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204 Regional Studies

tremendously diverse Muslim society, featuring a mosaic of ideological, political, cultural, and economic complexity.

History

Islam has maintained a presence in the Indian subcontinent since the earliest days, when the faith formed in the Arabian Peninsula (see Map 10.1). Commerce proved to be the primary vehicle for initial contact with the region, when Arab merchants and traders sailed to the Malabar Coast, along India’s southwestern shoreline, and established outposts in the early 7th century. Such interaction led to conversion among indigenous peoples; in fact a mosque was built in the Indian state of Kerala in 629, only seven years after Muhammad’s migration to Medina.

While maritime trade brought Islam to India, this was not the only migration of its kind. In the 8th century Muhammad Bin Qasim, a general in the Umayyad army, conquered the province of Sindh in present-day Pakistan. He was able to take advantage of an unpopular Hindu ruler presiding over a Buddhist majority and established a tolerant and economically vibrant region, where Islam’s egalitarian ethos served as a compelling counter-narrative to the caste system that dominated the existing social structures. Bin Qasim’s efforts made the Sindh Islam’s easternmost province in the Umayyad caliphate (661–750); this region would eventually come to include parts of the Punjab.

Further campaigns led by Muslim armies were successful in solidifying an Islamic presence militarily, politically, economically, and culturally throughout the Indian subcontinent. In the early 10th century Mahmud of Ghazni completed the con- quest of the Punjab begun two centuries earlier, while Muhammad of Ghor cap- tured Lahore, Gujarat, Tarain, and Delhi by the end of the 12th century. Advancing Muslim armies often confronted and defeated Hindu forces. Apart from this, there were several occasions when conflicts involved intra-religious engagements.

Trade and military conflict were not the only vehicles for the spread of Islam in South Asia. Arguably, a more successful and sustained one was the spread of Sufism and its ecumenical appeal. The indigenous reli- gions of India, particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, have a very strong ascetic component. Sufism’s inclination toward favoring the metaphysical over the mundane gained considerable currency in South Asia, which transcended those reli- gious boundaries that were deemed to be artificially created by society. In addition, Sufism’s inherent mysticism and egalitari-

anism were highly attractive to lower caste Hindus and to members of the

Sidebar 10.1 The shrine of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti

The shrine of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, a 12th- century Sufi master, is located in Ajmer, in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. Known as Gharib Nawaz, the “Benefactor of the Poor,” Chishti is revered by Muslims and Hindus alike, and his tomb is the popular destina- tion for millions of worshippers annually.

An Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century, edited by Aminah Beverly McCloud, et al., John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uaz/detail.action?docID=1120608. Created from uaz on 2020-11-07 18:44:27.

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Islam in South Asia 205

Untouchable community. Several Sufi leaders, including Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, Nizam Uddin Awliyah, Shah Jalal, and Baba Farid, developed into cult figures beloved to Muslims, Hindus, and other religionists. Many Sufi masters have become objects of veneration, long after their death, as saints possessing the power of intercession. For their followers, their shrines have become cen- ters of pilgrimage from all over the Indian subcontinent, irrespective of reli- gious affiliation.

Herat Kabul

Quetta Zahedan

Lahore Amritsar

Islamabad

Jaipur Delhi

Agra Kathmandu

Lhasa

Varanasi

Mumbai

Bangalore

Chennai

Colombo

Thimphu

Dhaka

Rangoon

Port Blair

Karachi

Kolkata

Arabian Sea

PAKISTAN

INDIA

SRI LANKA

INDIA

Bay of Bengal

CHINA

NEPAL

BHUTAN

BANGLADESH

AFGHANISTAN

M Y A

N M

A R

ANDAMAN ISLANDS

LAKSHADWEEP ISLANDS

0 Miles

Kilometers 500

500

Map 10.1 Map of South Asia.

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206 Regional Studies

After several centuries of Muslim presence in South Asia and a variety of regimes in power, Islamic political sovereignty attained its apogee in the subcontinent during the Mughal period, which spanned over 300 years. Tracing his ancestry to the Timurid Empire, which had dom- inated Central Asia, the first emperor of the Mughal era, Babur, advanced south from Khorosan and defeated the Muslim Delhi sul-

tanate in 1526. Babur and his descendants created a hereditary dynasty that dominated India as a Muslim minority governing a largely Hindu majority population for three and a half centuries. Babur was succeeded by his son Humayun, who was in turn fol- lowed by his son Akbar; then Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb followed in the same way. This was the beginning of the golden period of the dynasty (1526–1707).

Politically, the Mughal Dynasty may well have dominated the Indian subcontinent – either by conquering rival Hindu adversaries or by entering with them into alliances that recognized the Muslim regime’s power in the region. Yet, as a result of its encounter with other religions of South Asia and of a generally tolerant relationship with them, Islamic culture developed as an indigenous and in many ways unique civilizational phenomenon under the Mughals. Islam in South Asia became a syncretistic faith-culture, in which some social customs (such as marriage or cultural expression) absorbed Hindu characteristics. Under the reign of Akbar, for example, this syncretism was both a source of praise – from those who welcomed recognition of South Asia’s non-Muslim communities – and a source of criticism – from those who were suspicious of undue compromise and deference to those populations.

As emperor, Akbar (r. 1556–1605) recognized the demographic complexities of his subjects. Well aware of being a Muslim who ruled over a majority non-Muslim region, Akbar embarked upon creating an institution that reflected such a phenomenon; and this was the Din-e-Ilahi. The central doctrine of this movement was a shift from orthodox Islam toward the Sufism favored by Akbar. The movement also privileged a spirit of ecumenism and tolerance across religious lines. Akbar built the Ibadat Khaana (House of Worship) in Fatehpur Sikri, near Agra, and declared it open to people of all religions. The faith of the Ibadat Khaana was universalistic in nature, blending Islam and Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, while also acknowledging Islam’s relationship to other monotheistic faiths, such as Christianity and Judaism.1

But Akbar went further than simply establishing a perception of egalitarianism among the religions of South Asia; he also implemented policies that removed differences among them in society. He repealed the Jizya, the special tax paid by non-Muslims for protection in an Islamic polity – a move hailed by Hindus and others but sharply critiqued by Muslims, particularly the ones more traditionally oriented. Akbar also enacted measures that appealed to Hindu sensitivities, such as a ban on the slaughtering of cows. His belief that no faith had a monopoly on

Sidebar 10.2 The Taj Mahal

Emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) ordered the construction of the Taj Mahal, one of India’s (and the world’s) most recognizable monuments, as a mauso- leum to his wife Mumtaz, in Agra near Delhi.

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Islam in South Asia 207

truth placed South Asia’s numerous religions on a level ideological footing. Nevertheless, Akbar’s vision and actions won him animosity from the Muslim orthodoxy, which was offended by his theological and political concessions relating to Islam’s dominance on the subcontinent.

The end of Mughal rule in South Asia and the concomitant demise of Muslim dominance occurred not at the hands of competing religious factions, but rather as a result of the British colonization of India. The last Mughal emperor, Bahadurshah Zafar, ended his reign in 1857, which was also the year of the Sepoy Mutiny and of the establishment of imperial rule under Queen Victoria. Islam did, however, remain as a political presence, albeit on smaller scale – namely as the Nizamate of Hyderabad, a princely state in southern India.2

With the advent of British colonial rule, the Muslims of South Asia played a pivotal role in the independence movement. Muhammad ʿAli Jinnah, the eventual founder of Pakistan, Liaqat ʿAli Khan, its first prime minister, and Abul Kalam Azad, a leading figure in the Indian National Congress, were some of the key figures of the Quit India struggle, which culminated in the withdrawal of British sovereignty over India and subsequent partition of the subcontinent in 1947. With Jinnah, the creation of Pakistan was based on the conceit that the Muslims of India would require a separate homeland in a post-British South Asia to ensure their political rights and cultural identity, given rising tensions with the majority non- Muslim population.

Pakistan was founded in the midst of a civil war between Indian Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs, while an independent state, separated by 1,000 miles from a hostile country in the middle, was being crafted. As the rationale for the new nation was to create sovereignty in regions holding Muslim majorities and these existed on either side of India, that country was none too pleased about this divi- sion of territory and the violence and population displacement that occurred in its aftermath. Though the acrimony was shaped across religious lines, the conflict was a matter of religious identity through a political lens rather than a theologi- cally driven war. In fact both India and Pakistan were ostensibly established as secular nations. Tensions between the two countries have remained political in nature since 1947 over several issues, chief among them being the disputed territory of Kashmir, a Muslim majority province in northern India that is claimed by both nations. In addition, India’s involvement in the 1971 war, which led to Pakistan’s division and the creation of Bangladesh from East Pakistan, has been a diplomatically contentious matter, yet it has demonstrated that religious difference is not necessarily a strong line of demarcation in South Asia.

Islamic Movements in South Asia

The religious diversity of South Asia is self-evident; virtually all major faiths of the world are represented in varying measure within the region. Yet there also exists a tremendous amount of variation within South Asian Islam itself: there are several

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208 Regional Studies

sects and sub-sects, and religio-political movements abound, a good number of them being unique to the subcontinent and a function of its historical, demographic, and political pecularities. While the overwhelming majority of South Asians are Sunni, there are several divisions within this group, just as there are considerable distinc- tions among the assorted Shiʿa factions. In either case, theological and philosophical variations are informed and affected by political factors and motivations. Of course Sufism remains a strong presence and influence throughout the Indian subconti- nent, both as a religious and as a cultural imperative.3

One of the most influential of the Sunni movements in South Asia is the Deobandi School, which is named after the eponymous city in the northern Indian town that houses the Darul Uloom institution for learning. Established as a seminary in 1867 by Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi and Rashid Ahmed Ganobi, Deoband sought to address the Muslim community’s decline in British India following the 1857 mutiny and the end of Mughal rule. With its curricular focus on Qurʾanic and hadith studies and on Islamic law and sciences – all conducted in an Urdu medium – Deoband purposely omitted English and Western disciplines from its program, arguing that they represented British oppression and, more perniciously, a threat to Islam in India. Originally catering to the subcontinent’s Muslim elite, Deoband was grounded in classical Sufism and trained its pupils to achieve a focus on spiritual discipline. At the same time, however, the institution was vehemently against certain aspects of Sufism – such as saint veneration or its hierarchical structures.

Although founded as an anti-colonial Islamic institution, Deoband has maintained its position as one of South Asia’s leading centers of learning, and its influence extends beyond India. Initially the school was against the founding of Pakistan, because of its opposition to a perceived paradoxical concept – namely a secular Muslim state. Deobandi scholars have exerted considerable religious authority over the nation, especially with regard to other sectarian factions, whether Sunni or Shiʿa.

Deoband has played an undeniably critical role in shaping Islamic discourse in South Asia since the imposition of British colonial rule; it was, however, not the only response of its kind to foreign imperial authority. In 1875 Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (d. 1898) founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (also known as the Aligarh Muslim University) at Aligarh, in the Indian province of Uttar Pradesh. Without question, Khan designed Aligarh to be the antithesis of Deoband. Modeled on the Oxbridge system of British higher education and decidedly secular in its orientation, Aligarh offered a curriculum and a campus architecture fashioned after the two most prestigious collegiate universities of England. The courses included engineering, law, and medicine, as well as Western liberal arts. Khan believed that, for Indian Muslims to survive (and perhaps even to thrive), they needed to move beyond denying, with so many others, the irreversible loss of power in the subcontinent and to face the realization that Britain and the West were now on the way up. Muslims needed to maintain their buoyancy in a society that no longer privileged them, in fact was forcing them to compete for space and

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Islam in South Asia 209

success with a majority non-Muslim population that had already embraced Western ways and modalities of knowledge.

Aligarh’s curriculum and its stated mission have been successful in cultivating generations of Muslim professionals in the Indian subcontinent – professionals who subsequently became prominent leaders both at home in India and in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Although Aligarh is almost diametrically opposed to Deoband in focus and vision, both institutions have helped shape the narrative of Islam in South Asia through their differing approaches to educating Muslims.

Both Deoband and Aligarh created educational centers and curricula to address the needs of South Asia’s Muslims, and in the process they became ideologies and approaches in their own right. The Sunni Muslims of the subcontinent also have movements and imper- atives that define Islamic identity and manners of engagement with society. One such movement is the Barelvi, which received its name from the hometown of its founder, Ahmed Riza Khan (d. 1921): Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh Province, India. Barelvism represents the popular strain of South Asian Sufism, which has three foundational aspects: the hagi- ography of Prophet Muhammad, which is sometimes accused of approaching a divine perception of its subject; the belief in the intercession of Sufi saints – that is, the Pir/Murid system; and the commemo- ration of popular festivals, particularly the ones that celebrate the Prophet’s birth.

Barelvism enjoys widespread support throughout South Asia, especially among the Muslims of Pakistan. Its syncretistic nature and lack of rigidity – by comparison with the austere orthodoxy associated with the Deobandi School – has given Barelvism popular appeal, but also exposed it to severe criticism on account of its being outside the purview of acceptable Islam. Deobandi scholars such as Ashraf ʿAli Thanvi (d. 1943) have issued religious opinions – fatwas – condemning Barelvism and calling its adherents illegitimate Muslims. Still, such opposition has neither deterred the movement nor prevented it from maintaining a strong position in the Muslim culture of South Asia.

While some Sunni movements in South Asia have concentrated on education and others on ideological orientation, the Jamaat-e-Tabligh employs engagement as its principal point of departure. Founded in 1927 by Muhammad Ilyas in the northern Indian town of Tabligh, the Jamaat is primarily concerned with intra-faith rather than inter-faith. Originally a Deobandi, Ilyas recognized the merit of missionary work in spreading Islam; however, the object of his efforts was to reach fellow Muslims. Ilyas was concerned that Muslims in South Asia had been exposed to an Islam tainted by foreign innovations and encroachments; he sought to refine the Islamic practices of Muslims instead of teaching Islam to others from scratch. Since the movement has chosen to limit the scope of its focus as such,

Sidebar 10.3 Pir and Murid

Pir is a term designating the Sufi master, while Murid is used of someone who gives his oath of allegiance to a particular Pir, recognizing him as his spiritual master and even intercessor. This relationship is not recog- nized by the Islamic orthodoxy, which sees the practice as an un-Islamic innovation and a heresy.

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210 Regional Studies

the Jamaat-e-Tabligh is seen as an apolitical, non-controversial effort, both within South Asia and in its relatively recent global project.

Not all Islamic movements in South Asia have been able to escape politicization, in spite of their efforts to stay out of the political arena. The Ahmadiyya (Qadiani) movement is considered one of the subcontinent’s more controversial factions. The group traces its roots back to the town of Qadian in the province of Punjab and to its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (d. 1908). Around 1898 Ahmad made a claim to prophethood, in direct contravention to the orthodox Islamic belief that Prophet Muhammad was the last such divinely ordained messenger. With the exception of this albeit significant factor, Ahmadis generally adhere to a fairly con- ventional Sunni expression of Islam. They have nonetheless been subject to a pervasive campaign of discrimination, demonization, and persecution in Pakistan since the 1950s. As a small, though cohesive and organized minority group, the Ahmadis have faced public derision as well as official condemnation from the government of Pakistan, which declared them to be non-Muslims by amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan in 1974.

The diversity among the various Sunni move- ments of South Asia has been informed by, and has in turn affected, the complexities of the majority Muslim denomination of the region. Shiʿa Islam, though represented by a small population, enjoys a similarly wide spectrum of ideological and social differences. The largest component in this minority community is the Twelver ( Jafari) Shiʿa sect. The Twelvers, though few in number, occupy a major position in shap-

ing Islamic history in South Asia. During the 16th century, Shiʿa kingdoms presided over the Deccan Plateau in the southern part of India, and in 1732 the Twelver sect had founded the state of Awadh in northern Indil, its capital was Lucknow, a city that served as one of South Asia’s epicenters of Islamic culture and education. With the advent of colonial rule in the 19th century, the British authorities sharply enervated the Shiʿa aristocracy, thereby diminishing its political power. In addition, the colonial divide-and-rule strategy politicized latent sectarian differences, constructing new lines of demarcation for identity politics and discord, along Sunni– Shiʿa lines. With the upheaval of power structures and the loss of Muslim power in South Asia, Sunni theologians, worried about the impact on Islam’s continued coher- ence, began to target Shiʿism and certain practices, issuing declarations that they were un-Islamic. Long-standing Shiʿa religio-cultural traditions, such as the com- memoration of passion plays (Taaziyat), were deemed to be in violation of Islam.

In recent decades the Sunni–Shiʿa divide in South Asia has attained a more corrosive and violent dimension, especially in Pakistan. As a small and beleaguered community, the Shiʿa of Pakistan are often made scapegoats for political and social dysfunctionality and are easy targets of extremist acts. In addition, foreign interventionists supply aid and weapons to both Sunni and Shiʿa factions, thus

Sidebar 10.4 Shiʿa

The Shiʿa constitute roughly 15 percent of the population of Pakistan; less than 10 percent of the Indian population; and less than 2 percent of the population in Bangladesh.

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Islam in South Asia 211

forwarding their own agenda at the expense of domestic stability in Pakistan. The bloodshed tends to intensify during major Shiʿa days of commemoration, when the carnage and its visibility can be maximized.

The Twelver Shiʿa are a minority among Muslims, both in South Asia and throughout the Islamic world as a whole; however, they are still in the majority within the overall Shiʿa community. The Indian subcontinent is home to significant numbers of these “minorities within minorities” – for example non-Twelver Shiʿa such as the Ismaʾilis. Being small yet cohesive and prosperous groups, they have been very adept at navigating a sometimes treacherous political, ideological, and social landscape in South Asia, though by and large they avoided the larger sectarian and inter-religious conflicts in the region.

Of the two denominations of Ismaʾili Islam in South Asia, the Mustali, also known as the Bohra, have a longer history in the Indian subcontinent, having arrived there in the middle of the 11th century from Yemen. Being a vestige of the former Fatimid line of Ismaʾilis, which ruled over Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, the Bohras follow the instructions of the Daʿi al-Mutlaq, the unique representative of the Hidden Imam, a central figure in Shiʿa belief. Settling mostly on the western coast of India and on the southern coast of Pakistan, the Bohras are a tightly knit community that maintains strict codes of piety and social conduct. The Daʿi in fact assigns identity cards to his followers on the basis of the depth of adherence to his teachings that each one demonstrates. These cards, colored green, yellow, or red, indicate and determine the level of access and acceptance within the community that their holders will enjoy.

The Nizari, or Khoja, constitute the second of India’s two Ismaʾili denomina- tions. Led by their spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, the Khoja have been established in India and Pakistan; their headquarters are in Bombay, since the movement migrated from Persia in the 19th century. The Khoja are a very cohesive, self-sufficient, and prosperous community. They place a very high premium on education, the pursuit of business, and other professional careers. Two million Khoja reside in Pakistan, a number that represents 2 percent of their population worldwide. They main- tained well-established communities in East Africa until the early 1970s, when political turmoil forced many of them to resettle in Europe and North America. The Khoja, both through the Aga Khan and as a community, have contributed eco- nomically and politically to South Asia, creating endowments and educational institutions and engaging in philanthropic work. Muhammad ʿAli Jinnah, one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement and the founder of Pakistan, was himself a Khoja.

Political Islam in South Asia

For Muslims in South Asia, political participation is a multi-faceted phenomenon, spanning the whole spectrum from disengagement to active, identifiably Islamic expression. While postcolonial India has maintained a democratic system since

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212 Regional Studies

its independence, its more Muslim neighbors – Pakistan and Bangladesh, respectively – have each endured a history of vacillation between democracy and dictatorship. In all three countries Muslims have been extensively involved in the political process and have certainly exercised their freedom to opt for a secular form of participation or party affiliation. At the same time, however, several political parties on the Indian subcontinent have been demonstrably Islamic in their rhetoric and outspoken ideological orientation, creating a mosaic of political alliances, adversities, and alignments. These parties see themselves not only as political actors but also as agents for social change and cultural identity in their respective countries.

The Ahl-e-Hadith (not to be confused with the Ahl-e-Sunnah Wal Jamaah, a branch of the Barelvis) do not follow any of the recognized schools of Sunni Islam, claiming that such methodological distinctions are artificially created and have no theological foundation or requirement.4 As adherents to an unaffil- iated model, members of the Ahl-e-Hadith believe in ijtihad (independent reasoning of the individual) instead of taqlid (blind imitation), which they claim is the result of the institutionalization of Sunni schools of thought. The Ahl-e-Hadith have organized as a political party in Bangladesh, where they have enjoyed limited success, and the Pakistani version maintains an even smaller presence in that country.

By far the most prominent Islamic political movement in South Asia has been the Jamaat-e-Islami, founded in 1941 by Abul Ala Mawdudi (d. 1979). The Jamaat’s initial objective was to form an Islamic state in the context of impending independence from Britain and while its main political opponent, the Muslim League, was seeking a potentially secular alternative. For this reason the Jamaat opposed the formation of Pakistan in 1947; but eventually it accepted it and accord- ingly moved its base of operations to the new nation. Once there, Mawdudi led the Jamaat into the country’s political process, asserting a clearly Islamic tone and platform in spite of the secular trajectory envisaged by Jinnah, the founder. Pakistan’s political turmoil and instability as it moved back and forth between civilian and military governments caused public cynicism about the viability of a secular polity, allowing the Jamaat to gain considerable currency in the political debate. Mawdudi leveraged his own ideological vision through the Jamaat by calling for a return to original Islamic doctrine. Declaring all Western ideologies – theological, political, and other kinds – morally and Islamically bank- rupt, Mawdudi called for an Islamization of the state that was to be achieved through the implantation of a rigid construal of the Qurʾan and Prophetic tradi- tion. In fact Mawdudi was even critical of traditional Islamic scholars (ulamā) for being quiescent or complicit in the decline of Islam in the daily lives of South Asia’s Muslims.5

The Jamaat-e-Islami proved to be an influential political force in Pakistan, particularly against religious minorities. While embarking on its anti- Ahmadiyya campaign in 1953, the Jamaat was finally successful in its efforts to have the government declare the Ahmadiyya a non-Muslim group through constitutional

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Islam in South Asia 213

amendment in 1974. Further success was achieved under the military regime of General Zia ul-Haq, an ardent supporter of Mawdudi’s Islamic state model. With consultation and guidance from the Jamaat, Zia implemented sharia law in several areas of civil society, among the most contentious of his measures being the Blasphemy Ordinance, which punishes any statement or publication deemed offensive to Islam, the Prophet, or the Qurʾan as a potentially capital crime.

Today the legacy of Mawdudi and of the Jamaat in Pakistan has led to the establishment of Islamic parties as well-mobilized and influential actors in the country’s political discourse. Similarly, albeit to a lesser degree, the Jamaat’s analogous organization in Bangladesh has helped bolster an Islamic presence in the nation’s political process; for example, in 1988 Islam was declared state religion. By contrast, however, the Jamaat’s Indian incarnation has assumed a less strident posture, advocating the protection of minority Muslim rights and the social reform and spiritual renewal of the individual.

Various extremist movements have taken shape in South Asia that claim an Islamic impetus for their actions. Some are descendants of the mujahidin fighters, who were supplied and financed by Western powers to fight the Soviet army during its invasion of Afghanistan in the 1979–1989 campaign. The formation of the Taliban in the Afghan refugee camps of Pakistan during the 1990s changed the country’s cultural landscape even after the Taliban left to fight in the Afghan Civil War. For many participants in these movements, the Taliban’s subsequent alliance with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan further entrenched an Islamic narrative in the rhetoric and motivation of armed struggle and resis- tance. As a result, an entire generation of religiously motivated fighters emerged, recasting Islam as a liberation theology in order to justify efforts to redress old and existing grievances across the region, chief among these being the ongoing Kashmir conflict. Groups like Laskhar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, and Lashkar- e-Janghvi have conducted extremist activities in Indian-controlled Kashmir and more recently have claimed to have orchestrated attacks in Bombay and other Indian cities.

Gender and Islam in South Asia

The treatment of women has been a measure commonly applied to Islamic societies for gauging their purported development and progress. Islam in South Asia has not been exempted from such an analysis. However, like religion itself, the subject of Muslim women is a highly complex matter in the region, because faith and its various theological interpretations do not alone inform sufficiently the myriad factors that affect this topic or allow for convenient generalizations. Muslim women throughout the Indian subcontinent are affected by local cultural particularities, socio-economic conditions, political considerations, and sometimes also deeply entrenched class structures. It is perhaps more helpful to explore the spectrum of Muslim women’s roles and rights in South Asia, which spans from

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complete sequestration from public spaces to full and active participation in political, professional, and social areas. In the two “Muslim” countries of South Asia, for example, three different women have served as democratic leaders of their respective nations. Benazir Bhutto (d. 2007) was twice elected to Pakistan’s highest office, from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996. In Bangladesh, Khalida Zia served as prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2006; and Sheikh Hasina has occupied that post from 1996 to 2001, and again since 2009. Although there has been some opposition to their election in both Pakistan and Bangladesh on the basis of the conceit that women cannot and should not govern an Islamic state, such a view has not gained significant currency among members of the public, which does not consider gender to be a disqualifying factor or an anathema.

While the election of women to the highest political office in Pakistan and Bangladesh may indicate a promising atmosphere for gender politics in South Asia, there are some glaring challenges facing large numbers of Muslim women in the region. Clearly there are people who exploit the lack of education of significant segments of society by finding Islamic rationales to suppress women; their views take advantage of people’s ignorance about Islam and are enforced through cultural and tribal modalities of social control. The marginalization of women by restricting access to education and employment opportunities occurs in both urban and rural settings, where resources may be limited and generations of patriarchal social custom militate against change. While Muslim women may be entitled to the protection of their civil rights through state action, familial, communal, tribal, and sometimes even feudal norms intervene to deny them access to, and to deprive them of, improved lives and livelihoods. This phenomenon occurs everywhere, be it in politically fluid countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh or in stable democracies like India.

In addition to cultural considerations, gender politics in the Muslim commu- nities of South Asia exists within the context of equally entrenched fissures that are based on class distinction; this creates situations where wealthy women enjoy more rights in society than indigent men. Moreover, sectarian conflicts among the various factions comprising the Islamic landscape of South Asia destabilize civil society to such an extent that an otherwise naturally occurring progression toward greater enfranchisement of women is impeded. While conditions for women in these Muslim societies may be far from optimal, it is important, however, to assess whether mechanisms for improvement are available. Through local social and political movements involving both men and women, the issue of women’s rights remains a highly visible topic in the public debate.

Conclusion

Islam has maintained a historical presence in South Asia since its very inception. Adapted to local demographic, social, and cultural realities, the form of Islam that is practiced in modern-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh attests to the vibrant and at times volatile interaction of this faith with other religious traditions

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Islam in South Asia 215

of the region, as well as contesting and negotiating its own internal tectonic plates. Home to nearly one in every three Muslims in the world, South Asia possesses a variety of Islamic expressions that speak to the ideological, political, and cultural complexities of a multi-faith, multilingual, and multicultural space.

The manner in which Islam has emerged and evolved in South Asia over the cen- turies serves as a model of great interest for Muslims in other parts of the world who contend with religious, cultural, and political diversity. Consequently many South Asian Muslims have had an immense influence on other Muslim societies through their scholarship and writings. Whether by playing a role in outside move- ments such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as happened through Mawdudi’s work with the Jamaat-e-Islami, or by producing intellectuals like Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) or Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988), South Asian Muslims have made profound contributions to Islamic discourse both regionally and beyond.

The variety among the region’s Muslims makes it impossible to define a single, monolithic South Asian Islam. Whether Islam in South Asia is taken as a microcosm of the global Muslim world or as a highly specialized manifestation of the faith and its adherents, its organic nature becomes evident to anyone who examines its history: a 14-century-long history of interaction that has embraced conflict and cooperation and has forged a local typology of Islam unlike anything visible elsewhere in the world.

Notes

1 Similarly, many South Asians, irrespec- tive of their religious affiliation, enjoy Islamic culture: its art and architecture, its poetry, represented by such masters as Amir Khusro and Mirza Ghalib, and its music, represented by the devotional Qawaali of the late Nusrat Fateh ʿAli Khan and the Sabri Brothers.

2 Hyderabad remained an independent princely state with its own currency and postal service until September 1948, when it was invaded and absorbed by India.

3 The destruction in 1992 of the 16th- century Babri Mosque by Hindu extremists and the ensuing communal

violence were seen to be the result of political exploitation related to the introduction of Hindu nationalism into India’s political equation by way of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its rise to power in the early 1990s.

4 The four recognized Sunni schools of thought are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafiʾi, and Hanbali.

5 Mawdudi’s disdain for the ulamā may appear ironic, given his own lack of formal education in the Islamic disci- plines. He was a professional journalist and considered journalism to be his principal vocation, despite his political activism.

Discussion questions

1 What influence did Islam’s contact with the Indian subcontinent’s other religions – for instance Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, or Buddhism – have on the form of Islam in South Asia?

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