Today is our topic of discussion AHL I HADITH .
Ahl i hadith
Contrary to the syncretic trend so strongly embedded in the socio- religious milieu of the Bengali Muslims, was the parallel existence of a fundamentalist reform movement known as the Ahl-i-Hadith.
The revivalist movement in Islam inititated by Shah Waliullah (1703-1762) and Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (1786-1831) was carried into Bengal in various forms, The Ahl-i-Hadith movement, also known as the Tariqah-i- Muhammadilya, aimed to establish the pristine quality of Islam by adhering strictly to the Quran and the Hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad).
Although the movement was activitist in the nineteenth century it took a quietist approach by the early twentieth century 2 The Ahl-4-Hadith movement denied interpretations of the four schools of Sunni Islam – the Hanafi, Shaff’i, Hanbali and Malik and maintained that interpretation of the Hadith and the Quran should be precise and should include no qiyas (analolgy or symbolic interpretation).
The Ahl-i-Hadith opposed practices like visiting mazars or dargahs (shrines), prohibited urs (feast at the memory of the dead), qawwalli (religious songs at gatherings with music and rhytmic claps), manat (sacrificing animals and wealth at tombs of saints), milad (praising Prophet Muhammad at religious gatherings) and similar such practices which are considered extra-Shariah (rules set in the Quran and the Hadith).
The process of Islamization if Bengal was carried out by the Ahl-l-Hadith movement through it’s attempt to reform Islam.4 It has been maintained by Hunter, Hardy, Tarafdar, Mallick and other scholars that Islam in Bengal never existed in it’s pure form.5.
A synthesis of Islamic mysticism with the indigenous cultural and religious practices had taken place in Bengali Islam since the end of twelfth century. Since a large number of indigneous population had been converted to Islam, a variety of local beliefs, rituals and religious practices were enrooted in Bengali Muslim life.
Influence of Suff’ism also introduced extra-Shariah practices in Islam Although saint-worship is prohibited in Islam, it became popular among the Bengali Muslims. Polytheistic practices had become widely prevalent among them by the nineteenth century. It was then that the revivalist movements took place in Bengal as in various other provinces of India.
Terms like “semi-conversion” and “incomplete conversion” have been used to indicate this phenomenon of deviation from the austere form of Islam among the Muslims in Bengal 6 It was in the Eastern, South-Eastern and Northern Bengal that vast majority of the inhabitants were converted Muslims and mostly rural peasantry Alongside of the low-caste Hindus like the Pods, Mahishyas and Namashudras this rural Muslim peasantry represented an indigenous culture which was syncretic in nature.
One can see the obvious reason why later these areas became strongholds of Ahi-i-Hadith in Bengal 9 The Ahl-i-Hadith is a fundamentalist sect which advocate strict following of the Shariah (the rules of the Quran and the Hadith) and denounce all intermediaries between man and God.
They strongly reject any element of the so-called “Little Tradition”, 10 like the veneration of Pirs (saints) and other indigenous practices mentioned earlier which were considered pantheistic. The Ahl-i-Hadith movement attempted to absorb into the orthodox Islamic tradition the Muslim community which, it believed, had degenerated through non-Muslim practices.
Jihad (religious war) against indigenous practices in Islam had started in India by the early nineteenth century. In Bengal attempts were made by Enayet Ali (1794- 1858) who preached Ahl-i-Hadith in Dhaka, Faridpur, Pabna, Rajshahi, Maldah and Bogra and by Keramat Ali (1800-1872) who travelled through Chittagong, Noakhali, Dhaka, Mymensingh, Faridpur and Barisal and preached the principles of Ahl-i-Hadith.
Leaders and followers of the Ahl-i-Hadith were subjects of suspicion after the 1857 Mutiny and the Wahhabi Trials (1863-1870). They felt discredited when the term wahhabi was used to refer to the followers of Ahl-i-Hadith.
12 Although the Ahl-i-Hadith followers participated in jihad (religious war) against Ithe British and the Sikhs in nineteenth century, they began to claim by the 1870’s that their movement was not influenced by the wahhabi movement of Arabia launched by the Ibn Abdul Wahab of Najd (1703-1792) and they hated to be called Wahhabis.13 They pointed out that although both the movements were fundamentalist in character they differed on the matter of taqlid (blind imitation of madhab, i.e.
the legal schools of Islam). Those who rejected taqlid called themselves Ahl-i-Hadith because they believed in the sayings of Prophet Muhammad and, therefore, they also called themselves Muhammadis or the followers of the Tariqah-i Muahamma- diyah (the ways of Prophet Muhammad), 14 In 1889 the word wahhabi was dropped from all official correspondences throughout India, 15
The popular leaders of the Ahl-i-Hadith movement in Bengal in the first half of the present century were Maulana Abd-al-Samad (1873-1948), Maulana Abdullah-el Baqi (1886-1952), Moulana Abdullah-el Kafi (1900- 1960), Moulana Mohammad Akram Khan (1868-1968) and Moulana Mohammad Husain (1891-1975), known popularly as Moulana Basudebpuri 16 Both Moulana Basudebpuri and Moulana Abd-al-Samad preached in Rajshahi,
17 Other prominent centres of Ahl-i-Hadith were Kumarkhali in Kushtia, Dhanikhola in Mymensingh, Sapura in Rajshahi, Sondabari in Bogra, Gopalpur in Tangail, Jagarpur in Comilla, Bangshal in Dhaka, Patharghata in Khulna and Hahimpur in Jessore,
18 In the first quarter of the present century Ahl-i-Hadith Samities (centres) were formed in various parts of Bengal drawing in the Bengali speaking Muslims, 19 Moulana Abdullah-el Kafi took the initiative in forming such Samities,20 The Bogra district Ahl-i-Hadith Samiti was formed in 1920.
Newspapers were also published to preach Ahl-i-Hadith principles and at the same time to discredit the Hanafi sect with which it had the greatest conflict on matters of ijma (consensus of the ulama). The monthly Ahl-i-Hadith,22 the Mohammadi,23 the Tarjumanul Hadith 24 progressive and modernist ideas that were being accepted by the educated Bengali Muslim youths since the early decades of the present century.
Besides preaching the basic principles of religious fundamentalism and strict adherance to the rules set in the Quran and the Hadith these journals spoke strongly against the acceptance of English education and western ways of life by the Muslim youths in Bengal and also opposed female education and the discarding of the purdah (veil) by Muslim women in Bengal. The earlier issues of the Ahl-i-Hadith criticized even Mohammad Akram Khan, who was himself a follower of Ahl-l-Hadith for his association with the non-Muslims.27
The journal also criticized Moniruzzaman Islamabadi (1875-1950) for writing against riba (prohibition on making profit from money) for supporting the education of women and for insisting on rational analysis of religion.28 The Ahl-i- Hadith called Islamabadi an “English elducated Maulana” (religious scholar) and an “enemy of the Mohammadi sect.
“29 Both Mohammad Akram Khan and Moniruzzaman Islamabadi were considered la-mazhabi or pro-taqlid (those who believed in the four schools of Sunni sect in Islam) and “libertines” 30 The Ahl-i-Hadith began to preach that putting on European dress like shirts, trousers and coat and shaving beards off were anti-Islam and, therefore, sinful.
On the question of cow-slaughter which was a subject of heated controversy between the Hindus and the Muslims and the major cause of communal riots, the Ahl-i-Hadith argued that God’s creation was eternal and ceaseless and even if Muslims killed thousands of cows a day there would never be scarcity, arguing strongly that cow- slaughter should continue 31
From the 1920’s onwards the Ahl-i-Hadith and the Mohammadi directed their criticisms against the progressive movement of the Muslim Literary Society (The Muslim Sahitya Shamaj) founded in 1926 against the Hanafi sect and against communism. The movement for emancipation of intellect or the Budhir Mukti Andolon of the Muslim Literary Society was strongly disapproved of by the Ahl-i-Hadith sect.
The “emancipation of the intellect” movement, led by a group of young educated Muslims of Dhaka in Eastern Bengal expressed their views on rational interpretation of religion, on social reforms as opposed to the orthodox views of the mullahs and maulanas. They brought out the Sikha magazine and made it the mouthpiece of their rational and liberal ideas. Those youths began to adopt western style in dress and encourage their wives and sisters to learn Bengali and English and give up purdah.
Previously, even in the first decade of the present century, Muslim women in Bengal learnt Arabic and that too, only to But read the Quran without even understanding it’s meaning they even took their sisters and wives out to social gatherings and encouraged them to participate in music, song and drama.
This trend continued well into the 1940’s. The weekly Ahl-i-Hadith wrote in 1928 that a group of young men in Bengal had been trying to trample down the traditional customs and beliefs of the Muslims and had been promoting irreligious and indecent practices in the society. It wrote,
“although such disregard of traditional values by youths is more or less common in every society, the effect of such degeneration is unfortunately the deadliest in the Bengali Muslim society…… The second instance of their irreligiosity is their preachings against the use of purdah by women and the third instance is their view that riba is impractical and giving it up would help economic development whereas making profit from money is prohibited in Islam. “
The Ahl-I-Hadith also wrote against the Saogat.34 The journal praised female education and the pursuit of music and dance by the younger generation of Bengali Muslims. The Saogat supported emancipation of women and strongly opposed purdah (the practice of using veil) by Muslim women. As a mark of protest against purdah the Saogat printed pictures of Bengali Muslim ladies who made distinction in the society in learning and in literary pursuits.
The orthodox Muslims considered the practice of music, dance and painting of portraits and even printing pictures of ladies, prohibited in Islam. The Ahl-i-Hadith wrote that Saogat’s support for such un-Islamic activities would lead the Muslim youths in Bengal to The Mohammadi preached Ahl-i-Hadith doctrine and most of its criticism was against the Hanafi school of thought.
The Hanafi school recognises analogical deduction and consensus of the ulama. It was a moderate school founded by Abu Hanifa (d. 767 A.D.) who drew upon the Quran, the Hadith (prophetic traditions), ijma (consensus of the ulama) and qiyas (some form of analogical reasoning).
Whereas, the Ahl-i-Hadith rejected ijma and wanted total enforcement of the Quran and the Hadith. Both Barbara D. Metcalf and M. Mujeeb have pointed out how the Ahl-i- Hadith followers hated the Hanafis more than they hated the British or the Sikhs or any other school of Islamic jurisprudence. 37 The Ahl-i-Hadith called a Hanafi, Kaflr (sinner) and felt it legitimate to kill a Hanafl .
The Mohammadi directed it’s attack on the Hanafi Muslims and was particularly critical of the Saogat and the Sikha which expressed progressive ideas,39
In the 1920’s and the 1930’s when the Sikha movement took place in Dhaka, a group of progressive Muslim youths began to fight against orthodoxy.
The Ahl-i-Hadith movement also became active and critical against them. At the same time the journal expressed fear of the spread of communism taking place in Bengal in the late 1930’s. Although very few Bengali Muslim youths were actually influenced by ideas of socialism compared to the Bengali Hindu youths, the Ahl-i-Hadith sect feared that communism was atheistic and the Muslim youths were getting irreligious because of its influence.
The Ahl-i-Hadith quite alarmingly expressed it’s complete negation of communism and preached strict belief on the Quran and the Hadith with an almost missionary zeal. The Ahl-i-Hadith wrote.
“…… if to-day Muslims would have been true followers of Islam and followed the instructions of the holy Quran, the world would have been a happier and peaceful abode. Bolshevism, Socialism and other such false “isms” would have been exitinet,
Those who spoke for social equality and humanism were chastised by the conservative section of the Muslim community which also included the Ahl- i-Hadith followers in Bengal. Kazi Nazrul Islam also was severely criticized because his poems contained references to Hindu dieties and Hindu mythology.
He was denounced as an atheist and his works were considered as shirk (un-Islamic) during his time and even later 41 Secular views, opposition to the established power of the mullahs, economic development and call for social equality were viewed together as signs of socialism by the Ahl-i-Hadith sect 42 Abdullah-el Kafi remarked that those who believed in socialism and secularism were nothing better than Kafirs (infields).
To him their philosophy was misleading since they had swayed away from the path of the Quran and the Hadith,43 The Ahl-i-Hadith and the Mohammadi particularly, which preached Ahl-i-Hadith principles criticized the Hanafi sect. The Hanafls, most moderate in their approach to the interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith faced hatred and rivalry from the Ahl-i-Hadith followers. To counter their attacks, the Hanafis also brought out journals like the Moslem Hitoishi44 and the Hanafi.45
The Mohammadi and the Hanafl controversy over petty issues reflected the extent of rivalry between the two sects 46 The Mohammadis or the Ahl-i-Hadith followers believed that their enemies were neither Christians nor Jews but the Hanafis. The British Government had accused the Ahl-i-Hadith followers for participating in the great uprising of 1857 and had held trials between 1863 and 1870.
The Ahl- i-Hadith had repeatedly expressed that their greatest enemies were not the British but the Sikhs. But, in reality, the Ahl-i-Hadith considered the Hanafis their real enemies 47 At least that was the case in Bengal. The question of rivalry with the Sikhs in Bengal did not arise obviously because of their relative absence in the province.
Muslims in Bengal are mainly of Sunni sect and among them the Hanafis are the largest in number. The Ahl-l-Hadith or the Mohammadis as they preferred to call themselves. directed their rivalry to the Hanafis who practised a moderate form of Islam which included syncretic elements The Ahl-i-Hadith movement created great impact in the rurul areas of Bengal.
The preachings of the Ahl-i-Hadith leaders was confined to the villages. Bahas (religious debates) were held frequently which greatly contributed to the attempt of Islamization by the religious reformists 48 Public debates were held between the Ahl-i-Hadith mullahs and the mullahs of other religious sects. Face to face debates were held in large gatherings between mullahs of rival groups. The rural people, peasants and illiterate, attended these bahas.
The holding of bahas increased religious activity in rural Bengal but did not, however, indicate that Islamization was going on in full swing. On the contrary, religious confrontation increased which confused the illiterate rural masses.49 They continued to depend on their local mullahs instead of being converted to the reformed Islam preached by the Ahl-i-Hadith leaders.
The Ahl-i-Hadith leaders in northern India, like in Delhi and in the United Provinces, came from the educated and the well-born 50 In Bengal too, most of the leaders were educated, like Abdullah-el Baki, Abdullah-el Kafi and Mohammad Akram Khan. Unlike the contemporary political leaders who seldom spoke in Bengali these leaders travelled through rural areas of Bengal and delivered speeches in Bengali, the only medium of communication with the rural people.
This was an important reason behind the increased activity of Ahl-i-Hadith in rural Bengal. Bahas took place in the villages. It was in rural Bengal that Muslims practised folk and indigenous customs and rituals, which meant that Hindu influence was strong among them. Syncretic elements were present in abundance since most Muslims in Bengal were originally converted from Hinduism.
Manat, visiting mazars, attending pujas (religious festivals of the Hindus) or melas (fairs arranged during pujas) were common practices among village Muslims. The Ahl-i-Hadith considered these as shirk (polytheistic). Bahas usually took place in heated and agressive atmosphere where two opposing groups believed fanatically in their own practices. The Ahl-i- Hadith bahas were organized against the Hanafls in most cases.
The debates were mostly over small issues like whether amen should be said aloud or hands to be folded above the navel or crossed over the stomach while praying, or whether janaza (prayer during the burial of a dead Muslim) should be performed standing at the head or at the shoulder of the dead body or whether janaza could be performed twice over the same body.
Violence at bahas was a common feature in the villages of Bengal. The bahas contributed to creating dissension in the villages between the Mohammadi and the Hanafi sects .
In the 1930’s and the 1940’s and later. two Ahl-i-Hadith leaders contributed greatly to the movement. Two brothers, Maulana Abdullah-el Baqi (1886-1952) and Maulana Abdullah-el Kafi (1900-1960) were educated leaders, who knew English well and made Ahl-i-Hadith popular in Bengal. These leaders were involved both in religious and political movements. Abdullah-el Baqi was a member of the Indian National Congress in his early years of political carreer.
Later, in the mid -1940’s he joined the Muslim League. So did Abdullah-el Kafi, who in the 1940’s advised the Muslims to stay away from the Congress and agreed that Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) followed a correct decision by being anti- Congress because Congress was a bourgeois party and was completely against the interest of the Muslims 51 Politically, the Ahl-i-Hadith movement was anti-Congress, anti-British and anti-Sikh.
Abdullah-el Kafi believed that politics had a close relation with the Ahl-i-Hadith movement and it was called a movement because the Ahl-i-Hadith had a clear and precise political programme which was not only to achieve political independence through religious inspiration or to assure food, clothing and employment or to get stronger by exploiting other political parties but also to establish the orders of God by obstructing the influence of kufr (the sinful) 52 He preached that Muslims should stand against all kinds of ideas, laws, theories, formulae, programmes and isms which were against the Quran and the Hadith and the followers of the Ahl-i-Hadith must protect Islam from all kinds of influences from Hinduism.
The weekly Arafat, founded by Abdullah-el Kafi attempted to rationalize the Ahl-i-Hadith faith. It attempted to give explanation to its beliefs by giving logical arguments and citings from the Quran and the Hadith It wrote that saintship was non-existent in Islam and, therefore, it was un-Islamic to treat Prophet Muhammad as a saint. Milad, which expressed veneration of the Prophet was, therefore, considered un-Islamic.
It maintained that Prophet Muhammad was a human being and none could be permitted to treat him as a saint 54 The Arafat also attempted to establish that the Quran and the Sunnah had all the elements essential to maintain a balance of all situations and, therefore, needed no change or revision 55 It said that the Ahl-i-Hadith was a movement which attempted to bring all Muslims who had moved away from the path of Islam together to the fold of the Quran and the Hadith.
To them, practice of local rituals and indigenous beliefs was unacceptable 57 The Arafat expressed that the Ahl- i-Hadith movement upheld freedom of the intellect but not without reasoning.
This, in fact, did not indicate a democratic principle because no interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith was allowed. Here lies the contradiction that on the one hand, it declared that it would accept no interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith without reasoning, while on the other, it completely discarded any reasoning or interpretation.
The Ahl-1-Hadith movement made an impact among a section of the educated Muslim youths in urban Bengal who opposed modernism in actual practice. Those who disliked female education and hated to see Muslim women out of purdah and detested western style of life which was being followed by fellow Muslim youths, were attracted to the preachings of the Ahl-i-Hadith.
By the 1930’s idea of communism was beginning to spread among youths in Bengal. This phenomenon was countered by the conservative section of the educated Muslim youths. These conservative youths to whom being secular was similar to being an atheist, supported communalism. In Bengal, as one section of educated Muslim youths had been accepting progressive and liberal ideas, another section became increasingly dogmatic in their orthodox views.
It is interesting to note that even some western educated Muslim youths turned to orthodoxy and opposed the introduction of liberal and rational views in the Bengali Muslim society. This was a marked phenomenon in the first few decades of the present century.
See more: