Political Islam In The Indian Subcontinent

The Present Volume Aspires To Contribute, In A Modest Way Towards Filling The Lacunae In The Study Of Islamic Movements In The Indian Subcontinent. Its Point Of Focus Is One Particular Movement, The Jammat-I-Islami, Whose History Follows Incisively That Of The Subbcontinent But Whose Influence Spills Over Well Beyond Its Borders. This Comprehensive Analysis Concerns Itself For The Larger Part With The Pakistani Jammaat-I-Islami, The Nerve-Centre Of The Movement.

This Is A Painstakingly Researched And Passionately Written Account Of The Ideas And Movements That Constitute The Indian Muslimæs Experiences Over The Last Two Centuries. Divided Into Five Sections, The Book Analyses The Complex Processes Of Identity Formation, The Politicization Of Islam, And The Demand For A Separate Muslim Nation. Based Upon The Most Reliable And Up To Date Research And Interpretation, This Book Is An Indispensable Reference For Students Of Islam, Modernism, And Civilizational Encounters In General And Indian History And Nationalism In Particular.

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.

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.

Introduction. 1. Nationalist Muslims in British India: the case of Hakim Ajmal Khan/Barbara D. Metcalf. 2. The Mahatma and the older weaver woman/Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. 3. Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian Muslims/Mohibbul Hasan. 4. Gandhi and the Muslim masses/M. Mujeeb. 5. Afghani`s Indian contacts/Aziz Ahmad. 6. Mediating the external: Pan-Islamism and Nationalist renewal/Mushirul Hasan. 7. Pan-Islam and the making of the early Indian Muslim socialist/K.H. Ansari. 8. Traditional rites and contested meanings: sectarian strife in Colonial Lucknow/Mushirul Hasan. 9. The Ahmadiyya Sect/E.W.O. Wace and G. Ahmed. 10. Notes on the Khaksar Movement/P.L. Orde, J.C. Lobb, G. Ahmed and Phillips Talbot. 11. The significance of the Dargah of Hazratbal in the socio-religious and political life of Kashmiri Muslims/Mohammad Ishaq Khan. Index. The author had set out with the intention of presenting before you as complete a picture of Indian Islam -- as it is observed, practiced and interpreted -- as it is possible for any student of social history. In the course of editing these volumes he have expanded and stretched his own understanding of Islam and its many manifestations. He has, also, in the process used and introduced a wide variety of published materials for a more nuanced understanding of history. In this volume, in particular, he seeks to explore the many different traditions within the broad sweep of Islam across the length and breadth of the subcontinent. From Pan-Islamism to Socialism, from an appeal to nationalism to an equally rousing call for Unitarian Islam, from sectarianism to Sufism, this book is an eclectic mix. The next volume in this series, the sixth and last one, shall be on partition and its aftermath. What he hoped to achieve, as the editor of this series, is to present the religious and secular identity of the Muslim communities as reflected in the literatures about them, written by them or on them. The essays included in these volumes will, enrich our understanding of the richness and variety of Islam in the subcontinent. He also hopes that they will generate interest in exploring the many more themes which may not have figured in the volumes.