Extremism and an Opportunity for a Knowledge-based Civilizational Renewal - 3
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed

 

The Modern Period This brings us to the modern period. I have pointed out in the Encyclopedia of Islamic history that the modern rise of extremism in the Muslim world dates back to the last decades of the eighteenth century. It is instructive to note that the political collapse that engulfed the Islamic world around the year 1700 was global, rather than regional. The Mogul, Safavid and the Ottoman dynasties suffered significant political and social regression almost simultaneously. This suggests that the reasons for the loss of Muslim political initiative in world affairs were not regional; they were global. Regional analyses distort the perspective and provide only partial answers. The issue demands a global perspective. What is astonishing is that there is a strong correlation between the social and political decay and the rise of extremism among Muslims. It is also astonishing that the seeds of extremism were sown when Muslim political power was at its zenith. History validates the assertion: “Verily, God does not love the extremists” (The Qur’an).

Parochial religious zeal played an important part in the disintegration of two of the principal dynasties, namely the Moguls in India and the Safavids in Persia. We have discussed how Islam turned inwards after the Mongol disasters and how the Sufi awliya saved the day for the Muslims. It was this new wave of Islam, spiritual in content, amalgamated with the cultures of the new peoples entering the fold of faith that spread into Persia, Central Asia, India, Indonesia and Africa.

The religious establishment, consisting of kadis and ulema, were suspicious of any departure from strict adherence to the Shariah and were not reconciled to the power of the Sufis. Within the Islamic world itself, there was a tension between the Sufis and the ulema. (The tension continues to this day as a not-too-polite debate between the “Sufi” and “Salafi” partisans). The 16th century produced several kings and emperors who resonated to Sufi culture, founded new dynasties and expanded them into major empires. The real or perceived excesses of these monarchs produced a reaction in the more orthodox circles. By the latter part of the 17th century, the orthodox had displaced the Sufis in the centers of political power. The triumph of the conservative ulema increased tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, between Shi’a and Sunni and played a direct role in the disintegration of the Mogul and Safavid empires.

In India, the Great Mogul Akbar, a consummate statesman who knew the value of folk Islam, produced a Sufi fusion of Islamic and Hindu elements and solidified the Mogul Empire (1565-1605). Akbar was a zealous adherent of folk Islam and treated the Chishti Sufis with the highest honor. His initiatives created a cosmopolitan Mogul- Persian-Afghan-Rajput culture that survives to this day in India and Pakistan. Although there was an orthodox reaction, the principal exponent of which was Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi (d. 1526), Akbar’s reforms survived and prospered during the reign of Jehangir (d. 1627) and Shah Jehan (d. 1666). By 1650, this cosmopolitan culture had produced the Taj Mahal and the Jami Masjid of Delhi, while the Hindus found it possible to rise to the highest posts in the empire. Rai Raghunath served as the divan (prime minister) of Shah Jehan, while Rai Chandra Ban Brahman was the chief of his secretariat. The syncratic tendencies of folk Islam showed themselves in the person of Dara Shikoh, heir apparent to Shah Jehan. Dara was a follower of Mian Pir, a Sufi shaykh of Lahore. When Mian Pir passed away, Dara became a follower of his disciple, Mulla Shah. Dara was a reputed scholar and wrote several books including Majma-ul-Bahrain (1655) and a Farsi translation of the Upanishads. His works were translated into Latin in the 19th century and had a major impact on the German Schopenhauer and the American Emerson.

Dara did not survive the struggle for succession after Shah Jehan. The Orthodox Sunni wing, led by Aurangzeb (1656-1708) carried the day. Aurangzeb made the Mogul Empire an Islamic state. Jizya was reimposed on the predominantly Hindu population of India (1679). Discriminatory customs duties were imposed on goods belonging to the Hindus. The Rajputs who had provided their muscle for the empire, and had built familial ties with the emperors, withdrew their support. The Marathas in western India rose up in revolt. In the Punjab, the Sikhs were restless. As long as Aurangzeb was alive, his indefatigable energy, resilient character and puritan drive held the empire together. Within 15 years of his death (1707), the empire collapsed. Regional despots established their rule, only to be swallowed up one after the other by the British East India Company. In Persia, the Safavid dynasty was a product of the Safaviyya Sufi movement in eastern Anatolia and Azerbaijan (1500 CE). It was the energy, zeal and commitment of the Safaviyya that enabled Shah Ismail I to consolidate his hold on Persia. Throughout the 16th century, the Safaviyya Sufis and their military arm, the Qazilbash, played an important part in the Safavid state. By the year 1600, however, the Safaviyya had lost their revolutionary zeal and had become a part of the establishment. The reforms introduced by Shah Abbas I weakened the power of the Safaviyya and neutralized the power of the Qazilbash. Specifically, the standing army raised by Shah Abbas with recruits from Georgia and the Caucasus meant a decrease in the power of the Qazilbash, who resisted but lost the struggle. With a decrease in the power of the Sufis, the qanqas that had provided much needed social services in the countryside since the days of Hulagu Khan (1258) lost their effectiveness. The religious vacuum left by the Sufis was filled by the traditional ulema who had no stomach for the esoteric doctrines of the Sufis.

A more conservative Salafi movement arose in Arabia in the eighteenth century which was to have a profound impact for centuries to come. Shaykh ibn Abdul Wahhab was born in the year 1703 into the Banu Sinan tribe of Najd in Uiynah, located approximately 50 miles from Riyadh, capital of modern Saudi Arabia. He received his early education from his father Shaykh Abdul Wahhab bin Sulaiman, which included memorization of the Qur’an and a study of Sunnah and Fiqh. As a teenager, he performed the Hajj and stayed on in Mecca and Madina to study under reputed scholars of the age, Shaykh Abdulla bin Ibrahim of Najd and Shaykh ibn Abdul Wahhab Hayat of India. He studied the works of classical scholars and was influenced in particular by the writings of Ibn Taymiyah. After completing his studies, he traveled through Persia and Iraq, visiting Basra and Kufa. Returning home he started teaching his austere vision of Islam. The hinterland of Arabia, inhabited mostly by Bedouins, had very little contact with the outside world. The Bedouins who roamed the vast desert practiced a folk Islam embellished with the talisman, tomb visitation and astrology. Shaykh ibn Abdul Wahhab found the atmosphere hostile to his teachings and had to flee his hometown. The shaykh considered all practices which were not in strict conformity with a literal interpretation of the Qur’an and the Sunnah to be bida’a (innovation), and he considered it his duty to eradicate such practices with force, if necessary. The religious charisma of the learned shaykh and the military-political acumen of the Emir were a powerful combination. A jihad was declared against the neighboring emirs who would not subscribe to the strict interpretations of religion offered by the Shaykh. Thus started the Wahhabi movement, which in time was to propel itself to Mecca and Madina, and spread from there over the Islamic world. In the process it thrust Saudi Arabia into modern history.

Consolidation of Wahhabi influence in the Najd continued throughout the 18th century. Shaykh ibn Abdul Wahhab wrote to renowned scholars of the day outlining his vision of Islam cleansed of the accretions that had crept in over the centuries. It was after the Shaykh passed away in 1787, however, that major opportunities for expansion beyond the borders of Najd presented themselves. In 1799, Napoleon landed his troops in Ottoman Egypt, quickly overran the Nile Delta and advanced into Syria. The British defeated the French armies but the incursion of a European power into the heartland of the Ottoman Empire required a partial withdrawal of garrisons in the outlying provinces for the defense of Anatolia proper. Specifically, Ottoman garrisons in Jeddah and Mecca in Arabia as well as Kufa and Basra in Iraq were depleted. Sensing a military opportunity, Emir Abdul Aziz of Najd who had succeeded his father Emir Muhammed ibn Saud captured Karbala in Iraq in 1802. He followed up this victory with the capture of Mecca in 1803, bringing a major portion of Arabia, extending from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, under Saudi control.

The contribution of Shaykh ibn Abdul Wahhab was that he reasserted the pristine and uncompromising Islam, characteristic of the desert dweller. He provided a counterbalance to the excesses of esoteric doctrines and reasserted the central importance of Tawhid. History and geography were on the side of the Shaykh. Several factors helped the Wahhabi movement in its initial growth. The location of the Najd in the harsh and empty womb of the Arabian Desert protected it from changes sweeping across the world. The good fortune of the Shaykh in forming an alliance with the ibn Saud family and the political consolidation of Saudi Arabia in the 20th century to include the cities of Mecca and Madina were also important factors. Muslims have always looked to Mecca and Madina as a source for the purity of faith.

The Wahhabi movement, centered in these two pre-eminent cities, enjoyed an acceptance among Muslims that would have been impossible if it was based elsewhere. The discovery of oil and the immense riches it brought enabled the projection of Wahhabi ideas far and wide, as far away as Europe and the United States. The Wahhabi movement extracted a heavy price from the Islamic world for its stark vision of religion. When faith is stripped of spirituality, it becomes secular and degenerates into rituals. The second issue with Wahhabism was its compulsive character. The element of compulsion made it even more extreme when it faced resistance. Shaykh ibn Abdul Wahhab waged a jihad against fellow Muslims in Najd who did not agree with his views. The Qur’an is explicit that there is no compulsion in religion and that the Truth stands clear from the untruth. The Shaykh overlooked the historical contributions made by the Sufis in India, Pakistan, southeastern Europe, Central Asia, Indonesia and Africa. It was the Sufis who won the contest for the soul of Asia from the Mongols and the Crusaders. They were also the decisive element in some of the most important battles of the world, such as the decisive Battle of al Qasr al Kabir in Morocco (1578 CE). In its attempts to combat Sufi influence, Wahhabism pushed itself far to the right of the religious spectrum and spawned a host of extreme Salafi movements in the twentieth century.

Characteristics common to Extremist Movements A toxic disaffection caused by perceived or real social, political or economic injustice, and a desire for vengeance, are common, identifiable threads running through all extremist movements. I have summarized here the characteristics that are shared by most extremists: • They harbor an obsessive preoccupation with a deep political, social or economic grievance. • They seek to redeem the perceived wrong by force. • They congregate into a fanatical group. • They are led by a figurehead who galvanizes the grievances of his followers into extreme, often brutal deeds. • They believe that there is a reward for their fanatical actions. • They use religion not to heal their bruised souls but as a vehicle to gain legitimacy for their coercive, brutal methods and as an emotional anchor for their irrational deeds. • Lastly, and this applies to Muslim extremists, the targets of their wrath are primarily fellow Muslims. A student of history may note in passing that military efforts to root out extremist sects, historically, were more often than not, unsuccessful.