{"id":3303,"date":"2022-01-15T15:18:29","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T15:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangladeshonrecord.com\/?p=3303"},"modified":"2022-02-21T13:03:12","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T13:03:12","slug":"the-long-transition-in-bengal-sufism-onto-theological-debates-and-colonial-margins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangladeshonrecord.com\/the-long-transition-in-bengal-sufism-onto-theological-debates-and-colonial-margins\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long Transition in Bengal Sufism"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tahmidal Zami and Nizam Ash-Shams<\/p>\n
Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n The colonial transition brought massive ideological upheavals in Bengal Islam, with the mainstreaming of a political ideology oppositional to the received politico-spiritual dispensation. The reformist rhetoric through which this oppositional ideology was articulated was based on a modern scripturalist turn initiated by Shah Wali-Allah Dehlavi, but it was also shaped by bigger onto-theological debates in the longer history of Islam. In this paper, we trace how the grand onto-theological debates, such as the debate on wahdat al-wujud vs. wahdat ash-shuhud, were overdetermined by the encounters between Islam and its others at various intersection points between crisscrossing flows traversing a wide geography. This article explores this question in relation to the expansion of the Nizampuri-Azamgarhi Tariqah \u2013 a reformist Sufi order across the Bengal-Arakan frontier linking South and Southeast Asia. The order spread its roots to Arakan based on preexisting Muslim network consolidated by increasing migration on the back of a rice export economy. The departure of the British colonialists and formation of post-colonial states led to refrontierization at the Bengal-Arakan border, giving rise to politicization of identities and new intensities of violence which decimated the Sufi diaspora in Arakan.<\/p>\n Keywords:<\/strong> Sufism, Bengal, Arakan, Syed Ahmad Berelvi, Colonial transition<\/p>\n In the gallery of major figures in Indian Islam \u2013 aside from Sufi masters like Muin al-Din Chishti (1143-1236 CE) or Nizam al-Din Awliya (1238-1325 CE) \u2013 there are hardly anyone as impactful as Shaikh Ahmad Faruqi of Sirhind (1564-1624 CE) and Shah Wali-Allah of Delhi (1703-1762 CE).<\/p>\n The Chishtiyya and Suhrawardiyya Tariqahs \u2013 followed by Qadiriyya and a few others \u2013 were key actants in Islamization and spread of Sufi networks in North India and Bengal. Some of these Tariqahs \u2013 especially the Chishtiyya \u2013 developed a language of intersectionality in relation to the vast and multifarious populace of India upholding a panoply of beliefs. With the advent of Mughals from central Asia, the Naqshbandiyya Tariqah from the same region found a stronger foothold in India. The Mughal regime under Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar (r. 1556-1605 CE) was developing a vast apparatus of power centered on politico-spiritual charisma of the Timurid household and bringing together multiple religious and ethnic groups under a system of common allegiance and vocabulary of power. Using the same millenarian logic, the Naqshbandi saint Shaikh Ahmad Faruqi of Sirhind articulated a resounding critique of the politico-spiritual strategy of the Mughal apparatus. Proclaiming himself the renovator of the second millennia of Islam or the Mujaddid-e Alf-e Thani, Ahmad Sirhindi attacked in the same breath the political promiscuity of the Mughals and the intersectional Sufi praxis of the Indo-Muslim saints.<\/p>\n By putting up a formidable opposition against the Mughal empire at its heyday in the name of Islamic orthodoxy, the Mujaddid remobilized the old Islamicate dialectic of the ruler vs. the man of religion. By enacting an implacable opposition against the Emperor\u2019s religio-political policies that would subsequently create greater resonance compared to its alternatives, the Mujaddid\u2019s name came to be enshrined as the representative of the orthodox current in Indo-Islam. The Mujaddid created a symbolic place for oppositional Ulama, representing the orthodox reaction against various ideas and practices that he deemed heterodox. Like the West Asian intellectual Ibn Taimiyyah, the Mujaddid revived an oppositional paradigm in Indo-Islam.<\/p>\n The Mughal establishment sought to accept, assimilate and neutralize the symbolic aggression of Ahmad Sirhindi the Mujaddid. However, following the death of Aurangzeb (r. 1659-1707 CE), the Mughal establishment began crumbling under its own logic of growth. The Mughal urban network became populated with new ethno-religious and socio-economic groups wielding increasing power such as networks of merchants and bankers as well as ulama and Sufis linked with the Islamic heartland. Ethno-political groups like the Marathas, Sikhs, Jats, or Afghans became armed threats to the Mughal monopoly of power consisting of the Turko-Irani-Rajput complex.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the pax Mughalica was definitively shattered, the Islamic intelligentsia came up with new responses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n It was Shah Wali-Allah (1703-1763 CE), a brilliant scholar born in an ancient Muslim family of Delhi, who articulated a new critique of the existing Indo-Muslim politico-spiritual strategies and in so doing brought about a scriptural reduction and ideological reconfiguration of doctrinal Islam in India. Like his Hijazi contemporary Muhammad Ibn al-Wahhab of Najd (1708-1792 CE), Wali-Allah revived ijtihad (interpretive jurisprudence), challenged blind imitation of fiqh schools, and prioritized the scripture and prophetic tradition (Quran and Sunnah). While Shaikh Ahmad the Indian renovator had earlier been denounced, even proclaimed kafir, in the Islamic heartland of Mecca-Medina, Wali-Allah came up with a more powerful and global program of Islamic reform. Having performed a pilgrimage to Mecca during 1730-33 CE, Wali-Allah returned to India and proclaimed himself the Mujaddid of the era whose verdict must be followed by the political and spiritual elite. At the center of a Mughal state helpless against the aggressions of the new ethno-political forces and spiritual heterogeneity, Wali-Allah wanted a reassertion of Sunni dominance by conceiving an abstract, almighty authority of God and prescribing an ideological purity cleaning up the accretions of innovations in Indo-Muslim life as well as a political strategy centered on the consolidation of a chaste Sunni administration that would quash Hindus and Shiites with overwhelming violence. Wali-Allah saw society as an evolving order that would climax into a universal caliphate, just as God himself reigns on the divine court (mala\u2019 al-a\u2019la) (1). In the declining Islamic realm of the late Mughals, Wali-Allah initiated a new transcendence, unhinging the emplaced notions of religion, governance, and culture.<\/p>\n Within a few decades of Wali-Allah\u2019s death, the Mughal emperor was turned into a mere pensioner of the East India Company. The successors of millenarian oppositionalism came up with political responses suited to the new context. Wali-Allah\u2019s able son Shah Abd al-Aziz declared India an abode of war (dar al-harb), further displacing and deterritorializing the Islamic imaginary from its emplaced Indian context. However, while he considered eliminating infidels a virtue in the vein of his father, he also supported leading a functional socio-economic and religious life under infidel rulers as much as possible (2).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sayyid Ahmad Berelvi (1786-1831 CE) was an epochal figure in this new chapter of Indo-Muslim society (3). He combined futuwwa ethic of heroic militancy, Shah Wali-Allah\u2019s reformist puritanism, a trans-Tariqah Sufi charisma (4) and a millenarian vision of his mission in the crumbling Muslim religio-political geography of India in early 19th century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n He found a powerful comrade in the figure of Muhammad Ismail, an erudite ideologue and scion of the Wali-Allahi family. In the works of Muhammad Ismail and other members of Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya (TiM), religious duties like jihad were obligatory upon each Muslim, not a delegatory obligation for the whole community. Sayyid Ahmad couldn\u2019t launch exoteric (zahiri) jihad from a dar al-harb \u2013 since their goal was not rebellion \u2013 but only from an abode of security (dar al-aman), following the prophet\u2019s model. Propaganda on orthodox praxis among Muslims in occupied India was meant to result into migration to the frontier and war (5). Berelvi waged a war in the Northwest frontier against the Sikhs. However, hostility from the local Pashtuns and modern military tactics of the European-led Sikh army led to a devastating end to his jihad in 1830 CE. Despite the quick and bloody abortion of his revolutionary program, Berelvi left an undying legacy and paradigm for Indian Muslims.<\/p>\n A few factors strengthened Syed Ahmad Berelvi\u2019s legacy despite his military defeat. He had reenacted the old Sirhindian oppositionalism by combining religious orthodoxy and political opposition within the ideological frame of tariqat. Being a Sayyid, he mustered the symbolic prestige of Shah Wali-Allah through his pledge of allegiance (baiah) to Abd al-Aziz as well as in the figure of his loyal comrade Muhammad Ismail. He pursued his cause with considerable zeal and traversed the expanse of Hindustan to gather recruits. His visits to Kolkata caused stirs among the Muslim notables and gentry and eventually he managed to gather a diverse body of Indo-Muslim followers to wage jihad in the northwest. At his martyrdom in battlefield, his followers dispersed to their respective regions. It was this returnee mujahidin diaspora who carried back the oppositional mission, the prestige of Berelvi\u2019s legacy, the claim to represent and succeed his Tariqah, and a certain fraternal solidarity (asabiyya). This formed the social basis for the supremacy of his symbolism.<\/p>\n Sayyid Ahmad Shahid articulated a messianic jihad movement with the help of Ismail Shahid, which raged till the 1860s. However, from 1830s onwards, gradually many of the neo-orthodox Islamic tendencies took a quietist, non-military stances and directed their efforts to reform Muslim society. Thus, the offensive posture of the messianic jihadism was replaced with the self-defensive posture of socio-religious reformism.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was from among the successors to Berelvi that various new sub-Tariqahs emerged, one of which was the Nizampuri Tariqah of Bengal. This Tariqah played a profound role in shaping subsequent Sufism in Bengal in the colonial era.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n In this paper, we would concentrate on one of the sub-families of this Nizampuri Tariqah, namely the Azamgarhi Tariqah, to explore how the suborder ultimately hailing from the TiM could expand its footprint at the furthest margin of Indo-Islam, namely the Bengal-Arakan frontier.<\/p>\n A fundamental methodological principle must be added here: all typological and periodization schemes are taken here as formal-discursive effects on an irreducible and immanent multiplicity. Singularities are never reducible to the categories of universals and generals, just as difference is prior to identification. The schematic discussion presented here needs to be read with this epistemological ethic of prioritizing immanence, multiplicity, and irreducible difference. For example, individual Sufi groups need to be understood as complex and open entities radiating filiations and effects in various fashions rather than being reduced to spacetime, social or spiritual affiliation, avowed ideology and so on. In other words, the molecular dimension of the entities needs to be kept in mind no less than the molar dimension. As we will see, the vicissitudes of development of the Nizampuri-Azamgarhi Tariqah was complex and aleatory and cannot be understood in the teleological or essentialist notions about Indo-Islam, economic determinism or frontiers.<\/p>\n In this section, we analyze the case of the Azamgarhi Tariqah to see how a Sufi order expanded in the Chattogram-Arakan axis in the colonial period. We use existing literature on the Tariqah such as the writings of Mr. Ahmedul Islam Chowdhury, a pious adherent of the order, that represent a very interesting emic source. We also make use of fresh primary material like a few successorial documents (khilafatnamahs) which are little studied in understanding Sufism in Bengal or South Asia.<\/p>\n We posit that the emergence of new respectable classes and the expansion of agrarian frontier laid down the objective conditions for the reception of the Nizampuri-Azamgarhi Sufi order in new horizons, while the anti-traditionist and oppositionalist rhetoric espoused by the order \u2013 like so many other related branches of Sufi orders \u2013 were ideological formulations that aligned with the new ethical purposes and epistemological regime of the new epoch. The Faraidi movement was initiated by Haji Shariatullah (circa 1781-1840 CE). From rural Faridpur, he had traveled to the Hijaz and Egypt for Islamic education and returned to Bengal upon completion of studies. Shariatullah propagated an orthodox version of Islam cleansed of syncretic accretions and reduced to fundamental obligations required in scripture, yet firmly affiliated with the Hanafi school of Fiqh that was the prevalent emplaced jurisprudential tradition in Sunni Indo-Islam. His constituency was mainly the peasants and artisans of South-central Bengal (6). He maintained a broadly apolitical program, but as the Muslim peasants and artisans joined his sect, they came to blows with the local Hindu zamindars. In 1840s to 1860s, his son Muhsen Uddin alias Dudu Miyan (1819-1862 CE) expanded the movement into a consolidated network functioning both as a religious sect as well as a force of peasant resistance against landlords and the indigo farmers. Although the Faraidis never confronted the colonial administration, they prohibited congregational prayers for Muslims on the ground that a proper comprehensive Muslim municipal township (misr al-jami) couldn\u2019t be found in Bengal, thereby contributing to the notion that Bengal was a military territory or dar al-harb. However, after Dudu Miyan\u2019s death, the successors of the movement increasingly took a more conformist position to the colonial condition. Thus, the Faraidi movement uniquely combined a certain renovation of the Islamic religious culture, a disavowal of the political status quo, and yet a very close emplacement in the peasant society as well as the traditional jurisprudential base.<\/p>\n While Faraidi movement was raging, the disciples and comrades of Sayyid Ahmad Berelvi launched their operations in Bengal. The most spectacular follower of Berelvi was a wrestler turned religious preacher called Titu Mir (1782-1831) from the 24 Parganas of West Bengal. Titu\u2019s religious preaching brought his followers into conflict with Hindu Zamindars who wanted to curtail the orthodox observance of the Muslim peasants. His small band of followers reacted to Zamindari strictures with violence. The conflict escalated rapidly till the military intervention by the East India Company regime. Titu Mir and his main lieutenants were murdered almost around the same time that the holy warriors under Berelvi at Balakot were annihilated.<\/p>\n Since the military campaigns of Sayyid Ahmad Berelvi and Titu Mir were destroyed by the colonial power, Berelvi\u2019s other successors adopted a less offensive role. Some of his disciple mujahids had tried to wage war in the frontiers. Maulana Wilayat Ali (1790-1852 CE) and Inayat Ali (1794-1858 CE) from Sadiqpur family of Patna sent delegates to Bengal for propagating Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya (7). During 1830s to 1860s, TiM preachers would show up in Kolkata and rural Bengal and the province was divided into circles for propaganda and fundraising. Some propagandists of the TiM declared Sayyid Ahmad a messiah (Mahdi) who had not died and would return in the right moment. They promised a future Islamic state where land would be rent-free. Peasants of the Bengal delta joined their ranks thanks to the millenarian promise. However, it is not clear that they could recruit any significant percentage of the Bengal peasantry as fighters or supporters (8). By the 1860s, the jihad efforts were mostly subdued (9).<\/p>\n A more reconciliatory approach was adopted by Maulana Karamat Ali Jaunpuri (1800-1873 CE), who wrote a body of literature to reconcile Muslims to the existing political dispensation as a fait accompli. Jaunpuri had accompanied Sayyid Ahmad to Mecca but probably didn\u2019t join the jihad (10). He began his movement in 1830s that would be identified the Taiyuni movement which found support in almost the same region as the Faraidis\u2019 (11). In contrast to the teaching of the Faraidis, Maulana Jaunpuri encouraged holding congregational prayers. He sought reconciliation of the Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya with the four fiqh schools as well as the main Sufi orders. The old school mullahs or the sabiqis began identifying with his camp in the latter part of the century (12). In 1870, the Chief Justice of Kolkata high Court was assassinated, while the Viceroy of India Lord Mayo (r. 1869-1872) wanted to fix India\u2019s political status from the perspective of Islamic theology, a group of ulama issued a fatwa declaring it as dar al-Islam. Jaunpuri threw in his weight, besides Nawab Abdool Luteef, declaring that India was not dar-al-harb and jihad against the dispensation was unlawful (13). Jaunpuri thus represented a pragmatist reconciliation with political reality.<\/p>\n The above discussion reflects that Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya (TiM) was both a highly influential as well as thoroughly contested legacy \u2013 interpreted, appropriated and denied variously by emerging theo-political tendencies. The British persecuted various such tendencies branding them under the umbrella term: \u201cWahhabis\u201d. The 1857 Indian war of independence was followed by rampant persecution of the Muslim elite. The destruction of earlier jihadi military campaigns, the quietist or reconciliationist line advocated by certain leaders, and consolidation of British administration deep into the social spaces of India encouraged a change of tack for the Indian Islamigentsia. The establishment of Dar al-Ulum Deoband (1866 CE) and the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College of Aligarh (1875) were two expressions of the strategic reorientation.<\/p>\n The oppositionalism nurtured by the Islamigentsia could have two postures:<\/p>\n (a) At its offensive posture, it would be an assimilative opposition, whereby either the ruler would have to assimilate to the politico-ideological demands of the Shaikhs and everything would be fine, while in the event of non-alignment, the ruler could risk stiff resistance.<\/p>\n (b) At its defensive posture it would be an accommodative-negotiative opposition, whereby the Shaikhs would concede various political and disciplinary spaces to the regime but cultivate their own social discipline to form a quasi-political community. In the following passages, we describe some of the processes during the colonialism that created the context for a reconfiguration of Sufism in Indo-Islam.<\/p>\n As the reformists assumed a new kind of transcendence in relation to Indian socio-political reality, they questioned the emplaced religious culture. The so-called innovations and \u2018syncretistic\u2019 practices of the local Muslims of Bengal became a prime target of the reformists. In this vein, the age-old praxis of the local society passed under the radar of the reformists (14). Veneration of ahl al-bait or imaginary and real saints or sacred figures, quasi-magical practices of the agrarian society, and so on were all dubbed as part of polytheism (shirk). This affected the relationship between Islamic clergy and mystics with the rural lay peasantry of Bengal.<\/p>\n At the same time, the colonial state imposed new forms of control over the lives of the populace, controlling their consumption, movements, and expressions. The ordinary faqirs, bairagis, qalandars, bauls and so on who earlier predominantly practiced various forms of vernacular spirituality deeply rooted in the native society were seen as a mass of undesirables by the British administration. In traditional Indo-Islam, faqirs were usually understood as God-intoxicated men (majzub) whose impassioned utterances veiled a mystical reality underlying the mundane phenomena. In precolonial India the itinerant, often antinomian, vernacular qalandars and zavaleqs would traverse and interact with the network of mainstream religious and spiritual centers, as for example seen in the table-talk of Nizamuddin Auliya (15). The Faqirs practiced transgressive physical culture, such as consuming intoxicating substances and wandering naked freely and without traceability, yet enjoyed considerable social respect (16).<\/p>\n The colonial intervention involved epistemological violence as well as physical coercion against these sects. The colonial administration dubbed the faqirs as charlatans.<\/p>\n While the state overtly took a neutral and non-interventionist stance towards \u2018religion\u2019 identified as a matter of interiorized beliefs and social practices, the faqirs\u2019 transgressive culture and political intransigence induced the British to violently attack them as a matter of sanitization of the \u2018colonial space\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, the colonial space itself could never cover the entire governed territory, rather it always needed to maintain an outside \u2013 a socio-economic residual space \u2013 within or just across the borders of the inside to maintain the exclusionary and doubly exploitative nature of the colonial enterprise compared to any domestic capitalism. The administration classified the faqirs as nuisance defined in terms of their begging (unproductive life), vagrancy (untraceable life), as well as nudity, intoxication and madness (unreasonable life) (17). The colonial state tried to define what constituted legitimate form of religious subjectivity by dictating some behaviors as public nuisance, while others were accepted and even encouraged.<\/p>\n The colonial othering of such spiritual culture was complemented by emergence of a native puritanism \u2013 whether modern or neo-traditional.<\/p>\n The reconfigured Sufism was premised on a new relationship among texts, technology, and the beliefs and practices of the community of believers. Shah Wali-Allah\u2019s Persian translation of the Quran as well as subsequent Urdu translations by his sons transformed Quran from a miraculous word of God primarily celebrated aurally into a comprehensible text to be read and understood (18). In 1830s, English replaced Persian for official language. Persianate humanism dissipated due to the change of medium of education in 1835 (19).<\/p>\n The administration heightened emphasis on vernacular language for schools and courts. Among Indian Muslims, Hindustani was being accepted as a more useful medium(20). The printing press gave rise to a vigorous Urdu literary sphere. In competition to Christian and Hindu literary spheres and the scripturalist polemics by missionary, the Muslim princes and wealthy patronized the press to publish and propagate Islamic literature. (21) Urdu emerged as the language of the public relations of an evolved Ulama, elevating it as the normative language for Islamicate culture and an Islamic religiolect for South Asian Muslims. The Islamigentsia successfully created a relatively coordinated grassroots-based literary-social circuit supported by the printing press and Urdu intelligibility. A new textual culture changed the hermeneutical space in Indian Islam. As a modernist Muslim public grew up, they inherited the colonial-capitalist gaze imbued with rationalist-utilitarian assumptions. Nationalism involved reform and disciplining the Muslim masses. Sayyid Ahmad Khan (22), Mir Shahamat Ali, or Allama Muhammad Iqbal came up with a new imagination of the identity and values of an Indo-Islamic community.<\/p>\n A new institutional culture underwrote the emergence of the new Muslim intelligentsia. The madrasahs established such as Kolkata Aliya Madrasah (1781) or the Hooghly Madrasah \u2013 though limited to the ashraf for a long time \u2013 gave a definite new form of educational development. Before the 19th century, many mullahs in Bengal and Bihar couldn\u2019t comprehend even one page of Arabic. (23) The Delhi College (1825-1857), the Aligarh Institute in 1866, the Mohammedal Anglo-Oriental College in 1877 introduced new education for Muslims. (24) Deoband Madrasa established in 1867 by Muhammad Qasim Nanawtwi (1833-77) and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (1829-1905) \u2013 two disciples of Mamluk Ali who was disciple of Muhammad Ishaq of the Delhi reformist family \u2013 emerged as a new apparatus that could provide authoritative Islamic education. (25) Deoband secured its finance by direct contributions by the Muslim community from near and far. 30 Madrasas were established in India in the model of Deoband by 1900. (26)<\/p>\n Although colonialism had a certain effect of deindustrialization and un-development of India, its economic and logistical conditions created certain opportunities that were grabbed by newly-emerging classes, laying down the social infrastructure of respectable classes. A social layer of maulanas, hafizes, traders, zamindars and so on composed the strata of respectability within the Muslim community.<\/p>\n In Bengal, just as military jihadism subsided after 1871, the British sought to assimilate the Muslims of Bengal into the existing educational-ideological structure as well as employment. They gradually integrated Muslims into schools and eventually a higher educational institution that was Dhaka University. The graduates of new madrasas created anjumans that served as organizational basis for reform work. In the place of older Sufi silsilas, these new institutions created new bases for Islamic networking.<\/p>\n Traditional Sufi establishments in India often conceived themselves as munificent providers \u2013 both in material and spiritual terms \u2013 to vast indigent masses irrespective of their class or creed, as captured in titles like \u2018gharib nawaz\u2019. Many towering Sufi figures in Sultanic and Mughal India did not engage in any income-earning or acquisitive work (kasb), but worked as axes of redistribution for the social surplus value, whereby the gifts and donations from disciples and city-folks would be given away to the poor masses, often irrespective of their socio-religious affiliations. In the stable atmosphere of Mughal India, land grants to Sufi establishments (madad-i-maash) became ever more common. Festivals like Urs in the Sufi shrines or rite of passage ceremonies were spiritually encoded programs for redistribution of the social surplus value through extravagant consumption and charity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the precolonial political economy metamorphosed into a new administrative and market structure under the impact of colonialism, a whole new social calculus came into being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n The most critical change wrought by colonialism was the resumption of rent-free grants to waqf lands, undercutting funding for many Sufi shrines and Madrasas. As colonial salariat classes replaced their Mughal predecessors, the redistributional system was reconfigured. In the new setting, an ethic of strict pecuniary accounting was encouraged while extravaganza in the redistributive festivals (marriage, Urs, and so on) was censured. The notions of respectability stressed a relationship of law-bound reciprocity with the colonial state, a structure of public institutions of education, and so on. The new social type of respectable personality was expected to be self-sufficient and law-abiding. For a Sufi, living on charity came to be seen as less respectable. The Sufi should earn their own living and should extend their hegemony on the upwardly-mobile classes.(27)<\/p>\n There was a certain alignment between orthodox puritanism and modernist anti-traditionalism in terms of breaking the shackles of older religious and political authorities as well as popular beliefs and practices. (28) In other words: creating a deterritorialized transcendence \u2013 sustained by the new networks of institutions, texts, and practices \u2013 from the emplaced local spiritual culture. Classical Indian Sufism had been by and large shaped by the post-Mongol consolidation of Sufism as an increasingly structured system. This involved articulation of orders defined by shared allegiance, common but flexible body of teachings, disciplinary techniques and practices, and so on. The geography would often be partitioned into Sufi domains. Public authority of Sufis was mostly orally-mediated, aural and auratic. As the emplaced, cultured intelligentsia of Islam, the Sufis undertook various adaptations, translations and negotiations of ideas and practices in relation to the heterogenous mass of Indic peoples and social groups. With a consolidated, structured reproduction of Sufi orders during the Sultanic and Mughal periods, such adaptive-translational ideas and practices gained a certain traditionalization, which would be later called rusumat or traditional practices. The oppositional mujaddid Shaikh Ahmad of Sirhind launched attacks on traditionalism during the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir. However, Shaikh Ahmad\u2019s reconceptualization was launched within the same ethical and epistemological conditions as his detractors.<\/p>\n With the onset of colonialism, there was a certain de-structuration of classical Indian Sufism, and its Bengal chapter was no exception. With the political quietization of the oppositional islamigentsia, a tactical common front against old-fashioned Sufism was opened by the partially-aligned orthodox and modernist Muslims. The new colonial political space gave an impetus for vertical integration of rural Islam in Bengal with pan-Indian Hindustani Islamic ideology. A network of new Sufi darbars were established in Bengal to propagate reformism with zeal. Undoing the traditional tariqah-structuration, trans-Tariqah Sufism became much more common in this period: a Sufi receiving initiation from multiple lineages has been not uncommon since 15th century, but the process rapidly flourished under colonialism. (30)<\/p>\n In short, new textual culture, new educational institutions, and new structuration of life created a new form of religious intersubjectivity. New ways of interpellation a la Althusser could be devised based on this interplay among mass-circulated texts, new norms around Islamic discourse-making, and the refashioning of the Muslim selves. Of course, the dead Pirs could not be rendered interpellated by the new ideological apparatuses. Popular veneration in their tombs continued in the vein of tradition, and the reformists sought to stem this tide.<\/p>\n In the reconfigured Sufism, just as the Sufis were dislocated from their earlier roles of munificent public-ness, the ethical purpose of Sufism would partly be regrounded.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Tariqa-i-Muhamadiya in its various forms, the Faraidi movement, and later the expansion of the Deobandi educational apparatus created a new ethical transcendence of Islamic men.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n The new ethical purpose was cultivating a certain oppositionalism towards various forces and growths that were perceived to have attacked or enervated the collective body of Muslims.<\/p>\n In this context of a new conception of Sufism would we place the successor suborders succeeding the Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya (TiM). These suborders distinguished themselves against the broader context of Indo-Islam by railing against polytheism and innovations. At the same time, these sought to appropriate the prestige and sanctity of older classical Sufi orders by claiming multi-tariqah filiation.<\/p>\n For an example of the ideas of a typical TiM suborder, we would like to quote here a succession-come-preceptory document by the successor of Imamuddin Bangali, a Bengali lieutenant of Syed Ahmad Berelvi.<\/p>\n To make a brief methodological remark: In understanding Sufism in Bengal and India, the predominant focus has been on texts like table-talk (malfuzat), letters (maktubat), hagiographic collections (tazkirah) and similar genres of texts. There has been far less concentration on Khilafatnamahs or letters of successorial authorities. Yet, Khilafatnamahs have certain important attributes that make them highly useful sources in understanding some aspects of Sufism, such as:<\/p>\n (a) Khilafatnamahs record the transmission of charismatic authority of the Sufi shaikh. These are transactional, performative texts having both locutionary and illocutionary dimensions. Such practicality shapes their formats and content.<\/p>\n (b) These are contemporary with much of the subject matter represented, unlike for example a tazkirah recounting the past. This may affect the veracity of the representation in such documents both positively and negatively. For example: The colophonic parts usually give us objective coordinates, while the eulogistic parts may be highly subjective and self-serving.<\/p>\n (c) Khilafatnamahs can help retrace the geographic concentration and dispersion of a tariqah.<\/p>\n (d) The commandments contained in such documents could help understand the normative content of a Sufi assemblage in its self-representation.<\/p>\n As we will see, the Khilafatnamah issued by the successor of Imamuddin Bangali testifies to dispersion of TiM into Noakhali, the ideological urgency for reformism, and the Persophone Sufi lore of the Tariqah.<\/p>\n The nisba or toponym \u201cBangali\u201d attached to the name Imamuddin itself testifies to his pan-Indian horizon of belonging where he had to have a differential name in terms of his patria. After the Balakot massacre, Imamuddin returned to Noakhali, in Southeast Bangladesh and a culturally heterogeneous space at that time. Imamuddin would conduct missionary activities to preach the teachings of his Shaikh. The successorial and preceptory document that we will share here was issued by Imamuddin\u2019s successor Muhammad Abdul Aziz of Sadullahpur to his own followers. In this document, he initiates the followers into multiple Tariqahs as deemed valid by the TiM. The document, reflecting the doctrine of new Sufism, preaches a strict conception of Islamicity: One must denounce polytheism and innovation with very expansive definitions. We are quoting the full text as it reveals fascinating details about transmission of TiM Sufism in the geographic margins of the Islamic space of Bengal.<\/p>\n Text Translation<\/p>\n In the name of God, most beneficent, most merciful. Anyone who seeks the pleasure of the True Lord except through the Law of Mustafa denies the religion and is undoubtedly a mendacious, misguided person. His claim is invalid, unheard and baseless.<\/p>\n The law of Mustafa is based on two things: first, abandonment of polytheism and second, abandonment of heresies (innovation). Faqir Abdul Aziz Sadullahpuri, the son (?) of the late Maulana Imam al-Din, Amen.<\/p>\n[Urdu sidenotes<\/em>]\n In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate. Lord, I have repented that I would stay away from all bad deeds and from all bad words. Allah, you \u2026 (?). There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah\u2019s Messenger. (The same formula in Urdu).<\/p>\n I pledged allegiance in Qadiriyya, Naqshbandiyya, Mujaddiyya, Muhammadiyya Orders in the hands of Mr. Maulvi Abdul Aziz the Faqir, the viceregent of the viceregent of Syed Ahmad Shahid.<\/p>\n Allah, please accept it, and Allah, allow the blessings of these Orders be showered to my fate.<\/p>\nIntroduction: The Oppositional Paradigm in Islam during the Colonial Transition<\/strong><\/h3>\n
A New Sufism for Bengal: The Case of the Nizampuri-Azamgarhi Tariqah<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nTo put it into context: In early 19th century, Bengal was swept with a series of reformist movements. We can name the Faraidi, the Tayyuni, the Deobandi, and strands of the Tariqah-i-Muhammadia movement as the most notable. A brief description of the movements could help locate the Nizampuri-Azamgarhi Tariqah in its proper context.<\/p>\n
\nIn the colonial era, due to this flexibility of strategy in their engagement with power, the oppositional Islamigentsia could engage the upward aspirations and opportunism of the Muslim middle and upper strata. Of course, the oppositional Islamigentsia was not a monolithic Sufi-Ulama complex but consisted of various schools of TiM, the Faraidis, the Deobandis and so on with variegated ideas and strategies. However, these groups shared the broad assumption that socio-ideological reform was essential for the Bengali Muslims.<\/p>\nMarginalization of Syncretism<\/h3>\n
Languages and Texts<\/h3>\n
New Institutions<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Economic Ethic<\/h3>\n
\nThe partial alignment of the orthodox reformist and modernist movements produced a separate Muslim public out of sections of the Muslim peasants of Bengal, but this new ideological accretion could not penetrate too deep into the life of Muslims in Bengal. Moreover, the peasant followers of Wahhabi or TiM were still partly attached to some of their older practices. (29) Mullahs who served as the rural social authorities, magicians, and so on could not immediately be reformed into the new ways. The practical complex of the fragile life of the peasantry involved magical practices such as driving away jinns, snakes, and myriad other dangers, and no reformism or rational modernism could fill in the needs. Older social types like shamans (ojhas) or badiyas carried on the show. Just as colonial sanitization could cover only the inside of the colonial space, reformism by its ideological\/practical logic could penetrate only some parts of the lifespace of Bengali Muslims.
\nThe above describes some of the dimensions of colonial changes that enabled a reconfiguration of Sufism in Indo-Islam. We would now discuss the kind of reconfiguration that took place in the structure of Sufism.<\/p>\n
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\n\u0648 \u062a\u0645\u0627\u0645\u06cc \u0627\u0646\u062c\u0627\u0633 \u0627\u0634\u0631\u0627\u06a9 \u0648 \u0627\u0644\u0648\u0627\u062a \u0628\u062f\u0639\u0627\u062a \u0631\u0627 \u0627\u0632 \u062e\u0648\u062f \u062f\u0648\u0631 \u0646\u0645\u0627\u06cc\u0646\u062f
\n\u0648 \u0628\u0639\u062f \u0627\u0632 \u0627\u0646 \u062c\u0645\u06cc\u0639 \u0637\u0627\u0644\u0628\u06cc\u0646 \u062d\u0642 \u0631\u0627 \u0628\u0633\u0648\u06cc \u0627\u0646 \u062a\u0631\u063a\u06cc\u0628 \u06a9\u0646\u0646\u062f \u0648 \u062f\u0631 \u0623\u062e\u0630 \u0628\u06cc\u0639\u062a \u0628\u0631\u062f\u0633\u062a \u062e\u0648\u062f \u0645\u062d\u0636 \u0628\u0631\u0636\u0627\u0621 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0648 \u062e\u0627\u0644\u0635\u062a\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0628\u0647 \u0646\u06cc\u062a \u062a\u0631\u0648\u06cc\u062c \u0627\u062d\u06a9\u0627\u0645 \u062f\u06cc\u0646 \u0627\u0632 \u062e\u0648\u062f \u0633\u0627\u0639\u06cc \u0633\u0648\u0646\u062f (\u061f) \u0648 \u062a\u0631\u063a\u06cc\u0628 \u0648 \u0627\u0645\u0631 \u0646\u0645\u0627\u06cc\u0646\u062f \u0647\u0631\u06af\u0632 \u0627\u0646\u062c\u0627\u0645 \u0627\u0632 \u0627\u0646 \u0646\u0646\u0645\u0627\u06cc\u0646\u062f \u0686\u0647 \u062f\u0631\u06cc\u0646 \u0628\u06cc\u0639\u062a \u06a9\u0647 \u0628\u0631\u062f\u0633\u062a \u06cc\u0627\u0631\u0627\u0646 \u0641\u0642\u06cc\u0631 \u0648\u0627\u0642\u0639 \u062e\u0648\u0627\u0647\u062f \u0634\u062f \u0641\u0627\u0626\u062f\u0647 \u0634\u062f\u0646\u06cc \u0627\u0633\u062a \u0627\u0646\u0634\u0627 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u062a\u0639\u0627\u0644\u06cc \u06a9\u0644\u0645\u0647\u06af\u0648\u06cc\u0627\u0646 \u0627\u0632 \u0631\u0633\u0648\u0645 \u0634\u0631\u06a9 \u0648 \u0628\u062f\u0639\u062a \u067e\u0627\u06a9 \u062e\u0648\u0627\u0647\u062f \u0634\u062f \u0648 \u062a\u0639\u0638\u06cc\u0645 \u0634\u0631\u0639 \u062f\u0631 \u062f\u0644 \u0627\u06cc\u0634\u0627\u0646 \u062c\u0627 \u062e\u0648\u0627\u0647\u062f \u06af\u0631\u0641\u062a \u06a9\u0647 \u0627\u0635\u0644 \u063a\u0631\u0636 \u0627\u06cc\u0646 \u0628\u06cc\u0639\u062a \u0639\u06cc\u0646 \u0633\u062a
\n\u0648 \u0641\u0642\u06cc\u0631 \u062f\u0639\u0627\u0647\u0627 \u062e\u0648\u0627\u0647\u062f \u06a9\u0631\u062f \u06a9\u0647 \u0627\u0646 \u0628\u06cc\u0639\u062a \u0645\u062b\u0645\u0631 \u062b\u0645\u0631\u0627\u062a \u062c\u0645\u06cc\u0644\u0647 \u0628\u0647 \u062c\u0632\u06cc\u0644\u0647 \u06af\u0631\u062f\u062f \u0648 \u062a\u0639\u0644\u06cc\u0645 \u0648 \u062a\u0641\u0647\u06cc\u0645 \u0637\u0627\u0644\u0628\u0627\u0646 \u0633\u0639\u06cc \u0628\u062f\u0644 \u0648 \u062c\u0627\u0646 \u0646\u0645\u0627\u06cc\u0646\u062f \u0648\u0627\u0632\u0627\u06cc\u0634\u0627\u0646 \u0627\u062e\u0630 \u0628\u06cc\u0639\u062a \u06a9\u0646\u0646\u062f \u0648 \u0627\u06cc\u0634\u0627\u0646 \u0631\u0627 \u062a\u0639\u0644\u06cc\u0645 \u0627\u0634\u063a\u0627\u0644 \u0641\u0631\u0645\u0627\u06cc\u0646\u062f \u062d\u0642 \u062d\u0644 \u0648\u0639\u0644\u0627 \u0627\u06cc\u0646 \u0641\u0642\u06cc\u0631 \u0631\u0627 \u0648 \u062c\u0645\u06cc\u0639 \u0645\u062e\u0644\u06cc\u0635 \u0645\u062c\u0628\u06cc\u0646 \u0645\u0627 \u0631\u0627 \u0641\u0644\u0627\u0645\u0631\u0647 \u0645\u0648\u062c\u062f\u06cc\u0646 \u0648 \u0645\u062e\u0644\u06cc\u0635\u06cc\u0646 \u0648 \u0645\u062a\u0628\u0639\u06cc\u0646 \u0634\u0631\u06cc\u0639\u062a \u063a\u0631 \u0627\u06af\u0631 \u062f\u0627\u0646\u062f \u0641\u0642\u06cc\u0631 \u0639\u0628\u062f \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0632\u06cc\u0632 \u0633\u0639\u062f\u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647\u0628\u0648\u0631\u064a \u067e\u0633\u0631\u0647\u0621 \u062c\u0646\u0627\u0628 \u0645\u0648\u0644\u0627\u0646\u0627 \u0627\u0645\u0627\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u062f\u06cc\u0646 \u0645\u0631\u062d\u0648\u0645
\n\u0622\u0645\u06cc\u0646
\n\u0628\u0633\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u062d\u0645\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u062d\u06cc\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u0647 \u062a\u0648\u0628\u0647 \u06a9\u06cc\u0627 \u0645\u06cc\u0646\u06cc \u0633\u0628 \u0628\u062f\u06cc \u06a9\u0627\u0645\u0648\u0646 \u0633\u06cc \u062f\u0648\u0631 \u0633\u0628\u06cc \u0628\u062f \u0628\u0627\u062a\u0648\u0646 \u0633\u06cc \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u062a\u0648\u0646\u0628\u0634\u062f\u06cc (\u061f) \u0644\u0627 \u0627\u0644\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0627 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0645\u062d\u0645\u062f \u0631\u0633\u0648\u0644 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u06a9\u06cc \u0633\u0648\u0627 \u06a9\u0648\u06cc \u062f\u0648\u0633\u0631\u0627 \u0645\u0639\u0628\u0648\u062f \u0628\u0646\u062f\u06af\u06cc \u06a9\u06cc \u0644\u0627\u0626\u0642 \u0646\u0647\u06cc\u0646 \u0647\u06cc \u0627\u0648\u0631 \u0645\u062d\u0645\u062f \u0635\u0644\u06cc \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0639\u0644\u06cc\u0647 \u0633\u0644\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u06a9\u06cc … \u0645\u06cc\u0646 \u0628\u06cc\u062a \u06a9\u06cc\u0627 …
\n\u0627\u0648\u0631 \u0642\u0627\u062f\u0631\u06cc\u0647 \u0627\u0648\u0631 \u0646\u0642\u0634\u0628\u0646\u062f\u06cc\u0647 \u0627\u0648\u0631 \u0645\u062c\u062f\u062f\u06cc\u0647 \u0627\u0648\u0631 \u0645\u062d\u0645\u062f\u06cc\u0647 \u06a9\u06cc \u0627\u0648\u067e\u0631\u0647\u0627\u062a\u0647\u0647 \u0641\u0642\u06cc\u0631 \u062e\u0644\u06cc\u0641\u0647\u0621 \u062e\u0644\u06cc\u0641\u0647\u0621 \u0633\u06cc\u062f \u0627\u062d\u0645\u062f \u0634\u0647\u06cc\u062f \u06a9\u06cc \u062d \u0648\u0644\u06cc \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u062e\u0644\u06cc\u0641\u0647\u0621 \u0645\u0648\u0644\u0648\u06cc \u0645\u062d\u0645\u062f \u0639\u0628\u062f \u0644\u0639\u0632\u06cc\u0632 \u0635\u062d\u0628 \u06a9\u06cc
\n\u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u062a\u0648 \u0642\u0628\u0648\u0644 \u06a9\u0631 \u0627\u0648\u0631 \u0646\u0639\u0645\u062a\u06cc\u0646 \u0627\u0646 \u0637\u0631\u06cc\u0642\u0648\u0646 \u06a9\u06cc \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0645\u06cc\u0631\u06cc \u0646\u0635\u06cc\u0628 \u06a9\u0631 \u0622\u0645\u06cc\u0646<\/p>\n
\nFrom the poor Muhammad Abdul Aziz: With pure minds, the seekers of the path of the True Lord (Hazrat Haqq) and the searchers of the path of that Absolute Guide \u2013 in general, and those who love this Faqir of the [true?] Lord in presence and in absentia;
\nIn particular, (those for whom) it is no secret that the purpose of allegiance to the five orders is to attain the path of pleasure of the True Lord; the path of the True Lord is strict, and the observance of the Law is bright;<\/p>\n
\nHowever, abandonment of polytheism is explained as follows: that he does not believe anyone \u2013 any king, genie (jinn), spiritual master, mentor, teacher and disciple of the Prophet and the guardian \u2013 as the solver of his problems, and does not ask for the fulfillment of his needs from any of them, and does not consider anyone capable of solving problems and beneficial in repelling troubles. He sees everyone like himself, incapable and \u2026 as opposed to the power and knowledge of the True Lord. (He) never seeks from any of the prophets, saints, [\u2026] for the demand of one\u2019s needs. A person knows this much that they are accepted as reminders of the eternity (the Lord) and their acceptance is in this: …. to teach about causing the pleasure of the Lord. They must be followed and they must be accepted as leaders in this very way\u2026 Considering them to be capable over the events of the time and the world of God and God Almighty is pure disbelief and polytheism. Never\u2026 that\u2026
\nThen comes the abandonment of innovations: it is stated as follows: that in all worships, activities and affairs [….] the path of the seal of prophethood of Muhammad, the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), should be upheld with full force and knowledge. What other people after the Prophet of God (peace and blessings of God be upon him) have invented as different kinds of traditions, such as joy and mourning, maintaining graves and building extravagant mansions in the [\u2026], making Taziyah and the like …. And one should make broad efforts to eradicate these: one should first abandon these practices, and then one should urge every Muslim to do the same, since observance of the Law is mandatory as is the commandment of the good and the prohibition of the evil. And since it is the order of the religion, all the brokers of the Truth who keep the commands in front of them must pledge allegiance to each other. Particularly gifted for guiding Muslims is Muhammad Munshi, the friend of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, who has pledged allegiance to this poor man.
\nAnd this poor man has stated these instructions in front of them; and he has taught them the taking of allegiance and the teaching of things on his own behalf, so \u2026 It is necessary for them to cling to the aforesaid instructions and pay attention to the Truth in their hearts and minds, and proceed with following the Law publicly and privately, and remove all forms of polytheism and innovations from themselves; And after that, all the seekers of the Truth should be persuaded towards it, and take allegiance in their hands only for the sake of God and the purity of God, with the intention of promoting the rules of religion, of persevering (?) and persuading thereto and so on; and never do that with the intention that taking oath of allegiance at the hand of Faqirs would be beneficial.
\nGod willing, the speakers of the words will be cleansed of polytheism and innovation and respect for the Law will take hold in their heart so that the real intention of taking oath of allegiance will be such. And Faqir will pray that this allegiance be fruitful in beauty and abundance; that they will demonstrate the teaching and understanding for the seekers in their mind and heart, and have allegiance from them, and teach them to do good deeds. May the True and High Lord know this Faqir and all the sincere lovers amongst us as existent, pure and followers of the Law.<\/p>\n