BOOK REVIEW
Name of the Book: The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought
No. of pages: 696
ISBN-13: 978-1405121743
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
In this issue of Spirit of Islam, we present the book The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought. The book is a compilation of research papers on various contemporary Muslim intellectuals and Islamic movements. Each paper in the book is penned by different writers and the collection is edited by Mr Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi‘. In the words of the editor, “The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought (presents) the works of those Muslim intellectuals who represent a variety of social and intellectual positions, and in that sense the various articles in this Companion will help us appreciate the core ideas discussed by some of the main intellectuals in the contemporary Muslim world.”
Chapter 4 of the book is titled Islamic Thought in Contemporary India: The Impact of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s Al-Risala Movement. This paper is written by Mr Irfan A. Omar. He is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Marquette University. He is co-editor (with Bradford E. Hinze) of Heirs of Abraham: The Future of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Relations (Orbis, 2005). He served as guest editor for the special issue of Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations (Birmingham, UK), entitled, “Islam in Dialogue,” 15/1 (January 2004), and is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies.
The following is a selection from this paper. For the sake of uniformity, certain spelling changes have been made.
Introduction
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan has had a rather challenging and, by all standards of scholarly rigour, a productive and stimulating life. His writings continue to fill the pages of the monthly journal Al-Risala (published since 1976 in Urdu and in English since 1984) and many other publications. One thing he does not do is “preach,” in mosques. Because of his stature as a scholar and community leader, he is often invited to give the khutba, a sermon that precedes Muslim congregation prayers on Fridays. However, he never accepts such invitations because, as he related to this author, he is not a preacher type.
His long gray hair, flowing beard, and the white traditional Indian outfit, on top of which he wears a rather worn-out greyish white overcoat most times of the year, reveal his Sufistic sympathies. His is a rather monastic look. But there is no monasticism in Islam, as Maulana Khan would say, and so his appearance is perhaps a reflection of his simple taste and pietistic posture.
Maulana Khan combines knowledge of the traditional religious sciences (ulum al-dın) with the cultural, socio-political, and ethical discourse of his times. He often draws on his knowledge of contemporary events to highlight the moral plight of our times. His familiarity with the foundational literature on science and religion, ethics, and political discourse informs his writings on Islamic moral theology. Widely travelled, he shows exceptional knowledge of and interest in Western as well as modern ethical concerns. His writings display an eagerness to apply the lessons learned from his explorations to critical issues facing Muslim societies both in India and elsewhere.
As founder-president of “The Islamic Centre” established in 1970, (and then Centre for Peace International in 2001) Maulana Khan has presided over a kind of Islamic movement that is fundamentally different from all other movements in contemporary Muslim history. Known as the ‘Al-Risala Movement’, and which Maulana Khan calls ‘mission’, it has gradually influenced and shaped Muslim thinking over the last 40 years, a measure of which can be found in the changing attitudes of the Indian Muslim leadership in the late 1990s.
Muslim religious and political leadership for the most part ignored Wahiduddin Khan in the early phase of his mission and dubbed him varyingly as “anti-Muslim,” a “Libyan agent,” and, more recently, the “Hindu agent.” They felt that his conciliatory and self-critical tone was not apropos of Islam’s dignified past status in India. In their view, the solution to Muslims’ problems was to be found in taking a hard-line approach and invoking the law to curb right-wing attacks on Islam and Muslims. Khan, on the other hand, advocated a dialogical approach.
By the late 1990s, most of the Muslim leaders had effectively come to realize that their confrontational approach had caused a sharp increase in the number of problems faced by Muslims. Thus, somewhat cognizant of the social forces at work, they presently have become less confrontational, less law-invoking, and more conciliatory towards people of other faiths.
What distinguishes Wahiduddin Khan from scores of other ulema (religious scholars) in the Muslim world in general and in India in particular is his very idea of Islam. He sees Islam as a personal struggle for faith in God and sincere reaching out to God in pursuit of a life of piety. Simply put, he is emphatically opposed to any political understanding of Islam. To him, the political struggles of Muslims around the world cannot and must not be promoted on the basis of Islamic teachings.
Islamic lifestyle and culture are decisively separate from any worldly matters that engage Muslims. This does not necessarily imply a dichotomized view of being Muslim in an increasingly secular world. It simply disallows the construction of an artificial connection between Islam’s religious calling and Muslims’ worldly challenges. Khan does not denounce politics as such, but he argues that politics is a matter of choice whereas Islam is not. One may or may not take up a political cause such as a separatist movement organized in Kashmir but one must not confuse such causes with Islam.
Islam and the Other
Maulana Khan’s perception of the world does not include the “other.” He is critical of the generally dichotomized view of some Muslim leaders who interpret Islam as an ideology pitted against other, in their view, deviant ideologies, that is, the worldview which sees “us” vs. “them” without regard for the complications that such a worldview may pose in the real world. In fact, the ideologizing of Islam has reached a point where in some Muslim groups the process of identifying “us” is limited to those who subscribe to the narrow interpretations of that group. Thus rhetorically, “us” for such groups may rhetorically mean all Muslims, but in reality, it includes only those who agree with the authoritative voice that speaks on behalf of the group while claiming to speak on behalf of the whole of Islam itself.
Khan deconstructs this ideological worldview presented in the name of faith. He understands “Islam”—an individual’s quiet surrender to the will of God—as primarily a personal relationship between the believer and God. This understanding of Islam, he argues, emanates from the Quran and was lived out by Prophet Muhammad as evidenced through a careful study of his life.
The Al-Risala Movement today represents a growing number of Muslims, many of whom come from the intellectual and managerial classes. The movement has many followers who work independently and are not dues-paying members. Through his continuous efforts, Maulana Khan aims to transform attitudes by infusing what he calls a “moral spirit” in the practice of Islam, particularly in regard to relations with the so-called “other.” Today Khan’s following includes not only Muslims but also Hindus and people from other faiths whose participation has added a whole new layer of complexity to this unique Islamic movement and has also confirmed his own belief that the moral campaign alone is the heart and soul of Islamic revivalism.
Key Objectives of the Al-Risala Movement
As far as one can glean from the collective writings of Maulana Khan, the Al-Risala Movement seems to be emphasizing two main principles. A. Muslims need to exercise greater self-criticism and not be ashamed of the past mistakes of their forebears. They must not be bound to history and should not insist on glorifying it, especially since it is known to contain many less-than-glorious moments. Muslims should engage in ijtihad and rethink and articulate anew the core message of Islam in light of modern challenges and its applications. This amounts to reform from within. The key components of this rethinking are nonviolence and reconciliation.
B. Muslims must engage in dialogue with others (with an intention to invite them to learn about Islam) because of the present realities of Indian polity. Muslims thus need to re-orient themselves to living in a pluralistic and multicultural ethos. They must develop intercultural, interreligious, and interethnic relations to cooperate on issues such as providing greater access to education and inculcating moral values. Khan believes that this form of activism, which to him is utterly Islamic, would attract others to Islam and hence allow Muslims to carry out one of their core Islamic duties of calling people to Islam.
The Impact and the Current Focus
Even though Khan primarily wrote on the general issues of Islamic life and ethics as well as Islam’s interrelationship with the modern age, he has also been writing about the life and struggles of Indian Muslims.
From the beginning of the movement, his main focus has been reform among Indian Muslims with respect to how they view Islam as a faith and how they live out that faith as a minority group in the midst of others with differing historical perspectives. One major element of Khan’s thought has been his passionate call for the rebuilding of mainstream Indian culture. He projects a bright future for Muslims in India if and only if they become a giving people contributing to the national growth, politics, economy, culture, and to society as a whole.
Muslims should become unreservedly involved in nation-building; they should become part of the mainstream. By remaining in their limited spheres of activity, and railing about their problems without regard for those of others, they are viewed as sectarian at best. In addition, an antagonistic response from the right wing has been increasing due to reactionary Muslim politics. Therefore, a different strategy is needed to counter this trend.
Conclusion
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan does not project himself as a reformer. He outlines the nature of his mission in his pioneering book, Fikr-eIslami as ijtihad. In his view, reform (islah) implies the existence of a faulty ideal requiring reform. Islam, as for many earlier revivalists who have attempted tajdid (renewal), still consists of those very ideals that existed at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. There are no changes required insofar as Islam is concerned. It is Muslims who have forgotten how to reinterpret and reapply Islam in every age according to the needs and circumstances of the time. Thus his task is to provide this reinterpretation of Islam for today’s Muslims and people of other faiths who are willing to collaborate on building and maintaining a multicultural ethos.
He argues that what is lacking in the Indian Muslim community at large is a coherent vision of the reapplication (by way of ijtihad) of Islamic ideals. These ideals in Khan’s interpretation are pluralism, tolerance of differences, utilizing peaceful means of activism, and becoming progressive within the scope of the teachings of Islam.
Maulana’s view of Islam and the role of Muslims in the twenty-first century is increasingly making sense even to those who did not previously agree with him. Thus it may be said that the future holds positive prospects for the principles enunciated by Maulana Khan. Successive generations will encounter these principles and rationale without any subjective bias against the man.
Patience gives a person the strength
to stand on high Islamic morals.
