Tradition, Reform and Modernism in the Emergence of Pakistan- Part 1
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
An important element in the emergence of Pakistan was the confluence of traditional and reformist Islam. Modernist elements were largely absent. The one person, who alone could have provided a modernist thrust, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, passed away soon after partition.
Pakistan was launched into the post-WWII world with the tensions between tradition, reform and modernism pulling it in different directions. These tensions continue to exist within a largely tribal, feudal structure in parts of Pakistan and explain many of the difficulties facing it today.
It is useful to define our terminology at the outset. Traditional Islam has different meanings in different parts of the Islamic world. In the context of the subcontinent, it is the spiritual Islam that was introduced by the Awliya and the Sufi Shaikhs. It has a heavy content of Persian and Central Asian cultural influences. This is the Islam of Khwaja Moeenuddin Chishti of Ajmer, Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi of the Punjab and Shaikh Abdul Qader Jeelani of Baghdad.
Reform, in the context of the subcontinent, has two branches. The first one aims to remove the accretion of medieval practices in Sufism and emphasizes the Sunnah of the Prophet. The reformist Sufi tareeqas belong to this category. There is a second, concomitant reform movement that repudiates tasawwuf altogether and aims to bring Muslim practices in line with what is transmitted through Hadith and the kitabi schools. The Wahhabi and Nadwa schools belong to this category.
By contrast, modern Islam has its vision on the future. It sees Islam as a continual spiritual renewal in an expanding universe. It considers history to be an unceasing struggle of man within the bounds established by divine command. It seeks a dynamic presence in a shrinking globe that is guided by science, technology and increasing interactions across civilizational interfaces. A genuine modern Islam, embracing both spirituality and technology, is yet to emerge.
Islam in Pakistan is a product of Sufism, as it is in much of the subcontinent. Pakistan became a possibility when traditional Sufi Islam in the Punjab shifted its allegiance from an inclusive, traditional, rural based political system to the promise of an exclusive, reformist, urban political system. The internal tensions that continue to tear at the Pakistan body politic are a result of the interactions between tradition, reform and modernism. In this series of articles, I will briefly survey how the influence of traditional Sufi Islam in the Punjab was pivotal in the critical events leading to partition.
Geography defines history. Pakistan is separated from Afghanistan by more than 1500 miles of a sinuous border running through hilly, picturesque terrain. The Khyber Pass has been the historic route for the influx of traders, scholars and conquerors from Central Asia and the Middle East into the Indo-Gangetic plains. The Aryans in ancient times, Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, Chengiz Khan in the thirteenth century CE, and the Moguls in the sixteenth century CE took this route to India.
To the south the desolate Makran desert straddles Baluchistan on the Pakistan-Iran border. It extends deep into the province of Sindh and yields unwillingly to the delta of the great Indus River. It was this desert that Alexander attempted to cross on his way back from India in 334 BC. Many a Greek soldier died from thirst and disease. The unmerciful desert did not spare the life of Alexander who fell ill and died near Babylon in 334 CE.
To the north, the Silk Road to China winds through the mountains in Gilgit. Ancient caravans plied this perilous route carrying silk and pottery from China and returning with ivory, spices, gold and Buddhist manuscripts from India. The road, expanded and widened in modern times, serves as a vital link between Pakistan and China.
Modern Pakistan sits astride the intersection of three axes. The first one connects the Indian subcontinent with Iran and the Middle East. The second one connects India with Central Asia. The third connects India with China. Thus Pakistan lies at the confluence of three civilizations: the Vedic Hindu civilization of India, the Islamic Persian civilization of Iran and Central Asia, and the Buddhist-Islamic civilization of western China. The discovery of oil in the twentieth century also puts it on the major oil pipeline routes leading from the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea.
Summarily, a geographic definition of Pakistan is that it is the interface between Islamic Persia, Buddhist western China and Vedic India. Geographically, the area west of the Indus River is a continuation of the Central Asia plateau on which Iran, Afghanistan and the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan are located. The Indus and its five tributaries, Jhelum, Chenab, Sutlej, Ravi and Beas irrigate the fertile plains of Punjab. The Kabul River brings in the waters from melting snows in the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan. To the south, the Makran desert from Iran stretches into Baluchistan and Sindh and is interrupted only by the delta of the great Indus River.
Topographically, Sindh forms a part of the deserts surrounding the Persian Gulf region. The NW Frontier is an extension of the hills of Afghanistan, and the Punjab is the beginning of the great Indian plains. The history of Pakistan reflects this strategic location.
In the eighth century, as the Arab Empire extended westward into Spain and eastward into western China, the province of Sindh came into the Islamic orbit through an accident of history. By the year 700 CE Baluchistan was a part of the Umayyad Empire and Sindh was a border state between India and the Arab Empire. The littoral people of the Gulf carried on a brisk trade in spices, ivory and perfumes. Security on the high seas was poor and the treasures aboard the ships were a frequent target of pirates. Legend has it that it was one of these acts of piracy that brought the Arab armies to India. In the year 707 a merchant ship belonging to an Iraqi merchant was attacked by Indian pirates. The crew and the passengers aboard the ship were carried off to Sindh where they were imprisoned by the Raja of Daibul. Iraq was a province of the Omayyad Empire and the governor of the province Hajjaj bin Yusuf wrote to the Raja asking him to free the prisoners. The Raja refused.
The irate Hajjaj sent a continent of troops under Ubaidulla bin Binham to free the prisoners. Ubaidulla was defeated and killed by forces of the Raja. Hajjaj was determined that an act of piracy against a ship belonging to the Umayyad realm should not go unpunished. The exotic land of Sindh with its fabled wealth was an added attraction for the Arabs. Hajjaj assembled a seasoned cavalry of 7000 horsemen and dispatched it under the command of Mohammed bin Qasim. (To be continued next week)
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