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Islam and Development in Bangladesh

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Islam and Development in Bangladesh Islam and Development in Bangladesh Islam and Development in Bangladesh Bernard Hours Translated from French by s. M. Imamul Huq CENTRE FOR SOCIAL STUDIES Centre for Social Studies Room no. 1107, Arts Building Dhaka University Dhaka 1000 Bangladesh Name of the book in French : L'Islam et Developpement au Bangladesh First Published November 1995 Printed by Dana Printers Ltd. Ga-16 Mohakhali CIA Dhaka-1212 Phone : 882985 ISBN-984-513-008-9 Price Tk. 200.00 US s 20.00 ORSTOM, Paris, generously helped towards the preparation of this publication. CONTENTS Foreword Preface i Introduction 1 Chapter I Islam in the history and politics ofBangladesh 7 1. Islam and politics in Bangladesh 7 2. Islam, national identity and fundamentalism in Bangladesh 22 Chapter n Islam in everyday life 33 1. Problematics, investigation, method 33 2. Islamic associations and training of the Imams 38 3. Bongol- The dependence of the Imams 61 4. Shyarnpur- Mosque - the gamble for power 95 5. Paliatur- A mosque in the city 102 6. The Imam, servant of the community and precarious employee in Bangladesh 112 Chapter m The ideologies of development and their Islamic conception in Bangladesh 122 1. Local politics of development 124 2. The Islamic economics: an alternative development 133 3. .Jamaat-r-Islaml. The party for Islamic .Revolution 146 Conclusion 152 References 159 FOREWORD As per convention. the names of the persons and of the localities where the investigation was carried out have been kept imaginary. To ease the perusal of the. text, English citations have been translated into French. The author takes the responsibility of this translation. The transcription of the Arabic words is phonetic as this work is the outcome of a field investigation carried out in a non-arab country. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I PREFACE The Enigma of Islam in Bangladesh It is only after a long hesitation that I have decided to take risk of making some remarks on the difficult subject approached in this book by Bernard Hours. Talking about Islam now-a-days has become easy for journalists and for a number of politicians: since the idealization of Islam has taken on the proportions we know in Iran. in Sudan, in Pakistan, in Algeria. in Afghanistan, in Egypt and also in other societies where the respective States are inefficiently controlling the ever increasing turmoil. and the classic Islamic thinkers have almost become silent. The opinion of the great scholars like L. Masstgnon, R.Brunschvig, E.Levi­ Provencal, J.Schacht, G.Von Gruenbaum is rarely heard or too timid, when they do accept to express it. Moreover, the Muslim thinkers and researchers are not there to compensate by reliable works, profound analyses. evanescent proses. cursory descriptions. and the conformist accounts which once flooded the libraries. I do not say that only the classic Islam of the medieval texts merits attention and must constitute an obligatory reference for the evaluation of the spectacular metamorphosis undergone in the last thirty years. by a faith, a solidly established tradition, a burgeoning culture, a vigorous and conquering thought. But all critical studies of present day Islam must evaluate the continuities and the discontinuities between the changing expressions of Islam and the socio-political contexts over the centuries, particularly since 1945. The discontinuities triumph clearly over the continuities since the ideology of progress has been imposed on the new National-States as an essential tool for national construction, for economic liberation which must materialize and complete the reconquest of the political sovereignties following often tragic struggles. After 30 years of varying experiences in the different ii Islam and Development in Bangladesh Muslim countries, it can be clearly seen that the economic development now-a-days was the Instrument of the former colonial powers for perpetuating their domination in other forms. with the complicity of the National-States which have for a long time drawn from the promises of development the efficient means to make up the evident and increasing deficits of the legitimacy. How can the study of two such complex levers as Islam and development in the evolution of all the Muslim societies be united? How can the interactions, the contradictions, the arbitrary dealings of the political players. the legitimate and regularly disappointed aspirations of so many social agents, the strategies for power and exploitation by the international and national forces be followed? How can the levels of autonomy of the religious facts be discerned when all the ill-prepared. ill-informed actors. conditioned by militant speeches obstinately confound the political opposition. economic claims. social security, relation with the national identity. Messtantc hope. eschathologtcal expectations. exasperation of the desire for salvation...? These confusions observed everywhere now-a-days. even among the Muslim immigrants in the European societies, have taken a dimension which is difficult to define in the case of Bangladesh: the third complicated item of the subject treated by B.Hours. It is known that Bangladesh combines the negative effects of a colonial history which has delayed its independence till 1971, an unfavorable geographic location and ecologic evolution in striking disproportion with its material wealth and population growth. When the delusions of the religious "gutdes'' and the political leaders far removed from the real needs of the greater social strata margtnaltzed since the 19th century are added to the above-mentioned factors. it becomes confusing that Islam and development be considered as a gateway to the understanding of a society which remains one of the least studied and least explored of what was called the Third World. The specialists of social sciences always exult Preface iii afterwards to describe lucidly the havoc caused by the theories of development. conceived in the West. and transplanted arbitrarily during the years 1960-70 in the historical, social, cultural and economic contexts of the countries, as varied as Bangladesh. Tanzania, Iran. Algeria etc...The triumphant volunteertsrn of the National-States have of course contributed to the creation of tense situations by listening more to the ideological "experts" than to the prudent specialists, generally known as the idealists. What place has been attributed to the religious facts by these "experts" and their political protectors in so far as the deciding cultural and psycho-social dimension in all developmental strategies applied to colonized societies isolated from all intellectual modernity since the 18th century? It is from this question that the role of Islam in Bangladesh and elsewhere may be evaluated without taking a risk of exaggerating the religious factor, as many have done since political Islam has surfaced to the scene. As a general practice. I maintain Islam as the modality of human experience of dfvtntty, as an tdeologic lever of a history very rapidly spread to all the continents, as a vision of the world, position of human spirit, life style and series of very varied cultural codes; this Islam is there, and if one understands by Islam, then all of it elude the perception of the Muslims themselves and of those whom in the West, pretend to have devoted it "scientifically" since the 19th century. I recall this fact not to underestimate, far less to deny the importance of many monographs covering the various domains of this Islam, but to emphasize further the insufficiencies, the cliches, the conformtsrn, the false explanations. the Ideologic readiness that conceal as much in the discourse produced by the Muslim social agents- I include the "organic" intellectuals. the militants and the "believers" who follow them- as in the "specialized" literature promoted by the media (there are also very bad quality books that the media fortunately ignore). The appropriateness of these observations can be iv Islam and Development in Bangladesh substantiated by examining a recent publication consecrated to Islam in Bangladesh (Bull.. Leiden 1992). The author V.A.B. Razia Alder Banu claims with much confidence that she offers to the public "the first socio-political study on Islam in Bangladesh", because she uses "the most acute methodologtc arms" like quantitative sociology. She ignores the fact that this method has been used in France in the 50s under the impetus of Gabriel Le Bras for appraising religious beliefs and practices and that this method has been abandoned long ago. Like in many English publications on Islam, she depends exclusively on the literature of Anglo-Amertcan political scientists and some old publications of the classicIslamologtsts like H.A.R.Gibb, without forgetting the inevitable CliffordGeertz who has written in 1968 an essay entitled Islam observed: Religious development in Morocco and Indonesia. It has become a ritual for many scholars to give an "anthropologic" mark to each writing on Islam by citing one or two very general sentences from this publication. It is not the point here to discuss the relevance of a questionnaire submitted to three preestablished categories of population for finding the ratio of the "modems", the "orthodox" or the "popular", while the complex notions open to criticism of modernity. orthodoxy, popular (never distinguished from populism particularly in the overpopulated and much stricken Bangladesh as of today) have not been made the subject of any historic, sociologic or philosophic study. On the other hand, here is a publication which will become a work of reference because of the "scientific" certainty that will be acquired notably from the numerous statistical tables. I made two visits to Bangladesh, notably to Dhaka where I knew Bemard Hours. In visiting the populated areas of the capital and a certain number of villages, it was impossible for me to mention even once with my different interlocutors the presence of Islam in this society.
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