CHAPTER I: ‘ALI NAQVI’S RECEPTION OF THE CRISIS OF RELIGION
Introduction
In 1937 ‘Ali Naqvi was invited to Madrasah al-Va‘izin (Lucknow) to deliver a series of yearly Muharram lectures. In the context of his intellectual life, these lectures signal nothing less than a critical turning point. For they reveal that within a few years of his arrival in India, his understanding of the problems that confronted his Shi’i community had led him to embark on a new religio-intellectual project, whose first unambiguous and orderly account is to be found in these very lectures. ‘Ali Naqvi’s undertaking emerged as a result of two interrelated factors: first, his perceptive detection of the immediate, contemporary religio-communal needs of the Indian Shi’i Muslim community, and second a clear sense of his role as an ‘alim and religious leader of that community. Moreover, for Naqvi, thetasks of diagnosis and response was
geared towards responding to what was unmistakably a deep feeling of crisis (Arabic azmah, Urdu bohran). It is a central claim of this study that much of what ‘Ali Naqvi wrote or spoke about from this point onwards was a response to numerous interrelated crises which he outlined in this and many other essays that he wrote between 1932 and 1945.
Yet the crisis that forms the common thread weaving all of his writings together is that of religion. Without a thorough appreciation of this perceived notion of crisis, it is almost impossible to grasp why he wrote or spoke about the subjects that he did, or the way in which he chose to do so. In this regard, these Muharram lectures are our most accessible resource for an appreciation of issues deemed by ‘Ali Naqvi as most pressing and deserving of his attention. A compendium of his religio-intellectual project these lectures are also ‘Ali Naqvi’s most lucid statement of the underlying worries, anxieties and motivations that prompted it, and would drive his intellectual energies for the rest of his life: It is in fact the reception of these “new challenges” by Naqvi and his community that would inaugurate a prolific writing and speech career that would continue until his last days, providing the underlying thematic unity to his diverse intellectual activities. The Muharram lectures are his first public announcement of his project, and therefore, a major step forward on the new path he has laid out for himself.
Not everything in these lectures was new to his audience’s ears, however. Allusions to the various issues of concern to him and to his community had sporadically been given before. That is to say, that the signs of this reorientation are already found – though mostly scattered – in his earlier writings. What separates these lectures from the earlier writings and is most relevant for our purposes is the systematic nature of the presentation of these problems. Here, for the first time, he pieces together the various themes into a narrative centeredaround
the question of islah
and fasad.
And compared to the previous instances, he decided to flesh out these concerns most clearly on this occasion.
A few words are timely regarding the translation of the two terms, fasad and islah.
Derived from the Arabic the dictionary meaning of fasad in Urdu includes depravity, iniquity, wickedness, mischief, violence, war, horror, mutiny, sedition and rebellion; and islah/islah karna correction, amendment, and emendation (Shakespear) or to make better, correct, or improve (Chohan and Bukhari).
I have already discussed the contemporary import of the concept of islah. Given the extensive lexical range of the terms themselves and subtleties with which ‘Ali Naqvi employs them, translation (or consistency therein) has not always been possible. Occasionally, however, and when the context would allow a clear and precise rendering, I have provided the English equivalent.
This chapter is based on a close reading of these Muharram lectures, and many of his earliest writings. The contents of these early writings and speeches reveal this sense of deep predicament (or predicaments) as perceived by ‘Ali Naqvi. The chapter endeavors to explore the nature of this crisis, his articulation of it, and the various strands that constitute it. For this purpose I have endeavored to capture the very language and categories in which he expresses his concerns. In the process I consciously refrain from interpreting and labeling – more than what is inevitable – his understanding of the crises in the familiar and ubiquitous scholarly categories of modernity or modernism. The purpose for this restraint is to avoid hasty judgments that will forestall a cautious hearing of ‘Ali Naqvi’s words, and in turn, hasty generalizations about their meaning and significance. What his sense of crisis ultimately is and what his prescriptions entail from the point of view of scholarly study of Islamic intellectual history will be addressed at length in the closing chapter. With these caveats in mind, let me now proceed to outlining his articulation of the crisis.
For the occasion of his Muharram lectures, he chose to speak about the Qur’anic phrase La tufsidu fi al-‘arz
(“Do not [spread] corruption in the land”).
It had been almost five years since he had returned from Iraq after finishing his seminary studies and obtaining the certification (ijazah) to engage in legal interpretation (ijtihad). He had already spoken from this venue before. Yet the choice of the topic and the method of exposition, when situated within the context of what he had written or spoken about so far, reflect a certain reorientation in his intellectual career. His choice of subject seems strange at first, and for several reasons: Until now he had not spoken on a subject of this sort; nor his manner of approaching it was conventional, both from the point of view of the usual format of Muharram lectures, and the particular discursive approach he takes to expand on it. He seems aware of the unusualness of his choice of subject and his lecture:
My expositions (bayanat) if they prove to be offensive, tasteless, uninteresting and non-captivating (ghayr dil avayz) – and they will indeed – it is because in this valley of interestingness is non-existent. This is a garden of thorns in which pleasant sceneries of enjoyment are impossible. But one should not lose heart due to this. In all my discourses I always invite my audience by asking them to listen without expecting something interesting. I do not want to deceive you with words about greener pastures by eliciting hope that my discourse will be of interest to you. Rather I approach you through an understanding that I have to present something that is uninteresting. I invite listeners with this understanding that in reality they will listen to something that is not interesting. Yet, insofar as the benefit of listening is concerned, if some [of you] listen to me and benefit from it, then I will see it as the reward for my effort. If no one pays heed I will have to say: Whether someone listens or not I will do my talking (kas bishanavad ya nashanavad man guftogu mi konam) (11-2).
What is it about his discourse and the choice of topic that he sees as so eccentric and even uninteresting and uninviting to his audience? The answer lies primarily in his audacity to experiment with the established blueprint of these majalis in which usually the virtues (faza’il) and sufferings (masa’ib) of the family of the Prophet are narrated with Shi’i piety as their raison d’être. The communal response of praise for the former (virtues) and mourning for the latter (suffering) in this piety is considered a mark of devotion and loyalty to the family of the Prophet (ahl al-bayt). For example, a vivid account of a Muharram lamentation assembly (majlis) which is quite representative of traditional Shi’i mourning practices notes the following:
At a certain point in his presentation his [the speaker’s] demeanor shifts. He begins to tell a story – the tragic account of the martyrdom of Husayn. Although his audience has heard this tale many times before, its impact has not diminished in the countless retellings. At the first mention of the field of Karbala, some of the men in the audience begin to cry uncontrollably and beat their chests. The sound of women’s voices wailing can be heard rising up from the other side of the curtain which divides the room. The man on the minbar [i.e., pulpit] begins to sob as he speaks of the heat of the desert and the thirst of the innocent children…To the extent to which the man on the minbar – the zakir – was able to elicit tears and impart information, he has succeeded in his task (12, emphasis added).
Similarly, writing about the women’s participation in these majalis, an ethnographer notes:
The majlis is a blessed occasion, for it is popularly believed that Fatimah, the mother of the martyred Husayn and the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, visits each home or ashurkhanah where people gather to weep for the martyrs.
Comforted and reassured in her personal loss by the passionate love and devotion which she witnesses, she (like Husayn) is believed to intercede with God on behalf of the faithful. Thus, every tear which a mourner sheds out of love of the Prophet’s family brings the believer closer to the mercy of God and ultimate salvation…Although weeping holds out a promise of eternalsalvation,
it would be a mistake to see this as the main motivation behind Shiahs’ participation in the majlis. Much more immediate is the testimony to people’s loyalty to the beloved family of the Prophet. Weeping for their suffering is a way to demonstrate love for and solidarity with these blessed souls (192-3).
In divergence from this conventional ritual of narrating the virtues and the sufferings of the family of the Prophet, ‘Ali Naqvi had chosen to speak about a much-debated contemporary subject among Muslim communities. Even though the main subject of his discourse is fasad, it is clear from the text that the discussion of fasad was also a stepping stone for him to converse about the question of islah, which due to the Qur’anic juxtaposition of these terms, permitted him an easy transition to the latter.
These discourses were also somewhat an anomaly when situated within the context of what he had written thus far. Until then, and since his student days, he had approached topics that were mostly either commentaries on classical texts or those that dealt with intra-religious debates, controversies and mounting heresies. The latter included rebuttals of Wahhabism, the Baha’i faith, ‘Ibadiyyah, and Christianity
, and the former, his response to the controversy in the Shi’i Arab world regarding the permissibility of extreme forms of mourning and self-flagellations.
But by then he seems to have consciously decided to respond to challenges faced within the local Indian milieu alone. Never again in his life would he write another seminary-style commentary on a text, nor anything substantial in Arabic or Persian, languages that would have allied him intellectually to the broader Shi’i intellectual universe of the seminary ‘ulama’. He was instead concerned, almost exclusively, with the intellectual and social problems of Indian Muslims, especially his own Shi’i followers. It is worth noting in this context that of all his Arabic writings, the rebuttal of Wahhabism
and the Baha’i faith were the only two works that were later translated into Urdu. For of all the different sects that he had written about, only Wahhabism had a real and growing relevance in the Indian context.
This is further corroborated by the fact that among his earliest writings is also included a response to Ahmadiyyah movement
, whose origin and influence at the time was confined predominantly to the Indian subcontinent. This further confirms that after his return to India from Iraq, ‘Ali Naqvi had restricted his intellectual engagement to issues most pertinent to the Indian environment, and within this context, to his Shi’i community primarily.
His earliest years of arrival from Iraq in 1932 also saw his efforts – in collaboration with his community – to establish Imamia Mission.
This was also the beginning of the Imamia Mission publication project some of whose earliest publications were authored by ‘Ali Naqvi himself, including:
1. The Religion of the Killers of Husayn (Qatilan-i Husayn ka mazhab. Lucknow:
Manshurah Imamia Mission and Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1932) A response to a polemical treatise which claimed Shi‘ites to be the real killers of Imam Husayn.
2. The Truth about Alterations in the Qur’an (Tahrif-i Qur’an ki haqiqat, discussed in footnote 14) 3. The One Born in the House of God (Maulud-i Ka‘bah, 1936?)A treatise on ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Shi’i Imam.
4. Existence of the [Divine] Proof (Vujud-i hujjat. Lucknow: Imamia Mission and Sarfaraz Qaumi Press, 1932
A detailed discussion of the doctrine of Mahdi in Shi’ism and a rational defense of Shi’i understanding of his occultation (ghaybah), including answers to various criticisms leveled against this doctrine.
Between 1932 and 1937, Naqvi also published works along the lines of perennial Sunni- Shi’i polemics, such as a clarification of the centrality of the Qur’an to Shi’i piety,
a defense of Shi’i practice of temporary marriage
, and Husayn and Islam (Husayn aur Islam) and The Battle of Karbala (Ma‘arkah-yi Karbala), the first in the series of many reflections that he would write about the meaning of Imam Husayn’s mission and the symbolism of Karbala.
As evident, all of these works pertain mostly to intra-faith debates and polemics (issues that have been contested by various Islamic sects throughout centuries) and those that pertain to customary discourse of the ‘ulama’. If anything, they are a continuation of a long-standing polemical conversation and mostly within the conventional parameters of the intellectual discourse of the ‘ulama’. In sum, these works are intra-faith polemics and representative of classical scholarly trends among the ‘ulama’.
India Going through Unprecedented Change
What is it then, that prompted ‘Ali Naqvi to choose this subject and depart from the established practice? His response is simple: the gravity of the social circumstances demands this discussion. As Naqvi states,These
days the whole world is replete with calamities. These are not restricted to any single group, particular social class or specific location. Every person seeks [the answer] to how these calamities could be removed and how to live a life that is peaceful, secure, happy and tranquil. If then in these [troubled] times someone attempts to bring about a realization (ihsas)
regarding the ills (amraz), the ways to cure them, the means to attain peace and serenity, and regarding how to change the worldly era lived in restlessness into one of tranquility and calm, then certainly these words are worth listening to (11-2).
More importantly for ‘Ali Naqvi, in those years India was at a crossroads, and so was its Muslim community. In the context of the broader political and social developments in India during these decades, this should not come as a surprise.
The Muslim community was living through historical times characterized by immense change, both unusual and unique in scope and nature. From the political and educational institutions to intellectual thought, literature and culture, everything was going through profound change. Robinson’s remarks, for example, succinctly summarize the severity of crisis felt among the Indian Muslim communities and intellectuals:
[In 19th century] Muslims were coming to realize the extent to which, after six hundred years of domination on the subcontinent, they had lost power: they were coming to understand the severity of their competition with the European civilization which ruled them, and the Hindu world which rivaled them. They were undergoing an intense period of religious revival in which there was strong pressure to renew Islam both inside and outside South Asia. They were faced with rapid economic and social changes as their colonial rulers sought to harmonize their productive and consumptive activities more closely with the international economy. They were faced, too, with marginalization of much that made sense of their world and gave meaning to their deepest beings, as European science, literature and Enlightenment thought filled the public spaces of their lives, becoming the meat of the educational system, offering the route to success in life and informing the substance of the dominant political discourse. Indeed, they were faced with the problem of how they could still be good Muslims and at the same time enable their community to survive under foreign Christian power (75).
For ‘Ali Naqvi this historical moment is above all, one of crisis; immense and unprecedented. In the concluding sections of the lecture, he exhorts his community to live up to the incredible challenges brought on by a significant new moment in the history of Indian Islam lest it perish: “At a time when new law is being promulgated, at a moment when India is passing through a new phase of life (naya daur-i zindagi), when everyone is concerned with enhancing power, we [Muslims] are busy in reviving our old conflicts” (206).
This idea that the Muslim community is passing through an unusual historical moment is not new to his thought. Speaking in 1932, having returned from Iraq the first Muharram lectures delivered by him from the same venue (Madrasah al-Va‘izin) under the rubric of “Amraz-i qaumi aur un ka ‘ilaj” (Communal Diseases and their Cure) later published as Islam aur tijarat (Commerce and Islam, 1933), Naqvi notes the following:
We were possessors of greatness (‘azmat) and power (iqtadar). Our immense power and its name were well-known, most valuable, and the world bowed [to our greatness]. Our [notion of] morality was a lesson for the world, and our teachings, teachers of the world. We were far more advanced than anyone
or everyone else, and we were the leaders of the world. But what has happened now? The situation now is that we are behind everyone and the world [way] ahead of us. The fortress of our greatness and power has been destroyed. Our foundations are weak, our benchmarks of worship (sh‘a’ir) scattered, our objectives dust. We are seen with disgust in the world and the worst of the worst nations are considered superior to us. What has happened? Where has our greatness gone, and where are our power and dignity? It has been communicated to us by God, to Whom belongs the real power (‘izzat)
: “God changes not what is in a people, until they change what is in themselves”.
In another verse [God says]: “That is because God would never change His favor that He conferred on a people until they changed what was within themselves; and that God is Allhearing, All-knowing.”
The thing is that the blessing (ni‘mat
) that has been bestowed by God upon a nation is not withdrawn (salb karna) unless the nation
changes its circumstances itself. It is clear from this that if there have been changes in our national circumstances, the reasons for them need to be sought [by us] within ourselves (5-8).
‘Ali Naqvi thus states in terms that are as piercing with clarity as they are filled with concern what had also become a shared sentiment among the Muslim community and its thinkers during this epoch: that the Muslim world was passing through a major crisis as reflected most clearly in its sociopolitical plight. For ‘Ali Naqvi its causes were internal to the Muslim community, and had to do with its own loss of direction and purpose.
These internal causes had led to a sociopolitical decline and a lack of respect from other nations of the world. Islam aur tijarat (Commerce and Islam) exhorts his community to view the struggle for worldly progress as part and parcel of the Islamic way of life. He insisted, however, that worldly gains need to be pursued within the framework of the Shari’a and not over and against the demands of the life of the Hereafter. He prescribed that the members of his community help each other establish economic centers and support communally established economic enterprises so they may prosper. He also urged preachers and religious scholars to talk Muslims out of their inertia and indifference towards worldly wealth and power thus inhibiting their willingness to fully participate in such activities.
To my knowledge this is the only time that ‘Ali Naqvi construes the problem his community faces in terms of the rise and fall of its political fate, or in terms of progress, regress, or decline of economic and political power. With the passage of time, he moved away from these categories – widely popular at the time.
In other words, the way in which Naqvi frames the crisis afflicting the Indian Muslim community, its emergence, and the requisite response – quite differently, as will be shown in the later chapters. Our purpose, therefore, in mentioning this text is not to highlight these categories, but the deep sense of calamity that has already taken hold in Tijarat aur Islam (Commerce and Islam) and would pervade his religio-intellectual activity until the end of his life, the only difference being that in subsequent years, the analysis of how the crisis emerged and the type and measure of response it demands would change.
What are the various challenges posed by these extraordinary circumstances that constitute the predicament of his community and deserve a response from him? What is it that needs be done? In answering these questions the subject of hisdiscourse, that is fasad and islah,
and an outline of his arguments is worth considering. The introductory remarks of “Do not [spread] corruption in the world” (La tufsidu fi al-‘arz) open with a clarification of why the articulate Qur’an adds the expression “in the world (fi al ‘arz)”
in
this verse; after all, corruption always occurs in the world making the expression “in the world” superfluous. To explain the Qur’anic point of view ‘Ali Naqvi makes the distinction between individual (infaradi) and communal (ijtima‘i) corruption and general welfare (rafah-i‘am). Whereas committing individual moral or immoral acts are limited to one’s private space and do not affect the community, moral or immoral acts that affect the general welfare of the community are public. For ‘Ali Naqvi, it is in view of the latter that the Qur’an uses the term “corruption in the world” (fasad fi al-‘arz), that is, corruption that harms the cause of the general welfare of the community.
Having clarified the meaning of “corruption in the world” (fasad fi al-‘arz), ‘Ali Naqvi then proceeds to classify its different types,
offering four categories to do so.
The first classification is based on the identification of those types of corruptions that could impact the collectivity, these including mental, social and collective, moral and practical, and political and cultural corruptions. The second approach pertains to the means used to spread corruption, and can be divided into material and military methods on the one hand, and non-military and non-material on the other, the latter implying perhaps psychological ways of prompting corruption. The third way to categorize corruption derives from the people and human groups who could be perpetrating it, including religious scholars, political leaders, kings and rulers, poets, and newspaper journalists. In his analysis, religious scholars and kings and rulers are much more effective in spreading corruption than any of the other identified groups. The fourth and final classification pertains to the objectives of spreading corruption, and could include personal or family benefit, revenge, or even taking pleasure simply in spreading chaos.
In the ensuing pages, ‘Ali Naqvi introduces two inter-related concepts, namely reform (islah) and reformer (muslih), that
will be indispensible for understanding the rest of the treatise (37). The terms are first introduced in the context of the following question: since no one really likes to be called corrupt/mischief-maker (mufsid), and everyone thinks he or she is actually in the service of reforming the society – thus blaming those opposed to one’s viewpoint for being corrupt/mischief-maker – how can one properly distinguish reform from corruption? I will return to the answer Naqvi provides at a more appropriate juncture.
For
now, it is important to note that from this point onwards in the text, the term reform (islah) will be frequently juxtaposed with corruption (fasad) and both discussed relationally.
The subsequent section of the treatise, entitled “The Criterion for [establishing] the Constructiveness of Reformist (islahi) Efforts” is especially important, for it not only lays out the central themes of the text, but also provides the context within which the work itself can be situated. ‘Ali Naqvi begins his discussion in this section with the following comment:
The world is founded upon existence (kaun) and decay (fasad). No mark is made on the world until an old one is erased. A new wall cannot rise unless the previous one crumbles…In other words, the foundation of this world rests upon death (fana’) and deterioration (zaval)…So if we attempt to reform this world, unless a building is spoiled, until some groundwork is made weak (fasid), and until the day some mark is made to disappear, we cannot carve a new mark that could be called reform (41-2).
Naqvi then again raises the question that in the process of dissolving one formation before the establishment of a subsequent one how could one distinguish reform from corruption/mischief, answering which he hints at some important issues deserving of our attention. He presents the example of two human beings who are holding spades in their hands to apparently construct a building. Now although both seem to be razing the building but whether they are both intent on constructing a new and better one afterward could only be known in the future. At the time when razing is done, one would not know if the activity was destructive or constructive. By analogy then, he wrote:
From this you will know that how meaningless and purposeless is this war that goes on around you between traditionalism (qadamat parasti) and modernism (tajaddud parvari).
This
is so because modernism qua modernism is neither worthy of praise nor blame. The world is based on change (taghayyur)…The old established building is not worthy of praise simply because it is old. It is possible that it requires repair (islah). The basis of repair is undoubtedly novelty (tajdid) which cannot be considered blameworthy [by virtue of being an innovation alone] because it is quite possible for the change to be destructive [at times], since destruction is also caused by change and innovation (43).
Elaborating further on the subject, Naqvi concludes the discussion with the following remarks:
It must be remembered that destruction (takhrib) is easy, rebuilding quite difficult. Corruption is easy and reform difficult. If the need for reform is felt, then carry it out in such a way that the existing edifice is kept [intact] and the faults in it are removed slowly and gradually, not in such a way that the existing structure is razed to the ground and the dream of building a new one also remains unfulfilled.
In any case, the criterion for building and destroying is as follows:
compare
the old condition with the new one. If the old condition has faults then please do try to remove those…
That both reform and destruction are the result of renewal (tajdid) is also evidenced in the Qur’an….Then what has [really] happened here? Who can [really] claim to have the truth,
traditionalists (qadamat parast) or modernists (tajaddud parvar)? No, no one is! The conclusion is that the old need not be kept simply because it is ancient; nor is the new (jadid) to be rejected simply because it is new.The old needs to be viewed from the standpoint of the [social] welfare, and the new from the point of view of its [capacity to offer] improvement.
If the old order (nizam) is more appropriate for human kind then changing it will amount to destruction. And if the new one is more appropriate, then to adopt it would be the establishment of reform. To be a hurdle in the way of this would be corruption (47-9).
The excerpts clearly demonstrate ‘Ali Naqvi’s utter dissatisfaction with the rhetoric and hostility between the camps of traditionalists (qadamat pasandan) and modernists (jiddat pasandan). The intense clash between the two camps had been raging for more than 50 years, having started with the reform movement initiated by Sayyid Ahmad Khan and his colleagues.
For ‘Ali Naqvi, the debate between the two sides had continually neglected a crucial point: The old cannot (that is, should not) be glorified simply because of its age; nor should the new be celebrated merely by virtue of its novelty. Something more fundamental was at stake. The determination of what changes needed to be made (as well as how they were to be implemented and to what extent, that is, how much) depended on the larger issue of communal welfare. Without making reference to communal welfare and ways in which old or new ways facilitate it, a conclusive comment could not be made about their respective significance or relevance.
Needless to say, both the traditionalists and the modernists claimed to be veritable champions of renewal and designated harbingers of reform, all the while denouncing the other side as instigators of corruption/mischief. ‘Ali Naqvi himself pointed out how each reformer saw those opposed to his plan of action as a mischief-maker; thus the confusion for an outsider to decide who is the authentic reformer and who is actually a mischief-maker. “No one”, he noted, “likes to be known as a mischief-maker” (10 and 37-39). Transitioning to the next section, ‘Ali Naqvi states that in his days it had become quite difficult to differentiate between a sincere reformer and a mischief-maker.
This is so because increasingly mischief-makers of the world (mufsadin-i ‘alam) had come to use – the same sources that bring about reform in the world –for their aims of spreading corruption. For example, although “the greatest source of reform in the world is religion (mazhab, emphasis added)”, its fake forms are utilized for these machinations. Similarly, political power and culture, the other two important sources for reforming a society, are abused and misused to spread corruption in the world. ‘Ali Naqvi observes that “the power of religion is declining in the world” but that does not mean that the other two sources are any more intact: “the same culture [that could reform] can become a tool with which the peace of the world is turned to dust, so that instead of peace, chaos is created”
Hence counterfeits of true religions, abuse of political power and cultural disorientation had all turned the reforming function of these sources of reform into that of corruption.
The aforementioned remarks can be viewed as a summary argument of the whole text: In this world, there are corrupt people and there are reformers, there is corruption and then there is reform. Of course, the latter is preferred and former requires elimination. The problem, according to ‘Ali Naqvi, is first, how to distinguish one from the other, and second, what to do when the most fundamental resources for propagating peace and harmony and countering corruption –namely, religion, political power and culture– are themselves co-opted by the forces seeking to spread corruption. As mentioned earlier, we will turn to his analysis of the first problem at a later point. Given that the rest of the treatise identifies the sources of corruption and reform (and ways to counter the former and promote the latter), it is this second problematic that concerns us here.
The Crisis of Religion (mazhab):
In the next section, entitled “The Reformist Powers of Religion and Power and Their Use in Spreading Corruption in the World”, ‘Ali Naqvi embarks on a discussion of the ways in which religion and politics are sources of reform and corruption and the ways in which these forces have been undermined in the service of spreading corruption. It is here that one can detect Naqvi’s immense anxiety about the contemporary state of religion and its declining influence:
The greatest power responsible for reform of the world is the power of religion...Nothing has rendered greater service in reforming [societies] than religion. But how often has this same religion been employed to stir up heinous corruptions? When one witnesses these corruptions, the heart wishes to turn its eyes away from religion insofar as some people say that religion deserves to be banished because it is the fountainhead of corruption. There is no doubt that world history is replete with such horrific injustices (82-3, emphasis added).
His argument is simple enough: although religion is the greatest means of reforming a human society, history provides ample evidence that religion has also been frequently used to spread discord and corruption. Many who had similar view of religion – and here ‘Ali Naqvi is only acknowledging what was a widespread opinion about religion among the educated Muslim elite of his time – felt disgusted by religion and leaned towards abandoning it. But this is not the whole story. For as ‘Ali Naqvi observes, it is not at all rare for individuals or collectives to appeal to, and in many cases co-opt, the prominent and influential role of religion in society to accomplish their own agendas. Anyone who is interested in success of his objectives invokes a power that is influential and immense.
In a society where religion is the most influential force, “ill-intentioned (bad niyat) provokers of revolution” would inevitably seek assistance from religion. Furthermore, since people associate holiness and purity with religion they refrain from criticizing it.
Both points ensure that in a society where religion is cherished, one’s personal agenda and ideology would best meet success if it is made to bear a religious garb, or carry a flag of religion (83).
‘Ali Naqvi goes on to interpret the political and cultural means of propagating reform and corruption. Throughout his life, he would have more to say concerning both, but it is the crisis of religion that would preoccupy him as an intellectual and as leader of a religious community. ‘Ali Naqvi’s central religio-intellectual concern was to investigate and devise a multi-faceted response to what he fundamentally diagnosed as the following crisis: for a variety of reasons, people of Naqvi’s era were withdrawing and turning away from religion. In the ensuing pages (and while setting aside other issues) I hope to provide a reading of his understanding of this crisis by interweaving the various texts he wrote between 1932 and 1945, the defining years of his intellectual project.
In “Current Affairs or Corruptions of the Contemporary World”, ‘Ali Naqvi proceeds from a discussion of the historical manifestation of corruption wearing a religious, political or cultural garb to its contemporaneous causes. He argues that forces of righteousness (salah) and corruption have always warred with one another, and in each phase of human evolution they keep changing one form to another. But past is dead and one has to pay to attention to the contemporary forms of righteousness and corruption. For ‘Ali Naqvi, “In today’s world, insofar as the general benefit (mufad-i ‘ammah) [of people] is concerned, the most dangerous corruption is the flood of irreligiosity (la mazhabiyat) (195-6). What does he mean by irreligiosity? He does not provide a definition of this term but elsewhere in the text he juxtaposes this term with the term religion (mazhab): “By religion we do not mean any specific religion (mazhab) but what is called by everyone “religion” in contrast to “irreligiosity” (la mazhabiyat) (83)”. In other words, irreligiosity is lack or absence of adherence to any mainstream and well-known religion. His frequent comparisons of Islam with Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism in several texts and other comments strongly suggest that ‘Ali Naqvi’s notion of irreligiosity stands opposed to these mainstream and well known religions of the world; he did not consider new religious movements – whether within or outside the Islamic world – religious in the same sense, but as fake imitations of these major religious traditions.
What is it about irreligiosity that makes it, in ‘Ali Naqvi’s viewpoint, the “greatest corruption”? Since religion is the greatest source of reform in a society, the power that dismantles religion the most would by corollary be the greatest corruption.
In other words, irreligiosity is the principal means for the elimination of religion, the biggest resource for human welfare. But how does irreligiosity spread and topple religion from its esteemed status within a human society? According to ‘Ali Naqvi it thrives by discrediting religion, by presenting religion to be the source of violence and corruption, by blaming religion for social problems, and by presenting it as irrational and backward Elaborating further on the various ways in which irreligiosity has displaced and discredited religion, ‘Ali Naqvi observes:
This irreligiosty with all its unprincipledness is growing these days. What are its causes and what are the arguments that are presented against religion? On what ground does this collision (tasaddum) between irreligiosity and religion stand and what is its solution? This is a subject unto itself which deserves a separate treatment. For now, I want to concentrate on an aspect which relates directly to my subject of lecture. One reason that is given for opting for irreligiosity is that religion is a source of corruption, and that is why religion deserves to be abolished from the face of earth. The world needs tranquility, peace and harmony, and religion is an enemy of this peace and harmony. Religion causes conflicts, it generates turmoil, and that is why religion should be banished… But in my previous lectures, I have made clear who made religion the source of corruption, showing that precisely because religion is the best source of reform, it has been used to spread corruption. I offered examples to support that point, noting that the more precious a thing is, the more it will be imitated and its false form deployed to deceive …
But why do people intend to declare religion a source of corruption and turmoil? ‘Ali Naqvi’s reply is, precisely due to religion’s power to reform: “…Abolishing true religion is to hinder the resistance it puts up against corrupt practices (fasadi karvaiyan) on the one hand, and on the other to nullify the reforming benefit of a true religion – the most effective source of reform (197).” A religion is inherently reformative; reform is its essential function. This fact is well-known, and that is why when the word religion is heard, no one suspects corruption-eliciting intent (fitnah pardazi niyat) (197).
But fake religions have often replaced true ones and thus have given the true ones a bad name.
But one must understand that, “Truth is truth and gold is after all a precious thing.
Water is the source of life, and every real object that is beneficial for the world is beneficial. What is needed is clear discernment (with open eyes), between the real and the unreal (197).” In other words, fear of falsehood should not be permitted to be a cause of destroying truth: “Does water deserve to be expelled from the ground simply because it can take the form of a mirage and can deceive those who are thirsty”, he asks his reader. Similarly, although he openly accepts that name of religion has often been invoked to perpetrate corruption, still, that does not take away the essential reforming reality of religion: “In the world [we live in], the name of religion has been deemed a source of corruption. I have no qualms about accepting it. I myself have raised a prolonged complaint about that.
But
religion does not, for that reason, warrant removal. It is because of religion that, in the world, civilization is reformed (198).
Surely, true teachings of a true religion responsible for reforming culture need to be appreciated (196-8)”.
It is evident that the principal worry for ‘Ali Naqvi is that in his era, the growing tendency within Indian society was to blame religion for a good number of societal problems, to the extent that many had come to accept that there is hardly anything worthy in religion for which it should be preserved or celebrated. According to that emergent viewpoint, it is only by liberating the society from religion that the society could attain greater peace, progress and overall success. In a word, it is not only the teachings of religion or its particular theological doctrines that were viewed with skepticism; the very value of religion itself had begun to be questioned.
Notwithstanding ‘Ali Naqvi’s claim about irreligiosity as the greatest threat to social wellbeing, his writings during this period reveal a complex understanding of religious crisis which cannot be reduced to the problem of irreligiosity alone. Therefore, perhaps a more apt and preferable expression for the problematic that concerned Naqvi was as follows: Concern for the (Indian Shi’i) community losing its grounding in religion and finding it increasingly difficult to uphold its various beliefs and practices.
But what are the various factors that have generated this crisis in religion? The next section discusses ‘Ali Naqvi’s response to this question.
Missionaries, Religious Pluralism, and Attacks on Islam:
The intense missionary activity initiated by Christian missionaries in India in the 19th century provoked a corresponding response from both the Hindu and Muslim communities, resulting in movements such as Arya Samaj from within the former, and Tablighi Jama‘t from the latter. By early in the 20th-century, all such organized religious communities had evolved into fully established Christian, Hindu and Muslim missions.
The threat of Christian and Hindu missionary activity was real and ‘Ali Naqvi himself wrote an essay entitled “The Message of Islam for the [Economically] Underprivileged Nations” (Islam ka paygham pas uftadah aqvam kay nam) whose foremost intent was to proselytize. This 38th publication of Imamia Mission was written by ‘Ali Naqvi to highlight the egalitarian teachings of Islam to the untouchable class of the Indian society and was freely distributed among them.
Strong missionary activity on all sides, in terms of the exacerbation of the crisis of religion, posed two interrelated challenges: on the one hand, it brought to light the phenomenon of religious pluralism – that is, competing truth claims on the part of Islamic, Hindu and Christian religious traditions – which created doubts among Muslims as to the validity or truth of their own viewpoint; on the other, the vociferous attacks from Christian and Hindu missionaries helped undermine the Islamic theological worldview, thus further weakening its authority upon its adherents. ‘Ali Naqvi is aware of both challenges and refers to them on a number of occasions. Notice the introductory remarks from the following text, in which he exhorts his audience to not be overwhelmed by the exclusive claims of truth posited by these religions, but to the extent one’s life permits it, carefully weigh those in the light of intellect: “Turning away from investigation and helplessly saying goodbye to all [religions] because of the anxiety caused by the multiplicity of paths is intellectual laziness, whose consequence could never be satisfactory”.
Discussing the challenges facing the contemporary world in the final sections of La tufsidu fi al-‘arz, ‘Ali Naqvi makes similar observations.
Similarly, on numerous occasions, ‘Ali Naqvi refers to the frequent attacks made on the foundations of Islamic religious tradition, in undermining the religious authority of the Qur’an, or the character of the Prophet of Islam. In the introductory remarks of his second Imamia Mission publication, he explicitly mentions in very strong words the Christian and Aryan Missionaries in this regard. He observes how through shameful accusations (ilzam) these groups were sparing no chance of openly criticizing Islam, or undermining its foundations, the Qur’an and the Prophet: “In their factories, every day manufactures novel criticisms [against Islam], which if not answered, will lead people of weak and fleeting belief (bay sabat aqidah) to wash their hands of Islamic beliefs when confronted by these [objections]”.
Similar concerns led Naqvi to undertake the project of Qur’anic exegesis in Urdu, a task he began in 1940. He raises the issue of attacks on the Qur’an here: “In today’s world, the question of whether Muslims need a complete Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir) in Urdu can be gauged by looking at the day-to-day objections (a‘tarazat) leveled against the Qur’an, responses to which are available in books in the Arabic language but remain inaccessible to lay people. This is why they [the lay people] feel intimidated (mar‘ub) by such questions”.
It is evident that the intensified missionary zeal that pervaded the Indian subcontinent in the late 19th and early 20th century did not merely bring to the fore the presence of other religious traditions. It evoked an even bigger question: what probability is there that one’s religion is true when there exist in the world (and not simply in India!) so many different religions which all subscribe to different beliefs and practices?
Finally, it is important to remind ourselves of the colonial context in which these political, religious and social developments were taking place. The shared bias and superiority complex of the British colonialists and evangelicals vis-à-vis indigenous beliefs and institutions (religious or otherwise) of natives left an indelible imprint on all socio-political and religious developments in the Indian subcontinent for decades to come. As Van der Veer has noted
, the decisive shift in terms of active interventionist policies occurred in 1835 with the famous address of Lord Macaulay in the British parliament. In light of his findings about the state of education in Colonial India, Macaulay proposed radical educational reforms, thus opposing the East India Company’s (and orientalists’) earlier practice of supporting local culture and institutions.
Van der Veer notes that after 1835 “despite the official policy of religious neutrality, the British interfered with every aspect of Indian religion and society” (43).
Moreover, the ubiquitous loss of political power of Muslim to Europeans – widespread through intensified means of communication in the twentieth century – had only deflated Muslims’ confidence in their political and social structures, and religion as well. There were strong reasons to imitate western ways of thought and culture.
So whereas irreligiosity, according to Naqvi, posed the greatest and most comprehensive challenge in undermining the influence of religion from the society, missionary activity and fervent attacks of the colonial officials from its religiointellectual impact also had a huge part to play in extenuating religious commitment of the Indian Shi‘ites. Besides, a gradual (though persistent) decentralization of religious authority had only reinforced this predicament further.
The Crisis of Religious Authority
Scholarly literature has pointed out that in the modern period of Islamic and Islamicate civilization coincided with western military, intellectual and cultural influences on Islamic lands (including Muslim India) creating a crisis of religious authority that persists to this day. By ‘Ali Naqvi’s time, the “new Muslim intellectual elite”, with the help of the changing means of communication (such as the print-medium in its various forms) had fully worked out and popularized an alternative prescription for the direction that Islamic societies would (or should) take in the wake of this encounter with western thought, institutions and culture.
It is well-documented that this alternative vision of Islamic future was a response to, and reaction against, what was perceived as the stagnation and backwardness of the scholarly enterprise among the ‘ulama’. The democratization of Islamic religious knowledge meant that the ‘ulama’ no longer held the same position of esteem, authority or say in matters that concerned the religious masses. ‘Ali Naqvi’s writings display an acute awareness of this crisis of authority, references to which are found interwoven in his discussion of many topics under consideration. Already during his sojourn in Iraq, he had written a treatise on taqlid (following the juridical edicts of a qualified jurist).
The
first series of lectures that he delivered from Madrasah al-Va‘izin also contain subtle allusions to this problem. On the occasion, he compared human spiritual health to its physical counterpart. Human physical health rests on balance (a‘itadal
) of a body. Illness occurs when this balance is disrupted and carries symptoms for diagnosis which only an expert and knowledgeable physician could detect. Earlier the illness is diagnosed easier it is to cure it. At chronic stages, it is hard, if not altogether impossible, to cure the patient. Furthermore, for an illness to be cured properly, the patient must consult a qualified physician, listen to him and act upon his advice. He must give the physician’s advice precedence over his own uninformed opinion. If he resists the instructions of the physician, mocks him and deems himself self-sufficient, that attitude would only cause disastrous results and impairment and destruction of his health would be inevitable.
For ‘Ali Naqvi the spiritual and moral states of the Indian Muslim society were hardly any different. Unaware of its plight, not only had it reached a chronic stage that was quite hard to cure, there was also a strong resistance to turn to the authority of those who could diagnose it and advice on it. Consequently, it was unwilling to believe in the prescription. Society’s ignorance of its state was only nurturing the illness, making it worse with the passing time. Still, ‘Ali Naqvi remarks, it is the physician’s duty that when he becomes aware of the disease, “he should make his opinions known, irrespective of whether they are heeded or not” (3-5).
Although not made explicit in his exposition, ‘Ali Naqvi is clearly hinting toward the significance of the role of the ‘ulama’ in diagnosing illnesses faced by the Muslim community and prescribing cure for it. That Muslims had refused to consult them was only leading them to a communal disaster.
La tufsidu fi al-‘arz also contains an elaborate discussion of this socio-religious pathology, in which ‘Ali Naqvi highlights the inevitability of authoritative religious teachers, and ties the fate of religion to that of religious authority, and vice versa. Since religion is the most fundamental source of reform in a society, religious scholars (‘ulama’-i mazhab), those who have the authority of religion
, should also be respected for their indispensable role: “If in reality the world needs religion, then it also needs religious scholars.For it is impossible that everyone could be the master of everything” (174-5).
Later in his discussion, he clearly identifies the ongoing decline of the religious authority of the ‘ulama’ and the various attacks leveled against them:
[It is argued that] religion instigates conflicts, it generates turmoil, and that is why religion should be abandoned. A necessary corollary of this is that the rule of religious scholars should also be dissolved. For [in this opinion] it is this group that has been the source of violence (takhrib) and it is this legion (tabqah) that has always led people towards violence. In reality, these two things are inseparable from one another
; that is, if religion is the source of violence, then without a doubt, the rule of the scholars of religion also deserves undermining (196).
We will have occasion to see how ‘Ali Naqvi attempts to restore to the ‘ulama’ what he sees as their rightful privilege of interpreting religion for the Muslim communities. For now, it suffices to note that one strand of the crisis of religion, as identified by ‘Ali Naqvi, was the crisis of religious authority; a predicament resulting in charges of irrelevance (and mistrust) of the ‘ulama’ and their scholarship with regard to the issues faced by the Muslim community.
More significantly, for ‘Ali Naqvi the crisis of religious authority had led to various misunderstandings among his community. These misunderstandings were burgeoning because ofa disconnect
between the informed and authoritative teachings of the ‘ulama’ and the understanding of their community. In the introduction to his Qur’anic exegesis, Naqvi writes:
Everyday new religions are born, new prophets and imams emerge, and new creeds and foundations (usul) of religion are laid. All of this is accomplished by changing the meaning of a few or many Qur’anic verses, which are then presented to people to obtain unlawful gains. Then there are people who, to complete their exalted display of Qur’anic understanding (Qur’an fahmi), claim that they can prove everything from the Qur’an and make use of such [strange] interpretations (ta’vilat) that a person unfamiliar with them [the interpretations] cannot help but applaud, although in reality such interpretations have nothing to do with the words of the Qur’an. Sectarian polemicists (munazarin)
, preachers (va‘izin) and Shi’i popular preachers (zakarin) have helped expand this circle [of religion-inventing] and have provided great opportunities for this (4).
The same disconnect was also responsible for ungrounded and self-invented religious interpretations and prescriptions that had created a divide between various spheres of life. From ‘Ali Naqvi’s perspective, these divisions were superficial and ran against the holistic worldview of Islam, geared as it is towards attaining equilibrium in all human affairs. For example, ‘Ali Naqvi notes a common misperception among many Muslims about the separation between the life of this world and that of the Hereafter. He observes that for some, forwhom
human life is limited to this worldly existence, life in the world becomes everything, with no consideration of the hereafter. That is why upholders of this opinion encourage people to they proclaim, “live in this world, enjoy it and take pleasure in it, nothing is going to happen afterwards.” Then there are those who are found on the other end of the spectrum. For them the life of the world is inevitably worldly, lowly and meaningless. A human being should abandon the world and worldly activities. The only consideration should be of the hereafter. For ‘Ali Naqvi both points of view are equally erroneous and un-Islamic; the Islamic perspective is concerned with both this life and the hereafter and does not undermine the importance of either one (73-5).
If on the one hand, people had created an unbridgeable gap between this life and the one tocome,
on the other they had also invented a similar gulf between religious faith and works (aqidah va ‘amal). ‘Ali Naqvi notes: “These days, the opinion is spreading fast that for the wellbeing and salvation of human beings, it is enough that in their daily life they do good deeds, for example, not tell lies, be honest and trustworthy, favor justice and detest oppression, be peace-lovers, and refrain from corruption.
[According to this perspective,] whoever possesses these [praiseworthy] qualities deserve salvation, and beyond this, no religious belief (‘aqidah) is necessary”.
The
perceived tension created by those people who came to emphasize faith over works, or vice versa, was observed on numerous occasions by ‘Ali Naqvi. Over the years, he argues with both camps to prove that Islamic understanding includes both proper belief and proper action.
Irreligiosity, Materialism and Westernization
In preceding paragraphs, we have tried to show that ‘Ali Naqvi’s claims about irreligiosity should not be accepted at face value without further investigation. His writings reveal much evidence that what we have called “the crisis of religion” was a consequence of multiple, interrelated factors. Yet the centrality he gives to irreligiosity – calling it the greatest corruption of his times – should not be downplayed either.
Extending that discussion, it is crucial to note that for ‘Ali Naqvi the particular strand of the religious crisis that he calls irreligiosity is tied directly to a perceived influx of western ideas and lifestyle(s). To put it in another way, the challenge of his community abandoning its religion was caused (among many other reasons already noted) most fundamentally by a growing influence of western thought and culture. For him the “new doubts” had come about due to European influence and were a result of people’s fascination with, and (mostly blind!) imitation of, the western modes of thought and culture. For ‘Ali Naqvi, this was by far the greatest challenge that confronted all Indian Muslims, though his immediate audience always remained the Shi‘ites of the subcontinent. In the introduction to the Qur’anic commentary, he notes:
These objections [leveled against the Qur’an] are themselves the result of the new age (naya daur) and that is why the ancients (qudama’) did not consider them. The new ideas that reach this land sailing from the shores of Europe seize over the hearts and minds of many [here]. In their hearts these ideas insinuate the kind of doubt (shubahat) about every facet of religion (mazhab), the resolution of which, if not presented in accordance with their [i.e., of those seized by western ideas] mindset (zahniyat) and their taste, would result in them becoming captive to the doubt, which will then turn into doctrine (‘aqidah) and [become the cause of] their turning away from religion. Especially in (the country of) India, the deluge of sectarianism and inventing [new] religion (mazhab tarashi)
have reached such heights, that may God protect us! (4-5) Furthermore, although irreligiosity is presented as a threat to human welfare because it seeks to unravel religiosity (the greatest source of peace and betterment of human society) from society, its impact is understood to be so penetrating as to affect religious orientation while spanning across the spheres of social and cultural influence. That for ‘Ali Naqvi the crisis of irreligiosity is much more comprehensive than simply theological or intellectual is absolutely crucial for understand his intellectual project as well as his later writings. In fact, ‘Ali Naqvi sees irreligiosity as eventually leading to an ethical and cultural revolution: “… [Irreligiosity] does not pertain to only one aspect of life; instead it is the source of every kind of intellectual, social and cultural corruption.
It means that the world is passing through a great revolution: there are changes everywhere in the minds [of people], in thinking, in societies, in ethical norms and habits. And this is simply because irreligiosity has taken the place of religion” (196). His book on the relationship between reason and revelation makes similar observations, juxtaposing intellectual irreligiosity with revolution in cultural norms and seeing them as parallel phenomena and the result of the same cultural process:
Without doubt, certain customs (ravasim) that have gained currency through imitation of neighboring nations are today emitting [elements] that pollute the air, hinder progress, harm the religion, and deprive the intellect. They need to be changed... Intervention in beliefs, alteration in social life, changes in customs and adjustments in law are sometimes necessary and appropriate on the basis of protection of truth (haqiqat parvari); on the other hand, they are simply adopted from the point of view of “fashion”. [If done in this latter way] they do not reflect the philosophy of a civilization or its self-adornment in the mirror. The air that has spread is polluted by modernists (jiddat pasand) and has come from across seven oceans like cholera and the plague. The virus of “fashion” is common. Men get rid of their moustaches, women of the hair from their head.
Thus the battle with nature (fitrat) is commonplace. In Russia God was expelled from the rule. In India as well, an anti-God society has emerged. In the face of this virus, it is difficult to protect the well-being of human civilization. Still, the consolation is that whatever it is, it is temporary. After all, nature would dominate and the viruses will cease (8-10).
The aforementioned excerpt also brings to light an important point: For ‘Ali Naqvi, there existed a strong connection between the growing tide of irreligiosity and the westernization of Indian society. This perceived correlation will be an enduring theme in his writings, informing many of his later discussions. For instance, writing in 1961 while discussing the question of veiling, he notes:
Since western culture has begun to exert influence on eastern nations, the question of veiling has gained much significance. The more these influences have increased, the more importance this question has gained currency. In my view, among all the issues that pertain to the old civilization (tamaddun-i qadim) and the new civilization (tamaddun-i jadid) and have come under discussion, this question has special significance. That is because the other questions pertain to particular classes [of society] and specific situations (halat). But this is a matter whose impact affects half, [or] even more than half of humanity and its way of life (tarz-i zindagi). From the time that the revolution against veiling arose in Muslim countries – among which Egypt was the first, Turkey the second, and in the time of the Shah, Iran third, and other countries – such as Iraq, Syria and the Hijaz have also come under the influence [of the West]. It was inevitable that the impact of these influences would be felt in other countries, and especially by the Muslims of India.
People who had become carefree from religion, for them it [i.e., abandoning veil] was easy; they say that religion is a combination of superstitions (kharafat) and illusions (auham). [For them] the [religious] ruling (hukm) to veil is considered to be one of those illusions (tavahhamat). As for those who seemingly view their connection with religion as necessary, [when it comes to] defending their modernist ideas (tajaddud pasandanah khayalat) and behavior, they resort to wrong interpretations of the verses [of the Qur’an] and the sayings of the Prophet (ahadith). [On these bases] they try to offer insight and teach that veiling is no Islamic injunction. In particular, Pakistan – because it was founded in the name of Islam, since westernism (maghrib parasti)
and modernism (tajaddud pasandi) is in [some] people’s every vein –no modernist (mutajaddid) can quite openly express opinions against Islam. To show compatibility of religion to this modernism, what else one can do but to find a way of blaming Islam itself and try to prove that veiling does not exist in Islam?
The claim that the western way of life influenced Indian cultural norms is easy to understand because evidence in this regard is widespread and empirically visible. In fact, such tendencies were widespread throughout the entire Islamic world. Writing in 1933
and almost around the time when ‘Ali Naqvi’s intellectual career had begun, Sir Hamilton Gibb, basing his comments on the regional review of religious and political trends within the Islamic world, makes the following astute observation: “The most remarkable feature of the Moslem world in these early decades of the twentieth century is not that it is becoming westernized, but that it desires to be westernized. It would be difficult to point to a single Moslem country which entirely rejects the contribution of the West in each and every field of life and thought” (319).
For our purposes, it is important to reflect on the particular influence of western thought on Indian Muslim intellectual milieu. If a major factor constituting the crisis of religion was irreligiosity, the source of which were ideas sailing from the farthest shores of the West, how did irreligiosity result in generating doubts among Indian educated Muslims? What was new in these ideas that the ancients had not been exposed to? What are the sources of these ideas? To put these interrelated questions differently, what is the nature of these doubts and in what way did they lead to confusions about religion and even its disavowal?
‘Ali Naqvi’s description of these new intellectual doubts is tied to empiricism (mushahaydah pasandi) and materialism (madiyat parasti). Though prima facie two different terms, in his analysis they have a common premise: only that which is observable through the senses can be proven or believed in. On numerous occasions – and right from the first Imamia Mission publication – he notes how during those days, people had come to believe in only what was empirically evident, thus denying the unseen altogether. Denial of the unseen posed two major challenges to foundational pillars of Shi’i theology: the belief in the existence of God and that of the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi.Hence, the fact that some of ‘Ali Naqvi’s earliest writings attempted to provide an intellectual defense of these two doctrines is not a mere coincidence.
In 1932 he wrote a treatise on the doctrine of the Mahdi in Shi’iIslam
,
answering various doubts that had arisen in accepting his existence. Some of these doubts, he notes, are old and have always been there. Some, however, are new and the result of materialism and empiricism:
…The existence of the absolute authority, the proof of the times (may God hasten his return), and his occultation is one such matter where ideas have become terribly confused and most people are far from reality. [This is] especially [true] in the present world where materialism is widespread and spirituality is more and more [deemed] worthless (taqvim parinah). By assuming that the foundations of contemporary philosophies are empirical, people deem metaphysical (ma fauq al-tabi‘ah) powers and their blessings (barakat) imaginary ideas (khayal-i mauhum). It seems that they expect everything to be gauged with the criteria of the external senses (zahiri havas). [Because of this] the sphere of rejection [of belief] in the existence of [God’s] proof (vujud-i hujjat) keeps expanding. That is to say, besides those who deem it necessary to reject his existence due to their religious affiliation (mazhabi maslak), a huge number [of people] has emerged which, reckoning beliefs like these against enlightened thinking (roshan khayali), consider rejection [of belief in Mahdi’s existence] a criterion of high thinking (buland nazari). Then there are sincere Muslims who are neither affected by the wave of materialism, nor opposed to belief in his existence from a religious point of view. They have lost their firm belief in the face of the struggles of life and the testing of their patience due to the prolonged length of occultation. If they have not entered the sphere of rejection, they are at least wavering. And then there are people, who for their personal benefit or enjoyment take pleasure in playing with the beliefs of Muslims. They created and presented their own Mahdi to the world
, and even when he himself passed away while the world continues to exist – which is by itself a defeat of their claim – their simple-minded followers continue to use profound influence to attract more followers [to the path] of their Mahdi. For them, a Mahdi is no longer necessary. In their view, the coming of Mahdi is a fiction of the past. Due to this situation, the need is felt to properly present the issue of the Mahdi to the world (4-5).
The idea that contemporary modes of thought reject admittance of non-empirical evidence is again pointed out in his essay Iman bi al-ghayb, written to explicitly address this issue: “Today’s civilized world (mutamaddin dunya) takes pride in the fact that people believe in only what they see. They say that our knowledge is dependent on the empirical (mushahadat). They do not consent to considering things unseen (an daykhi) although if one is vigilant, then it will become clear that to limit knowledge to [merely] the empirical is not something proper to human uniqueness” (9).
A word needs be said about who (in terms of social, intellectual or political class) ‘Ali Naqvi has in mind when he points to the rising tide of irreligiosity and modernism (jiddat pasandi). Could one somehow identify within the Indian Muslim Shi’i community one particular group who was more directly under the sway of western ways of thought and culture in the historical milieu of 1930s and 1940s? Do such distinctions and identifications emerge from within ‘Ali Naqvi’s own writings?
Generally speaking – and this is true for most of his writings – ‘Ali Naqvi refrains from naming his intellectual dissenters, thus making it difficult to pin down his intended audience. Yet, the firm bond between growing a-religiosity and westernization assumed by ‘Ali Naqvi suggests that the implied target of his critique were Muslims who had studied in western-style educational institutions, and by virtue of their curriculum or institution’s ideological leanings, were most exposed to western thought and culture.
With the establishment of Aligarh in late 19th century, this model of education (and institutions built according to its precepts) was the one most receptive to western ideas and thought. By the time ‘Ali Naqvi appeared on the scene, Aligarh had already established itself as the hub of modern Islamic reformism, including nationalist consciousness and political activism.
By no means restricted to the Aligarh movement alone, western-style educated Muslims and the economic elite, therefore, appear to be the most clearly identifiable social group whom Naqvi’s writings critique.
Construed in this way, ‘Ali Naqvi’s argument, in a nutshell, is as follows: a movement towards irreligiosity or weakening of religious sensibilities is a result of Muslims’ (mostly the educated elite’s) fascination with Western thought and lifestyle.
The growth of religious indifference or irreligiosity feeds on scientism and empiricism, whose basis is rarely a careful deliberation over intellectual ideas. Most often, these intellectual currents were a consequence of blind imitation of the various intellectual fads that were popular in the west. Yet, under the powerful socio-political and educational influence of the economic and educated elite of India, the religious masses and non-educated people too were increasingly susceptible to falter in their religious commitments. This was so due to lay Muslims’ inability to intellectually navigate through a plethora of novel, bold and even audacious assertions against religious foundations and truths. The mounting tide of empiricism, materialism and scientism had, therefore, displaced religion from its elevated social rank. Instead, religion had become the prime symbol of dogmatism, backwardness and irrationality.
It is worth repeating once more that such undermining of religion in its various modalities was, in ‘Ali Naqvi’s viewpoint, the single most significant threat to a society’s well-being and constituted a strand separate from other, more familiar challenges. Muslims’ inability to cope and come to terms with the novelty of these ideas and doubts in a clear and effective manner was, however, the key issue in this particular dimension of the crisis of religion.
The Problem of Muslim Disunity
The crisis of religion preoccupied ‘Ali Naqvi his entire life. In many ways, his intellectual career could be portrayed as a continuous grappling with its various dimensions and elements. But this is not to say that there was nothing else that concerned him. On different occasions, he would discuss issues which, though not directly tied to the core (faith and practices) of religion, were still deemed important by him. I say “indirectly” because in ‘Ali Naqvi’s view, there is nothing that stands completely outside the realm of religion. As we will demonstrate later, he refuses the dichotomy of the religious and the secular, the sacred and the profane. For him, if anything, there is a hierarchy of priorities, issues that are more fundamental and of more central significance than others. His political writings are a case in point. He rarely spoke about contemporary political problems, and except for a couple of occasions, did not take up questions pertaining to political philosophy. And yet, because in the 1930s the question of Muslim unity was of central importance to him, in the introduction to one of his earliest texts, he notes:
The urgency of the moment demands that all Muslims create a united front to counter these opponents in a unified manner and use all the collective resources on hand to defend the shared principles of Islam against the attacks of the enemies of Islam. But it is tragic that some people take pride in creating rifts among Muslims, themselves, and in expanding the gulf of differences. Every day, they deem it necessary to bring up issues responsible for fracturing the walls of Islamic unity. Who does not know that there are certain foundational principles of Islam, belief in which is collectively known as Islam? In those [foundational principles] all sects of Islam (firaq-i Islamiyah), despite their mutual differences, participate equally.
La tufsidu fi al-‘arz itself ends with a trenchant critique of the Muslim community on this issue and a strong warning concerning the dire consequences that discord among Muslims could cause:
I speak honestly. These days, whosoever asks [you to] fight for religion is wicked (mufsid). A reformer (muslih) is one who brings [people to] a unified path and asks [of them to] dissolve their differences (ikhtalafat). This does not mean that any [single] party should abandon its religious position (maslak). The intellectual differences that have not been resolved for centuries cannot vanish overnight.
This does not mean, however, that one should change one’s opinion and abandon one’s faith. The point is not to simply throw these differences around. Rather, it is to struggle in a unified manner and with unified aims and objectives, not to fight with one another or create possibilities for conflict. It saddens me, and it is shameful for Muslims, that in the internal affairs of Muslims, decisions are made by non-Muslims. This is, in fact, a disgrace and humiliation for Muslims. It is profoundly disgraceful for Muslims that their reformist energies are so much in abeyance, their rectifying and unitary powers so disabled and the spirit of Islamic unity so meager that Muslims can no longer agree on any point. Non-Muslims [therefore] feel the need to resolve matters among Muslims. That is to say, the reformers of Muslims turn out to be non-Muslims. This is a situation that should be heeded. If in these circumstances there is no change, and Muslims continue to proceed this way, then may God protectIslam.
Muslims may as well recite fatihah
on their own existence.
As evident from his scathing criticism, he detects the source of the problem of disunity within the ranks of Muslim intellectuals and the Muslim community itself. This was a call for Muslim unity, and in concrete terms, of Indian Muslim unity, against the challenges faced by them in changing times. It is unclear how it ties in directly with the religious dimension of the communal problem. Yet the historical circumstances bring to light the political and social centrality of the question of Muslim unity. But ‘Ali Naqvi did much more than justwrite
about this issue. His efforts extended to finding ecumenical avenues for serious dialogue and a conscious refrain from the polemical language and sectarianism. This is a theme that he will pursue off and on in his later writings, but as the time passed, Naqvi’s efforts on the front of Indian Muslims unity diminished, perhaps due to a growing realization of its sheer impossibility.
Finally, in addition to the aforementioned dimensions, a defense of Shi’i faith and practice against polemical attacks constitutes a major strand of his religiointellectual effort. This strand, however, is nothing new when it comes to the thought of a Shi’i scholar, especially one from the Household of Ijtihad. From the time of the publication of Tuhfah isna’ ‘ashari by Shah ‘Abdulaziz, son of the famous Indian scholar and Sufi, Shah Waliullah, the scholars from the Household of Ijtihad had incessantly written rebuttals of this text and many treatises inspired by it.
Occasionally, ‘Ali Naqvi also took upon himself the task of defending Shi’i positions on these issues, examples of which have already been noted in our discussion above.
Concluding Remarks
Whereas the perennial, inter-sectarian topics would continue to constitute an important strand within the massive corpus of his writings, the core of ‘Ali Naqvi’s intellectual life from this point onward would be aimed at responding to the challenge posed by the burgeoning influence of western thought and culture on the Indian Shi’i community.
‘Ali Naqvi’s religio-intellectual project was aimed at a comprehensive rehabilitation of Shi’i faith and practice in the face of the intellectual challenges from both within the Muslim community (for example the ongoing Sunni-Shi’i polemics) and from without, that is, the growing influence of western thought and culture in India.
I hope it is clear by now that the immense crisis of religion – ‘Ali Naqvi’s anxiety about the Muslim community’s struggle to uphold their religious beliefs and practices – was a result of a multitude of factors. From his point of view, the external factors – the threat of missionaries, attacks on Islamic foundations, materialism, and scientism – had led to a new and unprecedented crisis of religion which had made it difficult for Muslims to uphold their basic religious beliefs and practices. With the cultural and intellectual influence of the West, doubts of all sorts and of an entirely different kind and order, had appeared. The ‘westoxification’ (maghrib
zadagi) – blind imitation of western thought and lifestyle – prevalent among the intellectual and economic elite was only helping it spread far and wide.For ‘Ali Naqvi, these new doubts, and the underlying intellectual and psychological causes, deserved more attention than anything else.
That is what he detected and identified, calling it the most formidable contemporary challenge for the peace and reform of Indian Shi’i society. Yet the multiple factors leading up to this religious crisis, as put forth by ‘Ali Naqvi, were not entirely new to his intellectual activity and context. Its seeds can be found within the latter part of the 19th century. In what is now considered a standard account of the intellectual history of the Indian Muslims community, the historian Shaykh Muhammad Ikram depicts the picture of this crisis in a manner that is almost identical to ‘Ali Naqvi’s diagnosis:
In the 19th century, especially after the war for Independence [in 1857], Islam in India faced three threats (khatray). The first was from the missionaries who were hoping that with political decline would come religious decline as well, so that the followers of Oneness [of God] (Tauhid) would accept the Trinity (Taslis).
The second threat concerned those ideas in Europe and India that were of a nature that, in the words of Sir Sayyid [Ahmad Khan], “one would wish to die”.
These people deemed Islam the enemy of reason and ethics as well as a hindrance to human progress. This group included not only missionaries but professors of western universities as well as English rulers, to whom God had entrusted the destiny of the Indian Muslims. The worst book about Islam and its founder was of William Muir who was the Governor General of the united provinces of India.
He summarized his book in two sentences: “The two greatest enemies of humanity (God forbid!)are
the sword of Muhammad and the Qur’an of Muhammad.” The third big threat which would only increase later on was the birth of all kinds of doubts among Muslims. The people who had seen the books by missionaries or other Christian writers, or those by freethinking (azad khayal) western thinkers would come to see the descriptions of certain Islamic matters as commonly presented by the ‘ulama’ opposed to reason. The fear was that even though these people might not leave Islam to accept Christianity but will [most probably] be estranged from religion. Sir Sayyid himself writes: “If God had not guided me and pulled me out of my blind following [of religious scholars] (taqlid) and if I had not paid attention to the verification of truth, I would have certainly left religion (mazhab).
To conclude the discussion, let me emphasize again that of all the different challenges that Shi’i Muslims of the Indian subcontinent faced, for ‘Ali Naqvi, it was the religious challenge that posed the greatest danger. For him, the religion of Islam called for a fresh appraisal, one which would be convincing to its wavering adherents. If religion is the greatest asset of a society, in times of religious crisis nothing is more worthwhile than breathing a new life into it. It is understandable then, that in 1941 ‘Ali Naqvi would write:
…[C]asting off of false doubts with respect to beliefs and the correction of harmful customs are needed. That is why the reality of established religious practices (marasim) and the knots of wrong interpretations of beliefs are opened [in this text]. This [opening of knots] is a safeguard against the seditiousness behind the veil of “reform” (islah), a rebuttal to the challenge of the wishful objectors, an answer to the warnings from hypocritical belle-lettres, and an ultimatum for an exchange of views with those claiming wisdom.
In this industrial age, all old and new doubts are molded in the factory of imagination. It is the duty of the reformers of the nation (muslayhan-i qaum), folks of understanding, possessors of insight (ahl-i nazar) and writers that they bring to the fore the reality of these doubts (8-9).
And this is why the closing paragraphs of La tufsidu fi’l ‘arz impart an emphatic statement of intent on his part, laying out the trail his intellectual life would henceforth tread: “If there is a religion [i.e., Islam], which with respect to its teachings is a supporter of peace and harmony and of generating a milieu of tranquility and concord, then such a religion deserves to be preserved for the reformation of the world…The real struggle for reform (islah) [therefore] will be the spreading (tarvij) of the teachings of religion and the attempt to turn people into its adherents” (200-1).
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Author: Syed Rizwan Zamir
