The maulvi, however, sees a potential flaw in Thanvi’s reasoning. Is Thanvi not conflating what is mansus, textually authenticated, with what is transmitted from the salaf? If we wish to model our actions on the first generation of Muslims, the maulvi proposes, should we not consider the Battle of the Trench, in which the Prophet took Salman Farsi’s advice in adopting the distinctively Persian practice of digging a trench to protect Medina from the Meccan armies? If the Prophet himself would countenance this sort of borrowing from other “nations,” then surely we are on firm ground in adapting the “Hindu” practice of passive resistance and noncooperation?86 Thanvi is quick in his reply: the Prophet Muhammad adopted the Persians’ method because, at that time, the very notion of a clear textual proof (nass) did not yet exist.87 Thanvi then asks the maulvi how it is, if he wants to invoke the pious predecessors, that neither the Sahaba, nor indeed any Muslims since the advent of Islam, came up with the idea of a hunger strike? “Why, in thirteen hundred years, with similar conditions of oppression, in the whole Ummah, did no one come up with this?” Thanvi pleads.
Thanvi then brings his argument full circle: it is only because they have no strength (qudrat) that they must rely on such unsubstantiated methods. He states, “These bands [of Muslims] will be taken to jail and beaten, where they will go on hunger strikes, which is tantamount to suicide. . . . If suicide has some effect on the unbelievers [kuffar], will suicide then become permissible?” True qudrat, rather, means acting such that one knows there will be “certain harm to one’s enemies, and no certain harm to oneself.” The Kashmir case was, instead, an inversion of true qudrat: these bands of Muslims would certainly be harmed themselves, and would do so with no certainty of harming their antagonists.88
The maulvi seems to understand he is not going to best Thanvi on the level of legal reasoning. Instead, he proposes a series of arguments based on necessity and utility. “We don’t have complete qudrat, but how should we use what [power] we do have? We should do something,” he urges. But Thanvi shows no interest in an argument from utility. Whether or not hunger strikes and mass protests are “useful” is ultimately irrelevant. At this point, Thanvi raises the oft-abused legal concept of maslaha—social good. As the maulvi puts it, “If we are successful without fighting, then from a Shari‘a perspective, what’s the harm?” But here, too, Thanvi states, “Social goods [masalih] cannot be given precedence over the Shari‘a. This is my natural inclination. I cannot compromise in this.” He then goes on to condemn what he calls “maslaha worship” (masalih parasti).89 In short, means are as important as ends. A popular struggle, however well intentioned, and however much it invokes the mantle of struggle (jihad) authorized by Islamic tradition, can legitimate itself only through textual sources and only within the parameters of legitimate ijtihad, and even then, it requires a legally legitimate leader (amir) to wage that struggle.90
If Islamic law defines the conditions for political action for Thanvi, Sufism defines its ethical parameters. Not only must jihad be completely within the scope of legal norms; it depends first and foremost on “purifying” oneself ethically (tazkiyat al-akhlaq).91 It is, in essence, a purification of intention and desire, a means of aligning political means with ethical ends. It is, in turn, predicated on the sincerity of intention or purpose (ikhlas). Virtually no one in this age, Thanvi submits, has the sincerity of motives for engagement in the sphere of politics. Muhammad Taqi ‘Usmani memorably describes politics as a “briar patch” (kharzar), a realm in which one becomes, literally and figuratively, entangled.92 “It is possible,” ‘Usmani says, “that when someone engaging in a struggle acts solely through pure ethics and godliness for the exaltation of the true din and with the intention of attaining the pleasure of God, and not with the intention of attaining glory for himself, and follows the Shari‘a in every aspect, yet even then, politics is such a thicket that the fitna of fame and glory emerges step by step.”93
‘Usmani’s commentary reiterates two essential points: first, for Thanvi, politics is always a means, and never an end in itself; second, the only legitimate end is the din. ‘Usmani also stresses the unseen contingencies of politics, particularly mass politics without any grounding in legal normativity. Thanvi ultimately sees the political as a space of dubious motives and insincere intentions, a space where worldliness (dunya) prevails over religion (din), one where—at least outside of a legitimate Islamic polity—there is little, if any, Shari‘a justification for Muslims’ involvement in anticolonial politics, let alone that of non-Muslims.
But there remains one important clarification to make before turning back to South Africa. Toward the end of his life, Thanvi tempered the broad rejection of Muslim participation in Indian politics that had defined his earlier thinking. By 1937–1938, Thanvi began to offer cautious support for the Muslim League, which had been courting him. But, as Megan Robb has recently shown, Thanvi’s support for the league was contingent on its implementing certain reforms. The league needed to become more thoroughly pious and observant, insisted Thanvi, and it needed to establish a consultative assembly (majlis-i shura) of ‘ulama to advise it going forward. The league claimed victory in winning the support of one of the most important ‘ulama but did little to adopt his recommendations.94 Still, after Thanvi’s death, his disciple Shabbir Ahmad ‘Usmani (whom we encountered at the end of chapter 2) gave full-throated support to the league in the lead up to the critical 1945–1946 elections, vouching for its “Islamic” credentials. ‘Usmani went on to establish the Jami‘at al-‘Ulama-yi Islam in 1945, rejecting Madani’s “composite nationalism” once and for all.95
Would Thanvi have supported Pakistan had he lived to see it? It is impossible to say, though many calling for a Muslim homeland in South Asia certainly claimed his imprimatur. The possibility of a Muslim state and society, governed by Islamic law and with the input of the ‘ulama, would have undoubtedly been tantalizing to him. As Venkat Dhulipala details, in his final years Thanvi remained adamant that the ‘ulama had no place in active politics but also began to endorse a tacit division of labor in which politicians (only pious Muslim politicians, of course) would do the everyday governing of a state while the ‘ulama would advise on the Shari‘a permissibility of law and policy.96
THE MAJLIS AND ITS DETRACTORS
But South Africa was not, and never would be, a Pakistan. Locating himself directly in Thanvi’s lineage, Ahmed Sadiq Desai rearticulated almost all of Thanvi’s political perspectives from the 1920s and early ’30s in The Majlis, a monthly paper that has been published by the Majlisul Ulama of South Africa since 1976. The Majlisul Ulama itself was founded in Port Elizabeth in 1970.97 Ahmed Sadiq Desai, a Sufi disciple and successor (khalifa) of Thanvi’s khalifa Masihullah Khan, has been the principal writer for The Majlis since its inception. The tone of The Majlis is as important as its content. Much of this publication rehashes Thanvi’s arguments in a highly terse, simplified form, often recapitulating serial lists of Deobandi critiques without the legal reasoning that underpins them, and in a tone that can be best described as acrid.
How Thanvi’s views traveled to South Africa by way Masihullah Khan is important. Muhammad Masihullah Khan was born in 1910 at Bariah, near Aligarh, India.98 Thanvi considered him one of his closest disciples. He became Thanvi’s disciple while studying at Deoband. Thanvi introduced Masihullah Khan to Muhammad Ilyas, instigating Khan’s involvement in the Tablighi Jama‘at. In 1937, Thanvi directed Masihullah to go to Jalalabad and establish a madrasa there, called Miftah al-‘Ulum. Thanvi, in fact, laid the foundation stone for the madrasa, acting as its spiritual patron.99 Masihullah saw his work as merely an elaboration upon Thanvi’s; he prescribed a reading list for his own disciples, consisting largely of Thanvi’s key works.100
Masihullah’s connections with South Africa were deep. South African students at the madrasa Miftah al-‘Ulum, of whom there were many, were numerous enough to have their own separate dormitory and even collected funds to expand the sitting area where Masih
ullah would deliver his popular majalis (assemblies).101 Masihullah Khan traveled to South Africa five times over the span of thirteen years, making his first trip in 1970 and his final trip in 1983.102 His followers have driven Deobandi Sufism’s global reach, establishing themselves in South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere.103
Drawing on Thanvi by way of Masihullah Khan, Ahmed Sadiq Desai has advanced a number of critiques of Sufi devotions and politics. First, and perhaps foremost, Desai sees South Africa as a place where “grave worship” is rampant. The “Qabar Pujaaris [grave worshippers],” says an article in The Majlis, “are making frantic efforts to introduce and perpetuate their acts of grave-worship.”104 It goes on to implore South Africa’s Muslims to be “on their guard against these semi-Shiah worshippers of graves”:
Their religion of rituals consists of only the clamour of “Hubbe Rasool” [love of the Messenger], the slogan of Takbeer [“Allahu akbar”], rituals of grave-worship, merry-making festivals, singing, dancing, qawwali headed by dagga [cannabis] smoking qawwals [singers], feasting and skinning ignorant people of their money in the names of the dead Auliya [saints].105
Although The Majlis is its main publication, the Majlisul Ulama also makes these critiques in short pamphlets distributed in mosques, such as Moulood and the Shariah. In this short pamphlet, Desai asserts a number of standard Deobandi arguments against the mawlud that we saw in chapter 2: its participants often believe it to have the same normative status as worship (‘ibadat); its participants not only regard the practice of standing (qiyam) in respect of the Prophet as compulsory, but do not stand in other instances in which his name is mentioned, lending the practice within the context of the mawlud a false normativity; the mawlud typically includes all manner of other sins and temptations: recitation of poetry that the masses cannot properly understand, intermingling of the sexes, waste of money, qawwali performances, and so on.106 The essence of Desai’s criticism of these practices is that they have no basis in the Sunna:
We see the Sahaabah [Companions] rigidly clinging to the minutest details of Rasulullah’s Sunnah—even to such detailed acts which are not imposed on the Ummah by the Shariah. On the contrary we find the loud-mouthed grave-worshippers shunning almost every Sunnat act of Rasulullah. We find clean-shaven fussaaq [sinners]—dagga smoking qawwals—singing the praises of Rasulullah with the accompaniment of haraam musical instruments. Are these fujjaar [libertines] superior in love for Rasulullah than the noble Sahaabah who offered their blessed bodies as shields to protect the mubaraak [holy] body of Nabi-e-Kareem [the Noble Prophet] from the spears and arrows of the kuffaar?107
Second, The Majlis also advocated the Deobandi approach to Sufi ethics, positioning itself in the space between defending “traditional” Sufism against its Salafi and Wahhabi critics and critiquing the alleged “Sufism” of “grave worshipping” Barelvis, who are concerned only with fleecing the gullible masses:
Tasawwuf [Sufism] is a misunderstood concept. Its true meaning and significance in the daily life of a Muslim are lost. Commercial “Sufis” (men of guile who exhibit themselves as saints) are trading Tasawwuf as some mysterious cult of “Mysticism” apart from the Shariat and Sunnat of Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam). They have reduced Tasawwuf to potions, talismans, incantations, empty rituals, and they have cloaked it with beliefs and theories of kufr and shirk. They have interwoven Tasawwuf with bid‘ah and practices of corruption. . . . Muslims who treasure their Imaan [faith] and Islaam have to be aware of such robbers of the Deen who are easily recognized by the high fees which they levy for spiritual initiation (ba‘yt) into their “mystical” paths, for their annual renewal fees, for their tabarruk charges and for their many other fees.108
The Majlis extends Thanvi’s vision of Sufism as an obligatory feature of Islamic piety: Sufism is “Fardh [obligatory] upon every Muslim.”109 As discussed in chapter 4, the very notion of making Sufism “obligatory” depends on its reduction to ethical self-purification; as The Majlis puts it, Sufism is “moral training. . . . This is the sum total of Tasawwuf, nothing more and nothing less.”110 This Sufi ethics, in turn, is fully coterminous with the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunna:
Many people have misunderstood the meaning of Tasawwuf. Tasawwuf is not some mysterious cult apart from the Shariah. Tasawwuf is an integral part of Islam. Any conception of Tasawwuf which conflicts with the Shariah is a satanic delusion. Tasawwuf is that part of the Shariah which discusses moral purification and spiritual elevation in terms of the Qur’aan and Sunnah. . . . Tasawwuf is not a theoretical branch of study. It is a practical endeavor to purify the nafs from the evil qualities and adorn it with the noble attributes.111
Third, for Desai, the true Sufi remains aloof from politics, especially in a Muslim-minority context and when it entails marching alongside non-Muslims, which Desai calls “politics of the kufaar.”112 In this respect, Desai made frequent and explicit comparisons with Thanvi’s India.113 What is especially striking about these comparisons is the way they seem to cut and paste Thanvi’s thought with little adaptation to the South African context. The Majlis essay “Muslims and Politics,” for instance, summarily listed ten criticisms against Muslim participation in “kufr” politics, including the charge that Muslim politicians visit Hindu temples to pursue “Hindu” votes.114 Even if such an accusation had any degree of truth in 1920s or ‘30s India, it surely made far less sense in 1980s South Africa, where most Hindus and Muslims could not vote in any capacity until 1984, and where many refused to exercise that right as a protest against the fact that the vote was not extended to Blacks.
We can best understand his vitriolic reaction to the Muslim anti-apartheid movement through the tripartite approach that Thanvi himself took: first, that interreligious collaboration diluted Islam’s uniqueness; second, that the struggle against apartheid was not a legitimate jihad; and third, that any form of mass politics, let alone jihad, must be premised on Sufi reform of the self. The interfaith protests, marches, and boycotts of the mid and late 1980s were singled out for criticism. In The Interfaith Trap of Kufr, written in response to an interfaith seminar in Port Elizabeth, the Majlisul Ulama dismissed the call for interfaith action against apartheid as a satanic ruse:
Participation in a religious discussion with the kuffaar should be pure Tableegh and Da‘wat [preaching and propagation]. Muslims are not permitted to listen to the propagation of kufr. This is precisely what the inter-faith seminar involves. When a Muslim joins kuffaar preachers who propagate their baatil [false] religions at the same gathering where the Muslim is supposed to propagate, and he sits with them on the same platform listening to their falsehood without having the right to refute it, then he aids and abets in the dissemination of kufr.115
The Interfaith Trap of Kufr then attempts to dismantle some of the central tropes of Muslim–Christian dialogue, rejecting the ecumenical interpretation of Qur’an 2:256—“There is no compulsion in religion”—and its suggestion that “religious beliefs of others should be accepted and not decried,”116 as well as the common citation of Abraham as a “father” of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.117
But it was South African Muslims’ use of the language of jihad that Desai castigated above all. Like Thanvi’s coreligionists in the 1920s, Muslims began to articulate anti-apartheid sentiments in the language of jihad. For Muslim anti-apartheid activists, jihad “included a multiplicity of struggle techniques, including militancy, satyagraha non-violent activism, boycotts, populism, gradualism, and vanguard leadership.”118 Some saw jihad as collective action to translate theological tawhid into political praxis. Muslim News’s “Islam’s Freedom Charter” of 1980 sought to translate tawhid into a basis for political action: “To implement Tauhid as a world-view we have to conduct JIHAD in Allah’s way, that is, in the way of the people.”119 Achmad Cassiem, the founder of Qibla, also proclaimed that “our struggle in Azania [Africa] is a jihad.” Anyone who denied this, in his view, called for “Islam minus Jihad.
” But “Islam minus Jihad,” he wrote, “means Islam minus Islam. . . . Jihad means to enjoin what is good and to forbid what is wrong with all the power at our disposal. Thus, Jihad is standing up with all the power at our disposal against all forms of oppression, exploitation and injustice. It is an effort, an exertion, a striving for truth and justice.”120
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