IMPACT OF ISLAM AND ISLAMIZATION

 

IMPACT OF ISLAM ON INDIAN SOCIETY AND ISLAMIZATION

 

The contact of India with Islam is almost a millennium  old. It started with Arab conquest of the Sind in the beginning of the 8^th century. Thus historically as well as in magnitude, Islam is an important and sociologically very meaningful cultural tradition in India. Both Hinduism and Islam represent two varieties of traditional world views.

The pattern of cultural syncretism between Hinduism and Islam on the one hand and the process of the spread of Islam which may be called Islamization on the other are significant social movements which have a bearing on the contemporary dynamics of culture in India.   

The Great and Little traditions of Islam have made cultural changes in India. These changes might either be in the form of new syncretic patterns emerging through interaction with the indigenous Indian traditions or they might be in the form of endogenous changes in the very tradition of Islam itself.

Acculturation and endogenous changes in the Great tradition of Islam in India have evolved through three major stages. These stages were set by the historical forces and greatly influenced the structure of this tradition.

The first stage relates to the duration of Islamic rule in India. It had the longest duration (Ad 1206-1818). This period was not only marked with conflicts and tensions but also led to major adaptation and cultural syncretism between the Hindu and the Islamic traditions.

Islamic conquest is apparently associated with the spirit of Jihad or religious warfare. such association about the cause of the expansion of Islam in India creates historical biases. it is true that in such conquests the religious sanctions and the support of the Ulemas played an important role; they were too ready to provide moral and religious justifications for otherwise purely political enterprises of the Muslim rulers.

From a social structural view point by the time the Islamic expansion in India started, its tribal egalitarian character had changes, coming into contact with Persian society. Its social structure was hierarchized and Islamic elites as bearers of great tradition were now stratified into separate classes.

When Islam established properly in India in the AD 12^th century its social organization had already changed. Although the conception of equality and brotherhood remained as an ideal. As an ideal it exists to this day but in practice there have been social grades within Muslim society.

The 12^th century Muslim conquerors of India were distinctly divided into :

Priests (including missionaries)

Nobility (ruling families and administrators)

Others (including soldiers, merchants, artisans etc)     

Muslim priesthood in India in its early stage was not hereditary while the rule of succession among nobility was generally from father to son. Gradually the Muslim priesthood also acquired the rule of hereditary succession in India. Son began to succeed fathers; thereafter, Astane and Takiye (seats of preaching and spiritual guidance) became a family monopoly.

The elite who were the bearers of the Great traditions of Islam in India constituted the uppermost segment of the Islamic society did not belong to the indigenous converts to this religion. Most of them were of foreign descent and belonged to the social hierarchy of the Ashrafs on the four major immigrant groups of Muslim called Sayyad, Shaikh, Mughal and Pathan.

The Sayyads and Shaikhs :  belongs to the nobility

                                                considered the descendants of early Islamic nobility

                                                regarded sacred almost like the Brahmins in Hindu tradition

The Mughals and Pathans:  warrior group

                                                feudal aristocrats and rulers.

(These four upper groups later evolved a caste like structure in Islamic tradition in India)

The Ashrafs (four immigrant Muslim groups) have traditionally enjoyed the highest rank in Indian Muslim community.

The next in the status are a few higher caste Hindu converts to Islam particularly the Rajputs (pseudo Ashrafs)

Below their rank come the masses of low caste Hindu converts and the lowest status being that of the untouchable caste converts.

The Sufi tradition of Islam was not only responsible for the perpetuation of the Islamic religious beliefs and metaphysics but played also a significant role in the spread of Islam in India. Non ritualism and abstract monotheism as preached by the Sufi Saints and philosophers was not only appealing to the Hindu masses but also tended to be in harmony with the forces of introversion and retreatism which had overtaken the Hindu tradition after its loss of political power.

Many Muslim scholars and rulers made overt efforts to reconcile some aspects of the Hindu tradition with Islam. Akbar attempted it through introduction of a new synthetic cult called Divine Faith (Din-e-ilahi) which was a mixture of Islam, Jainism, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.

Dara Sikoh pleaded for a synthesis of Upnishadic monotheism with that of Islam and emphasized the similarities between two traditions.

Among the literary figures Amir Khusro did a great deal to interpret the endogenous tradition of Hinduism to the Muslim world. In the 16^th and 17^th century many Muslim poets and writers even choose chose to write in Hindi. Malik Muhammad Jayasi, Nabi, Qazi Mohammad Bahri, Shaykh Danyal Chisti, Abdul Rahim Khan-e-khana may be mentioned as representative.

But this syncretism was only a part of the movement in the Islamic Great tradition in India. During periods of stable Muslim power the religious, political and cultural elites of Islam enjoyed high social status and contributed activlely to the perpetuation and expansion of Islam. Muslim used to be Qazis (judges), muftis (preachers), Faujdars (district administrators) and courtiers.  

During British Rule (second phase)

During British rule the Muslim elite began to lose its pre-eminent status. The Mughal Faujdars were supplanted by European magistrates in 1781. The judges of criminal courts who before 1790 had been exclusively Muhammadans, were as a class removed by Cornwallis in the Diwani provinces. Muslim qazis and muftis were continued, but the introduction of trial by jury in 1832 and the substitution of Persian by English rule in 1837 greatly reduced their importance.

The posts of law officers were themselves abolished on the establishment of High courts in 1862. Islam during this period lost more and more of its earlier syncretic and liberal tendencies and in its place orthodoxy and revivalism became its major preoccupations.

Shah Wali-Ullah and others tried to reactivate the solidarity of the UMMA and showed commitment towards the values embodied in Hadith. In 19^th century Indian Islamic tradition began to polarize into two major schools:

1                    liberal and peaceful school (Shah Abdul Aziz and Sheikh Karamat Ali)

2                    orthodox and militant school (Sayyed Ahmad Barelvi and Shariat Ullah)

Early twentieth century and struggle for independence

 In this period a Westernized elite had emerged in the tradition of Islam. They were working with the religious elite (Ulema) towards modern cultural goals of nationalism and freedom. This phase of the movement is complex since it involves two levels of relationships. First a relatioship withing the Islamic tradition between the secular minded and the orthodox elites. Secondly the relationship between the Hindu elite, secular and non-secular and the Muslim elites.

The Muslim elite had vivid memories of their past domination and prestigious status, its complete withdrawal and loss. Therefore for many of them freedom from British rule means restoration of same old status of privilege and power. The most important point was that Muslim elite could not think of a minority status for Islam in free India: they were for equal power and political parity. For example in 1888 Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan voiced his feeling “is it possible that under these circumstances two nations- the Mohammadans and Hindus –could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire impossible and the inconceivable”. Later the need for the creation of a separate Islamic nation came due to fear and suspicion towards Hindus as Tilak, Lajpat Rai and even Gandhi used cultural and social symbolisms in his ideological postulates smacking pretty well of neo-Hinduism.  

The historical contradiction between the aspirations of Islamic and Hindu elites, the desire for regain the past dominance among Islamic elites, the fear and suspicion towards Hindus etc results in the partition of India and a separate nation Pakistan came into existence.  

LITTLE TRADITION OF ISLAM: ISLAMIZATION (a form of anticipatory socialization)

The term Islamization covers three types of movements in cultural status:

1        an upward cultural and social (which during the Muslim rule also implied economic) mobility in the status of groups through conversion of Islam

2        movement towards orthodoxy in cultural and religious matters among the converts to Islam.

3        Adoption of some Islamic cultural values and styles of life by non-Muslims.

 

1        An upward cultural and social (which during the Muslim rule also implied economic) mobility in the status of groups through conversion of Islam : In the historic situation during Muslim rule Islam as a form of cultural system had been the commanding (highest) social status in India. Conversion to Islam offered an easy and shorter route to status enhancement.

Islamization through conversion did not always lead to economic gain. Many convert Hindus retained their traditional skills and did not change their status economically. But in a country governed by Muslim rulers conversion offered security and since most of the converts were from the lower caste they might have been motivated by a psychological appeal for enhancement in their cultural-social status.

The forceful conversion was an exception.The most popular source of conversion were the Sufi Saints who were less rigid and orthodox in their approach to religion.

The large scale conversion to Islam in reality did not actually bring any major changes in the socio-cultural status of the converts. Neither Hindus to whom Muslim was an untouchable or by Muslim (Ashrafs) who maintained a social distance from the lower caste converts in the matter of marriage and social intercourse.

The cultural symbolisms, style of life and customs of the upper caste Muslims and of the upper caste Hindu converts to Islam continued to have a significance as ‘reference model’ for the lower caste Muslims. A process like Sanskritization in Hindu castes operated among the Muslims, in which lower caste Muslims tried to improve their caste status by borrowing the customs and adopting the names of the upper Muslim castes, especially the Ashrafs. Ghaus Ansari has called them pseudo-Ashrafs. This process is termed as Islamization. Like Sanskritization it does not lead to the acceptance of their status as Ashrafs by the upper castes.

2        Movement towards orthodoxy in cultural and religious matters among the converts to Islam: The orthodox movement in the Great Tradition of Islam active during the first quarter of 20^th century. The Tabligh movement in its Little tradition generated a momentum for cultural retreatism and horizontal mobility. Partition of the country in 1947 only reinforced this tendency. It confirmed the minority consciousness, post partition communal riots, alienation from the Hindu cultural life, reconversion from Muslims to Hindu carried by Arya Samaj created more insecurity among Muslim community results in mobilizing them as a solidaristic group for effective political participation and cultural survival.

3       The third form of Islamization which is of minor historical importance now, generally took place during the Muslim rule in India. Many Hindu communities and castes during the Mughal period borrowed many Muslim cultural patterns, food habits, style of dress, learning of Persian language to even celebration of some Muslim religio-cultural customs. Kayasthas of north India were proficient in Persian language. Khatris of Punjab and Kshatriyas of U.P. came under the cultural influence of Islam since many of them were mansabdars for Mughal kings. Amils in Sind came under Islamic cultural contact and were consequently Islamized soon after the Arab conquest. Kashmiri Pandits were another sociological case of Islamization in India.