Muslims in India Since 1947
Islamic Perspectives on Inter-faith relations
By Yoginder Sikand
Published by: Routledge Curzon
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE.
Most Muslim societies have for centuries been religiously plural and many are becoming increasingly so. New Muslim communities have been established in recent decades in countries that earlier had few or no Muslims at all, such as in Western Europe and North America. Large numbers of Muslims, estimated at more than a third of the world's Muslim population live as minorities, and in countries such as India and China, these communities number tens of millions. Living together with people of other faiths, a small number of Muslim scholars, including some studied in this book, are now actively engaged in working out new understandings of how Muslims can relate more positively to others, developing a diverse range of Islamic theologies of religious pluralism.
Yoginder Sikand in his inimitable way has marvelously related the ways in which some Muslim thinkers are seeking to creatively relate from within the Islamic faith tradition, to the fact of the modern nation state and the nation state system. Contemporary Indian Muslim scholars, the subject of this book, are making some of the most interesting and productive attempts at reformulating Islamic perspectives on religious pluralism and the modern nation state. Leading Indian Muslims, traditional ulama as well as 'lay' Islamic activists have from the 19th century onwards exercised a significant influence on Muslim thinking in South Asia and beyond. Indian scholars such as Sayyed Ahmad Khan, Amir Ali, Muhammad Iqbal, Sayyed Abul Ala Maududi, Abul Kalam Azad and Sayyed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi have made important contributions to modern Muslim discourse, their influence being felt far beyond the limits of South Asia. Despite the rich contribution that recent and present day Indian Muslims have made to Islamic thought in general, they remain largely neglected in scholarly writings on contemporary expressions of Islam.
Muslims in India Since 1947, Islamic Perspectives on Inter-faith relations, is an excellent book by Sikand that examines writings of some key contemporary Indian Muslim scholars and organizations to see how they are attempting to come to terms with their status of being a minority in a country not ruled by Islamic law while remaining true to their own faith commitments, which in the case of some, includes belief in the centrality of the Islamic state and in the necessity of Islamic missionary work among others (dawah).
Each of the individuals and organizations examined in this book believes that Islam, in the form of the revelation to Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) is God's chosen religion, valid for all times and places. Yet the ways in which they construct their own understandings of what Islam means today for the Muslims of present day India are diverse and in many cases mutually opposed to each other. This is well illustrated in the different ways in which the question of religious pluralism and inter-religious dialogue is looked at. Asghar Ali Engineer, for instance sees the different religions as all being created by God in their in their remarkable diversity and no one religion including Islam as being superior to the others. For him the most relevant form of dialogue is when people of different faiths, each inspired by the essential values of their own religions, work together for common causes such as social justice, equality and peace for all.
The most interesting chapter among the eleven subjects dealt with by Sikand is the one on “Reflections on the contributions of Sayyed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, Islam and the Muslim Minority Predicament”. Discussing Maulana Ali Miyan's efforts for inter-religious dialogue between Muslims and others, particularly Hindus, Sikand highlights the intensive interest taken by the Maulana in the Dalit struggles against caste oppression, having as early as in 1935 met with Dr Ambedkar, the Dalit leader, inviting him to accept Islam along with his followers. He established close ties with the Bangalore based English fortnightly Dalit Voice releasing its inaugural issue in 1980.
The remarkable diversity of ways of interpreting Islam that emerges from within the contemporary Indian Muslim context is also apparent in the manner in which each of the individuals and groups examined in this book relates to the Indian polity.
This is a remarkable book that must be read by not only students of sociology or just Muslims, but by everybody who seeks to acquire indepth knowledge into the work and thought of contemporary Indian Muslim scholars.
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December 2009 |
