Islamic Movements and Organisations

Since the advent of Islam on the sub-continent various movements and organisations have emerged. Professor K.A. Nizami has pointed out that they represent four broad tendencies: movements starting from the twelfth to the sixteenth century aimed at the ‘expansion’ of Islam and Muslim society in India; during the seventeenth century the emphasis shifted to ‘reform’ of beliefs and society; during the eighteenth century the concern was ‘regener­ation’; and finally in the nineteench century attempts were made at ‘reorienta­tion’ either in the light of classical Islamic viewpoints or Western influences.

The main Sufi orders which contributed towards the spread of Islam were, as we have seen, the Chistiya, the Qadiriya, the Suhrawardiya, the Firdausiya, and the Shattariya. Although these orders differed amongst themselves vis-à-vis their attitudes towards the state, sobri­ety or ecstasy, emphasis on Shari'a and so on, yet they were united in the view that service of mankind was possible only by translating Islamic ideals into practice. Sufi orders adopted many Hindu and Buddhist practices usually in so far as they did not compromise essential Islamic precepts. This syncretism was not always the reassertion of popular religion but very often the Islamisa- tion of local religious forms.

The reformist tendency was epitomised in the Naqshbandi order which was introduced in India by Khwaja Baqi Billah (1563-1603) and reached its zenith under Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, whose influence on posterity has already been discussed. At a time of political decline during the eighteenth century not only did Shah Waliullah make his seminary, Madrasah-i Rahimiya, the centre for a movement of regeneration but even Sufis such as the Chishti saint, Shah Kalimullah (d. 1729) attempted to revitalise that order, extend its influence in north India and rid it of its non-Islamic accretions.

From the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries onwards, Mujahidin and Faraidi movements attempted to restore political power to the Muslims by trying to reform society according to Islamic principles. The Deoband seminary (1867) was established with the aim of promoting religious learning. The MAO (Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental) College at Aligarh (1875) was the outcome of an attempt to adapt Western education to the requirements of Muslim society and initiated a process of reorientation in social, religious and educational ideals. The establishment of Nadwat-ul-ulama (1891) at Lucknow marked a synthesis between the rejec­tion of the West as represented at Deoband and its assimilation as symbolised by Aligarh. These institutions have contributed tremendously to the development and growth of Muslim society in India.

The writings of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi (d. 1943) encouraged the remodelling of lifestyles according to Islamic principles and created a scripturalist attitude towards Islam. But perhaps the most significant and far-reaching movement to emerge in modern times is that of Tabligh, started by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas (d. 1944), which aims at propagating the message of Islam through bands of volunteers. This move­ment has now turned international. TheJamaat-i Islami, founded by Abul Ala Mawdudi (d. 1979) in 1941, has inspired a large number of modem educated youth and has advocated the Islamisation of politics and society. It emphas­ises the indivisibility of religion and politics.