Islamic Movements In India

This book analyses the emerging trend of Muslim-minority politics in India and illustrates that a fundamental shift has occurred over the last 20 years from an identity-dominated, self-serving and inward-looking approach by Muslim community leaders, Islamic authorities and social activists that seeks to protect Islamic law and culture, towards an inclusive debate centred on socio-economic marginalisation and minority empowerment. The book focuses on Muslim activists, and members and affiliates of the Popular Front of India (PFI), a growing Muslim-minority and youth movement. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork undertaken since 2011, the author analyses recent literature on Muslim citizenship politics and the growing involvement of Islamist organisations and movements in the democratic process and electoral politics to demonstrate that religious groups play a role in politics, development, and policy making, which is often ignored within political theory. The book suggests that further scrutiny is needed of the assumption that Muslim politics and Islamic movements are incompatible with the democratic political framework of the modern nation state in India and elsewhere. Contributing to a more nuanced understanding of how Islamic movements utilise various spiritual, organisational and material resources and strategies for collective action, community development and democratic engagement, the book will be of interest to academics in the field of political Islam, South Asian studies, sociology of religion and development studies.

"The Political Transition From Rule By The Mulsim Mughal Dynasty To British Colonial Rule Led To A Basic Religious Reorientation Among Indian Muslims. At This Time Of Transformation In The Early Nineteenth Century, A Key Muslim Movement Called The Tariqah-I-Muhammadiyah Or Muhammadi Movement, Also Referred To As The Mujahidin Or Indian Wahabi Movement, Gathered Force In Northwest India. Although The Muhammadi Reformers Gained Recognition By Waging A Jihad (Holy War), A Much Familiar And Feared Word Today, The Jihad Was Only One Manifestation Of A Fundamental Change In Religious Thought And Organization. Using Muhammadi Sources As Well As The Contemporary Accounts Of The Movement By Muslim And British Observers, This Incisive Study Makes An Important Comment On The Historical Interaction Of Social And Religious Forces In The Nineteenth Century In The Indian Subcontinent. While Basing Itself On A Sufi World-View, Organization And Concepts Inspired By The Intellectual System Of The Eighteenth-Century Theologian, Shah Wali Allah, The Tariqah-I Muhammadiyah Put Forth A Reformist Program Attacking The Prevalent Practices At The Tombs Of Saints And Mystics, And Belief In Any Mediation Between Man And God. Widespread Muhammadi Preaching And Religious Literature In The Popular Urdu Language Presented The Divine Law To All Classes Of Indian Muslims For The First Time. The Muhammadi Were Also Among The First Mulsims Anywhere To Use The Printing Press To Spread Their Fundamentalist Message. In Proclaiming Religious Purification And Revival As Well As Holy War To The Indian Masses During A Time Of Rapid Historical Change, The Muhammadi Reformers Helped To Shape A New Individual And Communal Identity And Also Initiated A Process Of Islamic Reform In India. Pearson’S Major Contribution In This Important Volume Is To Show How The Intellectual History Associated With Shah Wali Allah Was Transformed In The Nineteenth Century To An Activist, Organized ‘Mass Movement’ That Drew Upon Techniques And Technologies, Notably Printing And Popular Preaching, Introduced To India By British Officials And Christian Missionaries."

This book deals with the Khilafat movement (1918-1924) in British India, which aimed at mobilizing pan-Islam for saving Ottoman Turkey from dismemberment and securing political reforms for India. It also examines the gradual transition of Muslim politics from pan-Islam to territorial nationalism.

Home to the largest Muslim minorities in Western Europe and Asia, France and India are both grappling with crises of secularism. In Politicizing Islam, Fareen Parvez offers an in-depth look at how Muslims have responded to these crises, focusing on Islamic revival movements in the French city of Lyon and the Indian city of Hyderabad. Presenting a novel comparative view of middle-class and poor Muslims in both cities, Parvez illuminates how Muslims from every social class are denigrated but struggle in different ways to improve their lives and make claims on the state. In Hyderabad's slums, Muslims have created vibrant political communities, while in Lyon's banlieues they have retreated into the private sphere. Politicizing Islam elegantly explains how these divergent reactions originated in India's flexible secularism and France's militant secularism and in specific patterns of Muslim class relations in both cities. This fine-grained ethnography pushes beyond stereotypes and has consequences for burning public debates over Islam, feminism, and secular democracy.

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is the most influential Islamist organization in India today. Founded in 1941 by Syed Abul Ala Maududi with the aim of spreading Islamic values in the subcontinent, Jamaat and its young offshoot, the Student Islamic Movement of India or SIMI, have been watched closely by Indian security services since September 11. In particular, SIMI has been accused of being behind terrorist bombings. This book is the first in-depth examination of India's Jamaat-e-Islami and SIMI, exploring political Islam's complex relationship with democracy and providing a rare window into the Islamist trajectory in a Muslim-minority context. Irfan Ahmad conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork at a school in the town of Aligarh, among student activists at Aligarh Muslim University, at a madrasa in Azamgarh, and during Jamaat's participation in elections in 2002. He deftly traces Jamaat's changing position in relation to India's secular democracy and the group's gradual ideological shift toward religious pluralism and tolerance. Ahmad demonstrates how the rise of militant Hindu nationalism since the 1980s--evident in the destruction of the Babri mosque and widespread violence against Muslims--led to SIMI's radicalization, its rejection of pluralism, and its call for jihad. Islamism and Democracy in India argues that when secular democracy is responsive to the traditions and aspirations of its Muslim citizens, Muslims in turn embrace pluralism and democracy. But when democracy becomes majoritarian and exclusionary, Muslims turn radical.

The Khilafat Movement Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India

Da‘wa, a concept rooted in the scriptural and classical tradition of Islam, has been dramatically re-appropriated in modern times across the Muslim world. Championed by a variety of actors in diverse contexts, da‘wa –"inviting" to Islam, or Islamic missionary activity – has become central to the vocabulary of contemporary Islamic activism. Da‘wa and Other Religions explores the modern resurgence of da‘wa through the lens of inter-religious relations and within the two horizons of Islamic history and modernity. Part I provides an account of da‘wa from the Qur’an to the present. It demonstrates the close relationship that has existed between da‘wa and inter-religious relations throughout Islamic history and sheds light on the diversity of da‘wa over time. The book also argues that Muslim communities in colonial and post-colonial India shed light on these themes with particular clarity. Part II, therefore, analyzes and juxtaposes two prominent da‘wa organizations to emerge from the Indian subcontinent in the past century: the Tablīghī Jamā‘at and the Islamic Research Foundation of Zakir Naik. By investigating the formative histories and inter-religious discourses of these movements, Part II elucidates the influential roles Indian Muslims have played in modern da‘wa. This book makes important contributions to the study of da‘wa in general and to the study of the Tablīghī Jamā‘at, one of the world’s largest da‘wa movements. It also provides the first major scholarly study of Zakir Naik and the Islamic Research Foundation. Further, it challenges common assumptions and enriches our understanding of modern Islam. It will have a broad appeal for students and scholars of Islamic Studies, Indian religious history and anyone interested in da‘wa and inter-religious relations throughout Islamic history.