Historiography and Religious Extremism - English

8/6/2019 Historiography and Religious Extremism - English

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The Role of Historiography

In Promotion of Religious Extremism

By

Hassan Jafar Zaidi

There is a growing trend of studying and writing the history as religious literature: it

has gone extensively rampant to a dangerous level for the last few decades, reflecting

extremism by itself, yet serving as an instrument to promote religious extremism in all

its kinds and forms. That approach towards history writing and reading, was

originated by the end of 19th

and early 20th

century. The political history of medieval

Muslim kings and emperors, and their respective states and empires, was termed as

“Islamic History” or “The History of Islam”. The religion and history were

amalgamated to form an integral whole: the Muslim invaders, warriors, and

conquerors were painted as heroes of Islam; a kind of religious sanctity was attached

to their names; they were classified as religious cults and were portrayed as models

for the revival of Islam. The protagonists of Islamic revivalism brought forth the

concept that the Muslims of medieval period in general and the heroes in particular,

strictly adhered to the orthodox religious teachings; the Islamic Order was in force;the society reflected the true spirit of Islamic moral code; the golden principles of

tolerance, equality, brotherhood and justice, as taught by Islam, prevailed at all levels

in letter and spirit; and such presumptions formed the basis of the rise and glory of

Muslims of that period. Further extending the hypothesis, the revivalists attributed the

decline of Muslims to the hypothetical fact that the Muslims abandoned the practice

of true Islam; degenerated their exemplary Islamic character; abolished the Islamic

order; gave up the moral and ethical code of Islam; Muslim brotherhood and equality

also vanished in the society etc. etc., thus leading to anarchy, chaos and final decline.

Advancing this thesis further, the revivalists raised the slogan that if the model

“Islamic Order” of the medieval period was revived and if the “Islamic moral code”

was put again to practice, which, in their opinion, had been the pride of medieval

Muslims, they could again emerge as a rising force and re-attain their lost dominance

on the world. The Islamic revivalists and Mullahs in Pakistan went a step further to

propound the slogan that Pakistan, as they interpreted, was brought into being as a

laboratory to experiment the “Islamic Order”, therefore if the supremacy of Mullahs



was recognized in the power structure or the power was handed over to the religious

parties, allowing them to launch their model “Islamic Order” and “Islamic moral

code”, then Pakistan would not only lead the Muslim Ummah but would also hold

sway on the entire world.

The foregoing logic of revivalists dragged the simpleton Muslims to the trap of

nostalgia and they were lost in the blind alleys of their imaginary past to search for

their better future. As none of the roads to the bright future crossed through these

blind alleys, the followers of Islamic revivalism could achieve nothing but self-

annihilation, catastrophic failures and disillusionments. During the last 25 years,

particularly during the period of military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, the nostalgia was

whipped up in Pakistan, under the auspices of state institutions and authority, to such

a high degree that it turned out to be a kind of religious narcissism, culminating into

its logical end: the religious extremism, violence and terrorism. Military junta of Zia

regime and the ISI promoted the nostalgia to curb political freedom of the people and

thrust their fascist political agenda upon the people against their will. American

imperialism and its European allies, in the wake of socialist revolution of Afghanistan

and the presence of Soviet troops there in the 80s, sponsored the promotion of

religious extremism and lunacy in the name of Afghan Jihad ; Western media

projected those zealot Jihadis as freedom fighters, and inflated their “achievements”

as defeating a super power USSR. At the same time, the Iranian Islamic revolution

also whipped up lunatic religious zeal amongst the Shiites in Pakistan. The overall

religious lunacy gave rise to the extreme religious terrorist organizations like Sipah –

i-Sahaba, Tehrik-i-Nafaz Fiqh Jafaria, Lashkar-i-Jhangavi, Sipah-i-Mohammad ,

Jaish-i-Moahammad etc., and its climax was Taliban movement in Afghanistan in the

90s. Sectarianism and terrorism engulfed the country: the places of worship, the

mosques, the Imambargahs, the churches, even the graveyards were no longer the

safe havens; volley of bullets of religious terror would follow you everywhere. The

religious extremists, in the name of Islam, portrayed their idealistic model of

“Islamic Order” and “Islamic Jihad” that, in their opinion, prevailed during the

medieval period as they had read or heard about it in the so called “Islamic History”

written by the Islamic revivalists. To brain wash and mislead the innocent youth, they

used the idealistic “Islamic History” written as religious literature by the Mullahs and

religious revivalists of the recent past. The misguided youth got alienated from the



ground realities of modern world and identified themselves with some idealistic

characters of remote past, painted as heroes in the history books of revivalists, that

prompted them to jump intrepidly in the blaze of Nimrood . That extreme lunacy led

the same youth to believe that a fellow Muslim, if he did not belong to their sect, too

was an infidel ( Kafir ); therefore the war between Kufar and Islam soon turned out to

be the civil war between Muslims themselves. The infidel ( Kafir ) Soviet troops did

not kill the Muslims during their presence in Afghanistan as much as the Muslims

killed Muslims there; the scale of devastation of cities and townships at the hands of

Muslims was far higher than what was faced at the hands of the Soviet troops; also

the recent mass destruction and killings resulting from the US bombing is not

comparable to that of the Soviets who had mostly stayed away from the population

centers. What have the Muslims gained out of indulging in a war between the two

super powers? Mass destruction, devastation, killings, and humiliation at the hands of

both the super powers! Both Islam and Muslims were driven to a downtrodden

position.

It is high time we look back and reconsider our conduct and attitude that had led us go

astray in the idealistic imaginary past, far away from the present day living realities,

modern challenges, and what was demanded of in the 21st century. What lies in the

root of this attitude is the concept of history mingled with faith; naming the political

history of despotic regimes of Muslims of medieval period as “Islamic History” or

“The History of Islam” and attaching religious sanctity and holiness to it. Whereas the

history of Europe and Americas is not termed as the “History of Christianity”; the

history of Hindu rulers ( Rajas and Maharajas) of India is not named as the “History

of Hinduism”; the history of Buddhist rulers of India, China, Japan and the Far East is

not called the “History of Buddhism” or “History of Taoism”; similarly the ancient

Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian and Iranian histories are not named after the

respective mythologies. The “History of Church” and the history of Christian rulers of

Europe are treated and written as separate subjects. But why would I quote the

examples of others: why I should not refer straight to the history of Muslims. Let us

pass on to the history books written by the great medieval Muslim historians during

the period of about twelve hundred years running through the era of Muslim empires.

Did they ascribe any of their compilation to the synonym of “Islamic History” or

“History of Islam”? Allama Mohammad Bin Jareer Al-Tabri, a great name among the



historians of early periods and known as Imam-ul Mowarikheen, named his

voluminous compilation as “Tarikh-ul-Ummam- wal-Mulook” meaning “the history

of the nations and the kings”. Though he covered about three hundred years of the

history of only the Muslims yet he did not name it as ‘Islamic History”, given the fact

that he was also the interpreter (Mufassir ) of The Quran and he compiled his

interpretation (Tafsir ) as a separate book. The name he attributed to his history book

indicates that, to his mind, the Muslims were not one nation but comprised of a

number of nations bearing their identity based on their tribe, race or region; similarly

the Muslim kings and emperors were just “the rulers (Mulooks)” identical to the other

rulers of the world belonging to different religions. Another great name, Al-Baladhari,

who compiled all the expansions and conquests of Muslims on the vast lands from

Spain to Sindh during early three centuries, entitled his compilation as “ Futuh-ul-

Buldan” which meant “conquests of the lands”; he did not choose to put it as “ Futuh-

ul-Islam” i.e. the conquests of Islam. Mullah Mohammad Umar Al-Waqidi, a very

prominent name among the renowned early Muslim historians, labeled all his

compilations after the names of the lands conquered or the persoanalities; some of the

names are “ Futuhat-ul-Iraq”, “ Futuhat-ul-Shaam” and “ Kitab-ul-Maghazi-Al-

Nabbawiyyah” etc. His secretary Mohammad Ibn Saad compiled all his works under

the title of “Tabaqat-al-Kabeer ” or “Tabaqat-al-Kubra” which earned the fame later

on as “Tabaqaat Ibn Saad ”. In Arabic, Tabaqaat means classifications or categories;

as Ibn Saad portrayed the historical figures under different categories or classes,

hence the name. Another great historian, Al-Masoodi, titled his famous compilation of

history as “Murooj-ul-Zahab-wal-Muaadin-ul-Jawahir-fi-Tarikh ” meaning “the

meadows of gold, and mines of gems in the history”: what a secular beautiful name.

Another famous historian Ibn Athir compiled his multi volume works on history of

Muslims under a very simple name “ Al-Kamil-fi-Tarikh”, that means “the complete

history”. Abdul Rehman Ibn Khaldoon, a great historian and first know sociologist of

the world, who not only compiled the history but formulated the philosophy of history

in his famous preamble (Muqaddimah) of his compilation, entitled his works as

“Kitab-ul-Iber-wa-Diwan-ul-Mubtada-wal-Khabar-fi-Ayyam-il-Arab-wal-Ajam-wal-

Berber ” which can be translated as “the book of narration and compilation of subjects

and predicates of the periods of Arabs, Ajems (non-Arabs) and Barbarians (north

Africans)”: more down to earth to describe the tribal, racial, and regional nature of the

history of Muslims. Another prominent name is that of Abul Fida Ibn Kathir, famous



not only for his work on history but also for his interpretation (Tafsir) of The Quran;

he named his book on history as “ Al-Bidayya-wal-Nihayya” that is “the beginning and

the end”: a simple secular name. Jalal-ud-Din Al-Siyuti labeled his works as “Tarikh-

ul-Khulafaa”, meaning “the history of Caliphs”, yet did not qualify them as caliphs of

Islam. A famous historiographer of North Africa and Spain, Alllama Al-Maqqari,

entitled his compilation as “ Nafha-ul-Teeb” that is “the breeze of fragrance”: yet a

beautiful secular name. Another rich source of history is Ahmad Ali-Al-Khatib’s

“Tarikh-i-Baghdad ” i.e. “the history of Baghdad”. Similarly a huge source of

information is provided in the multi volume works of Ibn Asaaker who named his

compilation as “Tarikh al-Kabir ” or “Tarikh Damishq al-Kabir ” meaning “a large

history of Damascus”. Another interesting name comes from Ibn-i- Miskweh, who

titled his famous source on history as “Tajaareeb ul-Ummem” meaning “the

experiences of nations”, which speaks of itself how secular his approach was towards

the history. Ibn-i-Khalikaan, an authentic and very rich source on history in general

and literary history in particular, termed his compilation as “Wifiyat-ul-Aaiyyaan”

which means “obituaries of the renowned”. These are just the few names that I have

counted, which are the most authentic sources and enjoy consensus of almost all the

Muslim sects and schools, at least in regard to the history of Muslim rulers of

medieval period. There is a long list of many more sources and compilations of

medieval Muslim historians which bear similar kind of secular or non-religious

nomenclature without qualifying the names with “Islam” or “Islamic”.

In the Subcontinent, the medieval Muslim historians who compiled the history of the

Muslim rulers, the kings, and the emperors, also did not qualify that history to be

“Islamic”. The major source regarding the conquests of Mohammad Bin Qasim in

Sindh, commonly known as “Chach Namah”, was termed by medieval historians as

“ Fatah Namah Sindh”: the name given to it by its Persian translator Ali Koofi. An

important treatise written during Mehmood Ghazanavi’s period was “ Kiatab ul Hind ”

or “the Indica” by Abu Rehan Al-Bairuni; it was a book on the sociology of the

subcontinent. One of the early historians who came from central Asia was Qazi

Minhaj-ud-Din Siraj: he compiled his accounts starting from the Adam and the Eve;

went through all the prophets and the caliphs briefly; covered in detail the times of

Mehmood of Ghazna, Shihab-ud-Din of Ghour and the Slave dynasty; named his

compilation as “Tabaqat-i-Nasiri” i.e. the chronicles after the name of Sultan Nasir-



ud-Din Mehmood, the king in whose times Minhaj compiled his works. That too was

a tradition that the historian would compile his past and contemporary history and

attribute it to the name of his contemporary king or emperor; some important ones

for instance are “Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi”, “Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi”, “Makhzan-i-

Afghani-Tarikh-i-Khan-Jehani”, “Humayon-Nama”, “Tabaqat-i-Akbari”, “Akbar

Namah”, “Iqbal Nama–i-Jehangiri”, “Shahjehan Namah”, and “Maasir-i-

Alamgiri” etc. However even the chronicles which had not been attributed to the

contemporary rulers were not qualified with Islam or Islamic phrases. Mullah Abdul

Qadir Badayuni, who was Qazi of Mughal emperor Akbar and covertly opposed his

liberal policy of total reconciliation (Sulah-i- Kul ); compiled annals from the times of

Mehmood Ghaznavi to the times of Akbar; named his works as “Muntakhib-ut-

Tawareekh” meaning “the selected annals”. Another saga of the glorious Mughal

period is “Muntakhab-ul-Lubab” meaning “the selected quintessence” by Mohammad

Hashim Khafi Khan. Among the last ones, Ghulam Hussain Tabatabai has covered the

period of fall of Mughal Empire in his narration known as “Siyar-ul-Muta’akhireen”,

meaning “the biographies of the later (Mughals)”. Some of the history books bear the

names after the names of the respective compilers e.g. “Tareekh-i-Farishta”,

“Tareekh-i-Maasoomi” etc. None of the medieval Muslim historians of the

subcontinent depicted the period of glory as “the glory of Islam”, nor they attributed

the decline as “the decline of Islam”.

The medieval Muslim historians had a secular approach about their description and

narration of the events, too. They took history as political history and put forth the

conflicts between the ruling classes as a matter of power politics. In their

compilations, they brought out political discords and controversies between the rulers

and the rulers-to-be, the kings and the princes, the governors and the ministers; with

all available details of their political vengeance, palace intrigues, deceit, treachery,

pretence, despotic killings; murders of their political rivals using different and novel

tortuous means of cruelty, brutality, malice and vindictiveness which were assumed as

accepted norms of the prevailing despotic political system of medieval era. They were

straightforward in sketching the moral or immoral character of the ruling elite; their

good points; and what could be termed as bad points including debauchery, sodomy,

drinking, and so many other acts prohibited under Islamic Law (Shariah). Nobody

ever blamed them for character assassination of the apex leadership of “Islam” of the



glorious Muslim period, nor their writings were declared as sacrilegious or anti-Islam.

In fact they put forth, without any reservation, whatever they could dig out from the

annals of the past and what they had observed in their contemporary age. They also

didn’t feel apologetic about narrating those hard facts because what they described of

the despotic rulers’ quest to snatch power and consolidate it, was considered to be the

accepted norm and was consistent with the prevailing morality and politics of the

contemporary despotic era; the world was unaware of any other system of politics,

governance, and morality, than the monarchy, despotism, feudalism and tribalism.

Hence according to the accounts of medieval historians, most of the Ummayyads,

Abbasids, Fatamids. Andalussis, and Ottoman caliphs and their contemporary Muslim

kings and emperors, with few exceptions, indulged in either kind of act or habit that

was prohibited by Shariah; most of them consumed wine, arranged private concerts of

dance and music, staffed their Harams with slave girls and concubines (most of the

Abbasid caliphs were born by the slave girls); some of them practiced sodomy:

however, despite all of the prohibited, illegitimate and illicit acts, the clerics of faith

(Ulama-i-Din) recited the names of those rulers in the holy sermons and considered

allegiance and loyalty to them as mandatory principle of Islam. The rulers would in

turn shower huge sums in the way of stipends, salaries and awards upon them; the

offices of education and judiciary remained with these clerics; thus they were part of

the state structure as a vital tool of the prevailing dynastic despotic monarchical order

of that period. None of those clerics ever declared that monarchical order of

governance was un-Islamic, nor anyone of them ever launched a movement of

promulgation of Islam as “complete code of life”. Apart from their personal moral

delinquencies, those autocratic rulers followed the accepted norms of the prevailing

order of despotism and tyranny to eliminate their rivals through worst kind of

punishments leading to death; killing ruthlessly even the infants who could be the

probable claimant of the crown; sparing not even the pregnant women who could give

birth to a potential rival; large scale massacres, rapine and pillage of towns and cities,

were recognized by all as vital components of customary order of the day. Religion,

faith and even blood relations bore no meanings so far as the quest for power was

concerned. The forces of material interest had always been dominating upon the

abstract ideologies and beliefs, not only in the past but in the present as well. All acts

of tyranny and torture perpetrated to fulfill the quest for power were conventional

according to the despotic political system and morality, current during that era all over



the world irrespective of the religion, nationality, colour, cast or creed of the rulers.

There was no other political or governmental system known to the world till that time.

From the nomenclature adopted by the medieval Muslim historians covering the

Muslim periods in the Arab lands, non-Arab lands ( Ajem), Africa, Spain and India,

and what had been illustrated in their accounts and narratives, we can reasonably

conclude the following:

1- Religion and state were taken for granted as separate entities during the

glorious medieval era of Muslims.

2- During the period of Khialfat-i-Rashidah (orthodox Caliphs), the

prevailing tribal (beduin) Jirga styled political order prevailed, which was

in practice in the tribal society of Arabian peninsula even before the advent

of Islam. There existed no state, as such, in the Arabian peninsula before

Islam. In fact it was a tribal-confederacy, if I put it using Engels thesis of

origins of State. As a result of widespread and rapid victories over the

areas under Roman and Iranian empire during Khialfat-i-Rashidah, there

occurred a transition from tribal Jirga styled political order to prevailing

established monarchy styled state order.

3- After the period of Khialfat-i-Rashidah (orthodox Caliphs), all Muslim

Caliphs, Sultans, kings, and emperors practiced their contemporary

dynastic monarchical system of politics and governance. They never

practiced so called “ Islami Nizam” (Islamic order) that was practiced

during Khialfat-i-Rashidah , and that being a Beduin political system of

tribal confederacy, could not be applied on the areas where monarchy rule

prevailed for the last hundreds of years before Islam.

4- The dynastic monarchical system was the prevailing secular system of

governance of that era all over the world; it was, in fact, in force since

centuries before Islam by the rulers belonging to different religions and

faiths; hence not only the Muslim rulers adopted to that system yet it was

practiced by their contemporary rulers in other lands too. The dynastic

system of monarchy was in force in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Babylon,

Mesopotamia, Assyria, Iran, India, and China for the last about two and a

half millennium before Islam and even after, continued to prevail as the



sole recognized system of governance all over the world for about twelve

centuries i.e. up to the European Industrial Revolution.

5- During the peak of the Muslim glorious period of monarchies, ranging

well over twelve hundred years, a whole host of renowned religious

scholars (Ulema and Aimas) of Fiqh, Hadith and Tafsir , the Judges

(Qadhis) and mystics (Soofia), lived through that era; some of them were

of the stature that almost all Muslims were, and still are, the followers

(Muqallideen) of either of them; yet none of them ever proclaimed the

prevailing dynastic monarchy as un-Islamic, nor they ever launched a

movement of revival of true Islamic political order ( Islami Nizam). That

concludes that they recognized the principle of separation of state and

religion by adhering to the authority of their contemporary secular dynastic

monarchical system.

Having reached these conclusions based on the historiography of medieval Muslim

historians, we find that the medieval tradition of historiography withered away and a

new era of Muslim revivalists emerged during 19th and 20th century in almost all

Muslim societies. However our focus would now remain on the subcontinent. During

the period of Mughal decline, the Muslim ruling classes, devoid of modern sensibility,

got indulged in pleasure seeking delinquencies; whereas a section of Hindus, under

the leadership of persons like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, had already taken to the path of

enlightenment and modern sensibility; the Hindus, after obtaining the position of

comprador of the British colonialist, had started to acquire and assimilate the modern

sciences and fields of knowledge emerging in the West. At the same time Muslim

scholars like Shah Wali Ullah and his son Shah Abdul Aziz, in the name of

reformism, were writing books campaigning against Shia-ism and the traditions of

mysticism being practiced for the last as many centuries in India as the Muslim rule

lasted there. The result was that both Shiite and Sunni Ulemas used the history for

religious arguments and the ties of history with faith were strengthened. A

fundamentalist movement called Wahabi movement emerged as a Jihadi movement

under the leadership of Syed Ahmad Shaheed and Ismail Shaheed, which soon failed

to achieve a lasting goal at military and political fronts, just the way the recent

Taliban movement has failed in Afghanistan. At that time too, the English gave tacit

approval to Syed Ahmed for recruiting the Jihadi squads of Muslim youth from

Bengal and other areas under their control for the sake of destabilizing the Sikh rule in



which could portray the Muslim rulers and invaders angelic and righteous; or they

elevated their characters narrating the events of their bravery and victory achieving

domination upon the non-Muslims, mixed with religious idioms of emotions and

sensations for their zeal and courage; trying to prove that neither booty nor material

gains or expansion was their aim; that their sole objective was establishing the

supremacy of Deen and Islam; and that they accomplished success due to their upright

Islamic character. They highlighted their gallantry and chivalry towards the defeated

non-Muslims: these gallant heroes, in their accounts, never committed any atrocity

against the subjugated populace; no rapine and pillage of the conquered lands was

ever seen happening at their hands; they never looted the subdued population nor

made any slaves of the children and women of the inhabitants of the occupied

territory. Such was never the description recorded by any medievalist historian who

would never paint the rulers and their victories in that parlance nor would characterize

them as Islamic; he would provide all the details of the loot, atrocity, rapine and

pillage at the hands of the victorious armies of Muslim rulers without any note of

apology. He would not need to put a note of apology, as all that he described was

consistent with the prevailing customs and accepted norms of the medieval despotism.

Similar description would have been brought out by him, had the defeated ones were

fellow Muslims and the scale of atrocity and brutality been the same as with non-

Muslims, because the conquered ones were to be treated by the conqueror according

to the same rules of prevailing despotism irrespective of religion or faith of the

subjugated.

What the Islamic revivalists Shibli, Nadvi, Azad and the ilk introduced as the style of

writing “Islamic History”, was further enameled by the Islamic fiction writers: a

series of “Islamic historic romantic novels” were written by the genre of Islamic

novelists like Rais Ahmad Jaafari, Naseem Hijazi and M. Aslam. They mixed

religious lunacy with nostalgia in a manner that a common reader would take the so-

called “Islamic heroes” as religious cults. More so, they penetrated to the heart of a

common reader to deepen the indoctrination to the effect that all what was achieved

by those Islamic heroes was due to their profound depth of religious character, zeal

and fervour, and if the same religious character, zeal and fervour were revived

amongst the Muslims, they could regain their supremacy from Granada to the Red

Fort of Delhi. Our national poet, Allama Iqbal, also gave fillip to the same



indoctrination through some of his poetry; seemingly he also did not study the

original sources of history like Tabari, Ibn-i-Athir, Baladhari and Ibn-i-Khaldun etc.

He also drew his knowledge of history from the writers like Shibli, Nadvi, Abul

Kalam Azad and the ilk; on that basis he integrated the revival of Muslims with the

religious zeal and passion, instead of integrating with modern forces of progress and

enlightenment; he promoted the concept of an orthodox superhuman (Mard-i-Momin)

who could jump upon in the battlefield even without a sword ( Be-Taigh). The central

idea of his poems Shikwah and Jawab-i-Shikwah also points to the same conclusion

that the medieval Muslim was an orthodox superhuman (Mard-i-Momin) whereas the

present- day Muslim has gone far away from the faith and has been blinded with the

glare of Western thoughts. He finds the road to progress through the idealistic

medieval orthodoxy.

S.M. Ikram, a historian of liberal right, puts forth in the preface of his book Rood-i-

Kauthar as follows“…. Let us look at the events and the personalities in their true

perspective whether we may or may not satisfy our national self-adoration. This

principle has been contradicted since the introduction of the style of history writing

originated by Shibli’s Mazameen-i-Aalamgiri . As a matter of fact that was the natural

reaction to the opening of floodgates of misinformation and fallacious propaganda

against the history of Islamic India and the religion of Islam by the Western

institutions of learning. But was that the path of national reformation? Can we, by

adopting that path and having viewed the historical events through a colourful haze,

draw those benefits out of the study of history that are understood to be prolific in this

area of learning? I am certain that this is neither the historian way of looking at things

nor it serves any of our national interests. If our ultimate passion is just to please our

national ego, then, what if you just read the historical romances of M. Asalm and

Nasim Hijazi to fulfill that obligation. Writing and studying history can be productive

only if its rules and conventions are upheld and the principle of “truth is supreme to

obedience” ( Rasti Balaey Ta’at Ast ) is considered supreme….”. The defensive and

apologetic outlook espoused by the Islamic revivalists, as exposed by S. M. Ikram,

puts us behind a “colourful haze”, the term he rightly used for it, and this is the same

colourful haze that gives birth to the religious extremism.



Hindu Muslim contradiction in the subcontinent was also one of the prime causes

behind the nostalgic poetry and historiography of Islamic revivalists. In fact the Hindu

revivalists associated the history of subcontinent with their religion, and assigning

sanctity to their ancient and medieval rulers; painted them as their religious and

national heroes. Muslims too had to counteract in the same coin. But that wave of

idolization of the past did not help to thwart the challenges faced by the Muslims of

the subcontinent. The way out to their grave problems was discovered by the

modernist current initiated by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Syed Amir Ali, and Nawab

Latif, which was steered ahead to its culmination by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The Ali

Gadh movement and other contemporary modernist movements spearheaded to

liberate Muslims from the heavy shackles of nostalgia hanging around their necks and

the stumbling block of dead weight of history-worship tied to heir feet; and integrated

them with the modern forces of current era to let them leap forward to find a bright

future lying ahead. Sir Syed criticized the delinquency of medieval hereditary Muslim

feudal ruling class. Syed Amir Ali compiled the history of glorious period of Muslims

but did not name it as the “Islamic History”; he titled it as “The History of Saracens”.

Similarly Moulana Mohammad Hussain Azad, another lieutenant of Sir Syed, in his

book Darbar-i-Akbari, brought forth the strong rejoinder to the criticism of revivalists

on the golden era of Akbar, and presented the history alienated from the faith.

After the emergence of Pakistan, the Islamic revivalists, however, kept up the same

style of historiography as founded by Shibli, Nadavi and Abulkam Azad i.e. the

history sanctified as part of faith. The novels written under the same tradition by Rais

Ahmad Jafari, M. Aslam and Naseem Hijazi, and the films and dramas on radio, TV

and stage, based on those novels or the scripts of the same theme, got abundant

promotion and popularity under official and unofficial patronage. People started to

believe that that was the actual history; they assimilated it with their religious zeal and

lunacy, and ingrained it deep into their emotional belief and perception as an integral

part of their divine faith. More interestingly, the Islamic revivalists portrayed the

Pakistan movement and the history of establishment of Pakistan as if it was a religious

revivalist movement; whereas the fact was that almost all the religious parties were

the arch opponents of the founding of Pakistan, including Jamiat-ul-Ulmai Hind,

Jamaat-i-Islami, Khaksar Tehrik, All India Momin Conference, All India Shia

Conference, Majlis Ahrar etc. The ruling classes of Pakistan, faced with huge but not

insurmountable internal and external problems including poverty, illiteracy,



backwardness, provincial autonomy, a hostile neighbour and the world imperialism

etc., failed to resolve any of these in the interest of the people; they brought into play

Islam to divert the attention of the people from the core issues to perpetuate and

consolidate their personal rule, mostly acquired illegitimately, thus provided official

patronage to promote the revivalist theory of Pakistan movement as a religious

movement directed, in their opinion, to its sole objective of achieving a laboratory for

Islamic order. Some prominent books brought forward by the official circles included,

but not limited to, The Emergence of Pakistan by Choudhary Mohammad Ali and The

Struggle for Pakistan by Dr. Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi; both the writers held the

positions of minister in the central cabinet, while Ch. Mohammad Ali had risen to the

office of Prime Minister and had been know to have authored the constitution of

1956. Though in those early history books, the religious aspects of the Pakistan

movement were highlighted as dominating the economic and political aspects, yet it

was not portrayed as a movement of religious bigotry or lunacy. Later on Dr. Ishtiaq

Hussain Qureshi, in an attempt to reinforce his so-called “Pakistan Ideology”

( Nazariya-i- Pakistan), wrote another book on the emergence of Islamic civilization

in the subcontinent titled as “The Muslim Community of the Indo Pak Subcontinent ”.

S. M. Ikram, yet another historian of the same genre of liberal right, wrote his trilogy

named Aab-i-Kauthar, Rood-i-Kauthar and Mouj-i-Kauthar , taking account of the

history of the Muslim civilization in the subcontinent as a lake, symbolized by the

metaphor Kauthar , a lake of holy sweet water in the paradise, characterizing it

through three consecutive ages: the initial stage as still water symbolizing the early

Muslim sway; the second stage as a flowing water symbolizing the rise to its zenith

and then the fall of the Muslim power; and the third stage as the tide of Muslim mass

movements leading to the creation of Pakistan. He was a liberal right- leaning

historian of Ayub Khan’s era: yet despite his outlook of taking history as part of

religious phenomenon, he is opposed to the Islamic romantic fiction writings of

Naseem Hijazi and M. Aslam. Another guy of the same genre, Altaf Gohar, the

official ideologue of Ayub’s regime, compiled Twenty Years of Pakistan to mark the

so-called decade of reforms of Ayub Khan’s dictatorial rule; he also presented similar

thoughts in the section relating to Pakistan movement.

On the subject of fall of Dacca and the foundation of Bangladesh, a lot has been

written by the Islamic revivalists, trying to find its root causes in the defiance of



Islamic order and so called Pakistan ideology by the people of Pakistan, and the

intrigues of the Hindus and the Jews. Always posted on important official positions,

Dr. Safdar Mehmood, from the same genre of Islamic revivalist historians, wrote

many books to promote that standpoint. In all his tell tales, what could not find some

place worth mentioning, in the context of main causes of their separation, were the

real political, economic, social and cultural issues faced by the Bengali masses

starting immediately after the foundation of Pakistan and followed by repeated

humiliations at the hands of ruling classes of West Pakistan. A straight and simple

issue of political, economic, and cultural autonomy; looked through the glasses of

religion, faith, and ideology, promoted the religious extremism among the people of

Western part i.e. the present Pakistan.

In the elections of 1970, the only known fairest elections in our political history, the

overwhelming majority of the people of both wings of the then Pakistan, rejected the

rightist and the religious parties; however, the irony turned the table; Bhutto regime,

the product of those elections, was soon hijacked by the Mullahs under the leadership

of his cabinet minister, Kausar Niazi. Since declaring the Ahmadis a minority in 1974,

till knuckling under the pressure of PNA movement by accepting their religious

demands in 1977, that so called people’s regime also digressed from the mandate of

the people by promoting the religious extremism. Though the objectives of the

establishment of the History Commission and the department of Pakistan Studies in

Quaid –i-Azam University were understood to reorient the prevailing outlook by

replacing the obscurantist and revivalist approach towards historiography with the

people’s progressive outlook based on realism, but that could not be achieved due to

the sway soon gained by the feudalism and Mullahism in that regime. Hence, the

hitherto prevailed revivalist tradition of history writing perpetuated and nothing got

changed.

Zia-ul-Haq, in order to consolidate and perpetuate his dictatorial regime in a country

that was founded on the basis of liberal concepts of Muslim Nationalism laid down by

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, employed religious revivalism as

an instrument in its crudest form and to the most dangerous limit of extremism:

consequently, for him, writing “Islamic History” as religious literature was

quintessential to fit his designs. Therefore in his period, what was presented in the

name of history of Muslims, ranging from the level of school curriculum to the level



of digests and fashion magazines, crossed far beyond manifold than what Nasim

Hijazi and M. Aslam had shaped. The fictions in the so-called digests, on the one

hand, promoted superstition, obscurantism, horror, and detective fiction; on the other

hand, portrayed the “Islamic Heroes” as supernatural characters. The readers of such

fictions fell prey to a false romantic religious lunacy and narcissism. During the same

period, the Services Book Club of Armed Forces published Abul Aala Maudoodi’s

commentary Tafheem-ul-Quran: it was supplied in all the libraries of armed forces

and distributed among all the officers. Promotion of Maudoodi’s revivalist and

fundamentalist thoughts was sponsored officially, given though the undeniable fact of

history that Maudoodi was the arch opponent of Pakistan movement. On the other

hand, the Tafseer-i-Ahmadi of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the torchbearer of knowledge

and enlightenment for the Muslims of subcontinent and known as the first founder of

Pakistan movement, was never considered worthy of notice by any official or

unofficial circle. During 60’s, the Majlis-e-Taraqqi-e-Adab Lahore, published the

anthologies of essays and papers of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, but these were never

reprinted during the last 40 years.

Study of history in the curriculum was also introduced as religious literature. The

origins of Pakistan movement was related to Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi (Mujaddid Alf-i-

Thani) who was, in fact, the arch opponent of Akbar’s policy of total reconciliation

which was a policy of accommodating Tooranis, Iranis and Hindus, all of them, in the

power structure that laid down the foundations and erected the edifice of Mughal

Empire in the subcontinent. As a matter of fact, Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi was

representing the vested interest of only one faction of Muslim aristocracy i.e. the

Tooranis who were against giving any share to Iranis and Hindus in the power

hierarchy. Hence Sheikh Ahmad issued religious decree ( Fatawa), proclaiming the

Shiites (the Iranis) as non-believers ( Kafirs). That led to the fact that, by declaring

Sheikh Ahmad Sirhandi as the founder of Pakistan movement, the Islamic revivalists

laid the basis of sectarian hatred in the curriculum of the very foundations of Pakistan

movement. After that, Shah Wali Ullah, Shah Abdul Aziz, Faraidhi Movement and

Wahabi Movement , were portrayed as religious fundamentalist movements, isolated

from the contemporary political, economic, social and cultural factors. That way the

Pakistan movement was associated with the religious fundamentalism. Then a meager

mention of Sir Syed ‘s Aligarh movement; because it carried such a heavy weight that



it could not be ignored; was included as a chapter highlighting only its educational

aspects, yet ignoring its progressive aspects of enlightenment that would have

imparted the students with his and his colleagues’ scientific ideas, liberal thoughts,

and literary values based on nature. The objective of the foundation of Muslim

League in 1906 has also been described, right from the day of its founding, as the

achievement of a separate country for Muslims of the subcontinent, serving as a

laboratory for Islamic System. Khilafat Movenet is also linked to the Pakistan

movement, though Gandhi took over the leadership of that movement and the Quaid-

i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah never took part in any of the activities or meetings of

that movement. The Quaid-i-Azam considered Kamal Ataturk, instead of Ottoman

Khalifah, his hero and recommended his daughter to read Grey Wolf , the biography of

Kamal Ataturk.

The presidential address of Allama Iqbal in the Allahabad session of Muslim League

in 1930 has also been distorted in all the textbooks and history books written by the

revivalists. In fact, in his address, the Allama did not demand for all the Muslims of

the subcontinent, rather he demanded for only the Muslims of the North West of

India, an autonomous state as a province within the federal framework of a united

India with a common center: Bengal was excluded and not mentioned even. His

proposed state in North West India was part of a united defense system of India, as he

described it; and he quoted in that regard the example of common armies of Hindus

and Muslims in the era of Mughal emperor Akbar, fighting jointly shoulder to

shoulder against the invaders from North. Similarly the Lahore Resolution of 1940 is

also distorted and the demand of different federal “states” constituting geographical

units of Muslim majority provinces in North West and North East is never brought

out. The cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 is also sidetracked, though Muslim League

accepted it despite the fact that it was a plan in which the demand for Pakistan was

rejected and a grouping scheme of federating zones was proposed by the British

Cabinet and transfer of power was going to take place under that arrangement. The

Muslim League leadership agreed to stay in the united Indian framework under the

Cabinet Mission Plan and the Quaid-i-Azam struggled hard to get that plan through.

He preferred the proposed zonal scheme compared to partition of India and strived to

convince the British authorities till early 1947 not to abandon that plan, who were

knuckling under the pressure of Indian National Congress to partition and create a

Pakistan that the Quaid had always termed as “moth eaten non viable Pakistan”. And



when it was eventually coming into being, he accepted the Partition Award of June 3,

1947, with a heavy heart, as he never wanted the partition of Bengal and Punjab

envisaged in that award. These undivided provinces, as demanded by the League in

all its resolutions in and after March 1940, either as part of a separate entity or

forming part of a zonal scheme within the united Indian framework, constituted a

sizable number of non-Muslims who would have enjoyed a considerable weight in the

body politic of Pakistan; consequently theocracy would never have been possible in

any form in that country as demanded by the League but was never awarded. None of

the Muslim League resolutions demanded Pakistan as a country meant for the

Muslims of the entire Indian subcontinent nor it was ever demanded as a “laboratory

of the Islamic Order”. The Partition Award of 1947 did not include any provision for

the migration of the Muslims of India towards Pakistan for the sake of their

“ideology”. Quaid-i-Azam strongly opposed any kind of migration across the borders:

he never used the term “ideological state” for Pakistan in any of his speech or writing.

During the last twenty-five years i.e. since the Zia period, a number of generations

have grown up studying the idealist history; every line of which props up

shortsightedness, intolerance, and bigotry. In the wake of the events followed by the

incidents of September 11,2001, the forces of 21st century have opened our eyes to the

harsh reality of the wide gap between our idealist imaginary religious narcissism and

the existent, concrete, real world. If we look forward to determine the path to our

future, then, instead of looking back to an idealistic past, we will have to focus on the

hard realities of our present and the future; we are left with no choice but to give up

running after the hallucinations; fix a concrete goal; get rid of nostalgia and fulfill

what is required of the current forces of modern age.

Following conclusions have been drawn summing up the discussion in this paper that

may help us as the guidelines to straighten our approach of study of history to its

correct direction.

1- The political history of Muslims should be studied as a part of world

history of normal human beings: the ruling classes or the nobility, the

ministers and the caliphs, who had been involved in the warfare and palace

intrigues of power struggle and played all the tactics of prevailing despotic



political system, be treated as human beings the same way as the medieval

Muslim historians always treated them in their accounts.

2- The religion ( Deen) should be understood to be separate from the politics

and government affairs, as the Muslim rulers of medieval period

understood while they practiced their contemporary secular system of

hereditary monarchy without involving in any debate of “Islamic” or “un-

Islamic” about it, and that played instrumental role in their glorious rise.

We should adopt our contemporary secular systems of democratic politics

for governance and liberal moral code for social order, based on the

current forces of modern era.

3- So far as the religious piety is concerned, the number of pious and devout

Muslims that existed during the medieval glorious period, exist almost by

the same ratio even today. The rise or domination of Muslims, or to be

more precise, their success in establishing big empires during medieval

period had nothing to do with their religious piety or devoutness; many of

those empire builders were not so pious. Likewise, their fall or destruction

of their empires had no relationship with their irreligious or unorthodox

attitudes, as many of the rulers during the fall of those empires were good

Muslims too. Neither piety was associated with their glorious past, nor

unorthodoxy or casual attitude towards religion has any relationship with

their existing plight.

4- The political and moral systems of medieval hereditary feudal monarchy

were not drawn from Islam; consequently no attempt should be made to

save those decadent systems in the name of Islam. The European industrial

revolution drastically changed all the medieval values and systems.

Therefore we should not reject the new secular democratic system and

liberal moral values pronouncing as un-Islamic or Western; rather we

should adopt them whole-heartedly as our prevailing contemporary

political and moral systems.

5- The greatest lesson drawn from the scientific study of the period of rise of

Muslims is that the prevailing contemporary order and the current trends

should be recognized as the guiding principles for redemption.

Historiography and Religious Extremism - English

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