Travelling Islam – Madrasa Graduates from India and Pakistan in the Malay Archipelago

WORKING papers No. 8, 2013 Travelling Islam – Madrasa Graduates from India and Pakistan in the Malay Archipelago Dietrich Reetz, ZMO Abstract Yemen, the religious schools from India and Pakis- The phenomenon of travelling religious traditions tan are less acknowledged as a source of religious has attracted the attention of various scholars, but knowledge and inspiration. a differentiated understanding of its nature and In Islamic teaching, influences from other re- impact is still lacking. This essay addresses the gions go back to strong networks of personal and transnational and transregional impact of edu- institutional links that build around particular rea- cational traditions in Islam in the South-South dings and interpretations of Islam. They developed direction. It traces the impact of two education over the centuries with the spread of Islamic beliefs networks based in South Asia on Islamic learning and practices, but also through economic and social in South East Asia. Both the modernist institutions interaction by traders, seafarers and pilgrims. The of the International Islamic University and the Hadhrami connections to South Yemen owe much conservative Deoband schools together with the of their emergence to those economic and social affiliated Tablighi Jama'at have made significant traditions (Freitag 1997). The importance of the Al headway in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Azhar school in Egypt for South East Asian Mus- beyond. The case study argues that the impact lims probably has more to do with its central place is far from unidirectional and more multifaceted in the history of Muslim reformism (Abaza 1994). than often assumed. It is largely shaped by the so- Saudi Arabia’s Islamic universities and theological cial and cultural experience of local society and influence have been driven by a particular interpre- driven by its needs, rather than by a transnational tation of Islam, by a travelling model of reading and agenda. practicing Islamic injunctions derived from Salafi and Wahhabi roots (Hasan 2006). Introduction1 The reasons why Islamic schools from South Asia, Although South Asia played an important role as both traditional and modern, have developed bran- a transit point for cultural and religious traditions ches and doctrinal influence in South East Asia are that came to South East Asia, it is not widely known more complex (cf. Reetz 2010b). The South Asian that Islamic schools in India and Pakistan continue school formats combine all the elements seen in to hold a distinct attraction for Muslims from South the Yemeni, Egyptian and Saudi cases: social and East Asia even today. While it is common knowledge economic networking, historical connections and that a considerable number of Muslims from Indo- the attraction of particular interpretations of Is- nesia, Malaysia and other parts of South East Asia lam. »Traditional« and »modern« can only be used are influenced by Islamic teaching from Egypt and here in relation to each other and not as absolutes. Modernity is understood here in the context of the debate on multiple and alternate modernities led by 1 The paper has benefitted from critical reading by Farish scholars such as Eisenstadt (2000), Al-Azmeh (1993) A. Noor and Iqbal Sevea at the Rajaratnam School of Inter- and Sachsenmeier (2002). They suggested that the national Studies (RSIS), Singapore, as well as by Kai Kresse path to structural differentiation in modern life can- and Marloes Janson at the ZMO Berlin. Technical terms deri- not be subsumed under the cultural programme of ved from Arabic, Urdu or Malay/Indonesian have been used in their local, Latinized and Anglicized versions. the West alone, stressing that many if not most ethnic Kirchweg 33, D-14129 Berlin © ZMO 2013 Telefon: 030-80307-0 Fax: 030-80307-210 Internet: www.zmo.de E-Mail: [email protected] and religious movements are addressing »present-day whereas the groups from South East Asia remained social and political needs« (ibid., 105) while following largely confined to their own region. their traditions. It therefore seems more useful to un- This paper relies on research that has been con- derstand »modern« and »traditional« as different de- ducted since 2001, first in South Asia and since 2005 grees and formats of differentiation and orientation intermittently in South East Asia, primarily in Indone- towards the present. Applied to Islamic school sys- sia, Malaysia and Singapore. Situated on the borders tems, the modern and traditional schools themselves of macro-oriented political science research, micro- embody multiple modernities, because the traditional focused anthropological and cultural inquiries and schools apply different cultural idioms, formats and text-based Islamic Studies, it combines documentary degrees in addressing the present. In doing so they evidence from archives such as the Deoband Darul are not necessarily less effective in preparing their ‘Ulum with a selection of qualitative interviews from students for global and social differentiation. the field and published secondary material. The aim The two South Asian Islamic school systems that is to gradually reconstruct the outlines of a transre- are most successful in connecting with South East gional space of discourse and interaction of Islamic Asia are the conservative and traditional madrasas actors from South Asia within the non-economic following the curriculum of the Darul ‘Ulum Deoband spheres of globalisation, creating what this author el- in North India and the modernist International Isla- sewhere described as »Alternate Globalities« (Reetz mic University in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Deoband 2010b). This research is meant to show that and how school represents the conventional madrasa system. actors and institutions from the Global South reclaim It serves as an example of a more traditional, con- their subjectivities from the process of globalisation, servative approach focusing exclusively on classical which is often considered heavily weighted in favour texts and subjects of Islamic knowledge mainly deri- of the Global North and dominated by economics and ved from the Qur’an and the Prophetic Traditions, the finance. In order to connect the local with the global, Hadith. With some minor exceptions, the Deobandi the paper will offer generalised assumptions about schools largely avoid teaching modern subjects. By both the local evidence and its transregional impact contrast, the International Islamic University opera- that remain subject to future revision by new data. tes more like any modern university offering secular In this way, the analysis itself is a discursive process education, besides providing religious knowledge and that will continue beyond this article. It connects with an environment of Islamic moral values and practi- similar work undertaken by this author on the impact ces. While Deoband has had many foreign students of Tablighi and Deobandi networks in South Asia and for many years, though this has significantly fallen off in other regions such as South Africa, Western Euro- after 9/11, the International Islamic University still pe and Central Asia.2 hosts a large number of international students. Both But this research not only aims at the political attracted considerable numbers of students from subjectivities of Muslim actors. It also searches for South East Asia to the extent that the foreign student the evolution of their religious subjectivities. It asks contingent from this region was the largest group of what happens to religious traditions when they tra- foreign students from outside South Asia there. The vel from one cultural and regional context to ano- Deoband school also influenced a number of Islamic ther. Here it connects with Mandaville’s inquiry into schools in Malaysia and Indonesia where Deobandi transnational Muslim politics (Mandaville 2003) graduates took up teaching or where they took the where he speaks of travelling Islam (ibid., 203) while founding initiative. The South East Asian graduates looking at particular traditions marked by local and of the Nadwa-tul-‘Ulum in Lucknow, India formed regional histories of formation. The Deobandi and another channel of interaction in the area of Islamic Tablighi networks stand for a whole range of Muslim education, though to a lesser extent than Deoband. traditions that managed to transcend the regional The International Islamic University in Islamabad and cultural parameters of their emergence. The closely interacts with its sister institution in Malaysia, current paper is an effort to trace this transregional exchanging students, teachers and concepts. That in- transformation in the example of specific groups. teraction is ideologically paired with close relations This paper will first introduce the Islamic tradi- between the Jama‘at-i Islami (Islamic Party – JI) and tions from South Asia that have become global ac- the PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia – Pan Malaysian tors and then discuss the place of South East Asian Islamic Party) in Malaysia. students in some of their South Asian schools. The In addition, the reformist Ahmadiyya sect from institutional and personal impact of this relation- South Asia, regarded by many Sunni groups as ship will be traced in case studies of Deobandi and heretical, gained influence in the region, mainly Nadwi teaching in Malaysia and Indonesia and an in Indonesia (ahmadiyya.or.id). So did the Khoja Is- exploration of profiles of Malaysian and Indonesian mailis following the Aga Khan, which are present in graduates from South Asian

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