Role Name Affiliation National Coordinator Subject Coordinator Prof Sujata Patel Dept. Of Sociology, University of Hyderabad Paper Coordinator Prof. Edward Rodrigues Centre for the Study of Social Systems Jawaharlal Nehru University Content Writer Najeeb V R Research Scholar Jawaharlal Nehru University Content Reviewer Prof.Edward Rodrigues Centre for the Study of Social Systems Jawaharlal Nehru University Language Editor Prof.Edward Rodrigues Centre for the Study of Social Systems Jawaharlal Nehru University Technical Conversion Module Structure Islamic Reform Movement In this module, we shall discuss the Islamic reform in India in two different sections. In section one, we shall concentrate on the reforms both internal and external to the teachings of Islam. In section two, we will look at the Islamic reformist tendencies and movements in pre and post independent India respectively. Description of the Module Items Description of the Module Subject Name Sociology Paper Name Religion and Society Module Name/Title Islamic Reform Movement Module Id Module no. 23 Pre Requisites An understanding of the various Islamic reform movements in India. Objectives To understand the idea of reform especially in Islamic context. To understand the reforms both internal and external to the teachings of Islam. To understand the Islamic reformist tendencies and movements in pre and post independent India respectively. Key words Reform, Islam, external, Pre-independent, post- independent. Religion and Society Module 23: Islamic Reform Movement Introduction Every religious ideal belongs to a historical time and context. The circumstances for its realization will always be insufficient to contain any perpetual decree or pronouncement in an ever enduring manner. The reform process is inevitable to bring a religious ideal up to date providing for its dynamic existence, inclusiveness, flexibility etc. While the reform advocates the change which preserves the existing values, norms, ideals, decrees etc. it provides the improved means of implementing them simultaneously. It stands to make gradual change in certain aspects of social, religious, ideological etc. realms, rather than rapid, fundamental or revolutionary ways. While the conservative opposition negates the possibility of reform, the radical reform rejects the feasibility of it. In the case of Islam, reform was not a single decisive event like the Protestant Reformation of European Christianity, but rather that which was repeated in cycles of events throughout several centuries and its roots extended to the founding era of Islam. In this module, we shall discuss the Islamic reform in India in two different sections. In section one, we shall concentrate on the reforms both internal and external to the teachings of Islam. In section two, we will look at the Islamic reformist tendencies and movements in pre and post independent India respectively. Section-I Reform from within The Arabic terminologies such as tajdid, islah, nahdhah were widely used to signify the existence of reform within Islamic teachings. These variations signified different kinds of reform endeavors. While tajdid manifests the more traditional religious reformation, islah is widely utilized by Salfi/Wahhabi political and religious outfits to express their idea of reform. At the same time, the word nahdhah, which also means reform, renovation etc. was used to describe mainly the European Renaissance and its resonances in the Muslim world and its consequent literal, social and political awakenings.1 But the word tajdid which connotes a going back to the original religious teachings is widely accepted by almost every sect within Islam. Even though the ijithihad which does independent research on the Quran (Hadith) to resolve issues of day-to-day human life, the qualification for doing this research and the authenticity of Hadith are matters of controversy throughout Islamic history. After the formation of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh) in the first 150 years of Islam, these schools witnessed differential growth, spread, splits and even absorption by other schools. Notwithstanding these changes the majority of Muslims everywhere continued to adhere to Taqlid which is to follow the traditions and finding out solutions from the Islamic texts for their newly emerging problems as well as for justifying the stands of religious scholarship.2 1 For example, while talking about the Islamism and social reform in Kerala, Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella, also categorizing reform in accordance with its proximity to European modernity and the Christian reformation tendencies. They says: ‘While a reformist tradition is perhaps as old as Islam itself, reformism appears in this literature as an engagement with the 'modern': a universalistic and rationalizing orientation-often compared to the Christian reformation articulated in a complex dialogue with (at times in opposition to) colonial and postcolonial 'western' modernities’. See Islamism and Social Reform in Kerala, South India, Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2/3, Islam in South Asia (Mar. - May, 2008), Published by: Cambridge University Press, Page 319. 2 Basically these researches started in the Abbasid period after 150 years of the emergence of Islam to deduce evidence and to connect the religious teachings with the new-born issues of life, and the Abbasid dynasty wants the help of legal civil and criminal codes and other kinds of regulations based on the Islamic texts to rule their vast territory of land. On that way they promoted and utilized these ijithihad. At the same time, paradoxically, out of these four mainstream leaders (imam) of four schools of thought i. e. Shafi, Hanafi, Hambali and Maliki, three were Outside Influence William Montgomery Watt (1985) argues that three ‘Hellenistic waves’ which affected the Muslim world and reshaped the intellectualism of the community.3 The first was the introduction of Greek philosophy and teachings4 (750 – 850 AD) with its ensuing Mu‘tazilite 5 and Ash‘arite 6 killed by the same dynasty because of either political or theological or ideological differences. Only Shafi was narrowly escaped. For example Ahmad ibn Hanbal; the imam of Hambali School was murdered, because his theological stand which was the Quran is not the ‘creation’ of God, which was contrary to the stand of the regime. Muslims in general accepted the view that the Quran is the speech or word of God not the creation. Here the Ulama want to justify his stand in accordance with the Islamic teachings. For further details see The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, William Montgomery Watt, 3 Islamic Philosophy and Theology; An Extended Survey, William Montgomery Watt, The University Press, Edinburgh, Second edition 1985. 4 ‘A system of Hellinistic education had been established in Iraq under the Sasanians and was continued under the Muslims. The main Subject of instructions was probably medicine; but philosophy and other ‘Greek Sciences’ were always taught as well. The teaching was mainly in the hands of Christians, and the best-known college was at Gunde-Shapur (about 150 Km north-east of Basra). Later, when a hospital was set up in Baghdad there were probably philosophical lectures in connection with the medical teaching. This system of Hellinistic education was thus complete in itself, and was spread over a number of instructions’. Islamic Philosophy and Theology; An Extended Survey, William Montgomery Watt, The University Press, Edinburgh, Second edition 1985. Page 37. 5 Mu‘tazilite were the followers of Dirar ibn Amr who involved in the process of bringing Greek conceptions in the discussion of Islamic dogma, that was, in the first elaboration of the discussion of Islamic theology (Kalam). The afore mentioned theological debate; the ‘createdness’ of the Quran raised by the Mu‘tazilites and they further argued that several attributes which were widely used by the community such as knowledge, Power, Will etc. corresponding to God’s names which were mentioned in the Quran is contrary to the unity of God’s nature and essence. In sum, their almost all rational arguments were theological or metaphysical and those rational thoughts in metaphysical realms were strictly prohibited by Islamic belief. 6 Abu-l- Hasan al- Ash‘ari is the founder of the Ash‘arite group studied under the head of Mu‘tazilites in Basra, Iraq, recognized that the significance of Mu‘tazilism getting to be increasingly irrelevant and he emphasized the idea that the Quran is uncreated and is the very speech of God. With regard to the anthropomorphic expressions in the Quran he insisted that scholarship. The second wave in the first half of the tenth century when several Muslim philosophers and intellectuals such as Al Farabi (872-950), Al Kindi (801- 873) Avicenna (980 - 1037) etc. further developed the Greek philosophy and fused it with Islamic thought, which resulted in the emergence of pseudo-Islamic, Neo-Platonic intellectual groups like Ikhwan as- Safa or Brethren of Purity 7. But this scholarship was demolished by the influential Islamic philosopher Al-Ghazali (1058 – 1111), who rejected the certainties of sense perception stressing instead the importance of the transcendental revelation. ‘The third wave of Hellenism’ starts with the intellectual, cultural, commercial and political dealings of Europe with the Muslim world, which further escalated after the eighteenth century, and its subsequent political encounters with each other throughout