 they created a new financial system…..the army was reorganized with the proportion of English to Indian troops raised from one-fifth to one-half…the new policies rested upon a revised set of attitudes…the British developed an ever-increasing aloofness, superciliousness and condescending attitude towards the Indians … they maintained the existence of 560 Indian states, restored Hindu and Muslim Zamindars to their lands and began to organize Indian municipal and advisory councils…adopted a policy of non-intervention in religious matters and withdrew from efforts to reform Hindu caste and Muslim legal practices … the British relationship with the Muslim population was particularly delicate…the British generally tended to stereo-type the opposition in terms of Muslim resistance to British rule.. they saw the Muslims as an entity, once the dominant elite of India, that was bound to be rebellious and had therefore to be suppressed…

1857. Image via Wikipedia

The Muslim reaction to the events of 1857 was equally consequential. At the time, qasbah political and religious elite did not think of themselves as a single political body, abut all of them recognized THAT JIHAD WAS A FAILURE and British rule was enduring. The agreed that their best interests lay in the cultivation of educational, religious and cultural affairs and in strengthening the Muslim community from within.

Some embraced the new regime in the hope of forming a British-Muslim condominium to govern India. Others maintained silent but deep anti-British and pan-Islamist sentiments; still others turned their back
on political issues.

As the century moved on, three main strands may be distinguished in the post-Mutiny position of qasbah elites. The first was the position of the conservative religious leaders who recognized the futility of jihad, the need for adjustment to British rule, and the importance of preserving the traditions of Islamic religious belief and practice. The Sufi leaders and “sajadda-nashin” or heads of shrines wanted to maintain a panoply of saint worship and festivals and the loyalty of the Muslim masses. However, Mughal decline had deprived the shrines of economic and political support; British rule had subverted their worldly political influence. To maintain their position many Sufis associated themselves with British rule and had recourse to British courts to settle land and tenure disputes. The Sajjada Nashin often delegated their religious functions to subordinates while they saw their political interests.

Other Sufis attempted to adapt theory and practice to their declining worldly authority and stressed the purely contemplative and spiritual aspect of Sufism. They tried to preserve the inner meanings of Sufi
tradition, and adopted more sober and Sharia oriented religious practices in the face of declining worldly authority.

Conservative ‘ulema” similarly attempted to maintain their traditional position.

The scholars of Farangi Mahall quarter of Lucknow and the Barelwis continued to combine “ulema” scholarship and Sufi shrines

The second response within the “ulema” circles however was the resurgence of reformism in north India and Bengal. In North India the pre-Mutiny program of religious reform survived political defeat. Its most important expression in the post-Mutiny period was the founding in 1867 of the reform college of Deoband, by Maulana Mohammed Qasim Nanautawi. Deobands curriculum combined the study of revealed sciences (Quran Hadith and law) with national subjects (logic, philosophy and science). At the time it was Sufi in orientation and affiliated with the Chisti order. Its Sufism, however was closely integrated with hadith scholarship and the proper legal practice of Islam. Deobandis poured out in Urdu vernacular, legal opinions in proper Islamic practice. The spread of printing made it possible for the first time to reach a mass audience. Deobands each was India-wide. Many students came from Afghanistan, Central Asia, Yemen and
Arabia. Within 30 years of its founding, its graduates established some 40 branch schools, making Deoband the center of the new maslak–a distinctive “way” in Indian Islam.

The third strand in post Mutiny Muslim adjustment to British rule was that of the land owning and the office-holding interests. Though the British had replaced the Mughals it was still conceivable to the political elite that they could maintain maintain their landed official and status interests … the Muslims had to accommodate to the English language. For generations the response of the political elite was formulated by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Ahmad Khan was himself descended from a prominent family of Mughal administrators, and throughout his life continued to be posted as an officer of British administration. In his view the only adequate response to the realities of post-Mutiny India was to accept British rule.

In Syeds view British rule was lawful. Under British government Muslims could live in peace …. his principal concern was and that of his cohorts was the need for Western type education, under Muslim auspices to
train a new generation for political responsibility… Aligarh was meant to be the Eaton of England; its playing fields as much as its class-rooms were the training ground of a new generation of Muslim political leaders. Aligarh encouraged verbal skills, self-confidence, manly solidarity and competition and the values of duty, loyalty, and leadership exercised in games and in school clubs and societies…

3) From Elite to Mass politics
In the later part of the century, however the policies of loyalism and of political reform, whether of the religious reformist or the modernist variety were challenged and eventually overthrown. The ambiguities in the British attitude towards the Muslims, increasing Hindu self-assertion and the beginnings of the Indian national independence movement drove Muslim political thought and religious leaders toward a more aggressive British policy…the British attitude toward Muslim elites was a major factor in the eventual subversion of the loyalist policies of Sayyed Ahmad. The British considered that the Muslims as former masters of India harbored lingering ambitions of political power  and that they had therefore to be
conciliated to win favor but repressed lest they become too powerful…at the time they tried to reduce the proportion of Muslims employed in government. British governors sometimes deliberately favored Hindu over Muslim appointees. The administrative position of Muslims though still substantial deteriorated steadily…. the electoral system favored Hindus….another factor that weakened Muslim position was Hindu self assertion… in 1875 Arya Samaj…the first cow protection associations in 1882…of particular concern to educated Muslims was the campaign to make Hindi an official language. Hindu revivalism led to literary renaissance, increasing numbers of newspapers and the ever wider circulation and ultimately a Hindu crusade against the dominant place to Urdu in government affairs. Hindus campaigned to have Devanagri recognized as an official script for the court an government use. The new script they argued would allow Hindus who did not know Persian to compete equally for government posts. The British were responsive to these demands.

A British governor rejected a civil service candidates’ list on the grounds that there was too many Muslims; Persian was removed from the curriculum of Allahbad University, and in 1900 the British accepted the use of Devanagri script for official purposes in the Northwest Frontier provinces and Oudh … the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885…Congress though open to Muslims was formed by Brahmin Lawyers.. however no event was more important for the change in Muslim elite opinion then the partition of Bengal…the first Muslim response was to continue the policies…the younger generation clamored for more direct political action …Urdu defense League in 1900..1906 a petition for separate elctorate…  and Lord Minto acknowledged the Muslim right to representation…in 1909…the most important expression of the new Muslim militancy were the founding of the Muslim League in 1906…in 1908 Abu’l Kalam Azad began to publish Al-Hilal…to support the caliphate.. Maulana Mohamamd Ali a graduate of Aligarh preached a similar creed in Comrade The new found militancy of the Muslim political elite was paralleled by
the revived activism among the reformist “ulema”.

In this political re-assertion the “ulema” of Deoband and Farangi Mahall played a large part. Farangi Mahall was the name given to a prominent “ulema” lineage, …Farangi Mahal: The Nursery that incubated freedom

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