Tareen, SherAli. (2020). Defending Muḥammad in Modernity. Notre Dame, IN. Notre Dame Press.
No region may be more important for the study of Islam today than South Asia. Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh are home to over 500 million Muslims, accounting for more than a quarter of the world’s Muslim population, and is expected to grow more still in the coming decades. Understanding the history of Islam in South Asia, its connections to the rest of the Muslim majority world, and the major schools of thought and debates at its center is therefore vital to a holistic appreciation of contemporary Islam. In this respect SherAli Tareen has written an indispensable scholarly work that addresses the defining controversies animating South Asian Islam for the past two hundred years: the competition and polemic between the Deobandī and Barelvī orientations. Tareen delves into the intellectual roots of the competition, its crucial moments, characters, texts at the heart of the dialectical feud, the contextual shadow of British imperialism, declining Muslim rule and the logics of revivalism. He does so primarily through two broad conceptual frameworks of religious studies: “competing political theologies” and “competing normativities,” theories he argues for against the current academic output on South Asian Islam which looks at these reform movements as evidence of a “growing Protestant sensibility” or in the dichotomous light of legalism vs. mysticism.
In part one: competing political theologies, the reader encounters the context of political rule and the place of the ‘ulamā’ scholars in Muslim India during the 18th and 19th century. It is an era marked by the eroding and steady decline of Mughal rule and the ascendance of British Imperialism. Tareen relies on a Schmittian definition of “political theology,” that “the metaphysical image that a particular epoch forges of the world parallels the structure of its political organization.” (p.43) He asks what political theology looked like for Muslims in a world that saw their sovereignty eroded and replaced by British colonial dominance.
The socio-political situation shaped the revivalist thought of the most famous scholar of his time, Shāh Walī Allāh (d.1762). In his works, such as the magnum opus Hujjatullāh-il Bāligha Walī Allāh critiqued the aristocratic elite of Mughal society for their moral and ethical decadence. His revivalist logic aimed to reform Muslim society in general but specifically the rulers and ashrāf (nobles) which would in turn have a trickle down effect onto the masses.
Intriguingly, the reformist intervention and project of Walī Allāh is one that both the Deobandī and Barelvī schools claim. In fact, that is one of a number of similarities between both groups. Both are: Sunnī, Ḥanafī, Maturīdī and Sūfī. For this reason their differences may seem to outsiders to be mind bogglingly minor and hair splitting but in fact are based on deeply significant differences intersecting the fields of law, logic, society, theology and politics.
In Tareen’s narrative the roots of the Deobandī-Barelvī polemic have their foundational moment in the rivalry between its two most influential forebears: Shāh Ismā’īl Shaḥīd (d.1831) and Faẓl-i Ḥaq Khayrābādī (d.1861). Shāh Ismā’īl is a unique figure for a number of reasons. He was the grandson of the scholar and revivalist Shāh Walī Allāh. He stood out from other scholars from a young age for his interest in the martial arts which were traditionally seen as the domain of warriors not scholars. In contrast to his famous grandfather, Ismā’īl’s personality was uncompromising.
An illustrative point is how both approached the issue of raf’ al-yadayn raising the hands before and after rukū’ prostration. Not practicing raf’ al-yadayn had become a characteristic of the Indian expression of Ḥanafī fiqh. To practice this in public as a religious leader would be seen as a transgression that could lead to violence. It was because of this reason that Shāh Walī Allāh would not practice or encourage raf’ al-yadayn though he accepted it as legitimate, whereas for Ismā’īl not being able to do so was an unacceptable compromise on the truth: “Of course, when someone revives an abandoned prophetic practice [sunnat-i matruka], there is bound to be controversy.” (p.65) He was censured for this practice and logic by his uncles and cousins.
Ismā’īl’s reformist project and its underlying rationality differed from that of his grandfather’s in another respect: he gave as much energy and focus to reforming the corruption of Muslim society as his grandfather did to the elite. After becoming a companion of the charismatic Sayyid Aḥmad Barelvī and co-founding the jihadi reform movement Ṭariqa Muḥammadīyya, Ismā’īl wrote Taqwīyat al-Imān Fortifying Faith in 1825; the eve of the jihad campaign against the Sikh state. He also traveled to various cities, mosques and gatherings calling on people to leave corrupted beliefs and practices, and follow the purified Islam he outlined in his book.
In this work Ismā’īl lambastes the practices and attitudes of Indian Muslims, for believing that no matter what moral depravity, heretical innovation and sin they commit, some saint or vow at a revered tomb would provide them intercession shafa‘at. Ismā’īl’s text also provoked ‘ulamā’ on other questions: Imkān-ī Kizb (the capacity of God to lie), Imkān-ī Naẓīr (can God make another Prophet Muhammad), and ‘Ilm al-Ghayb (what was the extent and limits of Prophet Muhammad’s knowledge of the unseen). These three points have been the pivotal areas of disagreement between the Deobandīs and Barelvīs ever since.
In response to Ismā’īl, Khayrābādī penned a short work, Taqrīr-i I’tirazāt bar Taqwīyat al-Imān Treatise of Objections against Taqwīyat al-Imān which led to Ismā’īl’s reply Yak Roza One Day, and eventually Taḥqīq al-Fatwa fī Ibṭāl al-Ṭughwa or The Definitive Opinion on the Falsity of Unbelief judging Ismā’īl to be “an unbeliever who deserved to be put to death.” (p.140) On these three theological points the disagreements centered on the nature of the Prophet. Ismā’īl’s arguments elevated the humanity of the Prophet which he deemed necessary in order to correct what he perceived as the false beliefs of the masses that challenged God’s absolute divine sovereignty. Khayrābādī’s critique blasted Ismā’īl for departing from the Islamic “normativity” of the “past and present” by reducing the rightful role and station of the Prophet whose “choseness” was informed by a unique and “exceptional” love from God.
At the heart of the dispute also were differing imaginaries, Ismā’īl sought a return to an imagined pure past consisting of the first three generations, and a radical equalizing between all believers. Khayrābādī however was a champion of a different imagined conception of political theology and normativity. He viewed divine sovereignty extending from God through a strict hierarchical order in which mediating prophets, the greatest of whom was Prophet Muhammad, and saints were ranked according to how beloved they were to God.
This foundational debate is picked up by other scholars, students of Ismā’īl and Khayrābādī respectively, such as ‘Abdul Samī’ (d.1900) and Khalīl Aḥmad Sahāranpūrī (d.1927) who slung acidic and fearsome written volleys at one another on these topics. In part two of the book there is a greater focus on questions regarding “normativity” and we encounter the founding fathers of Deoband, Rashīd Aḥmad Gangohī (d.1905), Ashraf Ali Thanvī (d.1943) and Barelvīsm’s Aḥmad Razā Khān (d.1921).
The question of normativity is hotly contested around the concept of bid‘a heretical innovation which Tareen introduces with a discussion on its philosophic nature. Bid’a he writes highlights an “internal contradiction” of the possibilities of simultaneous limits and transgressions. Foucault he notes asserted how “limits and transgressions are mutually entangled and constitutive.” In essence one cannot exist without the possibility of the other. (p.179) He follows this meditation on the nature of bid’a with an analysis of its meaning in scripture and in the seminal work of Andalusian Mālikī scholar al-Shāṭibī’s (d.1388) Al-I’tiṣām Adherence. According to Tareen, al-Shāṭibī’s view was that bid‘a was at the heart of a repetitive battle in the history of Islam “between submitting to divine sovereignty and following the customs, habits and traditions of one’s ancestors.” (p.188) This repetitive battle is also picked up in the Deobandī worldview. Giving the example of practices such as the Mawlid and Fātiha, Deobandī scholars such as Thanvī argued that while in and of themselves they weren’t heretical it was the habit, regularity, loss of original intent, and elevation to the level of obligation among the masses that had transformed them into heresies that undermined divine sovereignty.
The Barelvīs led by Khan retorted that by declaring these to be heretical bid‘as the Deobandīs were corrupting the masses by moving them away from practices that were “inherently good” in and of themselves since they reminded the people of the Prophet. The Barelvī’s critique, contrary to much of what has been written about them, was not based in mysticism but rather the exigencies of Sharī‘a and the destabilization to the legal categories of mubāh and ḥarām in the Deobandī attack on the Mawlid and Fātiha.
In this critique they also take the Deobandīs to task for their “pessimistic” view of time. Both groups agree that the first three generations of Islam are the best, however the Barelvīs differ in that they see the Deobandīs as over-fetishizing them, and making a particular time the normative standard to judge all time. Instead, the early generations should serve as an example of inspiration who empower not cripple contemporary believers. Aḥmad Razā Khān explains this argument with a compelling analogy that likens Islam to the Prophet’s garden, “Islam was Muhammad’s garden, a garden that continued to grow in splendor and magnificence over time. The original caretakers of the garden laid the foundational soil that ensured its capacity to survive its early years. However, they did not have the time or the opportunity to develop it any further. But gradually, the garden blossomed. It became luscious green, elaborated with breathtaking flowers, leaves, and fountains, as each generation of scholars and saints added new layers of beauty to what they had inherited from their predecessors.” (p.262) For Barelvīs, Islam therefore exists outside of the temporal as we imagine it and is not limited to one era or particular moments.
The debate between the two then comes down to how best to create moral agents and publics. The Barelvī answer is that ritual practices of “inherent goodness” such as the Mawlid and Fātiha should be supported and kept alive because it is only by keeping the Prophet’s memory alive in the community that such moral people will be made. (p.300) The mistakes of people whether that is excess in gender mixing, losing intentionality and original purpose, should be “corrected” instead of “condemned.”
The final split is detailed in chapter 11, regarding the Prophet’s capacity and extent of knowledge of the unseen. Deobandīs again fall on the side of the humanness of the Prophet. His knowledge with the exception of what God revealed to him was like any other human being. For the Barelvīs and Khan this was literally anathema, the Prophet’s knowledge they asserted was greater than any single human, and they declared Deobandīs disbelievers for not upholding this view.
Tareen’s work can’t be considered other than a massive contribution to the field of South Asian Islamic studies. His breadth of knowledge, mastery of the relevant texts to history, and interdisciplinary approach to the subject is clearly on display. He translates from Arabic, Persian and Urdu with ease. His analysis from within the conceptual frameworks of the academic study of religion: competing political theology and normativities, provides a necessary corrective to the oversimplified literature to date that interprets these events through a Christian-centric and liberal secular lens.
These claims are no longer tenable as Tareen ably demonstrates because the main actors were moved by their own rationalities of reform/revival and were steeped in an intellectual history and tradition deeply rooted in their own contexts and realities. In the shadow of imperialism and in the waning days of Muslim rule Shāh Ismā’īl Shaḥīd would wage a jihad against the Sikh state to attempt to create a polity where divine sovereignty could be re-established according to his imaginary of political theology; he was killed in 1831 at the Battle of Balakot. As part of that project he focused on reforming the masses who he believed had an important role in reenergizing divine sovereignty. Faẓl-i Haq Khayrābādī sought a reform that maintained his normative conception of a hierarchical divine sovereignty and that didn’t translate into a type of egalitarian leveling of the masses. Khayrābādī would participate in the “Indian Mutiny of 1857” that sought to re-empower the Mughals, writing in support of Jihad against the British. After it failed he was exiled to the Andaman Islands where he died in 1861. Despite their demise in losing jihads against the British and Sikhs, both of their works had a lasting and seminal impact on South Asian Islam; witnessed to this day in the continuing battle between the Deobandīs and Barelvīs. As Muslims lost power and began to live under greater colonial and non-Muslim rule, they began to look to reforming the Muslim masses and society on a communal and sectarian level thereby reasserting divine sovereignty.
There is much to appreciate in Tareen’s work but it is also a book that can be difficult for a lay reader. It is an academic and scholarly work and so at times the style is dry, and there are moments that can feel like a slog to get through. But at other times the book is a veritable page turner, particularly the narratives around the main characters and interlocutors involved in the debate. It begs the question: can one write accessibly for a lay audience without sacrificing their academic voice?
Tareen also spends a lot of his analysis focusing on the intellectual context, clashes, and concepts that construct the dynamic of a Deobandī-Barelvī polemic but not as much on the economic and class components. It would be interesting for instance to read the possible answers to what exactly divine sovereignty meant during the height of Muslim power under the Delhi Sultanate or Mughal Empire. How was it imagined and conceptualized? How was it different? What role does the development of Urdu as a language of the Muslim masses have on the reformist and revivalist projects? In sum, exploring these questions can only help to shed even greater light and knowledge to a book that is a milestone in understanding the foundations and history of Islam in South Asia.
MT. Akbar 