India's Islamist Groups-A Muslim View

March 1, 2007

Mohan Gupta <mgupta (AT) rogers (DOT) com> wrote: "Mohan Gupta" <mgupta (AT) rogers (DOT) com>

India's Islamist Groups

Thu, 1 Mar 2007 00:45:05 -0500

India's Islamist Groups

by Husain Haqqani

Current Trends in Islamist Ideology

http://www.futureofmuslimworld.com/research/pubID.38/pub_detail.asp

CONTEMPORARY INDIA IS A HINDU-MAJORITY COUNTRY, governed under a secular democratic constitution since 1947, when it achieved independence from British rule. At first glance India's pluralism appears to protect it from falling under the spell of extremist ideologies, including Islamism. Muslim influence cultural, political, economic, religious and linguistic — has been an integral part of the Indian ethos since the seventh century, and for the most part this influence has been benign. But India has been home to some significant thinkers of political Islam, and militant Islamist groups continue to operate in, and even target, India today.

Islam was first introduced to India's coastal regions by Arab Muslim traders soon after its advent. In 711, a young general commanding an Arab army captured the kingdom of Sindh and established Muslim political power on the Indian subcontinent. Parts of India, now in Pakistan, were ruled by governors or tributaries of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties that ruled from Damascus and Baghdad respectively.

Muslim traders, mystics, preachers and invaders have shaped and influenced India for thirteen centuries. Muslim sultanates ruling from Delhi, beginning in the eleventh century, and the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) that followed created a substantive Islamic legacy before India fell under British colonial rule. Decolonization resulted in the partition of India along religious lines, but the birth of Pakistan in 1947 did not sever India's linkages with Islam. At least one-third of pre-partition India's Muslims stayed in India. Today almost 12 percent of modern India's population is Muslim, and with an estimated Muslim population of 170 million, India has one of the largest concentrations of Islamic believers.

Islam in India has historically been represented by both its esoteric form of Sufism as well as its various exoteric, traditional forms. Even after ruling large parts of India for eight centuries, Muslims overall remained a minority on the subcontinent. The ruling Muslim minority was generally tolerant toward the majority. This coexistence resulted in an Indo-Muslim syncretism exemplified in art, architecture, and culture throughout the subcontinent. However, the decline in Muslim political power in India from the late eighteenth century onward changed Muslim attitudes significantly. After the demise of the Mughal Empire, Islamic fundamentalism increased. Muslim elites, seeing a decline in their power, prestige and influence, focused on ways to revive their ascendancy. This generated in India's Muslim elites a preoccupation with the “revival of Islam's lost glory,” which has been an important factor in the rise and spread of Islamist ideology the world over.

One of political Islam's most significant thinkers, Syed Abul Ala Maududi, explains the concept of Islamic revivalism in the context of an eternal struggle between “Islam and un-Islam.” According to him,

Islamic Revival is neither striking compromises with un-Islam, nor preparing new blends of Islam and un-Islam, but it is cleansing Islam of all the un-Godly elements and presenting it and making it flourish more or less in its original pure form.

Considered from this viewpoint, a Mujaddid [islamic revivalist] is a most uncompromising person with regard to un-Islam and one least tolerant as to the presence of even a tinge of un-Islam in the Islamic system.

>From the point of view of Islamists, the syncretism emerging under Muslim rule in India amounted to blending Islam with un-Islam. The foremost task for Islamic revival, as they saw it, was to purify Islam by purging it of outside influences. In Maududi’s words, any program for Islamic revival must also include a scheme “to wrest authority from the hands of un-Islam and practically reestablish government on the pattern described as ‘Caliphate after the pattern of Prophethood’ by the Holy Prophet.” Furthermore, Muslim revivalists must not “rest content with establishing the Islamic system in one or more countries already inhabited by the Muslims.” They must “initiate such a strong universal movement as may spread the reformative and revolutionary message of Islam among mankind at large.” The final aim of Islamic revivalism is to “enable Islam to become a predominant cultural force in the world and capture the moral, intellectual and political leadership of mankind.”

Most South Asian Muslims recognize Shaykh Ahmad of Sirhind (1563-1624) as the subcontinent’s first Islamic revivalist. Shaykh Ahmad questioned the Mughal emperor Akbar’s efforts to create a formal Indian religion (Deene-Ilahi, or “religion of God”) and insisted instead on strict adherence to Sharia (Islamic law). Although Shaykh Ahmad’s intellectual efforts did not result in sharia-based government throughout the subcontinent, they did ensure that Islam retained its separate identity. Shaykh Ahmad did not demand an end to Sufi traditions, and he managed only to circumscribe the influence of other faiths over Muslims rather than ending that influence completely. For that reason, the scholarly Shaykh Ahmad does not serve as a model for modern day Islamist militants. That mantle is conferred on Shah Waliullah of Delhi (1703-1753), who combined religious scholarship with an active role in political matters.

Shah Waliullah’s birth coincided with the slow decline of Mughal influence and the corresponding rise of Hindu political power under the Marathas, a fighting force from India’s southwestern Maharashtra region. Shah Waliullah wrote to the Afghan chieftain Ahmed Shah Abdali (1722-1772) asking him to attack the Maratha chieftains and save the Mughal empire from losing territory. In his writings Shah Waliullah emphasized the importance of Muslim political power and ascribed Muslim decline to the rise of secular monarchy at the expense of the religiously guided caliphate. Shah Waliullah’s critique of Muslim history and his linking political decline with spiritual decline have significantly influenced subsequent Islamist movements throughout the subcontinent.

Cruelty in the Quran

They will wish to come forth from the Fire, but they will not come forth from it. Theirs will be a lasting doom.-- 5:37

Don't bother to warn the disbelievers. Allah has blinded them. Theirs will be an awful doom. 2:6

Allah has sickened their hearts. A painful doom is theirs because they lie. 2:10

A fire has been prepared for the disbelievers, whose fuel is men and stones. 2:24

Disbelievers will be burned with fire. 2:39, 90

"Whosoever hath done evil and his sin surroundeth him; such are rightful owners of the Fire." 2:81

If you believe in only part of the Scripture, you will suffer in this life and go to hell in the next. 2:85

Jews are the greediest of all humankind. They'd like to live 1000 years. But they are going to hell. 2:96

For disbelievers is a painful doom. 2:104

For unbelievers: ignominy in this world, an awful doom in the next. 2:114

"And thou wilt not be asked about the owners of hell-fire." (They are the non-muslims.) 2:119

Allah will leave the disbelievers alone for a while, but then he will compel them to the doom of Fire. 2:126

The doom of the disbelievers will not be lightened. 2:162

Allah is severe punishment! 2:165-6

They will not emerge from the Fire. 2:167

Those who hide the Scripture will have their bellies eaten with fire. Theirs will be a painful doom. 2:174

How constant are they in their strife to reach the Fire! 2:175

"Fight in the way of Allah." 2:190, 2:244

Believers must retaliate. Those who transgress will have a painful doom. 2:178

Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (But if they desist in their unbelief, then don't kill them.) 2:191-2

"Guard us from the doom of Fire." 2:201

Those who fail in their duty to Allah are proud and sinful. They will all go to hell. 2:206

War is ordained by Allah, and all Muslims must be willing to fight, whether they like it or not. 2:216

Those who die in their disbelief will burn forever in the Fire. 2:217

Those who marry unbelievers will burn in the Fire. 2:221

Disbelievers worship false gods. The will burn forever in the Fire. 2:257

"Those who swallow usury ... are rightful owners of the Fire." 2:275

Those who disbelieve the revelations of Allah, theirs will be a heavy doom. 3:4

Those who disbelieve will be fuel for the Fire. 3:10

Those who disbelieve shall be overcome and gathered unto Hell. 3:12

"Guard us from the punishment of Fire." 3:16

Those who disbelieve, promise them a painful doom. 3:21

"They [Christians and Jews] say: The Fire will not touch us save for a certain number of days. That which they used to invent hath deceived them regarding their religion." (The Fire will burn them forever.) 3:24

Theirs will be a painful doom. 3:77

All non-Muslims will be rejected by Allah after they die. 3:85

Disbelievers will be cursed by Allah, angels, and men. They will have a painful doom. 3:87-88

Disbelievers will have a painful doom. And they will have no helpers. 3:91

"Ye were upon the brink of an abyss of fire, and He did save you from it." 3:103

Disbelievers will have their faces blackened on the last day. They will face an awful doom. 3:105-6

Those who disbelieve will be burnt in the Fire. 3:116

The Fire is prepared for disbelievers. 3:131

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