Muslim Reformers - A Peek Into the Past

#20 no mantolives, not Indian. I am not a head shaking desi. Nver have been and never will be.

I agree with your last but one paragraph. Underestimation always causes problems.

However, you have a point in paragraph 1: ``In 1947, there was hardly any indigenous bourgeoisie in the regions that now constitute Pakistan... an imported and small Muslim salariat tasked with ruling the country ``

This has been the problem.

Let me interpret it another way:

this salariat class you talk about were nothing but the people who lost to the Brits (or the progeny of the people who lost to the brits) through shear incompetence. They had a vested interest in keeping things as they were and in this they have been successful. All that has happened is that the old class of losers were taken out of their old clothes and provided with suits, an oxbridge education, R.P. English etc. but their essence was not changed. There should have been a cleansing of the aegean stables. There was an opportunty and it was missed. For the same attitudes which lost the empire, came back to the fore again, and again. The Mai-baap raj.

In the east you had a new political class very aware of its rights and responsibilities. These two clashed and you got 1971. The minutae can be debated, but the gross overall picture was this - a clash of attitudes.

All that has happened in Pakistan, is that the old losers were brought back and provided with the power. The old habits of self-aggrandisement at the cost of all else have come back to haunt the people. You never ever want someone who lost their rights through incompetence back again, esp when they donot seem to have learnt anything.

Even the educated and liberated minds, indulge in this.

Let me be a bit naughty, and suggest even you - some one who has been educated in the egalitarian west, where independence of thought is nurtured succumb to this habit. Hence your constant harping on Privy Council Memberhsips, Inn Memberships, Knighthoods etc as a mark of the individuals contribution to society in which he lives rather than his real contribution to society and its mark now.

#20 no mantolives, not Indian. I am not a head shaking desi. Nver have been and never will be.

I agree with your last but one paragraph. Underestimation always causes problems.

However, you have a point in paragraph 1: ``In 1947, there was hardly any indigenous bourgeoisie in the regions that now constitute Pakistan... an imported and small Muslim salariat tasked with ruling the country ``

This has been the problem.

Let me interpret it another way:

this salariat class you talk about were nothing but the people who lost to the Brits (or the progeny of the people who lost to the brits) through shear incompetence. They had a vested interest in keeping things as they were and in this they have been successful. All that has happened is that the old class of losers were taken out of their old clothes and provided with suits, an oxbridge education, R.P. English etc. but their essence was not changed. There should have been a cleansing of the aegean stables. There was an opportunty and it was missed. For the same attitudes which lost the empire, came back to the fore again, and again. The Mai-baap raj.

In the east you had a new political class very aware of its rights and responsibilities. These two clashed and you got 1971. The minutae can be debated, but the gross overall picture was this - a clash of attitudes.

All that has happened in Pakistan, is that the old losers were brought back and provided with the power. The old habits of self-aggrandisement at the cost of all else have come back to haunt the people. You never ever want someone who lost their rights through incompetence back again, esp when they donot seem to have learnt anything.

Even the educated and liberated minds, indulge in this.

Let me be a bit naughty, and suggest even you - some one who has been educated in the egalitarian west, where independence of thought is nurtured succumb to this habit. Hence your constant harping on Privy Council Memberhsips, Inn Memberships, Knighthoods etc as a mark of the individuals contribution to society in which he lives rather than his real contribution to society and its mark now.

Dear Ironmask,

Please look at the history of these problems and you will see that they are of recent origin and are of very temporary nature.

As for your assertion that bourgeoisie is no different in the aforementioned case, I think your assertion flies in the face of reality. Statistics show otherwise- Sumit Sarkar actually credits the new state with the creation of a solid bourgeoisie which did not exist in large numbers before... but see the point we started with. In 1947, there was hardly any indigenous bourgeoisie in the regions that now constitute Pakistan... an imported and small Muslim salariat tasked with ruling the country but under them the country did quite well... In 1971, the separation of the East Wing deprived Pakistan of the indigenous Bengali bourgeoisie which was politically much more advanced than anyone else in the country.

The situation is markedly different. Never underestimate the effect of being forced into commerce, banking and other technical fields on a community that was till that particular point involved largely in agriculture and the army.

My submission is that a lot of what you write is borne out of misconceptions based on the fact that you`ve never actually visited Pakistan. A lot of this superiority complex that many Indians harbor under false pretences would shatter upon a single visit.

#17 no ego issues here YLH! Just suggesting the membeship of privy council should be the leading characteristic of the person. The issue is what have they done for the common people which is lasting. Membership of a club or otherwise is not important to me. If you say he invented this or discovered that law and was awarded the Nobel thats impressive. Knighthoods and Privy Council memberships for desis ...yes you said it right when you called them WOGs!

Again, the issue is not one of a ``gap``. That implies there is a competetion for reform!

The reform movements have not had that great an impact. Even if you take you example in #18, the said states` bourgeoisie are no better than before. If they were, the historical social trajectory of the state would have been different.

If they were succefful Musharaff would not have been there. And he wuld not have said on TV the various things he said, regarding Deen, Madarassas, jihad etc!

What you are subconsciously asking for is Time. Unfortunately Time is not something the world is willing to afford right now.

#16...

The question ofcourse is what makes you think they`ve failed...

Muslim reformers lagged behind Hindu reformers by a good 60 to 80 years (approximately the time between Ram Mohun Roy and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan`s efforts...). If anything we see the gap closing up. Today there is a Muslim bourgeoisie that has its own state ... ultimately, not far into the future, that state will become a democracy...

Dear Ironmask,

Why must everything become an ego issue for you. I did not say that it was his claim to fame but it was put as a matter of fact ... and no- last I checked not every WOG got onto the privy council... but the list you gave ... lets look at it closely... There are atleast three people- if not more- who accepted knighthood... on the list that you`ve quoted... so let us drop this whole line shall we?

But most of the names you`ve quoted are quite famous Pakistani personalities...

YLH you are pretty widely read - tell us why have most of the refomers, failed at some level. Their impact has been felt on sections of the society other than their own community?
(I am again harking back Bongy`s first paragraph).

P.S I read #15, #10 etc and realise the nuanced nature of the arguments. However, the real question which needs to be answered is as bove.

Even bongy, having raised the question left that damn thing dangling!

#14 you needed to be a lackey of the brits and able to hold the Knife and fork right, and hold the G&T in your hand at the right angle! That was the key requirement for ``Privy Council``.

So from a desi PoV that cannot be his Claim to fame - rather should his claim to infamy!

On the other hand, what you said below in 2nd half of 14 suggests that he had something more in him. AS to AMU foundation etc, what about these guys


Dr. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari (Delhi)

Mufti Kafayattullah (Delhi)

Maulana Abdul Bari Farang Mahali (UP)

Maulana Sulaiman Nadvi (Bihar)

Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani (UP)

Maulana Husain Ahmad Madni (UP)

Chaudhury Khaleeq-uz-zaman (UP)

Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan

Tasadduq Husain Khan (UP)

Dr. Mohammad Iqbal (Punjab)

Maulana Sanaullah Khan Amritsari (Punjab)

Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew (Punjab)

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (Bengal and Bihar)

Dr. Syed Mehmood (Bengal and Bihar)

Saith Abdullah Haroon Karachiwale (Sindh, Bombay and Hyderabad)

Abbas Tyabiji (Sindh, Bombay and Hyderabad)

Sait Miyan Mohammad Haji Jaam Chhotani (Sindh, Bombay and Hyderabad)

Maulavi Abdul Haq (Sindh, Bombay and Hyderabad)



you donot hear of them much - maybe becoz they were not part of the Privy Council!

Dear Ironmask,

Please read my post again. That was not his claim to fame... but a measure of how highly he was regarded to be given a seat on the Privy Council.

Jurist and educationist by profession, Syed Ameer Ali`s claim to fame was his approach to the history of Islam and its spirit. He wrote two books which became the manifesto of Muslim modernism...

1. History of Saracens

2. The Spirit of Islam

These books stirred millions of young Muslims around the globe... the young Turks and their revolution was directly inspired by Syed Ameer Ali for example. In India, he was one of the main patrons of Aligarh Muslim University and tried to organise the Muslim community enmasse under the ML flag....


I quote from Banglapedia:


His progressive stance on the status and rights of women in Islam was one of his most notable contributions. While he was admired by Islamic `modernists` for his leadership in these causes, he was criticized by others for his disinterest in the concerns of the Bengali masses. However, his voice, particularly in the crucial period of the 1870s, when Muslim spokespersons were few, was very influential in countering much misinformed or prejudiced Western criticism of Islamic history and society.

http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/A_0186.htm

YLH - as I said 180 Vs 1200 the score. For a subject of immediate interest to Muslims and people of the subcontinent...khair....

#10 YLH - getting in TNT will not really solve the problem. It just massages your own ego and you mess things up. If I could quote Bongy from the article

The most common comments I have received after writing about Muslim reformers is that they are unable to really do much to reform, liberalise or effect change. That is a fair comment and to reply to that, the only way is to look at what happened to the reformers and liberals of the past, and see what has been their impact on life in the Muslim world today, what can we learn from them and what lessons can the modern living reformers take from the wins and losses, threats and opportunities which faced our ancestors. In this first of a series of essays on muslim reformers of the 18th and 19th century, I explore the remarkable story of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, a polyglot, agricultural scientist, lawyer, judge, scientist, author, publisher, political leader, and most of all an educator (his greatest achievement which has survived up till now).

#10 Thanks YLH for that. However, your #10 loses it sheen, W.R.T. Ameer Ali, when you emphasise his claim to fme as being ``sat on the Privy Council in London in the early 1920s``
Now what exactly was his claim to fame W.R.T. reform?

ironmask,

Actually... the whole issue is more nuanced than that...

What I quoted from the article above in #5 was central to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan`s achievement. It must be remembered that the quote- in my opinion - is from 1867 .... if not earlier. Once having reached the conclusion (that many others would as well), Sir Syed Ahmad Khan set about the task of imbuing the Muslim elite with modern education ... Aligarh Anglo-Muslim University was the result of this train of thought in #5 and not prior in time.

Another great Muslim reformer who is often forgotten is Syed Ameer Ali, who sat on the Privy Council in London in the early 1920s... a Muslim modernist par excellence, the author of ``History of Saracens``, moderniser, liberal ... and also the originator of the idea of separate electorates interestingly enough - at a time when others like Jinnah were committed to joint electorates.



The impact of modernity on communal consciousness ... both in forms of Hindu reformers and later Muslim reformers.... is often downplayed.... but it goes without saying that communal consciousness and a desire for the consociationalist two nation theory was formulated by men like Syed Ameer Ali and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan.

-YLH

#7 further

(5)The basis of all (progress) is that you should bring all treasures of knowledge under your control.

#5 But later in life he also said

(1)
``Remember that the words Hindu and Mahamedan are only meant for religious distinction—otherwise all persons, whether Hindus or Mohammedans, even the Christians who reside in this country, are all in this particular respect belonging to one and the same nation.``

(2)
Nothing is more disgraceful for any nation than to throw into the oblivion its historical heritage and the works of its ancestors

(3)We (Hindus and Muslims) should try to combine our hearts and souls and act in unison. If united, we can sustain.

(4)How good is the saying , whoever may be its author , that a humanbeing in composed of two elements – his faith which he owes to God and his moral sympathy which he owes to his fellow – beings Hence leave God’s share to God and concern yourself with the share that is yours.