the historian 2009(2)

The HistorianVolume 7 July-December 2009 Number 2

Department of History

GC University, Lahore

The HistorianVolume 7 (July-December2009) Number2

© The Historian is published by the Department of History, GCUniversity, Katchehry Road, 54000 Lahore, Pakistan.

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ISSN. 2074-5672

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Editor: Tahir Kamran

Associate Editors: Irfan Waheed Usmani, Tahir Jamil, Hussain Ahmad Khan,Noor Rehman

Assistant Editor:Umber bin Ibad

Design& Production Incharge: Shifa Ahmad

Editorial Advisory Board

David Gilmartin – Department of History, North Carolina State University, USA

FarhatMahmud - Department of History, GC University, Lahore, Pakistan

Francis Robinson – Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London,

UK

Gyanesh Kudaisya – South Asian Studies Programme, National University of

Singapore, Singapore

Ian Talbot- Department of History, University of Southampton, UK

IftikharHaiderMalik - Department of History, University College of Newton Park,

UK

Kathrine Adeney - Department of Political Science, University of Sheffield, UK

MohammadWaseem – Department of Social Sciences, Lahore University of

Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan

MridulaMukherjee - Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, India

Pippa Virdee- Department of Historical and Social Sciences, De Montfort

University, Leicester, UK

Qalb-i-Abid – Department of History, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

Sharif-ul-Mujahid – Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan

ShinderS. Thandi - Department of Economics, Coventry University , UK

ShuanGregory – Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK

SurrinderSingh - Department of History, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

Tariq Rahman – National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University,

Islamabad, Pakistan

VirinderKalra - Department of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, UK

CONTENTS THE HISTORIAN

VOLUME 7 JULY-DECEMBER 2009 NUMBER 2

ARTICLES

MAIN MERNEY KO PHER RAHA HOUN, MERNEY KO: GENEALOGICAL SOCIOLOGY OF SIPAH-I-SAHABA PAKISTAN….TAHIR KAMRAN 5 A LITANY OF ERRORS: PAKISTAN’S KASHMIR POLICY (FROM 1996-99)….IRFAN WAHEED USMANI 23 THE HISTORY OF H ADĪTH LITERATURE: A REVIEW OF MUSLIM AND WESTERN THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES…. ALI USMAN QASMI 43

THE END OF HISTORY: INTERPRETING HEGELIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN GROUND AND BEING TOWARDS THEIR WAY TO TRUTH....UMBER BIN IBAD 75

RELIGIOUS SYNCRETICISM IN PRE-MODERN PUNJAB…AMIR KHAN SHAHID 105

REVIEW ARTICLE

NEGOTIATING WITH OTHER: CONCEPTUALIZING CULTURE AND POWER ….HUSSAIN AHMAD KHAN 127

BOOK REVIEWS

HAFEEZ MALIK, US RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN (THE IMPERIAL DIMENSION) (KARACHI: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2008) 141 AYESHA JALAL, PARTISAN OF ALLAH (LAHORE: SANG-E-MEEL PUBLICATION, 2008) 147 NOTES FOR THE CONTRIBUTORS AND BOOK REVIEWERS

Tahir Kamran, Genealogical Sociology of SSP

MAIN MERNEY KO PHER RAHA HOUN, MERNEY KO:1

GENEALOGICAL SOCIOLOGY OF SIPAH-I-SAHABA PAKISTAN

TAHIR KAMRAN

GC UNIVERSITY, LAHORE PAKISTAN

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the “old” legacies of social cleavages re‐define themselves in the postcolonial social settings and adopt new tools to assert themselves in the public sphere in order to create a space for themselves in the power structure. By taking the example of Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), the article argues that the causes ‘other’ than ideological divide are equally important in tracing the genealogical sociology of the militant organization. Different groups and stakeholders involved in the conflict deploy multiple strategies to further their interests. The SSP epitomised not only a violent struggle against Shia sect, but it was more than this. Historically, it was also a legacy of Ahrar, locally, it was a confrontation of urban nouveau rich in collaboration with migrant community who was politically dispossessed against Shia landlords; and in a wider context it served as a mean to counter Iranianization of Pakistan‐‐‐the agenda set forth by Zia ul Haq’ and military establishment with the aid of Saudi Arabia. Hence, at various levels the same organization acted in multiple guises, purpose and functionality by serving the interests of various groups and states.

KEY WORDS: Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan, Sectarianism, Iran, Sunni, Militancy, Jhang, South Punjab.

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On 7 Muharram 1969, a mourning procession emerged from the Imambargah Muhajirin after fajr (morning) prayer in Jhang, a city located in the southeast of Pakistani Punjab. After passing through many narrow streets, it was scheduled to end at Imambargah‐i‐Qadeem. One of the important points of its route was Khewa gate (one gate among three of the city) which was renamed as Bab‐i‐Umer in the same month. Two Deobandi mosques, Masjid‐I Taqwa and Masjid‐i Ahl‐i Hadith, were located on the very route of the procession. A day prior to the procession, a huge billboard was erected at the place. The district administration in a quandary of the potentially powder‐bag situation. It proactively struck a deal between the Sunni and Shia ulema, the salient feature of which was that the procession would go through its usual route while the board would be covered with a piece of cloth. Unfortunately, as the procession came close to the gate, someone unveiled the board. Subsequently, a processionist, Ashraf Baloch, an underling of the Sial Biraderi from Jhang city soaked his shirt in the nearby drain and hurled it on to where the name ‘Umar’, the second caliph of Muslims, was written. It was an act of utter desecration for the Sunnis. Tumult ensued. By the time the fury had subsided, six people had lost their lives including Mawlana Shirin, a Khatib and prayer leader of Masjid‐i‐Taqwa.2 It was the first instance of the two sects colliding head on in the city. Although Yahya Khan’s take over and declaration of emergency on the very day of the Bab‐i‐Umar incident prevented further loss of life yet many Sunni clerics launched a strong campaign in the condemnation of the Shia. It had a significant impact on the general public and more so on the future electoral politics as it changed the socio‐political matrix of Jhang in particular and the Punjab in general. The anti‐Syed group capitalized on the Sunnis charged sentiments. In the forthcoming elections, held in 1970, all three National Assembly constituencies it paraded the widows of those killed in the incident in black mourning dress in the Sunni congested areas of the city.3 This fanned sectarian emotions and overturned the political chessboard.

This Bab‐i‐Umar incident became one of the many factors that led to the birth of SSP and its militant orientation. However, this aggressive posture cannot be completely attributed to the religio‐ideological divide. In fact, many other causes may be identified to unpack the apparently uniform sociology of the organization. This paper seeks to analyze multiple faces of the SSP which can primarily be associated to the elements/components involved in the party. The paper is divided into two sections. First part explores the genealogical transformation of Ahrarian anti‐Shia sentiments which finally resurrected in the form of SSP in 1985. The grave impact of that legacy

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was compounded with Iranian revolution, and Zia‐ul Haq’s anti‐Shia policies, which added violence and regimentation of the organization. But why did Jhang of all places became the base camp for anti‐Shia militant movement? This very question is also touched in the first part of the paper (although it is in its own‐self a separate topic for research) by exploring the emergence of wealthy but politically marginalized Sunni classes in the city. The second section of this paper traces the modes of violence used by this militant outfit and the reflection it had on the electoral results.

(I)

On 06 September 1985, Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi (1952‐1990) alongwith Maulana Zia‐ur‐Rehman Farooqi (d. January 19, 1997), Maulana Eesar‐ul‐Haq Qasmi and Maulana Azam Tariq (1962‐2003) established the Anjuman Sipah‐i‐Sahaba which was soon after its inception was renamed as Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). SSP ideologues link the emergence of their organisation with such events as Tabbara campaign conducted in Hassu Balail, Kaki Nau and Rodu Sultan, small towns in the district Jhang, at the behest of Shia landlords against the companions of the Prophet. They attach extraordinary significance to the Bab‐i‐Umar incident which took place in 1969. From the outset, the SSP adopted an aggressive posture. This was seen at the Kul Pakistan Difah‐i‐Sahaba Conference (All Pakistan Conference for the Defence of Prophet’s Companion) held on 7th February 1986 at Chandan Walla Mohalla Jhang Sadar. Haq Nawaz Jhangvi4 presented a welcome address which amounted to an indictment against the Shia community at large. In Punjab, the tradition of indicting Shia sect is not a new phenomenon, and its genealogy may be traced to Ahrari’s condemnation of Shia community. From its very inception, the movement’s leaders like Haq Nawaz Jhangvi have acknowledged and eulogized the legacy of Atta Ullaha Shah Bokhari and his colleagues in Majlis‐e‐Ahrar (established in 1929).

With the emergence of Majlis‐i‐Ahrar‐i‐Islam,5 a party composed of Punjabi dissidents of the Khilafat Committee, the Punjab witnessed a puritanical and agitational style of politics in the 1930s. Most of the leaders were fire brand orators who could spell bind their audiences for hours. The individual profile of the Ahrar leaders suggests it as a composite organization representing all Muslim sects. However, the core ideology and principal leaders adhered to Deobandi Islam, like Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari and Habib‐ur‐Rehman Ludhianvi. It had entrenched following among the lower middle income echelon of

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the urban Muslim populace and particularly the artisans of Lahore, Amritsar and Sialkot districts of the Punjab. Ahrar leaders like Chaudhry Afzal Haq and Sahibzada Faiz‐ul‐Hasan mostly subscribed to an ideology that had tangible Marxist content.6 Iftikhar Malik holds that Ahrar imbibed the ‘impact of the October Revolution in Russia (1917)’. Therefore, Ahrar managed to carve out a constituency for itself in the urban lower middle classes of the Punjab. It drew immense support in the central Punjab because of the presence of large Kashmiri Muslim communities in such cities as Amritsar, Lahore and Sialkot. In fact, large number of Kashmiri Muslims migrated to these cities from Kashmir because of ‘autocratically wayward methods of administration’ of the Dogra rulers of the princely state. Killing a cow was a cognizable offence punishable with seven years of rigorous imprisonment. Special tax was levied on the slaughter of goats and sheep even on Eid, a Muslim religious festival. A Hindu in case of embracing Islam had to forfeit all his inherited property. Many Muslim places of worship were either closed down forcibly or confiscated by the state. Majlis‐i‐Ahrar was the first among the Muslim organizations of political groups to raise voice against these atrocities of the state against the Muslims. Large number of Ahraris forced their way into Kashmir ostensibly to rescue Muslims from the oppressive rule of Maharaja Hari Singh and the large number of its followers were arrested. Majlis‐i‐Ahrar could not achieve its objective of freeing its brethren from the oppressive Dogra rule. However, they secured extra‐ordinary political mileage out of that agitation. Now it was reckoned as the champion of the downtrodden Muslims.

The movement for the rights of the poor Muslims in Kapurthala State raised its profile and popularity even further. The princely state of Kapurthala, situated on the west bank of the river Bias, in the Punjab had fifty‐seven percent of Muslim population but it was ruled by a Sikh ‐‐ Maharaja Jagjeet Singh. The vast majority of Muslims were peasants, living in abject misery. Sixty percent of the state revenue accrued through the taxes paid by Muslim peasants. Moreover the Hindu moneylenders subjected the poor peasantry of Begowal and Bholeth areas of the state to the merciless economic exploitation. So the situation was ripe for Ahrar to intervene immediately after their Kashmir campaign which had won Ahrar tremendous accolade as champion of the Muslims. The upward swing in Ahrar’s popularity continued till the Masjid Shahid Ganj incident in Lahore in 1935, which irreparably undermined Ahrar’s political standing in the province. That mosque was built in the 17th century by Abdullah Khan who was a personal attendant of Dara Shikoh, the son of Emperor Shahjehan. Adjacent to the mosque was a kotwali where

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some Sikhs were executed by Mughals as a result of an insurgency. Later on, Sikhs built Gurdwara at the site of Kotwali during Ranjit Singh’s reign, which was expanded in a due course to encompass the mosque also. The issue remained dormant for almost over a century however in 1930s the contesting claims over the site drew both Sikhs and Muslims apart. Ahrar kept itself aloof from that contentious issue which was exploited by persons like Zafar Ali Khan, the editor of famous the Zamindar. Ahrar’s neutrality had a sapping affect on its popularity.7

Post Shahid Ganj situation was quite chequered for Ahrar as its electoral strength got scuttled quite considerably, nevertheless the impact that some of its leaders, particularly Bokhari, engendered had a lasting resonance. The Madeh‐i‐Sahaba Movement (1937‐39) in the United Provinces (UP) widened the sectarian chasm between Sunnis and Shias.8 A large number of Ahraris from Punjab travelled to Awadh especially to court arrest. Awadh had a concentration of influential Shias who invariably resorted to Tabbara, a practice of ridiculing the first three caliphs, causing sectarian antagonism. Hence UP government clamped a ban on the practice of Tabbara. In retaliation to that ban Shia started ‘Tabbara Agitation’. To counter that agitation Majlis‐i‐Ahrar started a practice of Madh‐i‐Sahaba, wherein the Sunnis recited verses praising the ‘four rightly guided caliphs’. That situation exacerbated the sectarian tension. However sectarian animosity was papered over in the 1940s as the Pakistan Movement gained momentum, thus mitigating the sectarian sentiments. Nevertheless, sectarian differences could not be ironed out permanently as they kept recurring finally culminating into the establishment of Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan.

This resurrection of Ahrarian model in the form of the SSP could not have been possible without Iranian revolution in 1979. It had emboldened Pakistan’s Shias so that they “abandoned the Shia tradition of political quietism”.9 Sipah‐i‐Sahaba spokesmen were quite strident in pointing out a huge amount of Shia literature being produced in Urdu and freely distributed through the consistently widening network of the Iranian cultural centres. In that literature “Sahaba (or the companions of the Prophet, Abu Bakr,Omer and Uthman) were denigrated in utterly brazen way”.10 They had been alleged to curse Sahaba publically, a practice which was called tabbara, which caused disquiet among the Sunnis. So, not only “awakened” but “emboldened” in the wake of revolution’s success in Iran, Shias were visibly vociferous in putting forward demands for “rights and representation” evincing firm belief in Khomeini’s support, which he quite generously extended to them.

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This favourable international environment encouraged membership of Shia political movements sponsored both financially and politically by Tehran. Tehrik‐i‐Nifaz‐i‐Fiqa‐i‐Jafaria Pakistan (TNFJ) was one such organization having monetary and political ties with Tehran. Proselytization to Shiism was yet another impact of “Shia Revivalism” being vigorously pursued, evoking as a consequence a sharp Sunni counterpoise. Qasim Zaman while drawing on the claim made by Sayyid Arif Husayn Naqvi finds “considerable evidence of Shii (sic) proselytization especially in rural and small towns of the Punjab”.11 Furthermore the compulsory deduction of Zakat [tithe] from bank accounts also became a reason for defections from Sunni ranks. Many non‐practicing Sunnis got converted to Shia’ism just to avoid having Zakat deducted from their yearly savings.12 With the Shia revival in Iran, as Nasr puts it, “the years of sectarian tolerance were over. What followed was a Sunni‐versus‐Shia contest for dominance, and it grew intense.”13 Nasr’s assertion seems quite sweeping as the phenomenon of sectarian differentiation had been inextricably complex emanating from the interplay of myriad currents and cross‐currents. Nevertheless, the Iranian revolution and the impact it cast over the Pakistani Shias spurred Deobandi reaction which had so far been sporadic. Manzur Naumani’s book, Irani Inqilab: Imam Khumayni aur Shi’iyyat with its preface written by Abul Hassan Nadwi represents a concerted response to the mounting Iranian influence in Pakistan. Later on this book “became the gospel of Deobandi militant organizations that in 1980s mushroomed across Pakistan to press the fight against the Shia”.14 Sectarianism lays at the heart of the SSP’s goals. Out of the eight aims spelt out by the founding members of SSP, five are aimed at circumscribing if not completely extirpating Shia’ism from Pakistan. Hussain Haqqani explores the role of Zia regime in sponsoring such organisations like SSP as a counterpoise to the Shia ascendancy. He maintains that:

The Zia‐ul‐Haq regime saw the SSP as a check on the rise of Shia influence and gave it a free hand. Soon covert links had been established between SSP and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which managed official Pakistani support of Jihadi operations in Afghanistan and Indian controlled Kashmir. SSP cadres attended Afghan Mujahideen training camps and returned to kill Shia leaders within Pakistan. The rise of the Talban in the 1990s further deepened the ties among Pakistan’s various

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Jihadi groups, Deobandi madrasas and Sunni sectarian organizations like Sipah‐e Sahaba.15

Thus state patronage and foreign funding provided a favourable environment for the expansion of such organisations as SSP and LJ (Lashkar‐i‐Jhangvi).16 In 1991, the SSP held the Haq Nawaz International Conference in Islamabad, persons like Maulana Abdul Qadir Azad, an employee of the Government of the Punjab and Khateeb of Badshahi Mosque Lahore was one of the speakers. Similarly, Senator Sami‐ul‐Haque’s participation in the conference points to the state’s favourable disposition towards the SSP.17 Maulana Abdul Hafeez Makki,18 a scholar from Saudi Arabia was the chief guest which fully illustrates the extraneous sources of support furnished to the SSP.

The need to counter a ‘Shia threat’ in Pakistan was realized by the Zia regime when the Shia protested when Zakat and Usher Ordinance promulgated in 1979. This formed a crucial element in the state sponsored Islamisation process. It brought Shias out in protest in unprecedented numbers. The parliament in Islamabad was laid siege by more than 50,000 Shias from all over Pakistan in July 1980.19 They came together under the banner of Wafaq‐e‐Ulema‐e‐Shia Pakistan. The Imamia Student Organization (ISO)20 played a pivotal role in making the whole episode in Islamabad into a remarkable success. The convergence of such a huge number of Shias in the federal capital was made possible largely because of ISO’s unflinching endeavours. Thus it was brought home to the government that “the mode of Zakat collection enumerated in the Ordinance was not in conformity with their beliefs and demanded that Shias should be treated in accordance with their personal law.”21 The siege of the parliament house in Islamabad remained for two days, forced Zia‐ul‐Haq to amend the Ordinance. Immediately afterwards the Shia clergy thought of constituting an organization with an expressed objective to avert the danger of the blatant “Sunnification”22 of Pakistan and to safeguard the interests of their community. Hence the TNFJ23 came into being in 1979 in Bhakkar, under the leadership of Mufti Jaffar Hussain.24 The TNFJ became palpably assertive in its political stance when Arif‐ul‐ Hussaini succeeded Jaffar Hussain as its leader in 1984.25 In 1993 there emerged its armed offshoot by the name of Sipah‐i‐Muhammad Pakistan (SMP), under the leadership of Ghulam Reza Naqvi, the then district President of Tehrik‐i‐Jafaria Jhang. By the end of 1994, SMP established its headquarters at Thokar Niaz Beg, a suburb of Lahore which possessed a sizable Shia population.

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The above mentioned complexities beg a question, why did the Jhang district became a breeding ground for the birth of SSP and why not the other parts of the country. The very sociology of the district provides this rationale. Contemporary scholarship has largely ignored the sociology of spaces occupied by the victimizer and victims in favour of meta‐narratives (like influence of outside forces‐‐‐role of Iranian revolution, or Regan’s administration, Zia’s Islamization, lack of democratic values, etc.). The Jhang district divides central from southern parts of the Pakistani Punjab. The district is largely dominated by the Shia land lords who drive their legitimacy from the shrine practices and claim of having association with the family of last prophet of Islam.

Almost eighteen biraderis inhabit rural Jhang, Sials being the most influential because of their numbers, affluence and political clout.26 The Syeds are also politically powerful and wealthy. Jhang is overwhelmingly a rural district in population terms. Nevertheless, migrants from East Punjab form an important group in Jhang City. They are drawn from the trading and weaving communities. Despite their wealth these communities were traditionally marginalised in the realm of power politics, by the dominant local landholders.

Jhang s’ history, until the reign of Walidad Khan Sial (died in 1747) in the early eighteenth century, is shrouded in “Cimmerian darkness”. However the accounts of the Greek historians Arrian and Curtius along with the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsang allude to its very remote history that goes certainly as far back as fourth century B.C. when this territory had its first taste of marauding at the hands of Alexander in 327 B.C.27 Despite Jhang’s ancient past, the documented sources with some ‘validity claim’ do not go beyond eighteenth century when the Sial rule was firmly in place. Therefore histories of the Jhang and Sial tribe are inextricably enmeshed. Consequently the adage “the history of Jhang is the history of the Sial”28 has a substantial element of veracity in it.

Rai Mal Khan’s (d. 1503) assumption of leadership ushered in an era of Sial supremacy in Jhang. He meted out a crushing defeat to the ruling Nauls, and rebuilt the city in 1462, which had been devastated in the battle. Sial rule reached its zenith during the reign of Walidad Khan (1717‐1747) spanning over three decades. His legacy was sustained by his successors until Ranjit Singh’s rise to power in the Punjab. Ahmed Khan, the last Sial Chieftain, after offering stiff resistance to the Sikh army was eventually cowed in 1810. Consequently Sial suzerainty over Jhang was ended. After Punjab’s annexation in 1849, Sial chief, Ismael Khan, was co‐opted by the British. He was duly rewarded for the services he discharged in 1857.

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Thus the political importance of the tribe remained throughout the colonial period as its chiefs fitted very well into the client‐patron network, set up by the British. Sials continued to be influential after independence, despite the fact that the Sial chief Inayatullah Khan had opposed the idea of Pakistan in 1947. Presently, Amanullah Khan is one of the many claimants of the Sial leadership but the internecine conflicts among the Sials have weakened their power relative to the Syeds in local politics. Apart from the Bharwana Sials of Tehsil Jhang and Janjiana Sials of Shorkot, all leading Sials are Shia.

The prominent Syed families are that of Rajoa in Tehsil Chaniot and Shah Jiwana in Tehsil Jhang. However Syeds have marked presence in Shorkot and Uch. Most of them trace their descent to Sher Shah, Sayyid Jalal‐ud‐Din Surkh Bukhari.29 They own large tracts of land in Jhang and Chiniot. Both the Syed families enjoyed full patronage of the British as a reward to the “good service” that they rendered as and when it was needed. Sayed Muhammad Ghaus, Syed Charagh Shah, Sardar Hussain Shah and Syed Ghulam Abbas among the Rajoa Syeds held position of pre‐eminence during British rule. Presently Sardarzada Zafar Abbas is the leading figure among Rajoa Sayeds. Similarly Syed Khizar Hayat from the Shah Jiwana Syeds who “have always been of importance” was virtually reared up by the British through the Court of Wards. His younger brother Mubarak Shah and Syed Raja Shah‘s son Abid Hussain shot to the position of political renown that still resonates in his daughter cum legatee Abida Hussain and her cousin but political adversary Faisal Saleh Hayat. Both of these Syed families are Shia thereby many political analysts looked askance at them for manoeuvring sectarian loyalties for political gain. The emergence of Abid Hussain on the political scene consigned Sials to the position of insignificance particularly from the days in the run up to the creation of Pakistan up to 1970 elections. Abid Hussain was a close associate of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the 1940s and used his influence quite sagaciously to earn ministerial positions in the 1950s. In the political arena Sials had no leader who could match Abid Hussain in terms of political insight and stature.30

Syed‐Sial factional rivalries have contributed to sectarianism. In Jhang, the politics of sectarian differentiation first emerged during the 1951 Punjab election. Ironically the two Syed families, Shah Jiwana and Rajoa, close relatives yet political adversaries, in order to undermine each other politically lent unswerving support to non‐Syed and Sunni candidates. Abid Hussain successfully lured Pir of Sial Sharif into throwing in his lot for Maulana Muhammad Zakir who pulled off a victory against Rajoa candidate Sardar Ghulam Muhammad Shah from Chiniot constituency. Similarly

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Rajoa Syeds went all out in support of Maulana Ghulam Hussain against Mubarak Ali Shah, a candidate of Shah Jiwana group from Jhang constituency. Despite the Shia‐Sunni difference being considerably whipped up in the run up to the electoral contest, Mubarak Ali nevertheless secured a comfortable victory.31 Sectarianism was thus used as a ploy by Shia Syed families as part of their factional rivalries. The power politics articulated in intra‐clan divergence was transformed into inter‐clan rivalry in the span of two decades. Hence the Syed in‐fight gave way to a Sial‐Syed contest for power. As we shall see below, biraderi rivalries intersected with sectarianism not just in electoral contests, but in outbreaks of violence such as the Baba‐i‐Umar episode. This can be understood as a major turning point in the rise of sectarianism in Jhang. Over a period of time, the urban commercial classes emerged who were primarily Sunni by sect, and were marginalized in the power structure of the district. In order to carve out new spaces within the existing power structure, local traders and bazaar merchants largely supported and funded the establishment of the SSP and its off‐shoot Lashkar‐i‐Jhangvi (LJ). Such sociology of the organization, in fact, not only displaced biraderi influences on the political landscape of the district but also tilted it towards violence which more or less became a definitive pattern in the future elections in the district.

However, more obvious militant element in the SSP entered in the late 1980s. The end of the Afghan War resulted in the disbandment of a large number of well‐trained militants. Some of these mujahideen were attracted to organisations like SSP which readily employ them. The SSP was a cash rich organisation because of its indirect funding from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Popular philanthropy, much of which came from Deobandi sources, also swelled its coffers. The Deobandi madrasa union; Wafaq‐al‐Madris that has its head office in Multan, along with the Khair‐ul‐Madaris seminary, the national centre for Deobandi instruction, openly supported the SSP.32 Young zealots mostly recruited from the seminaries were sent for training in the art of violence in Afghanistan. Therefore sectarian militancy escalated to a considerable extent. LJ, under the leadership of Riaz Basra, comprised those militants who were well instructed in the use of explosives and guerrilla tactics. They went to Afghanistan for training in a camp in Sirobi, near Kabul run by the Taliban Minister Maulvi Hameedullah.33 They were not only growing in fighting power but multiplying in numbers. Animosh Roul mentions six other splinter groups of SSP besides LJ, namely Jhangvi Tigers, Al Haq Tigers, Tanzeem ul Haq, Al Farooq and Al Badr Foundation.34

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(II)

Like most of the militant struggles, the anti‐Shia campaign of the SSP thrived on human blood spilling. The cult of the martyr was very effectively deployed by the successors of Haq Nawaz, which enhanced not only SSP’ s electoral standing but also its renown. Ironically Shia influence implicitly permeated into the SSP’s overall schema as the Shia theological discourse is structured around the cult of the martyr. Scores of martyrs and the ongoing sectarian strife afforded the SSP “functional utility”35 that contributed immensely in perpetuating its hold.

Sectarian killing began with the murders of Ehsan Ellahi Zaheer in 1987 and TNFJ leader Allama Arif‐ul‐Hussaini in 1988. Haq Nawaz himself had not many more days to live. On 22 February 1990, his tumultuous life and career came to an end.36 SSP’s rhetoric had always been aggressive, but now deeds matched words. Eventually in 1996, LJ was to emerge as an armed off‐shoot of SSP. Militancy not only intimidated Shias, but also increased SSP’s electoral support. From the very outset SSP leadership sought influence in the National Assembly in order to amend the Constitution so that there could be a Sunnification of the Pakistani state. On that occasion the government of Punjab was visibly perplexed about the law and order situation during the period of mourning as this followed hard on the heels of the murder of Haq Nawaz. As a pre‐emptive measure, the government called together urban notables and leaders of SSP for negotiation. Malik Saleem Iqbal, the Health Minister of the Punjab presided over the proceedings on 16th July 1990. Members of the Jhang District administration, the SSP leadership and other important persons were made part of the negotiations and taken into confidence. Thereby an Aman Muahida (peace agreement) was concluded to the satisfaction of the government.37 But only a few days after the agreement, a bomb exploded at chowk Bab‐i‐Umer in Jhang city, killing three Sunnis and injuring twenty eight. This effectively sabotaged the peace efforts. The very site of the bomb explosion was not far away from Aman ullah Khan Sial’s haveli in the Jhang city. Amanullah Khan is a leader of a Sial clan in Jhang and adheres to the Shia. This is highly suggestive of the fact that the efforts to bring peace to the conflict‐ridden city were stymied because the important biraderis like Sials of Syeds had been excluded as stakeholders in the whole process. The SSP did expand beyond its roots in sectarian rivalries and biraderi politics in Jhang. It organised itself remarkably well at district and tehsil level. According to one estimate, the SSP had seventy‐four district and 225 tehsil level

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units before it was proscribed on 12th January 2002. It additionally ran seventeen branches in foreign countries including Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Canada and the UK. With its 6,000 trained and professional cadres and 100,000 registered workers38 it was the best‐knit and organised Islamic party in Pakistan after Jamaat‐i‐Islami. SSP’s growing influence was accompanied by an association with violence. While Jhang was the scene of many sectarian killings, they spread to other areas of the Punjab and beyond. Although SSP attempted to distance itself from the activities of the armed offshoot LJ yet it was never done convincingly. LJ had links with ‘international terrorist’ movements which culminated in the banning of both organisations by President Musharraf in response to the post 9/11 situation. Support for SSP and LJ has as a result been driven underground.

Taliban had been a great source of inspiration for the SSP leaders who sought to replicate their policies in Pakistan. Azam Tariq, in October 2000 while speaking at an International Difah‐e‐Sahaba Conference in Karachi said that “the SSP aims to transform 28 large Pakistani cities into model Islamic cities’ where television, cinema and music would be banned”.39 Azam Tariq was an ardent supporter of Jihad in Indian controlled Kashmir. When Masud Azhar founded Jaish‐e‐Mohammad in the aftermath of his release in Kandahar, following the hijacking of an Indian aircraft in December 1999, Azam Tariq pledged to send 500,000 Jihadis to Jammu and Kashmir to fight Indian security forces.40

The SSP extremists had two major styles of operation: targeted killings and indiscriminate shootings at places of worship. A number of leading Shias were assassinated. By 1992, the SSP activists had gained access to sophisticated weapons systems. Saudi Arabia was the major source of funding as Iran provided financial support to Shia outfits. In June 1992, the SSP adherents used a rocket launcher in an attack which killed five police personnel.41 The attempted assassination of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in January 1999, is yet another example. He was lucky that the bomb planted beneath the bridge on the Raiwind Road on the route to his residence exploded prematurely, but it was a clear testimony of how lethal the sectarian terrorists had become.

During the 1990s, Iranian officials functioning in various capacities in Pakistan became the victim of the SSP militants. Most prominent among them was Agha Sadiq Ganji, Iranian Consul General who was gunned down on 19th December 1990 by a young lad from Jhang, Sheikh Haq Nawaz.42 Ganji was widely believed by SSP supporters to have masterminded Haq Nawaz Jhangvi’s murder. However there was no tenable evidence of Sadiq Ganji’s involvement

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other than his presence in Jhang on the day of Haq Nawaz Jhangvi’s murder. Muhammad Ali Rahimi, an Iranian diplomat was another victim of a targeted killing in Multan in 1997. The Iranian Cultural Centre at Lahore was set ablaze the same year in January. It was in retribution for the assassination of Zia‐ur‐Rehman Farooqi along with twenty‐six others at the Lahore Session Court. Five members of the Iranian armed forces were fatally ambushed in Multan in September, sparking off a serious diplomatic row between Islamabad and Tehran. “The targeting of Iranians was apparently meant to convey the message to Shia militants that not even their “patrons” were safe.43

Sectarian polarisation enabled the SSP to increase its vote bank. This has similarities with the way in which communal violence in a number of UP towns has strengthened the hold of the BJP. In the central Jhang constituency in the 1990 election, Maulana Esar‐ul‐Qasimi, Haq Nawaz’ s successor and vice patron, secured victory with a considerable majority. As the Islami Jamohri Ittehad’s (IJI) candidate for the National Assembly, he obtained 62,486 votes. He also contested as an independent candidate on a Provincial Assembly seat and defeated IJI ticket holder and favourite Sheikh Iqbal by a margin of almost 10,000 votes.44

Nawaz Sharif’s crackdown on militancy during 1997‐9, together with the general disapproval of violence and militancy saw a considerable decline in sectarian killing in the Punjab. From January 1999 to December 2000, not a single incident of sectarian violence was reported. The military takeover on 12 October 1999 may be one of the reasons that militant groups had assumed a low profile. However the next elections held in 2002 under military rule reversed the process. Azam Tariq won the election though he was in jail. Both LJ and SSP along with their Shia rivals SMP and TNFJ had been banned by Pervez Musharaf on 14 August 2001 and 2002 respectively.45 Nevertheless, Azam Tariq was allowed to contest the elections as an independent candidate. This decision evoked sharp reaction from many quarters. Azam Tariq’s victory was quite unexpected. In fact, it fits in well into the pattern in Pakistan in which representatives of religious militant outfits tend to do well in the conditions of ‘guided democracy’ because of the marginalisation of mainstream parties. However after 9/11, such figures as Azam Tariq have had to act circumspectly. After securing election victory instead of siding with the opposition alliance of religious parties MMA, Tariq went along with the pro‐ Musharraf Muslim League (Quaid‐i‐Azam) and managed to secure the release of the imprisoned SSP activists. In October 2003, Azam Tariq was killed in Islamabad; the death most foretold in the history of Pakistan, according to the Daily Times, Lahore. There had

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been 20 attempts on his life prior to it. Azam Tariq’s murder may be a death knell to the SSP or Millat‐i‐Islamya (a name given to the organization after it was proscribed in 2002). The resulting leadership vacuum has rendered the organization rudderless. Consequently its immediate future seems bleak. CONCLUSION “Main merney ko pher raha houn, merney ko” (I am looking for death only) because Shia are using abusive language for the companions of the prophet, said Haq Nawaz in one of his addresses to his devotees.46 The very sensibility of top brass set the agenda for a militant struggle against Shia sect. However, such die‐heart commitment to the cause of Shia elimination or Sunnification of Pakistan does not subscribe only to ideological commitment. While tracing the genealogical sociology of SSP, this article contends that the old conflicts compound and re‐emerge in a new context. In other words, the movement operated at different levels in order to serve the interests of various groups and stakeholders. At local level, the SSP may be viewed as a struggle of emerging commercial class primarily comprised of immigrants and marginalized locals against the Shia land‐lords. However, this violent struggle never totally replaced biraderi politics. But within national and international context, the SSP became an instrument of the Pakistani state and of Saudi Arabia to counter Iranian influence within the country, and to help in the Talibanization of Afghanistan.

The new modalities (like violence and election politics) were deployed by the militant organization to further its interest in the public domain. Other Sunni religious political parties also provided legitimacy to this violence in the name of religion. The stage was set by the Bab‐i‐Umer incident. But the old legacies of Ahrar also inspired the struggle against the Shia sect. Shias were the focus for sectarian militancy in the wake of the Afghan jihad and the Iranian Revolution. The proliferation of madrasas with foreign funding provided much needed cadres for SSP. As many studies suggest that soon after the birth of SSP, it proliferated to other parts of the country like Multan, Faisalabad, Sargodha and Bahawalpur. Karachi, too, was hit ominously hard by the sectarian menace.

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END NOTES 1“Main merney ko pher raha houn, merney ko” (I am looking for death only). Taken from Haq Nawaz’s speech. He was one of the founding fathers of the Sipah‐i‐Sahaba (SSP). See complete text of the said speech on http://www.kr‐cy.com/wasiyat/index.shtml, accessed on 05 December 2008. This article could not have been possible without the useful feedback as a result of my several talks and lectures, like discussion on ‘Shia‐Sunni Chasm in Pakistan’ in Jan 2007 at the Peace Studies Department, University of Bradford, and in Nov 2006, a seminar on the ‘Sectarian Militancy in Pakistan’ to the faculty and students at the History Department of the University of Southampton. However, the most fruitful response came at my presentation on ‘Jhang: The Epicenter of Sectarian Violence’, from the Punjab Research Group, Coventry University in Oct 2006 which enabled me to complete this paper. This paper is an improved form of “The Political Economy of Sectarianism: Jhang” published by the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU), Peace Studies Department, University of Bradford, UK. 2The whole event was narrated by Sayyid Thana al Haqq Tirmidhi, an eye‐witness to the episode, August,2006. 3Ibid. 4“Haq Nawaz Jhangvi was born in 1954 in the town of Jhang. After completing his primary education in Arabic and Theology, he left for Multan where he studied in the renowned Islamic University, Khair‐ul‐Madaris. He qualified as an Islamic Scholar/Alim in 1972 from this university at the tender age of 19. After which he once more returned to his home town, Jhang.” For detailed profile and speeches see “Haq Char Yaar ::: Sayings of Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi Shaheed (r.t.a)”, http://www.kr‐hcy.com/shaheed.shtml, accessed on 05 December 2008. 5 For the causes of the emergence of Majlis‐i‐Ahrar, See Jan Baz Mirza, Karwan‐i‐Ahrar, vol.i (Lahore: Maktaba‐i‐Tabsara, 1975), pp.81‐84. 6 Iftikhar Haider Malik, Sikander Hayat Khan: A Political Biography (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research,1985), p.55. 7 Abdullah Malik, Punjab ki Siyasi Tehreekain (Lahore: Kausar Publishers, 1986), pp.194‐204. Also see David Gilmartin, Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan (London: University of California Press,1988), pp.99‐107. 8 Shia here denotes the Ithna‐I‐Ashari or Twelvers. They believe in the institution of Imamat whereby the twelve imams are considered as the true representatives of Islam as against Khilafat or Khulfa‐i Rashidin. See John L. Episto, What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam (New York: Oxford University Press,2002), pp.45‐47. 9 Here political quietism denotes taqiyyah or dissimulation. See Ian Talbot, “Understanding Religious Violence in Contemporary Pakistan: Themes and Theories” in R. Kaur(ed.), Religion, Violence and Mobilization in South Asia (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005), p.154. 10 Sahaba or the companions of the Prophet (Abu Bakr, Omer and Usman) are held in a high esteem by the Sunnis whereas Shias condemn them as usurpers. Shias consider Ali, the cousin and son in law of the Prophet as the rightful heir

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http://www.kr-cy.com/wasiyat/index.shtml

http://www.kr-cy.com/wasiyat/index.shtml

http://www.kr-hcy.com/wasiyat/index.shtml


http://www.kr-hcy.com/shaheed.shtml


of the Prophet instead of the first three Caliphs. Interview with Maulana Ilyas Balakoti, Jhang, August 2006. 11 Sayyid Arif Husayn Naqvi, Tadhkira‐yi Ulama‐i‐Imamiyya‐i Pakistan (Islamabad: Markaz‐i Tahqiqat‐i Farsi‐yi Iran wa Pakistan,1984) quoted in Qasim Zaman, “Sectarianism in Pakistan: The Radicalization of Shii and Sunni Identities”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 32(3), (1998), p.689‐716. 12 Hussain Haqqani, “Weeding out the Heretics: Sectarianism in Pakistan”, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology vol.4, Hudson Institute Washington D.C. November,2006 in http://www.futureofmuslimworld.com/research/pubID.58/pub_detail.asp, Accessed on, 3rd March 2008. 13 Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future (NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006), p. 148. 14 Ibid. 15 Haqani, “Weeding out the Heretics”. 16 Encouragement from successive regimes and unremitting flow of foreign funds(especially from Saudi Arabia) combining with absence of governmental oversight have been cited as principal factors in the dramatic rise in the numbers of madaras (European Commission 2002) quoted in Ali Riaz, Global Jihad, Sectarianism and the Madrassahs in Pakistan (Singapore: Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, 2005), p. 5. 17 Zindgi (Lahore, 8‐14 June 1991) 18 Ibid. 19 See Azmat Abbas, Sectarianism: The Players and the Game (Lahore: South Asia Partnership,2002),p. 7. However Nasr gives the figure of 25,000 Shia activists who gathered in Islamabad. Nasr, The Shia Revival, p.161. 20 A group of students from Lahore University of engineering and Technology founded ISO on 22 May 1972, to provide an All‐Pakistan Shia platform. Dr. Majid Noroze Abidi and Ali Reza Naqvi were among the founders of the organization. The numerical strength and organizational capability of ISO leaders became evident during the 1979‐80 agitation of Shias against Zia’ s Zakat and Usher Ordinance. See Azmat Abbas, p.9. 21 Ibid. 22Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, “Islam, the State, and the Rise of Sectarian Militancy in Pakistan”, in Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.), Pakistan: Nationalism Without a Nation (London: Zed Books,2001), pp.87‐90. 23The TNFJ was renamed as Tehrik‐e‐Jafria Pakistan in a convention held in March 1993 at Faisalabad. See Abbas, Sectarianism, p.8. 24Jafar Hussain (1916‐83) was born in Gujranwala, educated from Lucknow and Najaf, in Southern Iraq, he then taught at a Shia seminary in his native city. He served at various government committees including Council of Islamic Ideology. Zaman, “Sectarianism in Pakistan”, pp.694‐95. 25Allama Arif Hussain Al Hussaini was a Turi Pushtun from Shia stronghold of Parachinar in northern Pakistan. He had received instruction from Najaf and Qum and sent to Pakistan by the Iranian Government in 1978. According to his

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official biography he was expelled from Iran before the revolution. Abbas, Sectarianism, p.8. 26 Siddiq Sadiq, Jhang: The Land of Two Rivers (Jhang,2002), p.40. 27 Gazetteer of the Jhang District 1883‐84 (Lahore: Sang‐e‐Meel Publications, 2000), p.23. Some old material collected from Shorkot mound in Jhang district, i.e. an agate seal in pictographic language is supposed to be 10,000 to 15,000 years old. See for reference, Sadiq, Jhang, p. 67. 28 Gazetteer of the Jhang District 1883‐84, p. 27. 29 Bilal Zubairi, Tazkira i Auliyia i Jhang (Jhang: Jhang Adabi Academy, 2000), p.213. 30 Abid Hussain came to the political limelight in 1936 when as a student leader he presented a welcome address to Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Lahore who was there to preside over a meeting of Muslim Students Federation. Later on he was elected Chairman District Board Jhang (1937‐54). He became MLA in 1946 and member of Punjab Assembly in 1951. In 1954 he joined the cabinet of Muhammad Ali Bogra as Minister of Agriculture. Later on he joined the Republican Party and became its secretary general. Ayub Khan disqualified him under EBDO. Therefore he could not contest 1962 and 1965 elections. The last election he contested was in 1970 which he lost against Jamiat ul Ulama‐i‐Islam candidate Ghulam Haider Bharwana. He died in 1971. Sadiq, Jhang, pp. 217‐18. 31 Naseer Ahmed Saleemi, “Jhang Mein Shia Sunni Tanaziah: Aghaz Sey Anjam Tek”. Zindagi (Lahore:14‐20 December 1991),pp.19‐21. 32International Crisis Group ‘The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan’,p.15 33 Owais Tohid, ‘An Eye for an Eye, In Death, as in Life Interview‐Qari Shafiqur Rehman’, October 2003 http://www.newsline.com.pk/newsoct2003/stopoct1.htm accessed on 17 Oct 2007. 34 Animosh Roul, Sipah‐e‐Sahaba: Fomenting Sectarian Violence in Pakistan ‘Terrorism Monitor’ vol.3(2) (January 27,2005) 35Paul R. Brass, The Production of Hindu‐Muslim Violence in Contemporary India. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), p. 377. 36 Maulana Zia ur Rehman Faruqi became the Chief Patron of SSP after Haq Nawaz Jhangvi’s assassination. Before that he was Imam and Khateeb of a Mosque run by Auqaf Deptt at Sumundri, District Faisalabad. Zindagi (Lahore,14‐20 March 1991) 37Along with Malik Saleem Iqbal, Arshad Lodhi, Deputy Commissioner, Superintendent of Police, persons who took part in the negotiations were: Maulana Rashid Ahmad Madni, Mohalla Chandanwalla, Dildar Ali(Secretary Anjuman‐i‐Tajran), Haji Muhammad Ali (President,Anjuman‐i‐Tajran), Mian Iqbal Hussain, Muhammad Zahur Chuhan Advocate, Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal (Chairman Municipal Committee,Jhang), Muhammad Farooq(President Anjuman‐i‐Tajran, Jhang City),Muhammad Rafique Saqi(General Secretary Anjuman‐i‐Tajran Jhang city), Muhammad Aslam(Joint Secretary Anjuman‐i‐Tajran, Jhang City) and Maulana Esar ul Qasimi. See, Aman Muahida (Manzur

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Shuda) Zilai Intizamia wa membraan e Committee Anjuman‐i‐Sipah‐i‐Sihaba wa Muazizeen‐i‐Jhang (Jhang: 1990). 38 Ibid. Also see Sipah‐e‐Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group of Pakistan, South Asia Terrorism Portal, June 21,2004, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp?countries/Pakistan/terroristoutfits/ssp.htm accessed 23 February 2007. 39 Sipah‐e‐Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group of Pakistan, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/Pakistan/terroristoutfits/Ssp.htm accessed 3 March 2007. 40 In the Spotlight: Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) (July 9,2004), http://www.cdi.org/…/friendly version/printversion.cfm, accessed on 3 March 2007. 41Sipah‐e‐Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group of Pakistan, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/Pakistan/terroristoutfits/Ssp.htm accessed on 3 March 2007. 42 Zindagi,(Lahore,14‐20 December 1991), Sheikh Haq Nawaz was later on hanged in Mianwali jail on 28th February 2001.Kaka Balli, kin of Amanullah Sial was convicted to life imprisonment for the assassination of Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Sipah‐e‐Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group also see Abbas, p.13. 43 Tohid, “An Eye for an Eye, In Death, as in Life Interview‐Qari Shafiqur Rehman”. 44 General Elections Report, p.243. He contested that election from JUI (Sami ul Haq Group) quota. See Zindagi (Lahore,14‐20 March 1991) 45 See for further detail Ch Akhter Ali, “Reference under 6(2) of the Political Parties Act (as amended)”, Supreme Court of Pakistan, Islamabad, 29 January 2002. 46 See the complete text of Haq Nawaz’s speech on http://www.kr‐hcy.com/wasiyat/index.shtml, accessed on 05 December 2008.

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Irfan Waheed Usmani: A Litany of Errors

A LITANY OF ERRORS: PAKISTAN’S KASHMIR POLICY (1996-99)

IRFAN WAHEED USMANI GC UNIVERSITY, LAHORE

PAKISTAN ABSTRACT

Pakistan’s Kashmir policy became more and more inconsistent as was evident by the fact that instead of following one clear‐cut agenda Pakistani policy‐makers seem to follow three parallel agendas, i.e., traditional rhetorical emphasis on Kashmir cause for public consumption, Nawaz Sharis’s twin track approach, and the use of jehadi organizations, thus exposing glaring inconsistencies in our policy‐making and policy execution. These inconsistencies became more pronounced with the outbreak of Kargil conflict, which represented the height of inconsistent policy making.

KEY WORDS: Kargil operation, India, Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, Chanab Line Formula, Back Channel Diplomacy, Pervaiz Musharraf. This article explores the inconsistencies in Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy from 1996 to 1999. It also examines the changes in Kashmir policy by bringing to fore at least three parallel agendas followed by Pakistan’s policy makers during this period: (i) Perusal of traditional Kashmir Policy. (ii) Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s twin track approach towards Kashmir leading to back‐channel diplomacy, peace initiative and secret negotiations on Chenab line formula. (iii) Military agenda pursued by military and other hawkish elements (like ISI and its sponsored militant outfits).

The implementation of these agendas caused confusion and kept Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy quite ambivalent. The operationalization of this policy further exposed the vulnerabilities of Pakistan’s policy. The manner in which these agendas were pursued by the civilian governments and military authorities amply demonstrated the lack of coordination among the Pakistan’s policy‐makers as well as the tussle between the forces of change (extraneous and internal pressures) and the forces of status quo (jingoistic press, military

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establishment, right‐wing political parties) which eventually compelled Pakistan’s policy‐makers to look for other options. This article is divided into three parts: first part deals with the Kashmir policy of civilian government. The second portion highlights the two parallel agendas within the Pakistani official circles, one was pursuing peaceful means with the Indian government through secret or back‐channel diplomacy while the other parallel streak was military strategy designed by the military elite aimed at internationalizing Kashmir by increasing India’s occupation cost. This military strategy culminated into the Kargil crisis in 1999. The third part of this article explores the contradictions of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy as manifested during the Kargil fiasco. It also highlights Kargil operation as a tragedy of errors as case in point to unpack the inconsistencies in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy.

(I) This part of the paper deals with the Kashmir policy of Nawaz Sharif’s second government. It highlights its salient features like (i) reiteration of traditional stance (ii) its comparison with Benazir’s Kashmir policy (iii) dialogue process and its concomitant effects (iv) impact of deterioration of Indo‐Pak relations because of Bhartia Janta Party’s (BJP) aggressive policy leading to the nuclear detonations. It also examines the reconciliatory efforts of the two governments resulted in Lahore Declaration (February, 1999) and progress on Chenab Line formula.

The first discernable feature of Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy was, what Victoria Schofield calls, “traditional rhetoric” about the Kashmiri’s right of self‐determination.1 This traditional policy was manifested in the plethora of policy statements by various civil and military circles, their public posturing. Pakistani leadership appeared to place rhetorical emphasis on Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy to demonstrate its commitment to the Kashmir resistance movement along with highlighting the atrocities perpetrated by Indian troops. These rhetorical policy statements remained a dominant feature of official propaganda in print and electronic media. Perhaps these were used, at least, for public consumption to highlight government’s role in keeping the Kashmir issue alive. Mostly these statements made by Pakistan authorities on the occasion of Kashmir day, 5th February, Kashmir accession day 14 July, Jammu martyr’s day 6th November. Moreover, statements in reaction to the day to day developments in Kashmir reflected the same thrust. The perusal of this strategy even surprised many as Victoria Schofield puts it:

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Privately some Pakistani expressed the wish that, from his position of strength in the National Assembly, Nawaz Sharif would officially sanction the status quo in Jammu and Kashmir on the understanding that Pakistan would be better off without the Kashmir issue continuing to burden both its economy and its economic development.2

Without taking any further initiative3 Nawaz Sharif soon restored to the traditional posturing. As a logical corollary, Pakistan’s government refused to consider the third option of independence.4 Nawaz Sharif’s government during this period imposed Kashmir tax and also established a Kashmir fund for supporting Kashmir cause. To official circles, Kashmir remained the major stumbling block in the smooth sailing of Indo‐Pakistan relations. The resumption of bilateral dialogue in 1997 could not bring any diplomatic gain because of divergent approaches.5 Indians were insisting on managing the Kashmir conflict within the ambit of Shimla accord (1972) whereas Pakistan’s government was persisting long‐term solution of Kashmir dispute either through its internationalization or through meaningful dialogue on Kashmir enshrined in the principle of reciprocity. In other words, India emphasized on moving from peripheral (like economy, confidence building measures to de‐escalate the tensions) to core issues (like Kashmir and other long standing territorial disputes) quite contrary to Pakistan’s approach. Muhamad Akram Zaki, then the chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, out rightly rejected the Indian proposal for trade without settling the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.6

Nawaz Sharif government’s twin approach towards Kashmir dispute was qualitatively different from Benazir’s policy, as Mincheal Krepon observes that, “Nawaz Sharif was pursuing a two‐track approach he was prepared to negotiate confidence building measures with India. And he was still trying to get the issue of Kashmir on the table to discuss with India”.7 He argues that Benazir government closed down both tracks because for her, “new confidence building measures are not possible as long as the Kashmir problem remains in such an unsatisfactory state”.8 It is corroborated by Kashmir Study Group (KSG) Report which was published in 1997.9 This report speaks pointedly of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif moderation and pragmatism above all his “suitability for dialogue” and his “earnestness and determination to success at it”. Nawaz Sharif without any doubt was “very keen” to move ahead on Kashmir and “normalisation”.10 This approach was more pragmatic than the one adopted by previous regimes.11 While commenting on this report, AR Siddique, a veteran defence analyst, describes Nawaz Sharif’s personal view about Indo

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Pakistan relation as “positive”.12 Stephen P. Cohan also believes that “Nawaz Sharif saw India quite differently from the ‘army’s’ more hard‐line element”.13 Indian government also began to realize this shift. India’s top policy‐makers like J.N. Dixit and N.N. Wohra commented, “India would offer Nawaz Sharif anything in the world to keep him in power as the alternative could be a fundamentalist Taliban regime which would be more difficult to deal with”.14

Two factors may be attributed to this “pragmatic” shift in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif government’s policy towards Kashmir: (i) During his election campaign he had expressed an interest in improving relations with India and his re‐election to the office of Prime Minister opened the space for the implementation of a moderate agenda. After assuming power he slowly moved in that direction.15 (ii) More importantly, Nawaz Sharif took this step after he had sufficiently concentrated powers in his office. Apart from appointing a plaint president with substantially reduced power, he had secured the resignation of the chief of army staff, Jehangir Karamat. These successes probably gave him the feeling that he could embark upon a different policy towards India.16

This flexible attitude repeatedly found expression in the Prime Minister’s policy statements. He maintained that his government was committed to resolve all outstanding issues with India through negotiations.17 During SAARC summit in Maldives, Sharif met his Indian counterpart I.K. Gujral. At their meeting in Maldives, Gujral and Sharif announced a plan to constitute joint “working groups” to consider all outstanding issues. After the foreign secretaries met in June in Islamabad, they agreed to form eight working groups to consider all the major issues including Kashmir.18 Nawaz Sharif also emphasized on the meaningful dialogue within a definite timeframe for resolving the Kashmir dispute.19

India and Pakistan also pursued the policy of back channel diplomacy20 as manifested in form of Track II Dialogue. In late 1980’s and early 1990s, both countries had also initiated such dialogues but Nawaz Sharif’s second stint as Prime Minister added a new momentum to this process. An important round of these Track II talks was held in Islamabad in November 1997 on nuclear non‐proliferation, establishment of nuclear free zone in South Asia and the resolution of Kashmir dispute. During these talks various modalities concerning the Kashmir dispute also came up under discussion. The whole process of dialogue is shrouded in mystery as various circles interpreted it differently. For instance, Pakistani authorities maintained that these were merely pertained to “education”, whereas, the diplomatic circles contexualized it by linking it to the American interests. Nevertheless,

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this Track II diplomacy played a key role in bringing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Atal Behari Vajpayee close to the resolution of lingering Kashmir dispute.21

(II)

The dialogue process also led to the two major developments concerning Kashmir and Indo‐Pakistan relations i.e. (i) Lahore Declaration, (ii)Progress over Chenab Line Formula. Before going in to the details, it would be pertinent to mention other developments which led to the estrangement to an alarming proportion in the Indo‐Pakistan relations. These include coming of the BJP to power, the role of Pakistan backed Jehadi outfits in Kashmir, Pakistan’s growing nexus with Taliban and Indian threat perceptions regarding the upsurge of extremism. These relations touched their nadir in the wake of Indian nuclear test (on 11 May 1998) which further emboldened India’s aggressive stance towards Kashmir. Pakistan decided to give a tit‐for‐tat response by detonating its nuclear device (on 28 May 1998). All these developments apparently nullified the reconciliatory gestures shown by the two sides.

The first development which caused deterioration in Indo‐Pakistan relations was coming of the BJP government in power. Upon assuming the office of Prime Minister, Vajpayee’s government adopted a very belligerent policy towards Pakistan leading to the further deterioration between the two countries in 1998. This period also witnessed the escalation of violence in Kashmir. The Indian government blamed the Jehadi outfits supported by Pakistan’s military establishment. In the late 1990s, the Lashkar‐e‐Tayaba (the army of the pure), Harkat‐ul‐Ansar and Hizb‐ul Mujaheddin were the most dominant groups among the jehadi organizations operating in the Jammu and Kashmir.22

Pakistan’s support to Taliban also proved to be a major irritant in Indo‐Pakistan relations. India blamed Taliban of igniting insurgency in the Indian held Kashmir. India also alleged that organizations involved in Kashmir resistance movement like Hizbul Mujahideen, Jash‐e‐Muhammad and Lashkar‐e‐Tayaba were in league with the Taliban and received training in Afghanistan.23 In November 1997 Harkat‐ul‐Ansar was declared terrorist organization by the US on the grounds that it had links with Al Faran (many Al Faran members including Hamid al Turki, were ex‐Harkat members). In order to avoid US restrictions on travel and funding it immediately renamed itself Harkat‐ul‐Mujahideen.24 Later on, a splinter faction, Jaish‐e‐Muhammad, emerged from the same organization which had direct

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links with the Taliban in Afghanistan. They high‐jacked a plane of the Indian Air Lines and asked for the release of Maulana Masood Azhar who was then brought to Afghanistan.

The Indo‐Pakistan relations plummeted to their lowest ebb when India after exploding the nuclear devise asked Pakistan to change its policy over Kashmir. The Indian establishment in alliance with the state government of Farooq Abdullah threatened Pakistan with dire consequences if it did not reverse its policy on Kashmir. For instance, the State Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah advised the government of India to launch a very strong and decisive battle against Pakistan and “taunted Pakistan to detonate its nuclear devise if it had one”.25 The Indian Foreign Minister said, “Pakistan should re‐consider its position in South Asia because the strategic equation has changed”.26 L.K. Advani the Home Minister stated that, “we are going into Pakistan and takeover those parts of Kashmir which are in Pakistani hands”.27 Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said that: “The strategic equation has changed, the Pakistan’s should understand it”.28 These provocative statements of Indian leadership made the situation very volatile and the intensity of the crisis further augmented when India resorted to frequent shelling across the line of control which led to the low intensity conflict.

The provocative statements made Pakistani government believe that India’s nuclear policy was firmly attached to the Kashmir issue and its resolve to retake Kashmir could not be ignored. Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan echoing Pakistan’s concern told Victoria Schofield that:

Two things aggravated the situation following India’s recent test…Firstly, Pakistan’s information sources told us that the Indian Army had brought its attacking forces paratroopers, helicopter gun‐ships and artillery—up to the cease‐fire line in Jammu and Kashmir. Their purpose was to try and over run Azad Kashmir which could then have been used as a bargaining chip in return for Pakistan’s agreement to some accommodation over the valley of Kashmir.29

All these factors prompted Pakistan to detonate its nuclear devise. One of the underlying assumptions behind these nuclear tests was to thwart Indian designs to invade Azad Kashmir. After the nuclear tests Pakistan projected the Kashmir dispute as a nuclear flash point to

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attract the attention of the world and to stress the need for involving international community to resolve the Kashmir problem.30

This crisis gradually de‐escalated on account of three factors: (i) India realized that Pakistan had become a nuclear power and in view of the dominance of hawkish elements it might not behave like a responsible nuclear state. For instance, Foreign Minster Gowher Ayub’s statement also pointed out Kashmir as a nuclear flash point: “These weapons have been made by both countries and are not meant to display in parades, oil and clean them and apply polish on them…There is a possibility of war. These is a flash point, the world leadership must come as a third party and encourage to resolve Kashmir dispute”.31 (ii) On account of world pressure as evident from imposition of sanctions on both countries (iii) At the same time, both states also realized the resumption of dialogue to ease tensions. When the both prime ministers met at SAARC in Sri Lanka in July, they agreed to resume formal talks.

On 23 September 1998, the two Prime Ministers agreed that “an environment of peace and security is in the supreme national interest of both sides and that resolution of all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir is essential for this purpose”.32 In October 1998 Indian Foreign Secretary K. Ragunath met his Pakistani counterpart Sahmshad Ahmed in Islamabad. Keeping in view with the mood of reconciliation, the Pakistani Foreign Secretary again referred to Kashmir in the light of their changed nuclear status.33 The both sides hoped that, “in this drastically changed environment it is important that we join together for durable peace and durable solution”.34 The culmination of these discussions was Atal Behari Vajpayee’s historic visit at the inauguration Delhi‐Lahore bus service on 20 February, 1999. Vajpayee attended a banquet at the Lahore Fort which is described as one of the most symbolic meetings between the two prime ministers. Vajpayee also visited the Minar‐e‐Pakistan, where M.A. Jinnah announced the League’s scheme for an independent Muslim state in South Asia. The foreign secretaries signed an eight‐point memorandum of understanding which pledged to “engage in bilateral consultations on security concepts and nuclear doctrines as well as renewing their communication links, confidence building measures, consultation of security troops disarmament’s and non‐proliferation issues”.35 In the Lahore declaration Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee agreed to “intensify their efforts to resolve all the issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and Kashmir”,36 and to “refrain from intervention and interference in each other international affairs”.37 As regards Kashmir issue the Lahore declaration made no mention of the UN resolutions on Kashmir, thus

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repudiating Pakistan’s claim that the dispute should be resolved in accordance with these resolutions.38

The second major development indicating Pakistani civil government’s flexible policy towards Kashmir was the progress over Chenab Line Formula.39 Niaz A. Naik, who played a key role in this secret deal between the two counteries, revealed that “back channel diplomacy had achieved a breakthrough on Kashmir and would have led to an accord by September October had Kargil not happened”. 40

In one of his disclosures made before Lahore Bus Yatra of Vajpayee the Indian Prime Minister. Naik had stated that he had held discussion in New Delhi with Birjish Misra the political advisor of Vajpayee. To pursue the talks further Misra had secretly traveled to Lahore to discuss the formula of Chenab Line. Naik disclosed that Misra asked him to provide a copy of the map of state of Jammu and Kashmir to enable him to undertake the geographical locations along the river Chenab.41 According to the same version Indian Prime Minister did not oppose the idea when he was briefed.42

The underlying assumption of Chenab Line formula was to arrive at a compromise solution on Kashmir dispute keeping in view the sensitivities of the both sides. It was devised to seek a resolution of Kashmir dispute so that it may not look like a political defeat of either side.43 Under this formula, the Kashmir was to be divided on communal lines between the two countries. According to the proposal Muslim majority areas on the right side of the Chenab river would be given to Pakistan and the rest to India. The whole city of Jammu and many districts of Jammu province were to be retained by India as these areas were largely Hindu dominated. Muslim majority areas such as Srinagar were to be given to Pakistan.44 On the right bank of river Chenab, Pakistan was further to get the area stretching towards the right bank of river Chenab which included: half of mountainous Doda district, the entire Gulab Garh Teshil of Udhampur District, the entire districts of Rajouri and Poonch which were contiguously linked with Kashmir. Thus Pakistan was to get six districts having 98 per cent Muslim population.45 India was to get areas located towards the left bank of the Chenab. These included the Hindu majority districts of Jammu province i.e. Udhampur (excluding Gool Gulab Garh tehsil), Jammu and Kathua.46 Ladakh would have fallen with in Pakistan which reportedly Pakistan was willing to give up in India’s favour if the plan was accepted.47

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(III) All these initiatives were sabotaged by a parallel agenda pursued by Pakistan’s military establishment. To keep this issue alive, it systematically pursued this agenda by devising a strategy which involved: covert planning of Kargil operation, increasing reliance on Jehadi outfits.

There is enough circumstantial evidence to corroborate this contention that Pakistan’s military often sought a military solution of Kashmir from 1996 to 1999. For example former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto revealed that the military authorities presented to her alternate military solution thrice,48 but she vetoed it as it might turnout to be a great conflict.49 Former President Farooq Leghari also conceded that military tried to seek his approval for this operation during his presidentship in 1997.50 This point is further substantiated by the ISI former chief, Lt. General (Retd.) Javed Nasir’s assertions, who revealed that:

In 1996, the UN proposed to shelve all those fifty years old disputes which were pending without any progress. These also included the resolutions passed by the UN in favour of Kashmiri’s right of self‐determination. As Pakistan was party to these resolutions, therefore, this plan was totally unacceptable for Pakistan. For Pakistanis the issue of Kashmir was a matter of life and death. Therefore, in order to make this issue effective before the UN such a move (Kargil operation) was imperative. It was intended to make Kashmir a “hot‐issue” between India and Pakistan as well as to draw the international attention towards it.51

These maneuvers later culminated in form of operation Kargil. Even India believed that Pakistan’s military was involved in derailing the peace process and all this operation was initiated to “scuttle Lahore process”.52

The second tactic used by military was increasing reliance on Jehadi organizations. Pakistan’s policy makers believed that militancy could be used as a tool to achieve political objectives in Kashmir. They believed that conflict could be kept alive by promoting these Jehadi elements. They could be used to pressurize India to negotiate with Pakistan. They could also be used to make Kashmiris believe that “Pakistan has not given up their cause”. Therefore, militancy through

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Jehadi outfits conveniently fitted as a tool to answer these questions. This contention that form the mid 1990 the Jehadi outfit backed by Pakistan assumed a pre‐dominant role in Kashmiri resistance movement could be further substantiated by the following arguments:

In 1995, two more Jehadi outfits the Lashkare Tayeba and Harkat ul Ansar joined the resistance movement.53 In mid 1990s Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front denounced militancy and vowed to continue political struggle.54 The most plausible reasons behind this change could be that it had little militancy capacity,55 as compared to the Pakistani backed militant groups. Moreover, it represented the “Azadi element” therefore, its struggle right from the very beginning of the Kashmiri resistance movement was not backed by Pakistan. Rather Pakistani agencies tried to discourage its role by introducing their own actors represented by Jehadi element and assigned them the agenda “Kashmir benay ga Pakistan” (Kashmir will be the part of Pakistan).

Till mid 1990s there appeared visible dissension or split with in the ranks of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). The Indian government noticed a split in Kashmiri resistance movement. APHC was broadly divided into two factions. One faction comprised Abdul Gani Lone and Syed Ali Shah Gilani and the other Omar Farooq, Abdul Ghani Bhatt, Maulvi Abbas Ansari with tacit support of Shabir Shah.56 The former represented the Jehadi streak.

The rise of Taliban in Afghanistan proved to be a further incentive in pursuing this strategy. A perceptive analyst on Kashmir Samina Yasmeen is of the view that: “Pakistan’s emphasis on low‐level insurgency in the Indian part of Kashmir entered a new phase in 1996 with the emergence of Taliban in Afghanistan”.57

The role played by the ISI in their rise to power created a space for a triangular alliance (training camps, madaris, and jihadi organizations) which proved instrumental in executing this Jihad policy. Training camps were established in Afghanistan that were used, among others, to train Jihadis for engaging Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir. A number of madaris (religious schools) in Pakistan with close links to the Taliban became the supplier of these Jihadis. Some Arabs based in Afghanistan also joined these groups particularly in the second half of 1990.58 According to one estimate, approximately 80,000 Pakistani militants had received training and fought with the Taliban till December 1999.59

This strategy of jihad policy culminated into Kargil operation.60 This operation in one way or the other exposed the inconsistencies in the Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. Right from its inception till its dramatic end everything is shrouded in mystery. For

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instance, all the major aspects of the operation like its authorship, statements of those who were at the helm of affairs (as briefly discussed above) concerning the existence of Kargil operation, denial of these claims by top military brass and subsequent vindication of the stance of civilian leaders by Javed Nasir (former ISI chief) and Lt‐Gen. Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani (who briefed prime minister Nawaz Sharif at the General Head Quarter‐GHQ). The litany of errors associated with the operation did not end here rather the blame game between the civilian prime minister and the military chief regarding the question of ownership further mystified this incident. In the nutshell what was witnessed was “unending series of secret deals, behind the scene negotiations and compromises……The manner in which this area was vacated it further led rise to various untold stories, speculations as well as provided an opportunity to conspiracy theorists and spin doctors to weave and aura of mystery around all this episode”.61 What made the situation worse was that tarnished Pakistan’s image as it exposed the visible contradictions in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. For instance, Pakistan’s government projected Kargil as a product of indigenous and spontaneous uprising whereas what it actually turned out to be a smoke screen. This operation is also described by its critics as an attempt to derail of peace initiative. And last but not least of Pakistani policy makers seemed to pursue two parallel agendas. On the one hand, very aggressive military policy was pursued on the other, “hawkish policy makers” did not leave the door of secret negations close by tacitly backing the civilian government’s endeavours to diffuse the tension and bail the military out of this crisis. Ironically soon after the withdrawal the later placed the onus on the shoulders of civilian government by accusing it of betraying Kashmiris. The shifts in Islamabad policy over the Kargil crisis, made things further complicated. The diplomats and civilian leadership appeared confused, first they denied the presence of Pakistan backed Mujahideen in Kargil, later on they admitted it. Such denials and affirmative statements posed serious questions about the creditability of Pakistan’s stance on Kargil.62 Mujahideen’s sudden withdrawal from Kargil soon after the Washington Agreement further lent credence to accusations of Pakistan’s direct involvement in this operation. It is also highlighted by Victoria Schofield as she maintains that: “Numerous commentators point out, how could the Pakistani Prime Minister honour his pledge to Clinton to put pressure on the infiltrators to withdraw; if as he had already maintained he did not control them”.63

In India the ruling BJP leaders perceived Kargil as an attempt to “sabotage” the Lahore peace process by Pakistan’s military. L.K.

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Advani believed that the Kargil infiltration must have been underway when “Pakistan” was engaging India in Lahore peace process.64 George Fernandes blamed the Pakistan Army for planning the Kargil operation without the government’s approval.65 Indians contended that “if it was not meant to scuttle the Lahore process what was the idea behind occupying the Kargil peaks? To cut off the Srinagar Leh road was not a big deal. The Indian troops on Siachen largely depended on air supplies and a new road link via Himachal Pradesh had also been established”.66 It is further substantiated by Niaz A.Naik’s statement who played a key role in “back channel Diplomacy”. He claimed that: ‘Back channel Diplomacy achieved a breakthrough on Kashmir and would have led to an accord by September October had Kargil not happened.’67 Not only Indians, the US officials also perceived that it was Pakistan Army Chief, General Pervaiz Musharraf, who “was determined to humble India once and for all”.68 They also believed that the Pakistani civilian leadership was genuinely serious in a peace‐deal with the Indian government.

The secret backchannel diplomacy which was pursued as a parallel agenda during this crisis also further exposed the inconsistencies of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy regarding Kargil. During Kargil conflict Niaz A. Naik paid three visits to New Delhi as a special emissary of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.69 In New Delhi, he met Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and other Indian officials. As part of backchannel diplomacy and Indian journalist R.K. Mishra also paid five visits to Pakistan as a special emissary of Indian Prime Minister.70 The foreign office initially disassociated itself with Naik’s Indian visits, but later confirmed that he went there as Mr. Sharif’s special emissary.71 Two Pakistani federal ministers (Foreign & information minister)72 also conceded the backchannel diplomacy during the Kargil conflict.73 Initially everything appeared smooth as “Nawaz Sharif agreed to an Indian offer of a phased withdrawal of the ‘infiltrators’ three weeks before the withdrawal actually took place”.74 Later, this process was certainly suddenly stalled in the middle which led Indians to believe that “Nawaz Sharif failed to follow through an unofficial peace initiative” as “he was playing at both sides of the fence”.75139 The Indian believed that it caused delay in withdrawal and resulted in the further loss of lives.76140 The main reason was that “it was not until the infiltrators started to encounter military reversals that he made his visit to Clinton in the US”.77

After holding talks with the Indian Prime Minister on 28 June, Naik revealed that the Director‐Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) would prepare a schedule of withdrawal explicating its timings and modalities. 78 The foreign office spokesman denied having

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anything to do with Mr. Niaz A. Naik’s India visit.79 Against this confusing backdrop, the reports that the DGMO’S of the two countries did meet on 1st July which was described to be a “a routine flag‐meeting” but it could also be seen in the context of Naik’s visit to India.80 This mysterious diplomacy also invited the criticism in the press. In its editorial, The Nation commented that: “transparency is laudable in governance but seems misplaced in delicate and sensitive negotiations…The virtual open debate means either that our government is once again tripping over its on feet or else that the exchange has failed totally”.81

It would not be out of place to mention here that on one hand the civilian government was pursuing its backchannel policy through Niaz A. Naik but on the military establishment was viewing these developments with suspicion. It distanced itself with these developments. When ISI former Chief Javed Nasir was asked why Niaz A. Naik was sent to India? He replied: “Niaz A. Naik is not Pakistan’s but America’s man. America had floated the idea of 3rd option and for this purpose it had sponsored a so‐called study group Niaz A. Naik is a member of that group. It comprises many other American stooges and Niaz A. Naik is one of them. If he had visited India he would have gone at the behest of America not on Pakistan’s desire”.82 On 30 September 1999, General Pervaiz Musharraf, informally talking to the journalists at the reception hosted by Chinese Ambassador, Lu Shulin at the Chinese Embassy projected Kargil “as a great military success”.83 But the information gleaned from General Zinni’s account suggests that the decision of withdrawal was taken by the military. It also reveals that the army pulled out of Kargil willingly and not because of Nawaz Sharif.84150 As Khalid Hasan contends that: “In fact, if there was any resistance to pull back, it was on the part of the Prime Minister not the Army chief who later made many heroic claims about Kargil, accusing Sharif of “surrender”.85151 Controversy also surrounds the mysterious role played the US during Kargil crisis. Shireen Mazari contends that: “it is equally clear the real US intent was not to play a neutral mediator in the conflict”.86 152 She asserts that: “Many military commanders in interviews, insisted that it was the US that prevented India from coming to the negotiating table with Pakistan at the time of Sharif’s visit to China. Even earlier around June 9, 1999, Kissinger visited India apparently carrying a message from the US government not to negotiate with Pakistan”.87 153 This contention is further corroborated by various reports published in the Pakistani press during the June‐September 1999.88

The Kargil conflict reveals that gradually the things got out of hands of the government. From Pakistan’s side there were three

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parties to the Kargil conflict which were pursuing their separate agendas the government was just one of three elements in the entire conflict—the two others were army and the militants and their parent political parties.89 As the operation intensified Pakistan’s Kashmir policy betrayed the signs of confusion and dysfunction, “these short comings of the Pakistan’s national security decision making that were revealed by Kargil conflict were not episodic but systemic”.90 CONCLUSION A cursory look of the main strands of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy between 1996‐99 suggests that amid the contrasting pulls and strains this policy was caught up in a mess. It appeared that Pakistani policy‐makers were working on at least three parallel agendas i.e., for public consumption the traditional policy was being pursued. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was following a two pronged strategy vis‐à‐vis Kashmir i.e. negotiations of confidence building measures as well as internationalization of Kashmir issue.

The military with the help of Jehadi organizations was pursing its own goal of transforming Kashmir into a bleeding ulcer for India in order to internationalize the issue. The use of Jehadi outfits for the perusal of this policy further added to confusion. For instance, the use of insurgency as a mean of changing the status quo came under gradual scrutiny by the international community in the second half of 1990s. “To some extent this was prompted by the Indian government’s ability to explore different options in Kashmir while learning to manage the problem”.91 At the same, India’s emergence as an aspiring global power and the international reluctance to get involved in intractable problem of Kashmir resulted in Pakistan finding few supporters of its Kashmir policy. Neither China nor the Muslim countries were prepared to risk their relations with New Delhi by supporting Pakistan’s Kashmir policy.92 The fear of turning into an international pariah state, might have forced the Pakistani officials to roll back their military strategy and resort to the back‐channel diplomacy. It became more explicit with the emergence of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

We may conclude that neither the civilian government nor the military establishment could materialize their agendas. If agenda pursued by hawkish elements within the Pakistan’s military led to the derailment of peace process, the objective envisioned by military in Kargil also remained unaccomplished.

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END-NOTES 1 Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict: Pakistan and Unfinished War (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), p.195. 2 Ibid., p.191. 3 Ibid.,p.195. 4 Ibid.,p.195. 5 Smruti S. Patanaik, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy: Objectives and Approaches”, Strategic Analysis, vol. 26 (11) (April‐June 2002), p.204. 6 Akram Zaki’s statement on 27 January, 1998 cited in Monis Ahmer, Middle East and South Asia (Karachi: Pakistan Study Centre, Karachi University, 2000), p.78. 7 Michael Krepon, “CBMs and Resolution of the Kashmir Dispute: Is a Two Track Strategy Possible”, Pakistan Horizon, Vol. 47(3) (July 1994), p.19. 8 Ibid. 9 The report was prepared by a study team KSG it was entitled “The Kashmir Dispute at Fifty” The study group comprised the following members: (i) Prof. Ainslie Embree (Columbia University). (ii) Former Ambassador Howard Shafter (iii) Prof. Joseph E. Schwatzberg (University of Minnesota) (iv) Prof. Robert G. Wirsing (University of South Carolina) (v) Prof. Charles H. Kennedy (Lake Forest University) The members of this team visited India (March April 1997) and Pakistan (May 1997) and held 78 meeting in India and 40 meetings in Pakistan, involving 182 persons in order to obtain the opinions and attitudes. This report got a write up in New York Times on October, 12, 1997 and was discussed at the Madison South Asia Conference and the Asia Society. US Kashmir Study Group Report: Pakistan Press Comments (Islamabad: Institute of Regional Studies, 1998). 10 A.R. Siddiqi, “US Kashmir Report: A Tribute to Nawaz Sharif”, The Pakistan Observer (Islamabad, 16 December, 1997). 11 A.R. Siddiqi, “US Kashmir Report: A Tribute to Nawaz Sharif”, The Pakistan Observer (Islamabad, 4 December, 1997). 12 A.R. Siddiqi, “US Kashmir Report: A Tribute to Nawaz Sharif”, The Pakistan Observer (Islamabad, 16 December, 1997). 13 Stephen P. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Lahore: Vanguard Books, 2005), p. 151. 14 This was revealed by J.N. Dixit, a former ambassador in Islamabad and N.N. Wohra a former National Security advisor at Stimson Center on 5 August, 1999. J. N. Dixit and N.N. Wohra’s statement cited in Ahmer, Middle East and South Asia, p.90. 15 R. Rahman, “Kashmir Prospects and Obstacles”, The Nation (19 January, 2001) 16 Samina Yasmeen, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy: The voices of Moderation”, Contemporary South Asia, vol.12(2) (June 2003), p.18. 17 Jang (Lahore, 18 March, 1998) 18 Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p.195. I.K. Gujral as Prime Minister evolved “Gujral doctrine” a friendlier approach to India’s neighbours, easing tensions

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in South Asia and improving relations with Pakistan. India Pakistan Joint Secretary level talks, Joint Statement (23 June 1997) 19 Nawaz Sharif’s statement on 13 August, 1999 cited in Ahmer, Middle East and South Asia, p. 90. 20 Back channel (a team borrowed from the American CIA lexicon) It is meant to be secret, so where public positions have hardened, deviating proposals can be conveyed without any commitment or perhaps more importantly without exposure to criticism by domestic oppositions. The main rationale behind this strategy was to maintain contacts through diplomacy resolve a tricky matter. This strategy is a part of confidence building measure. Some people call them “conflict‐avoidance measure” The back door diplomacy has a long history in context of Indo‐Pakistan relations. But this strategy was frequently resorted to during 1990s particularly in Nawaz Sharif’s second stint it almost lead to a break through over Kashmir dispute. The CIA director used to fly to Pakistan unannounced during Afghan war and meet President Zia‐ul‐Haq in his plane so that their conversation was not monitored by any devise. In context of Indo‐Pakistan relations the idea of a more expanded CBM regime had been proposed in 1985 by the state department and belatedly agreed to by Rajiv Gandhi and Zia‐ul‐Haq after the near‐war‐crisis of 1987. The possibility of sharing American intelligence information with one or both of sides was raised in these meetings, but no conclusion was apparently reached on this issue. Subsequently, when talks with India and Pakistan took place, American officials adhered to the policy of avoiding the modality of providing information to one side but not the other. During this first stint as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, had sent top bureaucrat Mukhtar Masood to India as part of back channel diplomacy after their Indian Premier, P.V. Narasimha Roa had told his Pakistani counterpart that his country wants to resolve the long‐standing Kashmir issue and is ready to talk about it short of independence. In this back drop Pakistan and India resorted to Track II Dialogue. Between 1992 to 1997 seven rounds of dialogue were held. The first was held in Colombo (1994), 2nd Karachi (1993), Madras (1994), 4th Calcutta (1995), 7th Islamabad (1997), Apart from these meeting the other meetings were also occasionally held between the two countries in this regard. On 18th January 1994, Islamabad presented the Government of India with an unofficial non paper expressing Pakistan’s willingness to consider new and innovative methods to ascertain the will of Kashmirirs. Another India Pakistan Track II dialogue meeting was held in Bellagio (Italy) in September 1994 where knowledgeable participants from India Pakistan and US took retrospective look on the Brass Tracks Crisis of 1986. Earlier in 1994, in the month of February, Shanghai Dialogue took place. These three day discussions were held between 24 February to 26 February; Four countries US, China, Pakistan and India participated in these discussions. Each side was represented by its five non‐serving officials. These talks were sponsored Alton Jones Foundation and were part of US policy of non‐proliferation in South Asia. In 1995 and 1996 two meeting on Kashmir were held in Washington and London. These were followed by talks on Pakistan India security, political

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issues and talks over South Asia Economic Cooperation. The former were held in Slazburg and Shanhasi and the later in Kathmandu. For details see, P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Stephen P. Cohn, Perceptions, Politics and Security in South Asia (London: Routledge, 2003),p.99; Michael Krepon, “CBMs and Resolution of the Kashmir Dispute”, 19; Shakil Shaikh, “Track II Talks resume to Promote under Standing”, The News (23 February, 1997), Pakistan (23 February 1997), Tariq Butt, “Pakistan‐India Secret ‘back channel Exchanges”, The Nation (30 June 1999). 21 Javed Rana, “Trak II Diplomacy Back on Track”, The Nation (20 January, 2004). 22 Schofiled, Kashmir in Conflict, p.200. The United Jihad Council led by Syed Salauddin, was an umbrella of organizations of fourteen smaller groups operating out of Muzaffargarh which included Al Badar and Tehrik‐i‐Jihad. 23 Imran Bashir, “The Rise and Fall of Taliban” The Historian, Vol.1(1) (July December 2002), pp. 100‐101. 24 Schofiled, Kashmir in Conflict, p. 200. According to an unpublished research thesis of Alexander Evans, 1999, cited in Schofiled, Kashmir in Conflict, p.47. Harkat ul Mujahideen was based in Muzaffargarh, it was believed to have a core group of about 300 militant operating in 1999, who were Pakistanis, Kashmiris as well as Afghans and Arabsj who had fought in Afghan war. 25 Kamal Matin ud din, “Nuclearization of South Asia” in Spotlight on Regional Affairs Vol. XVII, No.7 and 8 (July‐August 1998), p.33. 26 Iqbal Ahmed’s Interview by David Barsaman in Himal South Asia, Vol.12(3) (March 1999), p.19. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Victoria Schofield’s Interview with Sardar Qayyum Khan, on 4 July, 1998 cited in Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p. 206. 30 Partanaik, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy”, p. 207. 31 The Nation (31 July, 1998) 32 Partanaik, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy”. 33 Ibid. 34 The Nation (18 October, 1998) 35 MoU signed by Indian Foreign Secretary, Mr. K. Raghunath and the Pakistani Foreign Secretary Mr. Shamshad Ahmed, Lahore 21, February 1999. 36 Lahore Declaration signed by Prime Minister of India and Pakistan on 21 February 1999 37 Ibid. 38 Farzana Shakoor, “Pakistan‐US Relations: An Interpretation”, Pakistan Horizon, vol. 47(3), (July 1999), pp. 29‐30. The critics of Lahore Declaration believed that despite the enthusiasm over Vajpayee’s visit to Pakistan it was clear that the Lahore Declaration would have no significance if in reality, neither side could move ahead on Kashmir issue. Even some Kashmiri leader doubled its utility. Prominent Kashmiri leader Ali Shah Gilani was of view that ‘Relations between India and Pakistan could not be improved with out of a lasting solution of Jammu and Kashmir being the core issue.’ These sentiments were also echoed by AJK Prime Minister, Sultan Mehmood: ‘We demand that

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dialogue for solving Kashmir issue should not be on a bilateral basis between Pakistan and India. But trilateral as Kashmiris are also a party who should decide about their future.’ Some critics raised their objection concerning the very spirit of the Lahore Declaration which was drafted in consonance with the spirit of Simla Agreement. In this declaration India and Pakistan had reiterated ‘determination to implement the Simla Agreement in ‘letter and spirit’ since in the opinion of Kashmiri activists, Simla had already failed, there was every expectation that, yet again the Lahore Declaration would not achieve the desired results for Kashmiris. Soon after his visit to Lahore the Indian Prime Minster Mr. Vajpayee soon assumed belligerent posture. Thus the euphoria associated with Lahore Declaration soon evaporated. For details see: The Nation (5 March, 1999), The Nation (25 March, 1999), Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p.208. 39 According to this formula River Chenab provided a natural partition of Kashmir into Muslim and Non‐Muslim zones. The “Chenab Formula” was for the first time discussed between India and Pakistan in 1962‐63, but the negotiations could not make any headway. The river Chenab comes out from Himalyan range of Kullus in the extreme north of Kishtwar in Doda district (Jammu province) with high mountain range of Himachal (India) adjoining in the background. It flows through the mountainous areas of Doda, Ramban, Surukot, Salat, Reasi, Akhnar and enters Punjab (Pakistan) at Head Marala where a big headwork has been built facilitating construction of two big channels. India has built salaldam down on it under Indus water treaty. Abdur Rashid Malik, “The Chenab Line Formula”, The Nation (3 June, 2003). According to Niaz A. Naik, the Chenab line formula was also presented by late Bhutto during Bhutto Swarn Singh talks in 1962 and was rejected by India. 40 Khalid Mahmood, “Back Channel Diplomacy”, The News (29 September, 1999) 41 Abdur Rashid Malik, “The Chenab Line Formula”, The Nation (3 June, 2003) 42 Zia Iqbal Shahid, “News Report: Exchange of Non‐Papers on Kashmir Division soon.” The News (25 July, 2003) Naiz A. Naik was also quoted telling before the Kargil conflict that the military leadership might abandon Pakistan’s long standing insistence on UN sponsored plebiscite for Kashmiri accession to either India or Pakistan and agree on a compromise solution if India were offer reciprocal concessions’. 43 Javed Rana, “Track II Diplomacy back on Track”, The Nation (20 January, 2004) 44 Ibid. 45 Malik, “The Chenab Line Formula”. 46 Ibid. 47 Moeed Yusuf and Adil Najm, “Kashmir: Identifying the components of a sustainable solution” in The Troubled Times (Islamabad: SDPI, 2005), p.423. 48 Irfan Waheed Usmani, “Kargil Ki Indrooni Khani” (The inside of Kargil), Weekly Taquazey, Vol.4(34) (15 September, 1999), p.16. 49 The verbatum of this interview was published in Daily Khabrain, see “Benazir’s Interview”, Khabrain (10 February, 2005).

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50 Leghari’s interview cited in Irfan Waheed Usmani, “Kargil Ki Indrooni Khani” (The inside of Kargil), Weekly Taquazey (September, 1999), p.16. 51 “Javed Nasir’s Interview”, in Weekly Zindagi, Vol.19(6), p.11. 52 Khalid Mehmood, “Back channel Diplomacy”, The News (29 September, 1999) 53 Muntzra Nazir, “The Political and Strategic dimension in Indo‐Pakistan Relations (1999‐2004)” in Pakistan Vision, Vol.5(2 ), (December 2004), p.38. 54 It indicated that the dissension or fissures had appeared within the ranks of Kashmiri resistance leaders in June 1994, the JKLF admitted that atrocities committed by the militants had alienated the people and stated that strict action would be taken against ‘earring elements’ in the movement. Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p.175; Amnesty International, Torture and Deaths in Custody (January, 1994), p.59. 55 Muntzra Nazir, “The Political and Strategic dimension in Indo‐Pakistan Relations (1999‐2004)”, p.38. 56 Indian High Commission Landon’s Report February, 1996, cited in Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p.175. 57 Yasmeen, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy”, p.192. 58 Ibid., p.93. 59 Ahmed Rasidhi’s Article cited in Sumita Kumar, “Pakistan’s Jehadi operations: Goals and Methods”, Strategic Analysis, Vol.XXIV(12), (March 2001), p.2181. 60 See for details, Irfan Waheed Usmani, “Inglorious end to a Glorious Adventure: Conceiving and Executing the Kargil Operation (1999)”, The Historian, vol.6 (2), (July‐December, 2008) 61 Ibid., p.108. 62 Shakoor, “The Kargil Crisis”. 63 Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p. 216. 64 The Nation (London, 9‐15 July, 1999) cited in ibid. 65 Mahmood, “Back Channel Diplomacy”. 66 Ibid. 67 The News (29 September 1999) 68Bruce Ridel, American Diplomacy and 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House, Policy Paper Series, 2002 (Pennsylvania, USA: Centre for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania) quoted in Hassan Ali, “India’s Diplomatic Assault”, Pakistan Observer (Islamabad, 23 May 2003) also see Mantazra Nazir, “India Pakistan Relations”, p.32. 69 The Nation (30 September 1999) 70 The initiative came from Indian government, Indian Prime Minister’s Embassy Birjesh Misra visited “Pakistan five times during the month of June and met with Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. Main reason behind such initiative was Indian compulsions as Indian government had become greatly perturbed by the Kargil situation and earnestly wanted to resolve this issue amicably through a “back channel diplomacy”. See Usmani, “Kargil ki indroni kahani”.

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71 Raja Zulfiqar, “Naik’s visit nothing to do with government’s foreign office”, The News (30 September 1999) 72 These included Pakistan’s foreign minister Sartaj Aziz, and information minister Mushahid Hussain. 73 Mahmmud, “Back Channel Diplomacy”. 74 The News (30 September 1999) 75 The Guardian (22 July 1999) cited in Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p. 218. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 The News (01 July 1999) 79 Editorial, “Mystery Diplomacy”, The News (02 July 1999) 80 Ibid. 81 Editorial, “Backchannel Blue” (01 July 1999) 82 Nasir’s interview, Weekly Zindagi, p.11. 83 Ahmer, Middle East and South Asia, p.91. 84 General Zinni quoted in Khalid Hassan, “Postcard USA: General Zinni on Pakistan”, Daily Times (6 June 2004) 85 Ibid. 86 Mazari, The Kargil Conflict 1999, p. 61. 87 Ibid. 88 The journalists such as Naseem Zahra, Ata‐ur‐Rehman, Abu Sheraz and Zia‐ud‐Din wrote various article and reports in this context. For details see Usmani, “Kargil ki indroni kahani”. 89 Zafar Abbass, “War Cover Story”, The Herald, (July 1999), p.33. 90 Mazari, The Kargil Conflict 1999, p.61. 91 Yasmeen, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy”, p.193. 92 Ibid., pp.193‐94.

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THE HISTORY OF HADĪTH LITERATURE: A REVIEW OF MUSLIM AND WESTERN

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

ALI USMAN QASMI UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG

GERMANY

ABSTRACT

The predominant view among scholars of Islam has been to regard Hadīth and Sunnat as the second most important sources, after Quran, of guidance for Muslims in their beliefs and practices. But in recent times there has been an increasing trend among some Muslim and European scholars of critiquing the Hadīth literature and adopting varying degrees of skepticism about it. The present article offers a comprehensive overview of such debates about the historicity of Hadith literature. It starts off with a brief introduction to the concept of Haidth and Sunnat followed by their history as compiled by such Muslim scholars as Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah, Mustafa al‐Azami and Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi. The other half of the article details new trends in the European literature on Hadith studies starting from the contributions made by late 19th century Orientalists like Alois Sprenger, William Muir and Ignaz Goldziher to the writings of such recent scholars as Herald Motzki. In the last section of the article, the works of Fazlur Rahman have been discussed as the most important example of a ‘Muslim modernist scholar’ to retain the important link – which exists in the form of Hadīth with an admittedly varying degree of credibility – to the Muslim past dating back to the days of the Prophet while, at the same time, adopting an objective attitude towards it, so as to establish the centrality

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of the principle of dynamism and change to the process of deriving Islamic injunctions.

KEY WORDS: DEFINING HADĪTH AND SUNNAT The knowledge of Hadīth (pl.: Ahadīth), acquired through a scholarly command of its various related fields of learning is vital for an understanding of the different aspects of Muslim faith and its history. The vast corpus of Hadīth literature does not only record in minute detail each and every aspect of Prophet Muhammad's public and private life or the moral exhortations he made to his followers and adversaries alike, but is also considerably relevant for an interpretation of the Quran and information regarding the principles of Islamic law and polity. The word Hadīth, when employed as a jargon in Islamic sciences of jurisprudence, has a technical meaning as well. In its Islamic connotation Hadīth refers to the words and deeds transmitted on the authority of the Prophet which convey details about the actions he performed, approved, disapproved or condoned, along with his statements and sayings on various occasions in response to different situations. A complete Hadīth consists of a text (matn) and information about its chain of transmitters (Isnād). In more precise terms, Isnād is the list of names of those who one after the other transmitted the information until it reached him who currently reports it.1

Another key term in Hadīth studies, which is mostly taken to be synonymous with Hadīth in its meaning and scope, is that of Sunnat. In accordance with Arabic lexicography, Sunnat is a behavioral concept which means a normative way of acting, practice, usage, mode, rule, course, or a path already trodden. While Hadīth is the narration of the behavior of the Prophet, Sunnat is the law or practice deduced from this narration. In other words, Hadīth is the 'carrier' and 'vehicle' of the Sunnat.2 The traditional Muslim account of the history of Hadīth compilation is based on the presumption that the members of the nascent Muslim community – and especially the Sahāba or Companions (sing.: Sahābī)3 from the very beginning realized the importance of recording the words of their Prophet and emulating his actions. The primary reason for this was the status accorded to him by the Quran itself. The Quran talks of the Prophet's noble character as an exemplary model for the believers and asks for a complete

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adherence to it.4 The authority of the Prophet has been established by Quran in unequivocal terms in Q 59:7 which says that “whatsoever the messenger giveth you, take it. And whatsoever he forbiddeth, abstain (from it).” As a recipient of Divine revelation, Prophet alone is in the position to “explain to mankind that which hath been revealed for them.”5 Also, it was only natural for Prophet's followers to be cognizant of the importance of following the last Prophet of God in every minute detail.6 Every action he performed would have been considered as a precedent set by him7 and hence liable to obedience. The Prophet was not simply regarded as a figure of authority but also, for his Companions, he was a person worthy of utmost reverence and love. He himself said that no one can be a true believer until and unless he loves him more than his family. Muslim sources are replete with innumerable instances of outpourings of intense feelings for, and emotional attachment to, the person of the Prophet. For these reasons Muslim scholars, in their traditional accounts of the history of Hadīth compilation, have found it perfectly in consonance with the teachings of the Quran – as well as natural in the view of the general behavior of the Companions towards their Prophet – that the Hadīth must have remained in circulation, whether orally or in written form, from the very beginning and must have been considered a source of authority. TRADITIONAL MUSLIM ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY OF HADĪTH COMPILATION Since modern critics of Hadīth – Muslim and Western academics alike – have focused on the oral character of Hadīth transmission and it was after a lapse of considerable time that the first written collections of H�adīth appeared, some Muslim scholars have tried to put forth the counter claim that written H�adīth records were to be found even during the life time of the Prophet.8 The Prophet had at his disposal a number of scribes who not only recorded the Quranic verses that were periodically dictated to them by the Prophet but also wrote down some Ah�ādīth as well. There is some evidence which suggests that the Prophet's correspondence with the tribes and some administrative rulings were written down and preserved. Dr. Hamidullah has carried out extensive research in this field and claims to have unearthed long lost copies of Prophet's letters written to different rulers and tribal leaders. But of foremost importance is the terms of agreement concluded between the Prophet and the Medinese inhabitants and minorities. Hamidullah calls it the first written constitution of any state in the history of the world.9 Similarly,

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Prophet's treaty with the Meccans at H�udaibīya was in a written form as well. It is reported that when the treaty was to be signed, the Meccans objected at the appellation Muhammad Rusūl Allah, to which the Prophet responded by removing the title Rusūl Allah from his name despite the reservations of some eminent Companions like ‘Alī. Bukhārī and Muslim suggest a 'census' being carried out in Medina to note down the names of all the faithful residing in the city. Also, a proper record was maintained regarding those soldiers who were sent out to different expeditions.10 An official compendium comprising of Prophet's instructions in response to the queries and problems of administration sent by governors, tax collectors and qāżīs, from various regions – especially regarding Zakat – were collected by Ibn H��azm from different sources. These were later transmitted by his successive generations. The present surviving version is that a of third century scribe of Dēbal (Sind), ‘Abul Ja‘far al‐Debalī.11

Other than strictly administrative documents, there are also instances when Prophet's words relating to his ideas and mission as a Prophet were written down for wider dissemination in accordance with his own rubrics. After the conquest of Mecca, Prophet's sermon guaranteeing certain rights was written down for Abū Shāh of Yemen who was present at that occasion.12 When the Prophet delivered his famous speech during his last pilgrimage, he asked his listeners to carry the message to those who were not present there. In order to acquaint his followers with a better knowledge of the new faith and its tenets, Prophet Muhammad kept close to his company a group of people who could be instructed in the Quran and Sunnat and then transmit it to others. The Ashāb al‐Suffa, or the People of the Porch as they are known, served as reliable repository of knowledge about Prophet Muhammad and his ideas not just for his other Companions but also for people in distant areas.13 Those who could not avail themselves of the opportunity of staying in close contact with the Prophet on a regular basis made arrangements with their fellow Companions. According to Abū Huraira, he was approached by notable Companions like ‘Umar, ‘Uthmān, ‘Alī, Talha and Zubayr because he was frequently in the company with the Prophet, more so than them. 14 Those who were more regularly present and close to the Prophet had the chance as well as the permission to note down his sayings. ‘Abdullāh b. Amr b. al‐‘Ās used to take note of Prophet's words. He was advised by the people not to do so because they felt that the Prophet too, being a human, was prone to err and mood swings. He went to ask the Prophet for his permission to which he readily agreed, saying that whatever issues from him is verily right and truth. ‘Abdullāh b. Amr went on to make a compilation of Prophet's words

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and titled it as Sahīfa al‐Sādiqa. It was preserved in his family for a long time but can no longer be traced.15 Abū Huraira attributes ‘Abdullāh b. Amr's expertise in H�adīth to the fact that he used to write them down. More important is the example of Anas b. Mālik. He was one of the few people from that period who could read and write and was with the Prophet since his childhood. This provided him with ample opportunities of recording Prophet's words and observing his behavior. He had made a written collection of Prophet's words which is reported to have been checked by the Prophet himself.16 Occasionally he used to show his notebooks to his students and other scholars. Another notable Companion, ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Umar, was granted permission by the Prophet to preach his sayings. The Prophet advised him to write down the sayings in addition to committing them to memory.17 ‘Alī b. Abī Tālib, the fourth Caliph, also possessed certain written documents which he kept rolled up in his sword.18 This sahīfa contained rules about blood money, the liberating of prisoners, and other related themes. These are only a few examples from at least fifty Companions19 who compiled their collections of Hadīth or reported the traditions in any written form during the first half of the first century of Islam Beside them there were hundreds of others who had memorized many of Prophet's sayings. The tradition of Hadīth studies, its compilation and further dissemination, was carried forward mostly by the progeny of prominent Companions. They included sons of Muhaddithūn (scholars of Hadīth) like ‘Abul Rahmān b. ‘Abdullāh b. Mas‘ūd or of Companions like ‘Urwa b. Zubayr. They made use of their family links with the surviving members of Prophet's close circle of friends and relatives to record the Hadīth in written form. At least forty‐nine such Companions and other scholars recorded H�adīth in written form in the later half of the first century of Islam.20

Not only were the Companions proficient at collecting the words of the Prophet, they were also conscious of the need for a careful and scrupulous approach to be adopted in this regard. Although the development of the science of H�adīth criticism, whether based on its text or chain, took place mainly in the third and fourth centuries of Islam – Muslim scholars believe that such criticism was practiced in a rudimentary form even during the days of the Prophet and his Companions. It is reported of the pious caliphs that they usually summoned witnesses in support of a particular saying before accepting it as valid for a judicial ruling or a religious principle. Companions and the Muh�addithūn became even more cautious in their approach with the outbreak of civil war during the reign of ‘Uthmān and ‘Alī. According to Ibn Sirīn, when the civil war started, people stopped accepting traditions without proper Isnād. This

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marked the formal beginnings of a trend in which a saying of the Prophet had to be relayed in a continuous manner with credible narrators relaying the words of the Prophet at each successive level of transmission. Related to the study of Hadīth in terms of the reliability of its narrators and attributed chains of transmission is the science of analysis of text so as to ascertain its genuineness. In case of Darāyat21 (content analysis) as well, it is believed that the Companions were familiar with its technique and often employed it as a way of argumentation. For example a Hadīth about the punishment that a man suffers in the grave when his family mourns his death, was rejected by ‘Ā’isha on account of its incongruity with the Quran.22 Similarly she did not accept any Hadīth that reported the Prophet had been endowed with a vision of God during Mī‘rāj (ascension to Heaven) because it contradicted Quran's statement of “vision comprehendeth Him not”.23 This use of reasoning in accepting the reports attributed to the Prophet helped to lay down the principle from the very beginning that the text of a Hadīth should be analyzed even if its Isnād is flawless.24 While Hadīth compilation had been in progress at an individual level from the very beginning, an impetus was given to its momentum during the reign of the Umayyad caliph ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz (717‐720 AD). By that time the Muslim empire had been stretched to encompass vast areas. During this period of expansion there had been considerable increases in resources that engendered a rise in literary activities in major cities of the Muslim empire. All of the early Companions were dead and prominent among the Tābi‘yīn or the Followers (sing.: Tābī‘)25 were of ripe age and scattered in different corners of the empire. Internal dissensions plaguing the Islamic body politic since the assassination of ‘Uthmān, the third Caliph, had given rise to fabrication of H�adīth collections on a large scale. Noting the situation, ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz, a ruler remembered for his pious disposition, instructed Ibn H�azm to write down all Ah�adīth that could possibly be found, particularly those from Amr b. ‘Abd al‐Rah�mān and Qāsim b. Muh�ammad b. Abī Bakr26 as they were regarded as the most respected custodians of Ah�ādīth narrated by ‘Ā’isha. The result was an increased interest in H�adīth studies. No less than eighty‐ seven scholars of H�adīth appear to have transmitted H�adīth in written form in the age of Followers.27 They include important traditionists like H�asan al‐Bas�rī, Ibn Sirīn and Shahāb al‐Zuhrī. Zuhrī was among those traditionists who were entrusted with the task of H�adīth compilation during ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz’s reign. He is said to have been a keen scholar of H�adīth and profited from the knowledge of the last surviving Companions of his time. His own

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compiled works ran into so many volumes that after his death his manuscripts were reportedly carried by several beasts of burden.28 But most works of his own and those of his contemporaries works have been lost. The only surviving work is that of sahīfa of Hammām b. Munnabih, a Yemenite follower and disciple of Abū Hurairah from whom he wrote down Ahādīth around the mid first/seventh century.29 The contents of the rest of the works can summarily be known through the fehrist (catalog) compiled by the Baghdad book dealer Ibn Nadīm.30 These emerging classes of Hadīth specialists were spread across different provinces of the Muslim empire. Ibn Jurayj worked at Mecca, Sa‘īd b. ‘Arūba in Mesopotamia, Al‐Awzā‘ī in Syria, Muh�ammad b. ‘Abdul Rah�mān in Medina, Sufiyān Thawrī and Zaid b. Qadama in Kufa, and H�ammād b. Salama in Basra.31 In this period Medina and Kufa emerged as two important centers for H�adīth studies, surpassing others in importance. Given the fact that the Prophet himself had spent a major portion of his life in Medina along with his family and Companions, it was only natural that the city gained a reputation for Hadīth studies. Important Hadīth scholars like Sa‘īd b. al‐Musayb, ‘Urwa b. Zubayr, Shahāb Zuhrī, Salām b. ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Umar and Qāsim b. Muhammad b. Abī Bakr resided there.32 Imam Mālik's presence added further to the growing reputation of Medina. It was in Medina that Ibn Juraij, Sufīyān Thawrī, Awzā’ī, Yahyā b. Yahyā Andulūsī and Imam Shāf‘ī received instruction from Imam Mālik.33 On the other hand, Kufa benefited from the fact that ‘Ali b. Abī Tālib, best known among Companions in knowledge of Quran and Sunnat, made it the capital of the Muslim empire during his rule. He was accompanied to Kufa by no less than twenty‐four Companions who fought the first battle against the Meccans at Badr along with the Prophet. The extent of Kufa's significance for Hadīth studies can be estimated from the fact that it is the only city for which one whole volume of Tabqāt, the well known and most comprehensive biographical dictionary of Muslim scholars and distinguished figures, is dedicated.34 This is why Bukhārī, while compiling his Sahīh, made many visits to Iraq in search of Ahādīth.35 The popular 'form' of recording Ahādīth during this period was to group them under titles indicating their subject matter. These compilations were called Musannaf. Ibn Jurayj and Ma‘mr b. Rashīd are among the first known compilers of Musannaf,36 yet the best known work of this type is Muwatta’ by Imam Mālik. The compilation and later revision of its text was completed in a period spanning over almost forty years. On the account of his efforts in ascertaining the authenticity of Ahādīth, many scholars count Muwatta’ as equal in

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ranks with Bukhārī and Muslim – the top two of the six authentic collection of Ahādīth (Sahāh Satta). In the strict sense of the term, Muwatta’ is not a book of sayings alone but has a juristic and legal import as well. But then it is not a legal compendium either. Its chapters are arranged under the categories of religious laws pertaining to prayers, fasting or Zakat. A chapter may begin with a relevant Hadīth followed by comments, or with a question addressed to Mālik followed by his answer utilising the support of an Hadīth, Quranic verse, opinion of the Companion or the Follower, or on the basis of a custom prevailing among the people of Medina.37

From the late 2nd/8th century onwards till the time of the appearance of Sahāh Satta, almost two hundred and fifty one scholars produced written works of Hadīth.38 The emphasis shifted towards compiling Ahādīth in groups under the name of the transmitting Companions with their names arranged in accordance with their seniority and status in Muslim history. Forty‐four Musnads appeared within the 3rd/9th century and about twenty more in the succeeding centuries. The Musnad of Sulaymān b. Dā’ūd is considered to be the first work in this type.39 The best known, however, is Musnad of Ahmad b. Hanbal. For this work Hanbal sifted 30,000 traditions out of some 7,50,000, narrated by 904 Companions.40

In Musnads, the Hadīth material relating to a common theme is scattered. Attention was now given to the compilation of Hadīth collections which were catalogued and thoroughly scrutinized. The highest mark was reached during the 3rd/9th century as the Sahāh Satta were produced in this period. Not only was the Hadīth material was placed in a more systematic way but the rules for Hadīth scrutiny were also perfected. The analysis of tradition covered the narrator's date of birth, family, schooling, journeys in search of knowledge, mental and physical health, religious behavior, beliefs, personal character, literary output and other features. This gave rise to a critical study of Hadīth and its transmission in accordance with ‘Ilm al‐Jarh wa‐'l Ta‘dīl (the science of impugning or confirming [the credibility of Muhaddithūn]). It became common for the Muhaddithūn of the day to comment on the veracity of the traditions in their works, either in an introduction or along with the traditions themselves, or in a separate book. An important aspect of Jarh wa‐'l Ta‘dīl was the Ismā’ al‐Rijāl (biographical information on narrators) which provided biographical details of the narrators. The same period witnessed the publication of the benchmark work in the field by Muhammad b. Sa‘ad whose multi‐volume comprehensive biographical dictionary of narrators is titled Kitāb al‐Tabqāt al‐Kabīr. Bukhārī's Kitāb al‐Rijāl al‐Kabīr is famous in this field as well.

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From 4th/10th century onward, few original or new collections of Hadīth works emerged. Still this period is of immense importance as a number of commentaries, summaries, anthologies and indexes appeared on different aspects of Hadīth sciences. In fact the best known scholars who practiced and perfected the techniques of Hadīth criticism are traced to this period. They include Ibn Abī Hātim who for the first time divided the Muhaddithūn into eight categories in accordance with their respective grades of authenticity.41 This served as the basis for later developments in classification and critical terminology relating to Hadīth sciences. Qāzī Abū Muhammad al‐Ramhurmuzī is said to be the real founder of Ilm Mustalah al‐Hadīth (science of Hadīth technical terms).42 Others who followed him in this field were Abū ‘Abdullāh al‐Hākim Nīshāpūrī, Al‐Khatīb al‐Baghdādī, Ibn Jawzī, Ibn Salāh, Al‐Dhahabī and, most importantly, Ibn Hajar al‐‘Asqalānī whose work is said to be the final summation of Hadīth sciences. WESTERN CRITIQUE OF HADĪTH LITERATURE Western critics differ from traditional Muslim scholars in their views on the historicity of Hadīth literature. They do not subscribe to the idea of Prophet's Sunnat overriding all other established practices and achieving recognition as the sole authority for the Muslim community from the very beginning. It appears from the alternative account put forward by Western critics that it was over a period of time that a few dogmatic aspects were singled out as binding and elaborate theories developed about their relevance to the overall structure of the faith, its various aspects and postulates. Sunnat of the Prophet can, at best, be regarded as playing a role in this dogmatic development although evidence from Quran is equally credible in supporting the view that the Prophet was excluded from such an undertaking. This hypothesis of gradual development of tenets of faith and emphasis on revealed sources for shaping Muslim responses in their individual lives and collective efforts – is based upon the non‐availability of written texts dating from the first century of Islam. Even if Quran is considered as a work which originated in the lifetime of the Prophet and put down in writing in the course of about two decades after his death, a gap of almost 150 years yawns between it and the first collection of legally relevant texts which are recognized as authentic insofar as they really go back to the person purportedly responsible for their compilation or authorship.43

Western criticism of Hadīth literature began to appear towards the middle of the nineteenth century. The earliest of the

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critics like Gustav Weil, Alois Sprenger, William Muir and Dozy – while restricting their view purely to the historical origins of Hadīth without questioning its theological considerations – arrived at the conclusion that Hadīth remained in oral circulation for more than a couple of centuries following Prophet Muhammad's death before being finally recorded in a written format. Goldziher gave further developed this idea by arguing that the bulk of Hadīth literature is the result of various social and political developments and conscious efforts of the community to respond to these developments in the mature stages of the Islamic community.44 His approach elicited immediate and enthusiastic approval in European scholarly circles. The most significant contribution to Western criticism of the historicity of Hadīth literature was made by Joseph Schacht in the middle of the twentieth century.45 Schacht's main concern dealt with the origin and development of law in Muslim areas in the early phase of Muslim history and the tracking of the gradual processes involved therein which lead towards the evolution of a system of law that could be termed as Islamic insofar it was based on Quran and Sunnat. It implies, contrary to the commonly held view among Muslim scholars, that the system of law prevailing in the Muslim world for a period spanning well over a century after the coming of Islam was not based on revealed sources. In his view, law as such was considered to be outside the purview of religion and the Prophet derived his authority not on the basis of his status as a law giver or founder of a system of jurisprudence, but from the truth of his religious message. But Schacht's concern is not to discuss whether or not Muhammad had the intention or the idea of creating a completely new, comprehensive system of law, but whether he in fact did and, if so, with what sources this can be proven.46 He is concerned with establishing the hypothesis that neither Quran nor Sunnat had primacy in dictating the terms of law during the initial period of Islam although he does acknowledge that many rules of Islamic law – particularly in the law of family and inheritance and details of worship and ritual – were based on the Quran from the very beginning. But for the most part of Islamic law he holds the view that:

[It] did not derive directly from the Koran but developed ... out of popular and administrative practice under the Umaiyads, and this practice often diverged from the intentions and even the explicit wording of the Koran. It is true that a number of legal rules, particularly in family law and inheritance, not to mention cult and ritual, were based on the

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Koran from very beginning. But [we] will show that apart from the most elementary rules, norms derived from the Koran were introduced into Muhammadan law almost invariably at a secondary stage. This applies not only to those branches of law which are not covered in detail by the Koranic legislation – if we may use this term of essentially ethical and only incidentally legal body of maxims contained in the Koran – but to family law, the law of inheritance, and even cult and ritual.47

With Quran being adduced as evidence only secondarily and sparingly, it can be concluded that Law, as it was enforced in the Muslim empire in the initial period, was a continuation of customary law prevailing among the peninsular Arabs. The political order that came to establish its authority in the wake of Islam did modify this customary law but even for this political order pre‐Islamic customs and laws were the only known and available 'system of law'.48 The early Muslim practitioners of law and their schools of jurisprudence, which Schacht calls as 'ancient schools'49 of law in Islam, evolved around different Companions of the Prophet in different cities and were reflective of the variety of opinions exercised by them in accordance with the local traditions, customs and law of that region. This determined the customary or generally agreed practice of the community in that region, the so called 'living tradition',50 which was an incorporation of pre‐Islamic customs within local normative practices on the basis of their being continuous from the days of Prophet, and not derived solely from a body of traditions handed down from the Prophet or even his Companions. These ancient schools were geographically determined and as they were gradually transformed into 'personal schools', they became increasingly centered on some prominent companion settled in that area and dependent upon that Companion for putting their doctrines as a whole under his aegis and referring to him as their authority in general terms. That the 'living practice' of these schools was largely unrelated with the normative behavior and idealized practice of the Prophet, i.e. Sunnat al‐Nabī, and that precedence was given to the practices extant among the adherents of the school or that of its patron saint, is clearly seen in the Muwatta’ of Mālik. Many of its Ahadīth are Mursal. The edition of Muwatta’, according to one of the lists quoted by Zurqānī, contains 822 traditions from the Prophet as compared to 898 from others: 613 from Companions and 285 from

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Successors.51 On a number of occasions Mālik prefers to adopt a practice prevalent among the inhabitants of Medina even when presented with a valid Hadīth. Such an anomaly can only be accounted for if it is accepted that even for Mālik the concept of Sunnat did not rest squarely and exclusively with Prophet but was sometimes based on the behavior of the Companions and Successors, and occasionally on the practice prevalent among the inhabitants of Medina. It means that the idea of the Sunnat as a normative model of Prophet's practices and exemplary mode of conduct associated exclusively with his personage did not emerge until much later in Islamic history. In the decades following his death, Prophet Muhammad's Sunnat was one among many precedents of righteous and judicious conduct in legal as well as religious and political matters. It is just that even in its religio‐legal usage, no distinction was made between the Sunnat of the Prophet and that of others. In this sense it was used by the 'proto‐Qāżīs' of Umayyad rule. They invoked the Sunnat of the Prophet along with that of Abū Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthmān, ‘Alī and other prominent Companions. Even the Sunnat of ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz remained a valid point of reference for more than a century after his death.52

In a political connotation too, the collocation 'Sunnat of the Prophet' was used from the earliest times but only served to convey a vague and general sense of what was considered as right and just by a particular group using the term.53 This can be seen on the occasions of the appointment of a new Caliph in the earlier period of Islam. When ‘Alī was asked to give an assurance to adhere to the Sunnat of Abū Bakr and ‘Umar in the event of his appointment as Caliph following the death of the latter, the term Sunnat was not meant to indicate any set of positive rules but served as a doctrinal link between the Sunnat of Abū Bakr and ‘Umar and the Quran.54 In all the major revolts and uprisings against the Umayyad dynasty in which the authority of Sunnat was invoked, the purpose was to use it more as an oppositional slogan on par with al‐amr bil ma‘rūf wal nahī an al‐munkar (enjoin the right and forbid wrong) suggesting the rebel's claim of better embodiment of right and just practice in disagreement to what was being practiced by the ruling authorities.55 Yazīd b. al‐Muhallab – one time governor and later a rebel against the Umayyad rule in the early eighth century – called upon not only the Quran and Sunnat of the Prophet but also the Sunnat of the two ‘Umars, i.e. ‘Umar b. Khattāb and ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz. The Sunnat by which Marwān tried to justify Mu‘āvīya's designation of Yazīd as his successor was the precedent set by Abū Bakr. In all these examples “the reference is to the past as generally remembered and approved, not to a special record of Prophetic (or for that matter other)

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precedent transmitted with particular care on account of its particular authority.”56

Such a vague and undifferentiated concept of Sunnat remained in existence till the time of Shāf‘ī who is generally regarded as the architect of Muslim jurisprudence.57 Shāf‘ī could not have made changes to the broad outlines of law, whether religious or secular in content, as much of it had already been derived and accorded widespread recognition. But he could challenge many of the rulings as being insufficiently based on scriptural authority by outlining clear rules for jurisprudential preferences and interpreting the concept of Sunnat in a way that would force others to accept his argument in according a distinct stature to the Sunnat of the Prophet. By doing so Shāf‘ī aspired to instill a uniformity in doctrine by eradicating the diversity ensuing from the multiplicity of regional schools with their respective authoritative sources for dogma and practice. Shāf‘ī's main work on jurisprudence, the Kitāb al‐Risāla fī Usūl al‐Fiqh, often referred to simply as al‐Risāla, was written as an epistle to ‘Abd al‐Rah�mān b. Mahdī who had asked Shāf‘ī to write a treatise on the authoritative sources of the Sharī‘at.58 In Risāla and other writings on jurisprudence, Shāf‘ī made a systematic attempt at determining the relative importance of different sources of Sharī‘at by questioning the views held by his opponents. He mentions the views held by different groups at different places in his writings. They included Ahl al‐Hadīth or Ashāb al‐Hadīth, Ahl al‐Kalām59 and Ahl al‐Qiyās. But such a categorization is more or less arbitrary, perhaps fluid, and what has come down to us about these groups and their ideas is mostly through the writings of Shāf‘ī as not all of them have left many traces about their views and reasoning. In a way Shāf‘ī's work is greatly important and useful as a source of divergent views prevalent in Muslim scholarly circles regarding the relative status of revealed sources and independent reasoning in the formulation of law. Also, a rigid demarcation on doctrinal basis cannot possibly hold true for the period under consideration. At most these groups could be differentiated on the basis of their relative emphasis of one source over the other instead of counting them as relying upon one at the expense of the other. For example, Shahāb Zuhrī and Sufīyān al‐Thawrī were Traditionists par excellence but they did not banish reason altogether.60 In fact the trend of emphasizing Hadīth and rejecting reason absolutely is seen in the post‐Shāf‘ī period in the form of a literalist acceptance of Hadīth with utter disregard for Rā’y in the Hanbalī and Zāhirī schools of jurisprudence. Similarly, if Ahl al‐Kalām are to be equated with Mutazilites, then it should be noted that they did not reject Hadīth altogether but were rather selective in their

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approach.61 They mostly had reservations about those Ahādīth which were contradictory to the content and teachings of Quran, singularly reported, and spoke of God in anthropomorphic terms. The Hanafīs or Iraqis such as Ashāb al‐Rā’y or Ahl al‐Qiyās also used Hadīth. Their difference from the rest was that they resorted to Hadīth when in controversy with their opponents and so in didactic works for internal consumption Hadīth hardly appear. Even for the Hadīth reported by them, they seldom provided complete and elaborate Isnāds. Moreover, they did not practice Hadīth criticism in a formal way like traditionist jurisprudents did.62 This shows that Shāf‘ī's predecessors and contemporaries had already started adducing traditions from the Prophet but it was just that they interpreted these in the light of their own living traditions and allowed the Hadīth to be superseded by those deductions. In their efforts to adhere to their stated stance on the sources for formulation of Law and their respective established doctrines of Law, the groups 'opposed' to Hadīth could only play down the authority of Sunnat by arguing in favor of Quran's superiority as a revealed scripture and hence more worthy of attention. To this effect an Hadīth is to be found as well which reports the Prophet as saying that if any of his words are in contradiction to Quran than they must be ignored. This allowed some leverage to Shāf‘ī's opponents who could state the reason of their denial of a known, authenticated Hadīth on the basis of it being contradictory to Quran and hence not worthy of obedience. In doing so they could claim to be following the Prophet himself. What strengthened the stance of Shāf‘ī's opponents even further was that the superiority of Quran as a Divine text could not be denied as doing so would expose an obvious weakness in argument. To establish Sunnat as an overriding authority over all other sources excluding Quran, it had to be invested with a Divine status as well. There had existed in Islamic thought a distinction between two different modes of revelation. One is referred to as wahī matlū which is Quran and the other is wahī ghayr matlū which comprises of Prophet's practices and actions taught to him by Gabriel as part and parcel of the duties of a Prophet.63 Shāf‘ī cited an āyat from Quran to prove his point. The verse says: “Allah revealeth unto thee the Scripture and Wisdom, and teacheth thee that which thou knewest not.”64 The word 'Wisdom' in Shāf‘ī's interpretation was meant to imply the Sunnat of the Apostle of God.65 In this way both the Quran and the Sunnat were declared by him to be revealed sources. A recognition of this distinction between two kinds of revelation was required by Shāf‘ī to foil his opponents from establishing the authority

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of Quran over Sunnat on the basis of latter being not a revealed source of guidance. More importantly, Shāf‘ī could now argue that no abrogation66 of Sunnat by Quran was possible and vice versa. Only Quran could abrogate Quran and Sunnat could abrogate Sunnat. Shāf‘ī said: “If a Sunnat were abrogated by the Quran, another Sunnat must have been laid down by the Prophet making clear that this earlier Sunnat was abrogated so as to demonstrate to men that an act can be abrogated only by something of equal status.”67 He furnishes evidence from Quran in order to prove his point. Quran says, “Say (O Muhammad): It is not for me to change it of my accord. I only follow that which is inspired in me. Lo! If I disobey my Lord I fear the retribution of an awful Day.”68 After establishing the credentials of Sunnat as Divinely guided, Shāf‘ī was left with the task of accounting for apparent contradiction between Quran and Sunnat which were suggestive of one abrogating the other. In case of Sunnat abrogating the Quran, reference is always made to Quran's punishment for adultery which is clearly prescribed as flogging in verse 24:2. But Sunnat provides for the punishment of death by stoning. Shāf‘ī tried to do away with this anomaly by insisting that the death penalty in Sunnat had superseded a corporal punishment previously introduced in the Sunnat and hence it is not an instance of abrogation of Quran by Sunnat. But this argument could hardly be convincing to account for such an apparent contradiction. Similarly Shāf‘ī tried to disprove the theory of abrogation of Sunnat by Quran. The proponents of this view mostly alluded to the cancellation of the practice of early Muslims offering prayers in the direction of Jerusalem – a practice established by the Prophet as no command for that was given in Quran – by a verse in Quran which made it obligatory for the Muslim to face the Ka‘ba. But according to Shāf‘ī, “each [direction] was valid in its time: the turning toward Jerusalem – when God ordered his Prophet to turn to it – was obligatory; but after it was abrogated it became obligatory to turn only toward the Sacred House, and no other direction is permitted by law, except in the event of fear [of danger] or in a supererogatory prayer in travel as indicated in the Book and the Sunnat.”69

The concept of a Divine Sunnat was required not just to lend strength to arguments against its abrogation by Quran but also to show it as a supplement to Quranic teachings and hence a necessary source of guidance. According to Shāf‘ī, Sunnat specifies actions and practices on matters for which there is no reference in the Book of God as well as for those where there is specific indication. Accordingly, he divides the Sunnat into three categories:

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First, for whatever acts there is textual [legislation] provided by God in the Book, the Apostle [merely] specified clearly what is in the text of the Book. Second, as to any [ambiguous] communication in the Book laid down by God, [the Prophet] specified the meaning implied by Him. These are the two categories on which scholars do not disagree. The third category consists of what the Apostle has laid down in the Sunnat and concerning which there is no text in the Book.70

This aspect of Sunnat is accepted by some unconditionally while others argue that no Sunnat was ever laid down by the Prophet without a basis for it in the Book of God. For example, Quran asks the Muslims to be observant in their prayers but the information regarding the number of prayers and mode of their performance is provided in Sunnat. Even with this disagreement, the scope of Sunnat was considerably enlarged and it did not require any effort on Shāf‘ī's part to prove to his opponents that it was incumbent upon Muslims to follow the Apostle of God. The only way Shāf‘ī's opponents could hold on to their views and doctrine that conflicted with the words and practices of the Prophet was by arguing that the reported action had later been abrogated or that the saying had not convincingly been reported. Since the ancient schools were supposedly an extension of the tradition of the Prophet on the basis of some prominent Companion's authority, it could be argued that the apparent contradiction between that school's living tradition and Sunnat was because the Companion – who possibly had close proximity with Prophet – was better placed with regard to information about what Prophet had said or done and which of his actions he had changed or modified at a later stage. Shāf‘ī rejected this claim by establishing the principle that the Sunnat of the Prophet is credible when attested by a corresponding Hadīth. In this regard too, traditions from other persons could not compete with a tradition from the Prophet.71 Even if this tradition is singularly reported by a trustworthy transmitter, it is sufficient to establish the Sunnat of the Prophet and cannot be refuted on the basis of conclusions drawn from Quran or any tradition that is open to several interpretations.72 Given the fact that most of the H�adīth are singularly reported and hence provide the adherents of ancient law schools an excuse for relying upon more credible sayings and actions of the Prophet relayed by their 'patron‐saint', Shāf‘ī was stringent in disallowing any concession that might undermine the validity of single

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reports. At most he allowed for a unanimously recognized Sunnat to be considered as stronger than a weak single report, though the latter would still serve as a basis for action.73 What helped Shāf‘ī in his ‘revisionist approach’ was the fact that the ancient schools were already on the defensive due to the rise in the number of “traditions” regardless of how accurately they were being reported. Sunnat increasingly came to be identified with the practice of the Prophet in Iraq though it was still not exclusively embedded in traditions from the Prophet. Due to these factors doctrinal development in the ancient schools was outpaced by the development of traditions, particularly those supposed to be originating from the Prophet, in the period even before Shāf‘ī.74 It was this yawning gulf between the tradition and the doctrines that gave Shāf‘ī his claim for identifying Sunnat with the practice of the Prophet as reported by traditions even if the proofs accruing towards the verification of its validity were weak. After Shāf‘ī had been able to prove convincingly that Sunnat occupies a Divine status and that it has to be verified by a corresponding Hadīth – even if singularly reported – to be considered as valid and liable for acceptance, it was no longer possible for the adherents of ancient law schools to base their doctrines of law on the authority of the rulings and actions of the Companions and prominent scholars among them. Sunnat could no longer said to be best reflected in the practice of the Community but was required to give up its broad meaning of any precedent in the favor of Prophet's normative behavior and idealized practice as validated by a written account and furnished with strong Isnād basis. This development in Muslim jurisprudence brought about by Shāf‘ī, forced the ancient law schools to invest their doctrines with the authority of the Prophet and to give up the use of Companion reports in the making of law. Hence the rulings and sayings of the 'patron‐saint' Companion and successive scholars identified with the ancient school, according to Schacht, had to be fabricated with fake Isnāds. This process of projecting the legal doctrines backward from the Successors to the Companions and ultimately to the Prophet began during the first half of the second century of Islam and continued well into the third. In Schacht's words:

A great many traditions in the classical and other collections were put into circulation only after Shāf‘ī's time; the first considerable body of legal traditions from the Prophet originated towards the middle of the second century, in opposition to slightly earlier traditions from Companions and other authorities, and to the 'living tradition' of the ancient

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schools of law; … the isnads show a tendency to grow backwards and to claim higher and higher authority until they arrive at the Prophet.75

This linking of a doctrine with a saying of the Prophet had to be done in order to guarantee the prevalence of one's doctrines over and against the competing ones while giving it a distinct and exclusive outlook in this process. Makdisi has pointed out three stages in this regard. First is the origin of 'regional schools' as the jurists consciously identified their practice with that of some city or province. In the second stage these 'regional schools' give way to personal schools. This leads to the third stage where the schools are still personal but now have recognized local chiefs and claim exclusive authority as guild schools to regulate the teaching and practice of law.76 When applied to the origins of the Hanafī school of jurisprudence, this rather simplistic description tallies well with Schacht's view about the origins of Islamic law and that of Hanafī school. What came to be formally known as Hanafīism was attributed to early authorities like ‘Abdullāh b. Mas‘ūd and other prominent figures like Hasan al‐Basarī, Sha‘bī and Ibrāhīm al‐Nakhā’ī,. These Companions of Ibn Mas‘ūd, most notably al‐Nakhā’ī, served as a formal and explicit reference to Ibn Mas‘ūd himself and a considerable body of early Kufian doctrine was attributed to him with al‐Nakhā’ī appearing as the main transmitter. This body of elementary legal doctrine had very little to do with the few authentic opinions of the historical Ibrāhīm.77 The first 'truly historical' figure in Hanafī doctrine is that of Hammād b. Abī Sulaymān (d. 128/738), the teacher of Abū Hanīfa in whose name the Kufian doctrine was transformed into a personal school at a secondary stage. But it was only after the work of Abū Yūsuf and Shaybānī that a guild school with connections attributable to worthy Companions and Followers – and hence to the Prophet – and recognizable features such as consensus on points of law, came into existence. Abū Yusūf and Shaybānī are generally credited for systematizing the Kufian Iraqian doctrine under the aegis of Abū Hanīfa. It is from this time, i.e. 150/767, onwards that the development of Islamic law can be followed step‐by‐step on the basis of available, credible sources. Schacht's radically revisionist thesis regarding the origins of Hadīth‐based Islamic law has lately been challenged by many among the western scholars of Hadīth in the light of some newly available manuscripts and similar such sources. Motzki differs with Schacht in his estimate of the time when law acquired a distinct Islamic content. In his opinion

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the beginnings of a law that was Islamic in the true sense of the word and of theoretical occupation with it are placed too late by a good half to three quarters of a century. Regional schools of legal and religious scholarship can be already discerned in the last three decades of the first/seventh century, even if their differences probably were consciously recognized as dependent on 'schools' only at the beginning of the second/eighth century.78

Whereas Juynboll concedes that the Hadīth may have surfaced a quarter of a century earlier in the last two decades of the first/seventh century, Joseph Von Ess, through a tradition‐historical analysis, shows that there are theological traditions ascribed to the Prophet and Companions that have a very early kernel, traceable, in some cases, as far as the middle of the first/seventh century.79 Wallaq comes close to Ess's timeline as suggested by his own findings in which he locates the beginnings of the trend of giving special attention to the Sunnat of the Prophet – as distinguished and certainly more prestigious than the Sunnat of others – in the transmission of Prophetic material by a number of Qāżīs around 60/680s. In case Schacht's view – or even that of those who have lately revised his thesis – on the origins of Islamic Law and a concomitant increase in the number of Hadīth reports is not accepted, it becomes problematic to account for the purported lack of Sunnat (and more importantly, Quranic) content in the formulation of Islamic law and jurisprudence. The revisionist approach towards the history of Quran and life of Prophet Muhammad put forward by John Wohnsbrough, Patricia Crone, Michael Cook and Martin Hinds offers a plausible explanation. On the account of Quran's apparently incoherent structure, obscure content, unremarkable use of language, its perfunctory linkage of disparate materials and repetitive passages with variant versions, Wansbrough thinks of Quran as a “product of the belated and imperfect editing of materials from a plurality of traditions.”80 He starts from the presumption that these disparate texts originate from different communities located in and outside Arabia. According to him, it was not till the second/eighth century that the Quranic texts were coalesced together as a product of 'sectarian milieu' of inter‐confessional and political polemics.81 As for Crone and Cook, they do not find any hard evidence for the existence of Quran in any form before the last decade of the seventh century. This is one way of accounting for the conspicuous lack of 'Islamic' element in the

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content of law at the time about which documented records are available. Or, alternatively, one has to accept the 'conspiratorial' view that the leadership of the Islamic state realized the importance of religious indoctrination as essential to achieving unity among the unruly Arab tribes engaged in wars of conquest. They could not be appeased by booty for long. Hence the need was felt for implanting a religious ethic that could rally them around the cause of Islam which served as an ideological tool for the new military and religious state.82 Some pious religious scholars looked down upon the irreligious practices of a godless state in which widely divergent religious views, advocated by numerous local schools, prevailed. This prompted these scholars to allegedly embark upon a large scale fabrication of Hadīth to impose some semblance of unity and overall authority by developing the idea of a Sunnat of the Prophet to serve as a rallying point for all.83 Another set of problems arising from an outright rejection of Schahct's thesis is that one has to accept that certain portions of Quran have been abrogated and parts of it irretrievably lost. This is because, if Muslim jurisprudence had recognized the centrality of Quranic text in the formulation of law from the very beginning, there could not possibly have been postulates of law so evidently in conflict with the Quran's legal advice. It was to remove this discrepancy between revelation and the existing law that ingenious theories of abrogation had to be constructed.84 It is then no coincidence that when the role of Sunnat was being accorded primary importance and the first generation of Muslim legalists like Ibrāhīm al‐Nikhā’ī were actively elaborating the core of a positive legal doctrine, that the theory of abrogation was beginning to take shape. In addition to that the possibility of compilation of Quran during Prophet Muhammad's lifetime had to be denied so as to make room for unwarranted interpolations in the Quranic text, interpolations designed to support local opinion on certain debated topics.85 With the Prophet excluded from the task of Quran's compilation the dilemma of abrogated verses remaining in the text of Quran was automatically resolved.86 Had Quran been compiled during the lifetime of the Prophet, he would have had the abrogated verses expunged from its text. As for those aspects of law for which no provision was to be found in Quran, another mode of naskh was laid down according to which the wordings of the verse had been removed from the text altogether while the ruling remained valid.87 The third mode of naskh, however, raises most embarrassing questions about Quran as a Divine text. naksh al‐hukm wal tilāwa stipulates that both the verse and the ruling

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had been suppressed. As a proof of that there are to be found incidents in authentic Hadīth collections which report of Prophet and Companions forgetting parts of revelation.88

Fazlur Rahman has offered an alternative version of Schacht's theory which serves to 'Islamize' its contents and resolves some of its ambiguities. He does agree with Schacht in disregarding the Prophet as a Pan‐legist and finding in his personage more of a social reformer who seldom resorted to general legislation as a means of furthering the cause of the religion he espoused. But he differs from Schacht on the latter's opinion about the living tradition of the ancient schools of law. Rahman does not regard these law schools as totally oblivious of Prophetic Sunnat. At the most, in his opinion, it can be said that in the earlier phase the living tradition was not confined to Prophet alone but to the community as a whole.89 With this presumption, Rahman coins the appellation 'living Sunnat'90. According to Rahman, living Sunnat was a product of meditation upon Prophet's behavior and precedents set by him and other prominent men in the community, with the exercise of free judgment and reasoning in consonance with the letter and spirit of Quran so as to elaborate the law further and validate it for the community as a whole through the agency of Ijmā‘. In the final analysis both Quran and Sunnat had to be authenticated through Ijmā‘.91 Once shorn of its vitalizing role, the concept of Ijmā‘, in the post‐Shāf‘īte period, lost its significance. In this way the very Schachtian view of the origins of Islamic law and Hadīth literature, is Islamized by emphasizing the organic unity between Quran, Sunnat, Ijmā‘ and Ijtihād. It also becomes possible to conclude that Hadīth cannot be outrightly dismissed as a forgery as it is reflective of living Sunnat which is a progressive interpretation and formulation of Prophetic Sunnat.92 With regard to delays in the recording of Hadīth material, Rahman argues that it may have been because those in the earlier period, nearer to Prophet and his Companions, had little motive for recording his words and considered it more important to continue following the spirit of his deeds and actions. On the other hand, later day Muslim legalists had to refer to Hadīth in response to those who demanded a more clear and concise proof of their practices being based on authentic sources of guidance. In making such a demand the so‐called Ashāb al‐Hadīth were not defining or setting rules for a new source of guidance to support existing opinion. They were only resorting to a change in methodology whereby a certain practice attributed to the Prophet could not be accepted by the virtue of it being the default practice of the community, but could only be accepted as credible when validated by reports with irrefutable Isnād evidence about what Prophet had

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said or what he approved, disapproved or condoned in a given situation. Rahman summarizes this argument by saying that:

The main relevant difference between the living Sunnat of the early generation and Hadīth formulation is that whereas the former was a living and ongoing process, the latter is formal and has sought to confer absolute permanence on the living Sunnat synthesis of roughly the first three centuries.93

In a nutshell, while the ancient schools found living Sunnat proof enough of their practices as continuous from the days of the Prophet, their opponents in the post‐Shāf‘ī period made it compulsory for a Sunnat to be evidenced by Hadīth in order to have a binding authority for the Muslims. It was only by establishing a hierarchy of revealed sources and setting of rules for its usage whereby the evidence liked by one could be justified and that of the opponents discredited in the face of increasing political and dogmatic complexities besetting Muslim politics and religious polemics at that time. Rahman has not only tried to prove that the practice among the community was religious in tone and character, but also salvages some scope for the authenticity of a portion of Hadīth literature. He finds it 'natural' for the Companions to have talked about the Prophet often as men not only act and follow but also talk and report.94 These conversations about him and his views must have come into circulation in oral or written form. Another point on which Rahman has argued against modern theories on Islamic law is Schacht's view that Quran was introduced only at a secondary stage in the formulation of law. Rahman does not accept the hypothesis that Quran only gradually and progressively came to acquire a central role. In his assessment, it was just that the “derivation of law from it or integration with it of already existing legal material became more and more extensive as legal implications of more and more verses were perceived either out of need or pure speculation.”95 This allows Rahman to 're‐anchor' the 'spirit' of Islamic law in its historical past – a connection severed in the fantastical theories about the origins of Islam by the likes of Wansbrough and Crone. But he is rather more concerned about revitalizing the 'original' nexus between Sunnat, Ijmā‘ and Ijtihād than about arguing uncritically in favor of the historicity of Hadīth literature. It is in this context that his original critique of ongoing Hadīth studies in the Western academia needs to be read, understood and enlarged upon.

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END NOTES 1 John Burton, An Introduction to the Hadith (Edinburgh, 1994), p.29. An alternative form of Isnād system was prevalent in India as well. In the great epic Mahabharata, it says: “Vysda composed it, Ganesa served as a scribe, and the work was handed down by Vaisampayana, who communicated it to the assembly of sages.” Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi, Hadith Literature: its Origin, Development and Special Features (Lahore, 2001),p.78. 2 Ahmad Hasan, The Early Development of Islamic Jurisprudence (Islamabad, 2001),p.86. 3 There is no precise or agreed upon definition of the term Sahābī. Simply stated, a Sahābī is a person who had the privilege of living in Prophet's company. There is considerable disagreement about the exact qualifications expected of a person to be termed as a Companion. For some it is sufficient that a person had seen the Prophet. Others have a more rigorous criterion which requires that a person should have had a long association with the Prophet. The majority, however, holds the view that any adult Muslim can be called as a Companion of the Prophet if he can satisfactorily be proved to have been associated with the Prophet for any period of time. However, the status of the Companions is relative to their services for Islam. Among those who are held in greater esteem are the earliest converts, migrants to Abyssinia or Medina and 313 fighters who participated in the battle at Badr. The exact number of Companions is not known. A 'census' undertaken during the initial years of Islam revealed 1,525 Muslims. Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, 14. The number of those who were present at the last sermon of the Prophet range from 40,000 to 100,000. 4 Q 33:21, 4:64. 5 Q 16:44. 6 Even if the Muslim's attitude of utmost reverence for the words and deeds of the Prophet emerged gradually – as hypothesized by Western critics – it is expected of the members of pre‐Islamic Arab tribal society, known for their excellent memories and given to keeping oral genealogical records, to preserve at least some information about the Prophet. This much has been recognized even by the most radical Western revisionists of Muslim history like Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds. They acknowledge that in pre‐Islamic Arabia, “every person endowed with a modicum of authority was a potential source of normative practice within his own family, tribe or wider circle of contents” and so Prophet Muhammad should have been no exception. Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge, 1986),p.59. 7 An interesting example of performing some act just because the Prophet did the same, is to be found in the incident attributed to Ashraf ‘Alī Thānavī – one of the best known saint‐scholars from Deoband in the twentieth century. Once he was traveling with his wife to attend a function in the nearby village. As the couple passed through the jungle, it came to Thanavī's mind that there was an opportunity for performing the Sunnat of racing with his wife. He did race with his wife just out of his love for the Prophet and to copy the action

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that he had once performed with ‘Ā’isha. Abū T��alh�a Muh�ammad Iz�hār ul‐H�asan Meh�mūd, Ishq‐i Rusūl aur ‘Ulāmā‐yi Deoband (Lahore, 2005), p.137. 8 Muslim scholars have an equally strong emphasis on the possibility of an efficient oral transmission of Prophet's sayings. Able students with strong memories were selected for this task and with variety of teaching methods ingeniously developed by the teachers of H�adīth, these students were taught about the principles of H�adīth studies and made to learn vast numbers of Ah�ādīth. For details about the methodology of teaching Ah��ādīth, cf. Azami, Hadith Methodology, 19‐28. For details about the etiquettes to be observed by a student of Hadith, cf. Z�afar, ‘Ulūm ul‐H�adīth, pp. 141‐67. 9 Muhammad Hamidullah, ed. Sah�ifa Hammam ibn Munnabih: The Earliest Extant Work on the Hadith (Paris, 1979), trans. Muhammad Rahimuddin, p.25. 10 Z�afar, Ulūm ul‐H�adīth, pp. 66‐67. 11 Hamidullah, Sahifa, p.40. 12 Ibid., p.32. 13 Farwā, who was part of the group 'trained' by the Prophet, was later appointed as an 'instructor' for Yemeni tribes. Muh�ammad ‘Abdul Qayyūm Nadavī, Feham‐i H�adīth (Karachi, n.d.),p.17. 14 Abū Huraira had joined the Prophet after the battle of Khyber. He had no particular occupation and so in his brief stay of three to four years with the Prophet, he has reported more traditions than any other Companion. According to Jawzī, there are 5,374 Ah�ādīth transmitted by him in Musnad Baqi and 3,848 in Musnad of Ah�mad Ibn H�anbal. Other Companions who have reported more than 1,000 traditions are ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Umar, Anas b. Mālik, ‘Ā’isha, ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Abbās, Abū Sa‘īd al‐Khuzrī and Jābir b. ‘Abdullāh. For details, cf. Muhammad Musrafa al‐Azami, Studies in Early Hadith Literature (Lahore, 2001),pp.36‐37. 15 Hamidullah, Sahifa,p.35. 16 Ibid., p.39. 17 Z�afar, ‘Ulūm ul‐H�adīth, p.70. 18 Hamidullah, Sahifa, p.46. 19 For the names of the Companions and the number of Ah�ādīth transmitted by them in written form, cf. Azami, Early Hadith Literature, 34‐60. 20 Ibid., pp.60‐74. 21 The methodology for content analysis is considered by critics of H�adīth in modern period to be less developed or sophisticated in comparison to Isnād‐based critiques of H�adīth literature. Of the 65 disciplines dealing with H�adīth studies enumerated by Ibn al‐S��alāh, only 25 percent touch upon the matn and the rest deal exclusively with Isnād. Harald Motzki, ed. “Introduction”, in Hadith: Origins and Developments (Aldershot, 2004), lii, fn. 182. 22 Muh�ammad Sa‘īd Ah�mad, Feham‐i Qur’ān (Delhi, 1945), p.172. 23 Q 6:103. 24 Principles of Darāyat are succinctly laid out in Abū Bakr b. al‐T�ayyib's statement. He stated that a tradition against reason or common experience,

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or in conflict with the explicit text of Quran or mutwātir tradition, or containing a single report of an important even taking place possibly witnessed by a large number of people, or laying down high rewards or punishments for minor virtues or faults respectively – is to be regarded as forged. These, along with other, principles have served as basis for analyzing the contents of even the most authentic collections of Ah�ādīth. Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, p.113. 25 A Tābī‘ is a believer who has met or spent time in the company of a Companion. They are divided into at least three classes in accordance with the ranking of the Companions from whom they learnt and related traditions: “(a) the students of the Companions who accepted Islam before the conquest of Mecca. (b) the students of the Companions who embraced Islam after the conquest of Mecca. (c) the students of such Companions as were not yet adults at the time of the Prophet's death.” Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, p.29. The pupils of the Followers are referred to as Tabā Tābi‘yīn or 'Successors of the Successors'. 26 Shaykh Mus�t�afā al‐S�abā’ī, Sunnat‐i Rusūl (Lahore, ca. 1973), trans. Malīk Ghulam ‘Alī, p.145. 27 Azami, Early Hadith Literature, pp.74‐106. 28 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, 7. Zuhrī’s credibility as a honest H�adīth scholar has been challenged in recent times not only by the ‘deniers of H�adīth’ but also by some prominent scholars of reified Islamic traditions. For details, cf. chapter 6 and the concluding remarks. 29 That too has been discovered by Muhammad Hamidullah in the recent past and its validity is held to be in doubt by Western scholars because it is not based on an 'autographed' manuscript of the compiler. 30 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, 7. Kitāb al‐Fehrist of Ibn Nadīm dates back to 377/987‐8. Azami believes that the works lost were not destroyed nor did they perish but were absorbed into the works of later authors. It is because “when encyclopedia‐type books were produced, scholars did not feel the necessity to keep the early books or booklets, and so, slowly, they disappeared. Azami, Hadith Methodology, p.85. 31 Sabā’ī, Sunnat‐i Rusūl, p.147. 32 Z�afar, ‘Ulūm ul‐H�adīth, p.621. 33 Muh�ammad Karam Shāh al‐Az�harī, Sunnat‐i Khayr ul‐Anām (Bhēra, 1955), p.144. 34 A statistical survey of early sources made by Wael B. Hallaq, reveals that Kufa claimed 28 percent of H�adīth transmitters; Basra 27 percent; Medina 24 percent; Syria 12 percent; Mecca 5 percent; Egypt 3 percent; and Khurasan and other locales less than 1 percent. Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge, 2006), p.72. 35 Z�afar, ‘Ulūm ul‐H�adīth, 629‐31. It is remarkable that emphasis on retaining the H�adīth in oral form was far greater in Iraqi circles of H�adīth like Kufa and Basra, than in Umayyad stronghold of Damascus. It may be because outside Syria, people were not prepared to accept H�adīth that had been codified and circulated under the aegis of the Umayyad rulers. Gregor

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Schoeler, “Oral Torah and Hadith: Transmission, Prohibition of Writing, Redaction” in Motzki, ed. Hadith: Origins and Developments, p.89. 36 Muhammad Abdul Rauf, “Hadith Literature‐I: The Development of the Science of Hadith” in A.F.L. Beeston, T.M. Johnstone, R.B. Serjeant and G.R. Smith, eds. Arabic Literature to the End of the Ummayyad Period (Cambridge, 1983), p.272. 37 Ibid., p.273. 38 Azami, Early Hadith Literature, pp.106‐82. 39 Rauf, “Hadith Literature‐I”, p.273. 40 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, p.94. 41 Rauf, “Hadith Literature‐I”, p.284. Much of the information in this section has been taken from Rauf’s article on the history of H�adīth. 42 Dr. Suhēl H�asan, Mu‘jam Is�t�alāh�āt‐i H�adīth (Islamabad, 2003), p.37. 43 Harald Motzki, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh Before the Classical Schools (Leiden, 2002), trans. Marion H. Katz, xi. 44 Harald Motzki, “Dating Muslim Traditions: A Survey”, Arabica 52, 2(2005)p. 206. 45 Since the publication of Schacht's work in 1950, the trend has been either to support or reject his thesis, or at the most make slight adjustments to it in the wake of additional research material as it becomes available while accepting as valid bulk of the arguments put forward by him. Among most avowed supporters of Schacht's theory are John Wansbrough, Martind Hinds, Michael Cook and Patricia Crone who have carried his argument to the radical extreme of questioning the historical origins of Muhammad as a Prophet and the possibility of Quran being 'authored' at a later period than being generally claimed and believed. Some Muslim and Western scholars alike have refuted Schacht's thesis. They include Mustafa al‐Azami, M.Z. Siddiqi, Fuat Sezgin and Nabia Abbott. The third group of scholars can be further divided into two categories. The first among them agree with Schacht in regarding as spurious the traditions as they are found in the present day written collections. But they do not accept the claim that there were no traditions in circulation during the 1st/7th century. Scholars like these include Noel Coulson, John Burton, David S. Powers and G.H.A. Juynboll. The other sub‐category of these scholars have their differences with regard to methodology of dating the traditions to determine the extent and possibility of its fabrication. They include Harold Motzki, Joseph van Ess and Gregor Schoeler. For details regarding the respective stances of individual scholars on Hadith, cf. Mozki, “Introduction” in Hadith: Origins and Developments, p.xxvi. 46 Motzki, Islamic Jurisprudence, p.41. In Schacht's own words: “… Muhammad had little reason to change the existing customary law. His aim as a Prophet was not to create a new system of law: it was to teach them how to act, what to do, and what to avoid in order to pass the reckoning on the Day of Judgment and to enter paradise.” Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 1966), p.11. 47 Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1967), pp.224‐225; emphasis added. This essentially ethical character of Quran is

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corroborated by the fact that out of a total of 6,236 verses, only some 600 verses deal with legal issues. Even these 'legal verses' deal mostly with religious duties and ritual and no more than 80 verses deal strictly with legal topics. But this description overlooks the other fact, as Goitein has pointed out, that legal verses are often longer than other types of verses and unlike other verses the ones dealing with legal issues are seldom repeated. Viewed in this context, it can be safely assumed that Quran does not contain less legal content than the Pentateuch, the Torah, which is known in world literature as 'The Law'. Yasin Dutton, The Origins of Islamic Law: The Quran, the Muwatta and Madinan Amal (Richmond, 1999), p.160. 48 Hallaq, Evolution of Islamic Law, p.32. 49 This term does not imply any definite organization or strict uniformity to some specified dogma. The 'members' of the school continued to be private individuals singled out from the great mass of Muslims with commonality of interests and a recognizable kindred spirits among themselves. Schacht, Introduction, p.28. 50 Ibid., p.58. 51 Schacht, Origins, p.22. 52 Hallaq, Evolution of Islamic Law, p.52. 53 Dutton, Origins of Islamic Law, p.2. 54 Hallaq, Evolution of Islamic Law, p.12 55 Crone and Hinds, God's Caliph, pp.59‐60. 56 Ibid., p.66. Crone and Hinds further add that the Umayyad Caliphs styled themselves as Caliph of Allah on earth and not that of his Messenger. It was not till 66/685 that a coin bearing the imprint Muhammad Rusūl Allah is to be found. Ibid., p.11 and p.25. 57 Hallaq has a different approach in this regard. He believes that as late as the end of the 3rd/9th century, legal theory as we know it today, had not yet come into existence. Shāf‘ī is rarely mentioned in other writings on legal issues in that century and not many commentaries are written about it. “It is also no coincidence that with the appearance of Commentaries on, and refutations of, the Risāla, there emerges for the first time a sizeable number of complete works of usul al‐fiqh, works that treat of this discipline as an organically structured and comprehensive methodology.” Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni Usul al‐Fiqh (Cambridge, 1997), p.20. Even if Shāf‘ī is to be accepted as the real founder of Muslim science of jurisprudence, it should be borne in mind that the works of Malik, Abū Yūsuf and al‐Shaybānī indicate that there had been some theory and system of reasoning in law before Shāf‘ī made his concepts clear in a more elaborate way. Hasan, Early Development, p.179. 58 Muh�ammad Ibn Idrīs al‐Shāf‘ī, Kitāb al‐Risāla fī Us�ūl al‐Fiqh, trans. and ed. Magid Hadduri, Islamic Jurisprudence: Shafi's Risala (Baltimore, 1961), 21. 59 Schacht has described Ahl al‐Kalām as Shaf‘ī's term for extreme wing of anti‐traditionists with a Mutazilite background. They pointed out that many traditions are contrary to reason and observation and hence absurd and ridiculous. For this reason they professed to make Quran, interpreted

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rationally, as the only foundation of their doctrine. Schacht, Oigins, pp.41‐4. But Burton has used the term Ahl al‐Qur’ān for a group with similar ideas. John Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation (Edinburgh, 1990), pp.22‐3. Regardless of the appellation, this group comes closest to be regarded as the prototype of present day Ahl al‐Qur’ān groups. 60 It should be noted that in its original sense rā’y or Reason did not mean a 'considered opinion' and ‘ilm only suggested 'knowledge of the past'. It was only with the sharpening of debate on the relative weightage of independent reasoning's application on scriptural sources that rā’y in the sense of 'arbitrary reasoning' or 'fallible human thought' came to discredited and completely divorced and independent of ‘Ilm, which was reduced to the knowledge of Quran and Sunnat. The acceptability of rā’y as a credible source for the earlier authorities can be judged by the fact that two‐thirds of Shahāb Zuhrī's transmitted doctrine was based on rā’y and only one‐third consisted of reports from earlier authorities. Hallaq, Evolution of Islamic Law, pp.75‐76. 61 The notion of partial rejection of H�adīth started with the Khārjīs and Shī‘as. Khārjī literally means 'those who went out'. They emerged as a splinter group during the civil war between Mu‘āwīya and ‘Alī. They found it impermissible for rightly appointed Caliph ‘Alī to appoint an arbitrary commission in order to reach at a negotiated settlement with Mu‘āwīya. They raised their famous slogan of 'judgment belongs to Allah alone' and thereafter denounced ‘Alī as apostate and did not accept traditions from his authority or in his praise. Shī‘as, on the other hand, emerged as supporters of ‘Alī and his successive generations, whom they regarded as divinely appointed and guided to serve as religious and political figure‐heads of the Muslim community. They accepted traditions mostly from ‘Alī and his supporters and did not recognize the authority of his opponents or of those who had deprived ‘Alī from his rightful position of Caliphate (that is, the first three Caliphs) which was divinely ordained. They do not accept as genuine those traditions which speak in favorable terms about those Companions which were opposed to ‘Alī and, by extension, to his family. 62 Christopher Melchert, “Traditionist‐Jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law”, Islamic Law and Society 8, 3(2001), pp.390‐392. 63 Daniel W Brown, Rethinking Tradition, 16. A similar duality of revelation is central to Rabbinic Judaism as well, and the concept in both Judaism and Islam shares many of the same aspects. “In Judaism, God is said to have revealed a both “written” and an “oral” law, both of which were given to Moses at Sinai. The Written Law is contained in the Torah scrolls. The Oral Law was recorded in the Mishnah and the Gemara, which together make up the Talmud. The Talmud and various other works known as Midrash serve much the same function that the Ahadith have come to serve in Islam.” Aisha Y. Musa, “Al‐Shafi, the Hadith and the Concept of Duality of Revelation”, Islamic Studies 46, 2 (2007),p.165. As in Islam during the same period, there emerged among Jews a sect known as Karaites who opposed the Oral Law contained in the Mishna and the Talmud. These parallels have led Michael Cook to posit an Islamic origin for Karaite scripturalism. Cited in Aisha Y. Musa, H�adīth as

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Scripture: Discussions on the Authority of Prophetic Traditions in Islam (New York, 2008), p.3. 64 Q 4:113. 65 Shāf‘ī, Risāla, p.111. 66 Abrogation or Naskh can be defined as “a revelatory process by which certain divine decisions, enacted at a given date, had been overtaken and superseded by other divine decisions enacted at a later date.” Burton, Sources, p.18. 67 Shāf‘ī, Risāla, p.126. 68 Q 10:15. 69 Shāf‘ī, Risāla, p.134. 70 Ibid., p.120. 71 This does not mean that Shāf‘ī is averse to quoting traditions from the Companions. He does quote traditions on their authority but only to adduce further evidence. Schacht, Origins, p.18. 72 Ibid., p.52. 73 Ibid. In order to prove his point on single reports, Shāf‘ī cites instances from ‘Umar's rule when the Caliph changed his previous opinion or decision in the light of a single report. This allows Shaf‘ī to draw conclusions favoring the authenticity of single report – whether or not accompanied by practice – and renunciation of an earlier practice on its basis. Hasan, Early Development, p.183. 74 Schacht, Origins, p.80. 75 Ibid., pp.4‐5. In the light of this statement it can be inferred that the practice existed first and traditions from the Prophet and from the Companions appeared later. Schacht's thesis is methodologically grounded on argument e silentio. Schacht states it as: “The best way of proving that a tradition did not exist at a certain time is to show that it was not used as a legal argument in a discussion which would have made reference to it imperative, if it had existed.” Ibid., p.140. 76 Christopher Melchert, “How Hanafism Came to Originate in Kufa and Traditionalism in Medina”, Islamic Law and Society 6, 3(1999): 319. 77 Schacht, Introduction, pp.31‐2. 78 Motzki, Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence, p.297. 79 Motzki, Hadith: Origins and Developments, p.xxvii. 80 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 1977), pp.18 and 167. Gerd R. Puin, a German specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography, has been working on the fragments of Quran discovered in Yemen during 1970s. His detailed study has not come out as yet. His preliminary findings suggest Quran as a 'cocktail of texts' many of which may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Puin has yet to come up with a detailed study of these manuscripts. For more details, cf. Gerd R. Puin, “Observations on Early Quran Manuscripts in Sanai” in Stefan Wild, ed. The Quran as Text (Leiden, 1996),pp.107‐111. More recently, Christoph Luxenberg has argued that Arabic as a language matured at least two centuries after the death of Prophet Muhammad and so did the

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grammatical‐lexicographical works attending to the needs of this newly formed language. A better understanding of Quran, therefore, demands that the Syro‐Aramaic content of Quran – which comprises of at least 30 percent of the whole text of Quran – should be taken into consideration. Such a reading of Quran reveals strikingly different meaning and interpretation of words and rulings than what the Muslim commentators of Quran have been giving for centuries. Christoph Luxenberg, Die Syro‐Aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache (Berlin, 2000). The English version of the book has recently been published under the title The Syro‐Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Koran (Berlin, 2007). 81 Fred M Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (Princeton, 1998), pp.35‐36. 82 Hallaq, Evolution of Islamic Law, p.55. 83 Dutton, Origins of Islamic Law, p.2. 84 Burton, Sources, p.208. 85 John Burton, The Collection of the Quran (Cambridge, 1977), p.239. 86 This mode of naskh is known as naskh al‐h�ukm duna al‐tilāwa in which an earlier ruling of the Quran is replaced by a later one. This mode is best exemplified in the case of bequest verses. According to David S. Powers, the reference in Q 4:12 for designating an heir had to be declared as abrogated for political considerations because it would have proved to be an embarrassment for Abū Bakr who had not received a document of appointment from Prophet Muhammad. The same holds true for all his successors who played a role in the collection of Quran and manipulated the interpretation of Q 4:12 to remove the reference to the possibility of designating an heir. David S Powers, Studies in Quran and Hadith: The Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance (Berkeley, 1986), pp.212‐213. 87 naskh al‐tilāwa duna al‐h�ukm 88 Burton, Sources, p.45. One H�adīth reported by ‘Ā’isha, says: “We were too occupied with the preparations in the Prophet's sick‐room to give any thought to the safe‐keeping of the sheets on which the revelations had been written out, and while were tending our patient, a household animal got in from the yard and gobbled up some of the sheets which were kept below the bedding.” Ibid., p.53. 89 Graham's ideas, too, are indirectly supportive of Rahman's thesis. The early Muslims did not recognize sharp divisional marks between Quran and Sunnat. It may well be because who had lived and experienced the time of the Prophet had lived in a wholly different mode of time: a time made holy by Divine activity. The Muslims could not distinguish the post prophetic‐revelatory phase from the one preceding it in which the Divine activity was in progress and the revelation was still unfolding. “It appears that for the Companions and the early followers of the Prophet, the divine activity manifested in the mission of Muhammad was a unitary reality in which the divine word, the Prophetic guidance, and even the example and witness of all who participated in the sacred history of Prophet's time, were all perceived as complementary,

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integral aspects of a single phenomena.” This gave rise to Sunnat – as a principle of authority – not dissimilar in character from the Sunnat of Companions and early Caliphs and bound together in a largely undifferentiated mass of tradition marked with an aura of revelation. William A. Graham, Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam: A Reconsideration of the Sources, with Special Reference to the Divine Saying of Hadith Qudsi (The Hague, 1977), pp.9 and 15. 90 This term allows Rahman to strike a balance between the two extremes of traditional Muslim account of the history of Islamic law and Hadith and the Western criticism of this account. 'Living Sunnat' has as its starting point the ideal practice of the Prophet progressively interpreted to give form to its regional variants. As such it takes into account the regional influences and the role played by local legal traditions and religious polemics, as well as those aspects of pre‐Islamic customs and legal canons that were allowed to continue and become a component of 'Islamic' law during successive stages of its formulation. 91 Fazlur Rahman, Islam (London, 1966), p.74. 92 Ibid., p.80. Yasin Ditton has provided an additional line of argument. With his emphasis on Muwat�ta’ and Mālik's school of jurisprudence, he has identified a new category of ‘amal – a concept intimately linked with Sunnat but by no means synonymous with it – in addition to living Sunnat. ‘Amal is a broader concept encompassing not only Sunnat of the Prophet but also the Ijtihād of later authorities. Thus all Sunnat is ‘amal but not all ‘amal is Sunnat. Dutton, Origins of Islamic Law, 3. ‘Amal may or may not be recorded by H�adīth and H�adīth may or may not record ‘amal. So in case of any contradiction, ‘amal is preferred to H�adīth by Mālik and other Medinese scholars even if the sources of H�adīth are completely trustworthy. It is because of Mālik's belief in the superiority of Medinian's knowledge of religion and greater direct experience of Prophet's practices. He even goes to the extent of upholding Medinian ‘amal at the expense of an authentic Hadith. Rafa‘ Yadain is one such example in which ‘amal and not H�adīth serves as the primary source of normative Sunnat for Mālik. Dutton, Origns of Islamic Law, p.46. 93 Fazlur Rahman, Islamic Methodology in History (New Delhi, 1994), pp.74‐5. Rahman’s ideas bear remarkable resemblance with that of Ghulām Ah�mad Parvēz. Both were contemporaries and had unanimity of views on various aspects of Islam but, in all probability, it can still be said that they arrived at such a concept of Sunnat independent of each other. For the ideas of Parvēz, cf. Chapter 7. 94 Rahman, Islam , p.55. 95 Fazlur Rahman, “Islamic Studies and the Future of Islam” in Malcolm Kerr, ed. Islamic Studies: Tradition and its Problems (Malibu, 1980), p.128.

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Umber Bin Ibad, The End of History

THE END OF HISTORY: INTERPRETING HEGELIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN GROUND AND BEING

TOWARDS THEIR WAY TO TRUTH

UMBER BIN IBAD


ABSTRACT

History is the realization of the self‐consciousness of World‐Spirit. The understanding of History achieves through the Rationality prevails and reflects in the Philosophical world of ideas. Each step of self‐consciousness is also a step for the Spirit’s knowing itself completely, therefore, a step for The End of History. For the Hegelian understanding of The End of History one needs not to accept the difference either between Hegel’s understanding moving anthropologically or only in the realm of ideas. His descriptive history makes it clear that the modern Europe is the only way open for the rest of the world to participate within. The history of the rest of the world, especially India has been ended through the descriptive details of Hegelian history. Hegelian conception of history is based upon his understanding of Being and Ground. Heidegger criticizes Hegelian conception of Being and Ground and highlights their limitations. Heidegger’s criticism opens up the ways to Being and brings forth the nature of relation between holding certain method, or the ways to Being, and the conception of Truth. To reach The End of History is not the inherent possibility of the movement of the world‐history. To conceive The End of History, either in the realm of Idea or in the realm of history, depends upon the mode of engagement with beings. The critical engagement with beings, following Heidegger, the historical understanding keeps the horizon of thinking open for the expression of Being.

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KEY WORDS: Hegel, Heidegger, Being, Ground, thinking history, Spirit, self‐consciousness, Method, The End of history For Hegel, History comes out as the mode of ‘understanding,’ the highest mode of rationality and the moment of self‐consciousness of the Spirit. It is the understanding — the power of looking at an object in an independent objective light, and comprehending it in its rational connection with other objects — that makes History possible. Only those peoples, for Hegel, therefore are alone capable of History, “who have arrived at that period of development (and can make that their starting point) at which individuals comprehend their own existence as independent, i.e., possess self‐consciousness”.1

To write history, for Hegel, is to understand human actions within already organized political whole synthesizing its discrete elements into universal reality of law, as an external objectifying reality, and Morality as a subjective obeying. It is, therefore, the phenomenon of the state in the history of human being that gives Hegel his starting point. For Hegel, therefore, the beginning of history emerges with the emergence of first traces of the Oriental world, only when this world found organized within States. The understanding of history, however, for him, must remain within the presupposed understanding of World‐history, or the journey of Spirit’s self‐consciousness. It is only participating within such world‐historical consciousness that any historical incident takes its meaning. The world‐history, however, must be a history of states remained existed within the history of human being.

For Hegel, History is a serious business because History displays the rationality realized in Time. In fact such a serious business that the societies, like that of India that could not bring forth the understanding of history in its past, can not be given a significant place within the history of the world.2

For him, History is prose, and myths fall short of History. The consciousness of external definite existence only arises in connection with the power to form abstract distinctions and assign abstract predicates; and in proportion as a capacity for expressing Laws (of natural or social life) is acquired, in the same proportion does the ability manifest itself to comprehend objects in an un‐poetical form.3 The prose of history, when understands Laws, in fact, also understands the rationality realized in Time.

It is in the realm of philosophy where essence of rationality finds its coherent existence. Each philosophical activity for him is also a reflection of certain time that can also be understood as the moment of self‐consciousness of World‐Spirit. It is this realm that

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reflects the Truth, not only in its universal, and therefore in the eternal mode, but also in the realized essentiality of Time. For Hegel, the reflection of eternal Truth appears in and through Logic, the heart of philosophy and the abode of the essential nature of Spirit.

The self‐realization of Spirit at certain moment is also the realization of Absolute. Each rational activity as a Spirit’s self‐conscious moment, therefore, is moving towards the End of its completion and also the realization of its End. The historical moment, that is also a realized expression of World‐Spirit and, in other words, the certain moment of Absolute moves towards its completion, and therefore towards it’s End. The End of History would arrive with the completion of Reason when the difference between Reality and Rationality would disappear.4

The realization of the Rationality of Absolute World‐Spirit, that is, the possibility of The End of History, is an expression of correspondence between the Essence of Being and Being. This correspondence, however, could only take place when both are grounded in the grounding of Truth as ‘grounded Truth’. Whether it takes place in a contemporaneous Time is a question to be understood only through exploring the concepts of Ground, Being and History. The understanding of these concepts can provide the vindication of Hegelian understanding regarding The End of History. There are two well‐known approaches towards understanding Hegelian conception of The End of History: one mode of thinking takes anthropological understanding of Hegel and considers Hegel’s philosophical exposition as oriented towards “The End of history”. In twentieth century, Kojeve (1902‐1968)5 and Fukuyama (1952)6 can be considered two significant figures for maintaining such orientation and holding of “The End of history” thesis as an eschatological or contemporaneous possibility. This position gives significant importance to one of the Hegel’s work, “The Phenomenology of Spirit”.7 The second mode of thinking follows such figures as Jean Hippolite (1907‐1968) and Althusser (1918‐1990). This mode of thinking considers Hegelian approach as oriented, though towards Absolute Knowledge, yet this orientation attains, if at all, self‐reflective absoluteness in the world of Ideas. This mode of thinking refuses to accept the anthropological understanding of Hegel and terms it as anti‐liberal because of its culmination in The End of History.

This article, however, intends to take an alternative position for understanding Hegel’s position of The End of History. Instead of following any of the either it intends to see Hegel as he appears through his descriptive history. To consider his own time, the best of the time, not only with reference to his tradition’s own past but also

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against all societies and states staying away from modern European position, stations him accepting the certain mode of The End of History, even if it remains concealed. The whole of the world‐history stands for Hegel as justifying his specific European Time. All the other part of the world would keep on enjoying their wretched existence until and unless they accept and own the modern world of Hegel. Whether Hegel’s modern world would take another leap in the dialectics of Time, is a question animating his own world, but for the rest of the world, especially India, their history has been ended.

This study, initiated from the world for which the history has been ended, intends to explore further the very concepts, Ground, Being and Truth on which Hegel’s descriptive understanding is placed. This study finds that Hegel, despite his self‐reflective consciousness, stood upon his own very ‘modern’ tradition compelling him to own certain methodology and follows it through. His acceptance of the decision of his Time, especially regarding low the Oriental World, sets his own conception of History. To find an alternative position this article places Heidegger against Hegel. While placing Heideggerian critique on its side, this article sees the Ground of Hegelian understanding in its relationship with Being only standing upon which Hegel’s own understanding of “realized history” arises. The Heideggerian understanding questions the very question of Being that normally sets the direction for the articulation of Truth.

This article divides itself into three portions: first portion brings forward the Hegel’s descriptive world‐history, with its emphasis upon Indian history. It is to show the determined direction of Hegelian understanding of World‐history.; the second part shows the understanding of Being in both Hegelian and Heideggerian understanding and also the relational understanding of both regarding Ground while letting Heidegger criticize the Hegelian position; third part relates Being through Ground to show the form of Truth coming out of this relation. This position soon shows the mode of Truth as the way of Truth. The relation between the way or Method and Truth highlights the framing of Truth through the relation of Method and Truth. Finally the discussion of The End of History concludes the article with the emphasis upon the possibilities of opening up the ways for Truth.

(I) HEGEL’S DESCRIPTIVE WORLD-HISTORY For Hegel, the origin of the world history starts from the Oriental world, and interestingly, it occurs to him as compulsion. The origin of

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world history, where appears for him simple, there, at the same time gives him so much trouble that he brushes aside the original moments of history as “delirium” and “madness.”8 His conception of rationality, intelligence, morality, freedom, subjectivity, oppositionality, etc., finds a shock while encountering the Oriental World.9 His logic makes him understand the origin compulsively as “simple,” yet unstable. The very simplicity of origin should find the simple oppositionality to get itself transformed into simple but compulsive dynamism, as ‘becoming.’ Yet his encountering with the Oriental world places him against the multiplicity of Chinese, and especially, Indian consciousness. His developmental mode of rationality, however, helps him degrading the multiplicity and constructing the oppositionality within the dynamism of the Oriental World. Categories of modernity are sufficient enough for bringing out reality as the “Enframed” 10 picture. If, historical facts are problematic then they can be categorized within frameworks developed through the dynamism of modernity. And the luggage that is not befitting can be thrown away, into the category of “Other,” not required for the truth. And Hegel, like any intelligent active person of the “modern times” threw them away with the “deserving” insulting remarks. How can the madness be tolerated within the absolute Reason?

With China and the Mongols, for Hegel, as the realm of despotism, History begins.11 As soon as he enters into the Chinese World, he places it within the category of Patriarchy, as the constitutive principle of Chinese life. The subjectivity, under patriarchal principle, can not find its free moving space. The human action, therefore, can only be understood as ‘Natural’ and not a free act. “The sphere of subjectivity does not then attain to maturity here, since moral laws are treated as legislative enactments, and law on its part has an ethical aspect. All that we call subjectivity is concentrated in the supreme head of the state, who, in all his legislation has an eye to the health, wealth and benefit of the whole.”12

India comes, for Hegel, next in the description of the Oriental world. Its diversity, lack of civil machinery and political organizations coupled with the diverse conscious expressions through multiple spiritual writings gives Hegel the bad taste for India from the very start. He though finds categorical imperatives through the classification of Castes, but these imperatives appear for him Natural. He thinks that giving rules by a person does not necessitate them to be considered as ‘Morals.’ He, however, ignores this point that it is their (Indian’s) historical owning of those Morals that turns them into social reality. Can this historical owning of Morals appear as an

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‘immediate’ historical moment? For Hegel, this question is not worth considering.13

A state, for Hegel, is a realization of Spirit such that in it the self‐conscious being of Spirit‐the freedom of the Will‐is realized as Law. Such an institution then, necessarily, presupposes the consciousness of Free Will. 14 Once Hegel decides that a state can only be like it, he never refrains from seeing Indian political organization but from the stated definition. He, however, can not find anything in Indian history resembling his definition of state. In India, therefore, the proper basis of the state, for him is absent. Only tyrannical despotism ruled its history. And, this tyranny always appears to the people as normality, to be more precise, Natural. To others (other states) despotic tyranny is an exception but in India, “there is no sense of personal independence with which a state of despotism could be compared, and which would raise revolt in the soul; nothing approaching even a resentful protest against it, is left, except the corporeal smart, and the pain of being deprived of absolute necessaries and of pleasure.”15

For Hegel, in India, it is futile to search for history, in both the senses, that is to search for ‘annals’ and to search for his dynamic, developmental and dialectical processes that may take it to modern times. Even the finding of Indian brilliances in Astronomy and Algebra, and even in philosophy can not reduce Hegel’s anger against Indian multiplicity and India’s strong and resilient ‘inability’ to resolve oppositions into synthetic Unity. Even in the presence of marvelous literary activities, as “the recent discoveries of the treasures of Indian Literature have shown us what a reputation the Hindoos have acquired in Geometry, Astronomy, and Algebra — that they have made great advances in Philosophy, and that among them, Grammar has been so far cultivated that no language can be regarded as more fully developed than the Sanscrit”, 16 Indians can not be considered rational because they don’t have History and therefore do not have the ability to see reality in an objective manner. 17 For Hegel, the present of India remains historical, that is, India’s present is its history and even that history is its history of origin. To see India, as it is through Hegel’s eyes, as a whole, is to see India from those categories developed in ‘Modern Times’. Englishmen have given India its wholeness. “India is composed of hindoos… India Proper is the country which the English divide into two large sections: the Deccan — the great peninsula which has the Bay of Bengal on the east, and the Indian Sea on the west — and Hindostan, formed by the valley of the Ganges, and extending in the direction of Persia… We call the inhabitants of the great country which we have now to consider

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Indians, from the river Indus (the English call them Hindoos)… They themselves have never given a name to the whole, for it has never become one Empire, and [yet we consider it as such.]”18

For Hegel, the character of Indian spirit is that of living in a state of dream. For him the dream condition entails the absence of consciousness of objective existence:

“When awake, I exist for myself, and the rest of creation is an external, fixed objectivity, as I myself am for it. As external, the rest of existence expands itself to a rationally connected whole; a system of relations, in which my individual being is itself a member — an individual being united with that totality. This is the sphere of Understanding. In the state of dreaming, on the contrary, this separation is suspended. Spirit has ceased to exist for itself in contrast with alien existence, and thus the separation of the external and individual dissolves before its universality — its essence. The dreaming Indian is therefore all that we call finite and individual; and, at the same time — as infinitely universal and unlimited — a something intrinsically divine.”19

The history of India is rooted into the dichotomy of sensuous pleasure and Natural compulsion. No effort, in Indian history, ever made to bring closer the inherent and prevailed oppositionality. The Universal Pantheism co‐exists with the sensuous objectifications manifested through rituals. Things are not things anymore and the Divine is not in its ‘pure’ Divinity anymore. The general idea of Indian universe, for Hegel, may be taken as, “Things are as much stripped of rationality, of finite consistent stability of cause and effect, as man is of the steadfastness of free individuality, of personality, and freedom.”20

For Hegel, India remains open for invaders. In India states come and go without giving centralized political unity. The valiant Muslims are one of these rulers. Rulers come and go, whatever their background may be, while despotism remains prevailed. Indian people, that is, Hindoos, who can only be understood through their ancient religious writings, largely remain indifferent and never show any tinkling of resistance. After the acquaintance of Europeans with India, the representation of strife and diversity remains a rule. “There was an order of things very nearly approaching feudal organization; and the Kingdoms in question were divided into districts, having as

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governors Mahometans, or people of the Warrior Caste of Hindoos…The whole state of things, therefore, is not that of repose, but of continual struggle; while moreover nothing is developed or furthered. It is the struggle of an energetic will on the part of this or that prince against a feebler one; the history of reigning dynasties, but not of peoples; a series of perpetually varying intrigues and revolts — not indeed of subjects against their rulers, but of a prince’s son, for instance, against his father; of brothers, uncles and nephews in contest with each other; and of functionaries against their master.”21

The Indian history remained vacuous of ideological prevalence that might contribute as uniting factor. The Indian life, to Hegel, seems to be united with naked force and as soon as the force disappears the unity disperses too. The business of the ruling Indian governors “consisted in collecting taxes and carrying on wars; and they thus formed a kind of aristocracy, the Prince’s Council of State. But only as far as their princes are feared and excite fear, have they any power; and no obedience is rendered to them but by force. As long as the prince does not want money, he has troops; and neighboring princes, if they are inferior to him in force, are often obliged to pay taxes, but which are yielded only on compulsion.”22

Hegel is eager to see some instance like that of “French Revolution within Indian history”23 and remains frustrated after not finding it. French Revolution is a world‐Historical event for Hegel in its bearing upon history. It gives shape to the modern world and it must become beacon that would enlighten the world‐history.24 After not finding a similar instance in Indian history his disdain for it increases. He, however, ignores all efforts of Indian people to attain freedom within their historical conditions. He fixes them up in his stable and singular categories which are eager to move ahead through finding opposite singular categories only to get prevailed as “Modern Spirit of Time.” He looks at Muslims only as a ruler but never bothers to see them as a common people. He, though, glimpses upon the multiplicity of Indian population, as he mentions Sikhs in‐habiting the area of Punjab,25 yet he excludes, under the compulsion of singular categories, other population, like Muslims and Hindoos, coexisting with each other at the same time. He is in such a hurry to move forward on the path of dialectical dynamism that he can not see the harmonized social networks and relations beneath the ‘confused’ political conditions. He even ignores with contempt the enduring tendency of Indian social life that remains its harmony and composure despite the diversity of religious and regional identities. His enthusiasm for dialectical synthetic movements26 and the need to explain everything from there let him ignore the force of those ideas

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that does not move dialectically, that plays patiently but more seriously than the Greek games, between oppositionalities without compelling them to unite in a larger whole. The plurality can remain syncretically, even in a larger whole, without disturbing a lot one’s identity is almost unthinkable to Hegelian mindset. Without directed towards progress human life is not worth living for him. And progress can only take place when one of the oppositional identities prevails upon other to assimilate its own‐ness within itself and brings forward a larger synthetic unity. This movement is a movement towards absolute idea, and a realization of absolute idea, where differences prevail but grouped together within larger whole.27 His anxiety to move ahead quickly makes him oblivious to acknowledge the sameness prevailed in the multiplicity of Indian history. For his own presence, that is, European presence, his emphasis remains upon the assimilative tendencies correlating the colonizing European dialectical experiences. For India, therefore, he can only find oppositionality, standing against each other absolutely. India is destined to remain what its origin is. But Europe is not its history but its future. For India, however, there is no future because its history is bleak and illusory. Therefore its present is bleak and illusory. India meets its End of History through Hegelian self‐conscious activity of narrating India’s history.

(II)

HEGELIAN UNDERSTANDING OF BEING The totality of Hegelian understanding appears in the Hegelian conception of history as “Time is a Concept itself, which is there.”28 The realization of Concept into the moments of history gives Hegel that sense of understanding with which he absolves Truth from eternity and transforms it into the self‐conscious moments in time. The logical plane of concepts resides within the plane of eternity, within God. The moments of history becomes for Hegel the moment of Spirit’s coming into itself, as God knowing itself in time. The logical plane in which Hegel discusses the multiplicity of concepts manifests Being in its interrelated manifoldness. The truth appears as Idea appeared through gradual knowing of its contradictory multiplicity. Hegel discusses this position in his Logic that appears in three different books: a) The Science of Logic b) Encyclopedia c) The Shorter Logic. What follows, we’ll take The Science of Logic to understand Hegel’s concept of Being within Logical, and therefore, Eternal plane.

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Though concepts are interrelated despite their division into dichotomies, the contradiction between Nature and Spirit appears for Hegel necessary to bring out the complete picture of manifold understanding of Being‐for‐itself and Being‐in‐itself. The necessary element for the existence of Being‐for‐itself is Freedom that can not be seen in Nature. The objects in Nature are determined through its fixed laws. But the sphere of Spirit requires freedom for its existence; without freedom being‐for‐itself can not find its own being and thus can not be what it is. The distinction between Nature and Spirit is, therefore, necessary for understanding the history of being‐for‐itself or being human.29

To bring out the understanding of being‐for‐itself and the process of its realization through its actions, Hegel devises two ways; one is to narrate a story of consciousness towards its self‐consciousness; the other is the story of realization of Spirit’s truths through the moments in time. The earlier translates into “The Phenomenology of Spirit” and the latter appears in “Lectures on Philosophy of History.” In both of the works the concept of Being appears in its manifold modes. In “The Phenomenology of Spirit,” its “Being‐for‐itself,” that takes primacy upon being‐in‐itself. The Phenomenology is the journey of Being for itself for itself, through multiple stages, finding multiple moments of incompleteness, moving ahead by assimilating and annulling the previous moments, and remaining always in the presence of oppositionality. The journey of self‐consciousness brings out the passage of certain being for its own sake. In the following that certain sense of being will be brought out.

In the “Philosophy of History” Hegel traverses through the world history in his effort to see the realization of Spirit in the moment of time. The realization of Spirit he finds in the State understood as the Universal inhering within it the particular interests through objectification of Law. He finds the expression of State in the annals and the preservation of the record of history becomes for him synonym with the self‐consciousness of the state. The state, for him, arises and passes away while letting itself transmitted into other part of the world. From one state arises another state till the emergence of modern times, that is, the time in which Hegel himself lives. The modern time, for him, becomes the standard of looking back into the world history to see everything culminating into the modern existence. Reason that he sees everywhere prevailed in the history becomes real with the each effort of universalizing identity, that is, State. His own time, however, reaches the moment when Real also becomes Rational. His staunch owning of this position, however, though changes with time yet the disposition towards his own time

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remains same. Being has to appear through its contingencies into the mode of existence in which his time and reason fashions it to be.

Being appears in both “The Phenomenology of Spirit” and “The Philosophy of World history” as moving in specific direction, taking specific points, transforming into certain mode and showing disposition to move towards a certain goal. The specific tendencies of Being or, in other words, the determining of Being, animates both the journeys of is works. The individual position in phenomenology achieves sameness that is achieved in the World history. And both achieve the sameness that is achieved in Logic, that is, in the eternal abode of Concepts. The determination of Being appears differently, in different modes and in different planes of life, yet they all, for him fulfilling the sameness destined by the determination of Being. Being has to appear in the way through which Hegel already conceives it through his philosophy. His truth of both modes finds its ground in his holding of certain conception of Being that was already achieved in his philosophy. The truth of history is in the truth of his philosophy, that is in “The Phenomenology of Spirit” and the truth of “The Phenomenology of Spirit” can be attained while seeing its realization in time. And truth of both can be seen in the logic, as the realization of eternity. Living in the circularity with his Reason is what always inspired Hegel. HEIDEGGER’S CONCEPTION OF BEING It will not be an exaggerated claim that the whole of the philosophical activity of Heidegger remains around the concern of the question of being. For him the greatest sin took place in the history of philosophy is the oblivion of the question of Being. His position is to revive this concern and bring out the engagement of Dasein with Being. His extensive writings and lectures remained a struggle against the positions making up themselves without invoking the concern of being. He locates this lack of concern in the prevalence of certain sort of metaphysical position deeply embedded in science and technology, in modern epoch, as its establishing ground. Heidegger traces this obliviousness to the metaphysical traditions of western world and reached early Greek thinkers, through multiple epochs, where belonging with Being appears in wholeness. Each epoch, for him, is a belonging with Being through the prevalent metaphysical tradition that opens up determinate mode of direction. This opening up of the destiny, embedded in the certain metaphysical view, lies in the incomplete view of Being, to have the view with Being’s certain manifestation in the absence of other possibilities.

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BEING APPEARS IN DIFFERENCE Being, for Heidegger, is not that appear through the essents. Neither does it appear through the general and universal position of Being. It is the difference of one from the other, that is the difference of essents from Being, that let Being and essent appears in beingness. For, “Being as well as the essent, in their different ways, emerge from and through the Difference. When we thus think of Being in terms of Difference, of Being as Difference, Being shows itself in the character of going over to the essent, as coming down to it and revealing it and the essent appears as that which, through such descent of Being, comes into unhiddenness and appears as if it were by itself unhidden. As against the traditional conception of transcendence as the movement from Dasein to Being, Heidegger thinks of the Difference now as the interplay and resolution (Austrag) of being’s descent into beings and the latter’s emergence into unconcealedness. Being is the revealing descent and the essent is the coming into and enduring in the heaven of unhiddenness, the arrival which hides its own self in this unconcealedness. Both emerge, as thus differentiated, from the Difference, their identical source. The Difference between Being and essents is not just a static and formal relation between two terms but the interplay, the working out or the process of resolution of the two opposed movements of revealing (descent) and concealing (arrival).”30 ORIGIN IS SIMPLE BUT WHOLE Being appears to Hegel, in its origin, simple and unstable. However, for Heidegger, each historical understanding of Being is simple because there the divisions of disclosure are not fixed with the determined direction of subjectivity already historically determined through the essence of Being. There, in the origin of history, being appears in unity of identity while identity is understood not the identity of two things or essents but the identity of the totality as a whole. Contrasting his position with Hegel, Heidegger points out his position in “Hegel and the Greeks” as ; “yet if we now attend to the enigma of aletheia, which holds sway over the beginning of Greek philosophy and over the course of philosophy as a whole, then the philosophy of the Greeks shows itself to our thinking too in a ‘not yet.’ But this is the ‘not yet’ of the un‐thought – not a ‘not yet’ that does not satisfy us, but rather a ‘not yet’ to which we are not sufficient, and which we fail to satisfy.”31

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BEING AS POSSIBILITY [MOGLICHKEIT] In a Letter on Humanism, Heidegger brings out his conception of being as ‘enabling‐favoring.’32 Moving away from metaphysically burdened language he opts for the words seldom found in the history of western metaphysical literature. Heidegger, in this essay, is trying to bring out the condition of Being as Being. He wants to differentiate the dominating subjectivity and the possibility of appearing being. He also intends to emphasize upon the belongingness in the working of logos already understood as belonging‐togetherness.

In the history of western metaphysical tradition the togetherness as logos found its due stress within the order of the epoch already directed through the determination of Being. The effort to bring out the thought‐ful withdraws what is there but what remains ‘not‐yet‐proper’ to be appeared as the togetherness of logos. The stress of belongingness remains far away from thought itself. The order of the togetherness even makes it essential to thrust aside belongingness as far away as possible from the domain of truth. Heidegger tries to throw light upon the un‐thought in the history of metaphysical tradition. Instead following the subjective impulse to grasp Being in its essentiality, Heidegger favors the activity of listening.

As the belonging to being that listens, thinking is what it is according to its essential origin…To embrace a thing or a person in their essence means to love them, to favor them. Thought in a more original way such favoring means the bestowal of their essence as a gift. Such favoring [Mogen] is the proper essence of enabling, which not only can achieve this or that but also can let something essentially unfold in its provenance, that is, let it be. It is on the strength of such enabling by favoring that something is properly able to be. This enabling is what is properly possible [das Mogliche], whose essence resides in favoring. From this favoring being enables thinking...As the element, being is the quite power of the favoring‐enabling, that is, of the possible.33

BEING AS UNHIDDENNESS (ALETHEIA) For Heidegger, the Western Metaphysical tradition brings out the conception of being as presence. This presence can be found from

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Plato through medieval scholars to Descartes and modern philosophy. Yet this presence is always considered through generalized and universal conception of being. This being appears in each essent and the being of essent appears through it. In Hegel the presence of being appears as an indeterminate immediate that can only be grasped through subjective activity of speculative and dialectical manner. This for Heidegger can not be the case because Hegel here misses the point that before bringing forward the trail of speculative dialectical movement towards absolute subjectivity, he must have already experienced the relation to the essence of history in terms of essence of being that becomes the matter of his thought. “This essence, however, is presencing, that is to say, an enduring coming forth from concealment into unconcealment. In coming to presence, disclosure is at play.”34

BEING AS BELONGING-TOGETHERNESS Identity remains a basic element of almost each metaphysical thought. The diversity, when understood, reduces into the identity. Each metaphysical conception of Identity appears as Being. Yet this appearance, for Heidegger, remains within the determined direction of Being. As Heidegger points out, “the earliest Greek utterance in which this Being is expressly mentioned, viz. the saying of Parmenides that Being and apprehension (Thought) are the same (to gar auto noein estin te kai einai), expresses something entirely different. As against the traditional doctrine of metaphysics, according to which Identity belongs to Being, Parmenides suggests that being inheres in an Identity, that thinking and Being belong in the Self‐same, that they belong together through this self‐same. The sameness of to auto, the Self‐same, lies, according to Heidegger, in a belonging‐together, though a belonging‐together which must be interpreted otherwise than in terms of the later metaphysical conception of identity as a feature of Being, for here Being itself is regarded as a feature of this Identity.” 35

Heidegger differentiates between mediated identity and the identity as a ‘wholeness,’ as Being. Heidegger points out that in belonging together, the mediated identity, as an element of traditional metaphysical position, gives primacy to togetherness, instead of belongingness. The latter, in fact, withdraws from that belonging in the purity of adequate connection, as correspondence. “Here, to ‘belong’ means, Heidegger says, to be coordinated and incorporated into the order of a ‘together,’ given its place in the unity of a manifold, put together into the unity of a system mediated through the unifying

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center of an effective synthesis. Philosophy conceives such belonging‐together as nexus and connexio, as the necessary connection between one thing and another. On the other hand, belonging‐together my also be understood as belonging‐together, such that ‘together’ is determined in terms of belonging. Belonging‐together can yield a sense in which it is not the unity of togetherness that determines the sense of ‘belonging’ but in which togetherness itself is understood in the light of belonging. It is in this sense that thought and Being belongs together in the Self‐same.” 36 BEING APPEARS IN MULTIPLE WAYS IN MULTIPLE EPOCHS For Heidegger, Being appears to multiple epochs differently. Each metaphysical position determines the unveiling of Being in certain way and hides many other. The withdrawal of Being in its manifold possibilities could enable that metaphysical position to reveal the being of essents. For example, the stress on Logic of the Latin world withdraws the possibilities of logos of early Greek experience. The stress on Logic reduces the being of Reason into the rules, that is, specified directions in which reason can and should move. The distance of reason from initial experience of logos enables Reason to correlate itself with statement and judgment. Where statement is an expression of idea in logical form and judgment is the correspondence of statement with the actualitas coming out in statement of idea. Logos, however, initially appeared in a mode of aletheia, the unhiddenness.

“The original essence of truth could not be retained and preserved and there was a ‘collapse of unhiddenness,’ of the area opened out for the appearing of the essent; from the debris ‘idea’ and ‘statement,’ ‘ousia’ and ‘kategoria,’ were salvaged…each existing as an objective entity, disjoined from the other and connectable only by a relation having itself the character of an objective entity. Ever since, philosophy has labored to explain and render plausible the relation between judgment (thought) and Being by all sorts of ingenious theories. ”37

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BEING APPEARS THROUGH APPREHENSION NOT GRASPING In his effort to bring forward the conception of Being other than metaphysically burdened language constructions, Heidegger moves toward early Greeks. In that movement, and his re‐interpretation of early Greek thinkers, Heidegger discovers the distorted meaning of many concepts, and even that of ‘concept’ itself. He brings out the initial meaning of knowing as apprehension as contrasting with grasping entailed by concept itself. Through the famous saying of Parmenides; (to gar auto noein estin te kai einai), that is commonly understood as : “Being and thought are the same”. Heidegger brings out the hidden meaning of noein (thought), while insisting to refrain from projecting into noein the modern conception of thinking as the activity of a subject, with Being as its correlate, and from interpreting it in Kantian or Hegelian terms.” 38 Heidegger insists that we must understand thought in the sense of apprehension. This sense brings out “the double signification of taking up, accepting, letting what appears come up and of hearing a witness, questioning him and so determining.”39

Apprehension is neither a power of a subject for the grasping nor the faculty of a human being. Considering human being a subject is itself a determining of apprehension in certain sense. Apprehension is not a faculty possessed by a human‐being; instead apprehension is the mutual sharing of a human being with Being and in Being. Apprehension is rather a “happening, sharing in which alone man enters into history as an essent, appears, that is, in the literal sense, comes into being.” 40

BEING IS THE SELF-SAME NOT MOVING FOR ABSOLUTE SELF-REALIZATION For Heidegger, it is Hegel who “determines truth to be the goal of philosophy. This is achieved only at the stage of completion. The stage of Greek philosophy remains in the not‐yet. As the stage of beauty, it is not yet the stage of truth.”41 The Greek’s stage of truth for Hegel is still only a thesis or a moment of spirit’s realization of its self‐consciousness that can be assimilated into other stages for achieving the subjective certainty of the absolute. For Hegel, there is no denying that in the Greek world the spirit indeed comes for the first time into free and open opposition to being. But spirit does not yet properly come to absolute certainty of itself as self‐knowing subject. It is with Hegelian system of speculative – dialectical metaphysics, does philosophy comes to be what it is. 42

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Heidegger thinks Hegel grasps the understanding of spirit as immersed in his own time. Hegel couldn’t critically engage with the spirit of his own time. Instead, he owned and accepted the very direction without opening up other possibilities for Being to get emerge. However, Being for Heidegger is the self‐same. He does not think the thought of each metaphysical epoch enables to bring forth the being of essents. For Heidegger each time the effort is made to apprehend Being through concepts, it also enables Being to withdraw. This withdrawing enables being to appear as we desire it to get appear through our immersion within essents.

43HEGELIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN UNDERSTANDING OF GROUND

44The ‘ground’ for Hegel appears to be, in and through his Logic, the systematic expansion of categories for bringing out the Matter of Fact. This systematic expansion of categories is interlocked to produce certain triadic dynamism in order to produce ground for the synthesis of diverse and oppositional identities. The ground on which this ‘grounding’ takes place moves upon the principle of reason. This principle of Reason lies in the roots of western metaphysical tradition.45 The principle of Reason appeared as a ground of Reason through Leibnizian position.46 This ground came out, as it came out, in Hegelian Logic, as grounding the assertive statements.

The movement of ground takes a certain direction and attains a certain characteristic in order to synthesize the oppositionality. It is for accomplishing this certain direction and characteristic that movement first of all takes place. The movement takes place for taking oppositional identities into their opposition and after going through their incomplete appearance that turns each identity into indeterminate mode, compelling them to resolve their opposition and get resolved into synthetic unity. This movement accomplishes what it intends to accomplish only through being certain speculation, that is, only through determinate apprehension, comprehension or taking sight of.

The movement, however, couldn’t take place without, first, considering or taking identities as oppositions. The identities are identities because they are immediate determinations and they are in opposition. Why should they be in opposition? This is not clear through Hegelian speculation. But their opposition, just like their being as identities, appears to him as self‐evident as the ground of grounding that provides him justification to move philosophically through assertive position.

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The relation between ground and being, however, appears when being appears as grounded and ground appears in the reflection of being, though as un‐reflected. Ground, one can understand in its geographical imagery. In this situation it would appear almost in the same fashion as it appeared to Hegel.47 Ground as Land, however, keeps individuals who are treading on it, and the Land itself, distinct from each other. The change in Land may not create change in the ground. The change may only take place when individuals are related with Land in certain belonging. Only then, the change in Land may bring some change in individuals. The imagery of Land, in this situation is helpful though the effort to take it very far only makes matter difficult to understand. The relationship between ground and being is more intimate than the relationship between the imagery of Land and individuals.

With the change in ground the determinate change in being takes place. And with the change in being the correlative change in ground may ensue. The change in ground may appear with the change in the determinateness of being, that is, with the change in its ability to ‘be’ in the determinate form what it is. If the ground does not ground but loses its ground, then what is the sense to say it ground. Yet, even, in the absence of its foundational condition, the ground may appear as ground. This position can only appear with the relation of time. It is only with the relation of time that ground, in its grounding, may appear as ground, yet loses its position by bringing out the concealed temporal position of being.

(III) BEING APPEARS THROUGH GROUND Being appears when Ground let it appear. It (letting) is the ‘shaping’ of ground that shapes the being itself. The history of philosophy, for Hegel, appears as the dialectical movement already divided into thesis, antithesis and synthesis. For, Hegel understands the Cartesian position as the antithesis of the previous philosophical position that stretches back to the early Greek thinkers. The antithesis of Cartesian position brings out the opposition between subject and object first time in the history of philosophy. This position also prepares the ground within the subjective situation for the synthetic unity. The synthesis, however, has to wait for Hegel to bring out in the synthetic unity of antihesis and thesis by calling back the unity of object‐thought within the horizon of Being.

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The thesis of the history of philosophy, for Hegel, initiates in the Greek world within the writings of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato and Aristotle. It was Parmenides from whom the ‘En’ or the wholeness of Being enters into the world of philosophy. For Hegel, It is with “Parmenides philosophizing proper began…This beginning is admittedly still confused and indeterminate.”48

With Heraclitus it was Logos that entered into the world of philosophy. Logos lets everything that is as a whole lie before and appears as beings. Logos, for Hegel, transforms into the ‘logic’ of its dialectic. His speculative dialectic makes object appear in the opposition of subject. This appearance takes place through the mediation of reflection that places oppositional identities into self‐reflective whole.49

The abode of particulars into intrinsically determinate Universal and interlocking of universals into another Universal makes a case of Plato for Hegel. Philosophy for the first time appears for him into the realm of indeterminate immediacy and this appearance becomes itself the motivating factor to transform the illusory existence into the eternal Universal. Within Universal, indeterminate being finds its abode through its own reflected mediation. “Ideas are not immediately in consciousness (namely, as an intuition), rather they are (mediated in consciousness) in cognition. For this reason one does not have them, but rather they are brought forth within spirit through cognition.” Idea becomes the home for Hegel for which his stream of categories moves to give particular instances the very safe heaven they always longed for. Yet this home is more like a small production unit. The cognitive activity is more like producing of absolute knowing, i.e., science. “Therefore,” Hegel says: “With Plato begins philosophical science as science…What is distinctive of Platonic philosophy is its orientation toward the intellectual, the supersensible world.”50

It is, however, Aristotle who becomes the driving force for the driving force of Hegel’s philosophy. His concept Energeia translates into that activity that shapes each phenomenon into determinate being. This determinacy arises through the destiny embedded within the Energeia itself, that is, as enetelechy. The driving force becomes its own ground. Hegel took this ground as grounding activity through its absolute subjective position and the grounding activity turns into the speculative dialectics of Hegel.51 For Hegel, “in philosophy as such, in its present and final stage, is contained everything that the work of millennia has brought forth; it is the result of everything that has gone before.”52 The experience of Hegel towards history of philosophy, as it explicates itself through his employment of four major concepts, makes him

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understand the explicated categories within the horizon of being. It is how for him being is to appear in its determinate form, and that is, indeterminate immediacy. Being appears through the ground that is already historically related with being.

The relationship between the ground and being brings out the indeterminate immediacy of Hegel’s understanding of being that is located in that historical experience that shows this indeterminate immediacy in its determined being through the belonging of subjective experience with the ground. The indeterminate immediacy of being unfolds itself through cognitive meditating determined way. While the subjective relation of being and the historicity of subjective experience explicates itself through time.

The ground of indeterminate being appears as the determined being showing itself without rooted into the historical experience; the determinacy come out as methodology. Only within and through this determined passage Being shows itself. The truth of the content lies in the method. It is the interlocking of matter, and its multiple positions within a method and the correspondence of reflecting ideas with the already developed reality that gives truth.

Cartesian position insists upon the method for bringing out matter of fact as achieving certainty. It is the “way of attaining clear and distinct ideas”53 in thinking that matters. Thinking may come out in multiple possibilities yet the determined possibility that can bring out ideas as distinct and clear can manifest itself only through the determined way. The ground of accomplishing certainty appears as the method of taking matter into schematic form from the foundation of subjectivity already perceived as ‘I.’

Hegel accepts the subjective position of Descartes but refuse to accept the primacy of method. He opts for the movement itself; the movement that can move in a certain direction through the already grounded mode of movement and the goal towards which it has to move. The letting of content to move itself to engender its own methodology is to give being its given‐ness from its on shining. This shining forth of being is apprehended through the gathering of subjectivity into the unfolding unity of subjectivity. In this way, subjectivity grows together with gathering. Hegel’s dialectical speculation finds its sense within this apprehension.

The growth of subjectivity with the gathering‐together becomes for Hegel the ground of dialectical speculation that is the reflection of what is already moving through its own self. “Considered in this way, speculation is the positive whole of that which “dialectic” is meant to signify here.” To understand Hegel’s dialectic in the form of “transcendental, critically restrictive, or even polemical way of

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thinking” is to understand Hegel far short of its original spirit. Hegel’s dialectic should be understood as “the mirroring and uniting of opposites as the process of the production of spirit itself.”54

Hegel considers his speculative dialectic as the only method he employed. By considering it as Method, however, he neither ascribed it the meaning of the “instrument of representing nor merely a special way of proceeding in philosophy.” For him “Method” is the innermost movement of subjectivity, “the soul of being, the production process through which the web of the whole actuality of the absolute is woven.”55 It is not only speculative dialectic of Hegel that moves through the innermost movement of subjectivity but all form of determined reflectivity that, when come out, has to move within it. In modern times when physics brings out its formula for the world, “then it becomes apparent that the being of beings has dissolved itself in the method of calculability.”56

Whenever the determined position comes out in modern time, following Hegel, it would appear within calculative environment. For Heidegger, the Calculative thinking is a thinking “of a special kind.” It deals, in fact, with circumstances that are already given, and which we take into consideration, to carry out projects or to reach goals that we want to achieve. Calculative thinking does not pause to consider the meaning inherent in “everything that is”. It is always on the move, is restless and it “never collects itself.”57

The calculative thinking prevails for Heidegger through out the modern times. The beginning of modern spirit, initiated from Descartes, to whom Hegel ascribes the setting foot up on the secure land, came up with the book titled, “Discourse de le methode (1637).” Hegel’s speculative dialectic, as Method, becomes “the fundamental trait of all actuality. For this reason, method determines all happening, i.e., history, as movement.”58 METHOD AND WAY It was clear even through “Being and Time” (1928) that Heideggerian approach towards “Method” is not embedded in the Hegelian spirit. His initiation of the project of Fundamental Ontology, and his phenomenological emphasis upon the “Things Themselves,”59 though still reminiscent of deterministic methodology, yet his stress upon following these lines through phenomenological – hermeneutical position was already distinguishing him from the entrapment of Method. His stress upon subjective position and with the direction towards authentic‐being, the meaning immersed in the jungle of

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interpretive situation found its reception in a concealed way. The primacy of hermeneuticity, as interpretation of being as belonging‐togetherness, had to wait for many decades to find its due position.

The Phenomenological position from that very beginning was already embedded with Hermeneutical position, “as the possibility of thinking being.”60 Instead of taking Husserl’s mode of reflection, “a reflection which takes place in reflective acts as intentional acts of consciousness of a higher level,”61 Heidegger takes logos as aletheuein means: to take beings that are being talked about in legein as apophainesthi out of their concealment; to let them be seen as something unconcealed (alethes).”62 Heidegger also brings out three senses of Logos: a) as Reason, b) as Ground or Ratio, c) as Relatedness.63 Logos itself appears through Dasein’s projective understanding. While Dasein is understood, not as having the faculty of Dasein, but is constituted by understanding that is itself projective in nature. Dasein comes out through understanding as existing existentially. The projective understanding, however, comes out as thrown understanding due to the thrownness of Dasein itself. 64 Hermeneutical‐phenomenological understanding thinking becomes for Heidegger as disclosedness of projecting‐interpreting understanding in being‐in‐the‐world.65

The constitution of the structure of understanding appears for Heidegger through the historicity of Dasein itself. This historicity of understanding appears in threefold ways: fore‐having, fore‐thought and fore‐grasping. Dasein finds itself as existing through its thrown projective understanding. The projection shows itself through projected being. What is projected in the projection may be considered as fore‐having. The projection appears in regard of something for Dasein. This “in regard of” can be understood as “fore‐sight.” While the projective understanding moves with fore‐having and fore‐sight through its already understanding character. The understanding that already prevails through the projective understanding may be understood as “fore‐grasping.” 66

The understanding appears for Heidegger through and within the circularity. To understand being through its fore‐structures, Dasein already understands through its non‐thematic structures of fore‐understanding.67 That is the reason the search for presupposition‐less foundation, for bringing out the grasping of being, remains a futile effort for Heidegger. This moving into the circle, however, does not make understanding as moving nowhere. This very movement nourishes both fore‐understanding and the manifest‐ness of being. “In so far as interpretive understanding nourishes itself from the projectible understanding, in a certain sense it moves in a circle,

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though not an empty one. Rather this circle deepens and differentiates understanding.”68

This interpretive position, however, remains embedded within the Method that, though position itself, as a liberating mode. Hermeneutics was understood as “the methodology of the historical humanistic disciplines.” The Phenomenology was considered as the “science of the discipline means it grasps its objects in such a way that everything about them to be discussed must be directly indicated and directly demonstrated.” The demonstration of the interpretive understanding was to be acquired through grasping conceptualization).69

This position, however, gradually transforms in the writings of Heidegger and the emphasis shifted towards history of being, instead of Dasein. The conceptions found their new meanings through the apprehension of the history of being and its determining relation to the fore‐structure of the interpretive understanding of Dasein. It is Being, as destiny, gains primacy and the method finds its meaning as “the way of understanding.” The epoch of modernity was considered as the age of science and the concerning of technology. The increasing determinacy, through the destined spirit of Hegelian dialectic, only further increased the domination of one‐dimensional thought, that is, positivism. Truth, even as aletheia, was considered to become subservient to the prevalent being of time. The project of self‐overcoming was considered as pursuing the will of power. The authentic understanding, now, had to transform itself, into meditative thinking, instead of staying as demonstrative. Even the question of Being was considered as the product of metaphysical thinking. The journey towards man found its new ‘path’ and so does the ‘way’ of attaining it (Meth‐od).

The transformed understanding of Heidegger’s ermeneutical‐phenomenological position appears as thinking in terms of the history of being. Thinking becomes, for Heidegger, the engagement by and for the truth of Being. “The history of Being is never past but stands ever before…In order to learn how to experience the aforementioned essence of thinking purely, and that means to carry it through, we must free ourselves from the technical interpretation of thinking.” 70 Interpretation divides itself into, at‐least, two mode of appearance, one is technical and the other is non‐technical. It is the latter interpretation that becomes the dwelling center of Heidegger.

Hermeneutics, as the interpretive activity, now opts for listening to show being instead of grasping being in its un‐coveredness. “As the belonging to Being that listens thinking is what it is according to its essential origin.”71 The belonging to Being now

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appears in the comportment of Love, as favoring. Thought, now arises, as the favoring‐enabling, that is, the possibility of possible.72 This favoring‐enabling translates as thought that lets Being appear within the comportment of Dasein that hears. The interpretive activity becomes as the messenger to bring message and tidings to the listening being. This hermeneutic relation engages with the history of being‐“a thinking that thinks the relation of being to Dasein and the comporting relationship of Dasein to Being, thinking the whole relation as Ereignis”.73

The relationship between thought and Being, now appears as belonging‐ togetherness (Logos). In the technical interpretation, the stress remained upon the togetherness (Logos) and with it the relationship with Being appears as grasping and dominating. The stress, now, on belonging gives primacy to Being and the need to turn through comportment with Love to embrace Being. This belongingness favors the enabling of Being appear in its manifold possibilities. Thought and Being finds their identity in such a relationship of belonging‐togetherness but not in Hegelian way in which subject resolves the contradiction compulsively for moving ahead in order to accomplish its dialectical pursuit of truth.74

Being manifests itself through the belonging‐togetherness in the very Difference between Being and essents. Either Being comes out as being of beings or beings come out as beings of being. Both movements for Heidegger are the expressions of metaphysical thought. Both Being and essents emerge, in their different ways from and through the Difference. The Difference between Being and essents is not just a static and formal relation between two terms but the interplay, the working out or the process of resolution of the two opposed movements of revealing and concealing.75

Being appears in the interactive play of Being and essents, between revealing and concealing. Each time being appears the withdrawal occurs too. This interactive play is a distanced activity from the scientific activity of finding truth. The scientific activity is deeply rooted in establishing itself upon methodology for expressing the determined being (subject‐matter) in its truth. Their relationship, that is, between subject‐matter and method is the relation of domination of one (method) upon the other (subject‐matter). “All power of knowing lies in the method. The subject‐matter is taken up and absorbed by the method…Being themselves do not provide the pattern for access to them…This domineering in which modern method unfolds is an essential way for the modern subject to establish its reign over beings.” 76

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The thinking being, for Dasein, thinks not immersing in methodology nor in the absence of it. He takes method through its root meaning, that is, along the way. Instead of giving the primacy to the Method, he recommends to move in a difference as an interactive play between Method and subject‐matter. This interactive play of thinking, with the projective understanding of thinking being who thinks through comportment, takes a pathway for its expression without giving primacy to either. THE END OF HISTORY History, as discipline, when appear as following the determined standards and criteria of a methodology, as a primacy upon the subject‐matter, it falls short of what it should be as an activity of a thinking being. History is the history of being and to bring forth that being through the dominated method is to give primacy to a single mode of truth, projective understanding and certain absorption of being‐in‐the world. For bringing out being‐itself, the historian as a thinking being, and therefore the lover of truth, is to let the being show itself in order to attain self‐joining.

History, moving with the primacy of method, is an activity moving upon and through the spirit of time. The fore‐structures of the understanding of the historian let the projection play its role and the absorption in the world conceals itself while bringing forward the determined expression of being. Such a history, as a Hegelian project, moves upon the completed understanding of being and assimilates or reject positions only to pursue the very movement that remains prevail as a conscious moment of spirit. In such a history there is a beginning and there is an end. Yet it remains away from the thinking being engaged in self‐joining.

Historical thinking that dwells in the region and frees it up for thinking what is to be thought, understands being in revealing‐concealing. It is the interactive play of ‘way’ and ‘being’ that open up the possibility of un‐concealment. “When thinking hears, understands and unfolds what is freed up as what meets thinking, then thinking sets upon a way that gets shown from the region.”77

The Ground of history that gives rise to Historie, “the ascertaining explaining of the past from within the horizon of the calculative dealing of the present,” shelters the “Historie” through concealing presence of its ab‐ground (abyss). It is this “not‐ground” that becomes the shelter of enduring presence of Historie. “Beings are hereby presupposed as what is orderable, producible, and ascertainable.” 78 History, as discipline, appears to control the whole

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past‐ness, to bring it back into the totality of knowledge. History moves upon the ground that let facts appear as presenting for making them orderable. History remains as an activity of mastering history. It stays upon the ground, like standing upon the land after the voyage of sea. The ground gives certainty as grounded. It appears as foundation, as established and as having self‐evidence. The ground conceals because of its linkage with the simile of “Land” what is there as “not‐there.” The Ground conceals its presencing that stays till grounding presences through its non‐grounding. This relationship between Ground and Truth appears as non‐originary relation to the thinking being. For the originary relation between Ground and Being the change in the simile of Land may help. Heidegger makes us understand Ground through considering it as Region. Region is called region because “region regions and makes free what is to be thought by thinking.” “Region” brings forward that belonging that is missing in concept of Ground as Land. Region is a meeting point, where thought comes over against thinking. Region becomes a ground where the possibility of thinking again and thinking against thought lies. When thinking hears, understands and unfolds what is freed up as what meets thinking, then thinking sets upon way that gets shown from the region. In the thinking of being, the way belongs in the region.79

The concept of Ground, instead of understanding through the simile of Land, when considered in the simile of region, the meaning of Ground itself changes. The relation between Ground and Being, that was persistently concealing the sheltering non‐ground, now thinks against thought persistently in order to join itself with itself through understanding hearing. The Ground, in its relation with Being in Historie, the mode of Hegel’s historical understanding, appears as Dasein’s steadfastness. It loses its “solidness” when it appears in originary relationship with Being, as regioning. The Ground is ground because it grounds, its grounding finds its space in the region as moving on the way to understanding hearing. This grounding of Ground stays upon the sheltering of being till the counter‐movement, that takes back thinking to the root‐unfolding and thus toward the self‐joining.

The way to history finds its clearing through placing the light of questioning. The questioning itself is a possibility of a way. It is the expression of a distance from the immediate indeterminateness and a hope for regaining belongingness. “Putting the question to something and asking after something need here and everywhere first to be addressed by that which touches them in questioning and which they pursue in questioning. The starting point of any question always

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already dwells within the appeal of that to which the question is put.”80 In order to initiate this questioning and inquiry, we must open ourselves to a “regard” or “sight” which, as Heidegger emphasizes, is not limited to the questions just touched upon. That to which we put the question and ask after ‘must already have been addressed to us.’

History has no ground but grounding that appears through each activity of making history. This thinking that makes history possible upon grounding is the inter‐active play of occurrence between immediate indeterminateness and the possibility of possible. History, as a mode of being, comes out with the comportment of Human Being that translates its thinking activity into the determinate being. History, as a grounding belonging, let being appears as a meaningful whole without fixing into The End of History. Each End appears as a moment of regioning, instead a completed End.

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END NOTES 1 G.W. Hegel, Philosophy of History (New York : Dover publications, 1996), p.162. 2 In his history of the world, Hegel gives many reasons for considering Oriental world, especially, India worthless. See Ibid., p.164. 3 Ibid., p.112. 4 In Hegel’s famous phrase, Real is Rational and Rational is Real, his many interpreters understand The End of History a valid corollary. For many, his contemporaneous state achieved the End that Spirit moves for realization. 5 Kojeve is famous for his interpretation of Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit. See Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on The Phenomenology of Spirit (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980) 6 See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and The Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992) 7 Allex Callinicos, Theories and Narratives; Reflections on the Philosophy of History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995) 8 Hegel, Philosophy of History, p.162. 9 Ibid., p.167. 10 Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”, in William Lovitt trans., The Question Concerning Technology and other Essays (New York : Harper colophon books, 1977), p.21. 11 Hegel, Philosophy of History, p.116. 12 Ibid., p.113. 13 Ibid., pp.113‐114. 14 Ibid., p.160. 15 Ibid., p.161. 16 Ibid., pp. 164. 17 Ibid., p.162. 18 Ibid., p143. 19 Ibid., p.140. 20 Ibid., p.141. 21 Ibid., p.165. 22 Ibid., p.165. 23 Ibid., p.161. 24 Ibid., p.446. 25 Ibid., p.143. 26 See G.W.F Hegel, The Science of Logic, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm, accessed on 10 March 2009. 27 See G.W.F Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit (London: Dover publications, 1990) 28 Alexnder Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1980) 29Frederick Coplestone, A History of Philosophy, Vol. VII, (New York: Doubleday, 1994). pp.189‐195.

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http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm


30 J.L. Mehta, The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger (New York : Harper Torchbooks, 1971), p.206. 31 Martin Heidegger, “Hegel and Greeks”, in William McNeill (ed.), Pathmarks (Melbourn : Cambridge University Press, 1998) 32 Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism” in David Farrell Krell (ed.), Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), p.218. 33 Heidegger, “Hegel and Greeks”, p.242. 34 Ibid., p.333. 35 Mehta, The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, p.208. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., p.145. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Heidegger, “Hegel and Greeks”, p.331. 43 The exploration of Ground has already been discussed in detail in Umber Bin Ibad “The Ground of History: A Relational Understanding of Hegel and Hieidegger”,The Historian, Vol. 7(1), (January –June 2009), p.63. Here only brief exposition would suffice. 44 Hegel’s thought upon logic appears under two different titles: in detailed exposition it appears in The Science of Logic or Greater Logic and in condensed form it appears in The Short Logic or Lesser Logic. Here, Logic means The Science of Logic 45 Martin Heidegger, “On the Essence of Ground”, William McNeill (ed.), Pathmarks (Melbourn: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p.101. 46 Lebnizian principle of Reason in his Primae Veritates (1686) presents this point as: Thus a predicate, or consequent, is always present in a subject, or antecedent: and in this fact consists the universal nature of truth, or the connection between the terms of the assertion. 47 In his History of Philosophy (1805‐1806), in the section of Descartes, Hegel gives analogy of founding Ground of Modern thought through landing on the shore after spending long time in the sea. See http://www.marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/descar.htm, accessed on 14 May 2009 48 Heidegger, “Hegel and Greeks”, p.329. 49 Ibid., p.330. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid., p.331. 52 Ibid., p.332. 53 See Hegel’s discussion on Descartes in G.W.F Hegel, History of Philosophy, http://www.marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/descar.htm , accessed on 14 May 2009. 54 Heidegger, “Hegel and Greeks”, p.326. 55 Ibid., p.326. 56 Ibid.

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http://www.marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/descar.htm

http://www.marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/descar.htm


57 Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays”, p.44. 58 Heidegger, “Hegel and Greeks”, p.327. 59 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. by Joan Staumbaugh, (New York : SUNY press, 1996), p.24. 60 Friedrick Wilhem Von Hermann, “Way and Method”, in Christopher Mcann (ed.), Critical Heidegger (London: Routledge, 1996), p.173. 61 Ibid., p.174. 62 Heidegger, Being and Time, p.29. 63 Ibid., p.30. 64 Ibid., p.136. 65 Ibid., p.137. 66 Ibid., p.142. 67 Ibid., p.143. 68 Hermann, “Way and Method”, p.178. 69 Heidegger, Being and Time, p.29. 70 Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism”, p.218. 71 Ibid., p.220. 72 Ibid. 73 Hermann, “Way and Method”, p.179. 74 Mehta, The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, p.209. 75 Ibid., p.206. 76 Hermann,“Way and Method”, p.184. 77 Ibid., p.185. 78 Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), trans. Prvis Emmad and Kenneth Maly (Indianapolis: Indian press 1999) p.217. 79 Hermann,“Way and Method”, p.185. 80 Ibid., p.187.

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Amir Khan Shahid, Syncretic Tradition

RELIGIOUS SYNCRETICISM IN PRE-MODERN PUNJAB

AMIR KHAN SHAHID GC UNIVERSITY, LAHORE,

PAKISTAN ABSTRACT

The syncretic tradition1 may be described as a defining feature of the sufi ethos in the Punjab during the medieval period (11‐18th centuries). This tradition left indelible imprints on the local culture, particularly imparting values like tolerance, humanism and social equality. The growth of syncretic tradition in India was a reaction against the social stratification solidified by the caste system which became more rigid with the passage of time. The origin of this tradition dates back to vedantic tradition, however, its contours were further sharpened when Ibn‐i‐Arabi’s (1165‐1240) wajudi ideas permeated in the philosophical discourse of Sufis in the subcontinent. In Punjab, Baba Farid Ganj Shakar (1175‐1265) emerged as a main exponent of this philosophy.2 To study the development of syncretic tradition, this article is divided into three parts: first part deals with the factors which led to the dissemination of syncretic ideas which later on defined a number of religious practices and institutions in the Punjab like saintly intersession, practice of piri‐muridi, Urs, and Khanqah to name a few. These were not merely practices or institutions but were means of creating a cosmology which projected a completely different set of symbols for their followers; the second part highlights the features which made this tradition an integral part of the Punjabi society while the third part studies the reflection of this tradition in mystical poetry.

KEY WORDS: Syncretic Tradition, Punjab, Ulema, Sikhism, Hinduism, Khanqah, Baa’it, Mystic Poetry.

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(I)

GROWTH OF SYNCRETIC TRADITION IN PUNJAB Besides tracing the development of syncretic tradition, this part of the article specifically focuses on the four factors which contributed in its development: vedantic teachings, wajudi ideas, role of sufis and Bhakti movement. All these factors, in one way or the other, made the local population receptive towards the syncretic tradition.

The origin of syncretic ethos of the Punjab may be traced in the Vedantic teachings of Yogis.3 The land of Punjab was more tolerant, liberal and open‐minded vis‐à‐vis the North Indian society which had visible traces of caste hierarchy and rituals devoid of humane dimension.4 Over a period of time, this caste system became more rigid. According to Buddha Prakash:

“Punjab was characterized by an assimilative spirit, resilient outlook, bellicose temperament, practical standpoint, independent tendency and a liberal bent of mind. People shun the conservative and caste‐ridden culture of the sedate land of the Gangetic citadel and reveal a broadness and elasticity in morals and ideas which is an anathema to the peoples of the east”. 5

The Hindu religious books contained the reference pointing towards the liberal thought of the Punjab as well as its enmity against fundamental beliefs. Therefore, Mahabharata described them as the rebels of the goodness and instructed the pious Hindus of India (North India) not to stay more than two days in Punjab.6

The territory of Punjab also came under the vedantic influence of the Bhakti movement during its first phase which preceded the conquest of Punjab by Mahmud of Ghazna. During this period Bhakti movement emerged in Southern India under the influence of the teachings of Alvars.7 The main essence of the Bhakti teachings was the union of human beings with the universe,8 emphasis on monotheism, emotional worship, self‐surrender, adoration of the teacher, laxity in the rigours of the caste system and indifference towards mere rituals.9 The influence of the prevalent Vedantic tradition may be deciphered from the ideas of Nath Yogis.10 Qazi Javed maintains that Baba Farid was deeply influenced by them. The impact of local influences on the thought of Baba Farid may amply be gauged

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by the fact that he adopted several Hindu ways of meditation, for instance Chilla Maqus (reciprocal divine worship) can be advanced as notable example.11

The doctrine of Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud (ontological monism) also contributed towards the development and growth of the Sufi tradition. This concept was imbued in monistic philosophy of Sufism which signified the ‘Unity of Being’. According to this concept God was the unity behind all plurality, reality and phenomenal appearances.12 This theory was similar in many respects to the Vedantic theory13 which claimed the union of three antecedents. These include: action (karaman), knowledge (jinan) and devotion (bhakti).14 Thus in this manner the doctrine of Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud became an integral part of the syncretic tradition of Punjab as the influence of Ibn‐ul‐Arabi and Rumi permeated in this region through the proselytizing activities of Chishtiya and Qadriya Silsilas.15 These sufi orders became the carrier of this ideology. By adopting Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud of Ibn‐ul‐Arabi the saints of Chishtiya and later on Qadriya orders tried to synthesize the Islamic Sufi tradition with Hindu vedantic teachings.16 These Sufis treated Hindus and Muslims equally as they considered them the creatures of God. Even before the beginning of the proselytizing activities of these orders, the saints like Hazrat Ali Hujvari (990‐1077) and Hazrat Sakhi Sarwar (d.1080) had started a creative Sufi movement which orientated people towards mysticism.17 The former is regarded as the most influential sufi in the Punjab whereas the later was known as Lakh Data.18 Sakhi Sarwar’s Hindu devotees were called Sultani.19 Ikram Ali Malik is of the view that “Data Ganj Baksh and Sufis of later period transformed Hindu‐Muslim animosity into love and toleration”.20 The people of Punjab saw Hazrat Ali Hajvari a preeminent personality in whom the old stream of mystic consciousness got synthesized with the newer sufi episteme.21

Another factor which facilitated the rise of syncretic tradition was the role of Sufis and Saints which provided the most effective agency for the proliferation of syncretic ideas or influences. The Sufis introduced such practices into the Indian Sufism which considerably impacted the religious ethos of the region and caused a considerable shift among the locals towards Islam.22 Among the factors which led towards the tremendous success of Sufis proselytizing activities included; their love for humanity, their accommodation and tolerant vision, their adaptability, their emphasis on social justice and equality and their noble and virtuous character.23 Their teachings were imbued in great love for humanity. They provided solace to the helpless people groaning under the yoke of a rigid caste system. According to

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Richard M. Eaton, the Sufi doctrine of “Suleh Kul or universal brotherhood had a great humanistic appeal behind which it crossed all religious barriers and developed fellow‐feelings between the Hindus and the Muslims.”24 Their philosophy was based on the principle of “love” which was the essence of all the religious teachings and scriptures. Another conspicuous feature of their practices was their tolerant and accommodating outlook. Instead of brandishing those who possessed conflicting religious beliefs, these Sufis tolerated differences as they made no distinction between shaikh and Brahmin, Dir and Haram.25 This atmosphere particularly prevailed in the areas of rural Punjab. This accommodating attitude had great impact on non‐Muslims. The large number of Punjabis became the disciples of the saints such as Data Ganj Baksh, Sakhi Sarwar, Baba Farid, Bahauddin Zakariya (b‐1170), Mian Mir, Shah Inayat Qadri, Noor Muhammad Muharwi (1730‐91) and Shah Suliman Tunsawi (d‐1850) etc. Sufis demonstrated extraordinary adaptability with local conditions as they molded their teachings in accordance with the ethos of the society.26 They wore local dress and learnt local languages.27 While giving example of the socio‐cultural adaptness, JL Mehta opines that “like Hindu ascetics the sufis also shaved heads of the new entrants to their orders and observed certain rituals which were totally unknown to their counterparts in other Muslims countries”.28 In this manner the sufism was thoroughly Indianised.29

Another significant factor which contributed towards their success was their emphasis on social justice and equality.30 They made themselves accessible to the common people and freely intermingled with them.31 They developed the Khanqahi Nizam and through Khanqahs they provided free food (langar) and accommodation to those who were marginalized by the society. They also provided them financial assistance from their futuhs (gifts).32 Islam, therefore, in Punjab and Sind attracted a large number of the non‐Muslims belonging to the lower stratum of the society. These Sufis led a very noble and virtuous life and taught how to purify one’s batan (nafs), improve one’s morals and build up one’s inner/outer spheres of life for the attainment of eternal pleasure.33 By their untiring efforts these Sufis became an institution aiming at providing solace and relief to the suffering humanity. In this manner they became role model for the people to be followed upon.34

The most significant role in promoting the syncretic tradition in Punjab was that of Chishtiya Silsila. Chishtiya Sufis adapted themselves according to the Indian conditions and adopted certain traits of local Punjabi religious ethos which included music, sama,

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poetic expression, politeness, oral tradition and extra ordinary toleration with the people belonging to other religions and sects.35

Among Chishtiya sufis, Baba Farid is considered to be the most influential personality. He emerged as the main exponent of this order. The following example demonstrates Baba Farid’s belief in syncretic tradition. Once a disciple offered him a scissor, he (Baba) asked for a needle, saying “Give me a needle I want to unite not to separate”.36 Syed Athar Abbas Rizvi while highlighting the contributions of Baba Farid toward the growth of syncretic tradition maintains that “the process of accepting the influences of local culture were further expedited when Baba Farid emerged as a main exponent of Chishtiya Silsila. The strong influence of local culture may be seen in Baba Farid’s teachings. For instance his doors were opened for visitors and the Hindi poetry was recited in sama ceremonies which was not only imbued with Nath Yagic concepts but also was impregnated with vaishnavite allegories and symbols about Rama and Krishna”.37 Several prominent tribes embraced Islam as a result of his preaching, 38 included Bhatti, Chinna, Dhadhi, Dogar, Gandal Juiya, Siyal, Tiwarna, Watto and Arainn etc.39

Another Sufi order which played a major role towards the development of syncretic tradition was Qadriya Silsila founded by Abdul Qadir Jilani (1075‐1166)40 and spread through the teaching of Syed Muhammad Ghaus in India.41 In Punjab, the regions of Multan, Lahore, Kasur and Ucch came under the influence of Qadriya Sufis. The famous among them were Syed Ali Lahori, Shaikh Ahmad Qadri, Makhdoom Muhammad Ghauth, Musa Pak Multani, Shaikh Muhammad Tahir Lahori (d‐1630), Shah Abul Muali, Mian Mir Qadri (1631‐86) and Shah Inyat Kasuri. 42

Another contributing factor which further reinforced the syncretic tradition in Punjab was the role of Bhakti movement. Bhakti movement played a crucial role in the proliferation of universal brotherhood and love.43 According to JL Mehta the rise of Bhakti movement was outcome of interaction between mystics and Hindu society.44 Tara Chand traces the origin of Bhakti movement in Southern India before the advent of Islam in the subcontinent.45 He also opines that during its second phase the Bhakti movement was influenced by Islam in Northern India.46 In Northern India this cult was popularized by Ramanad (1400‐1470) who emerged as the most vigorous exponent of syncretic tradition. His famous disciple was Kabir (1440‐1518).47 The Bhakti traditions received further boost from his teachings. Kabir attempted to synthesis the logic of Islamic monotheism with the Hindu belief of Karma (the transmigration of the soul).48 He vehemently criticized both the worship of idols and the

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authority of all Holy Scriptures.49 He spoke against the exclusive use of any learned or sacred language. He described the world as maya and warned against man’s inclination towards evil. Bhaktis laid much stress on faith, devotion and love.50 This movement especially focused the urban artisans, traders and weavers etc. It admitted all the communities irrespective of their caste and creed.51 Qazi Javed has attributed the widespread popularity of this movement to the tolerant and plural attitude of the people in Punjab. 52

(II)

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE SYNCRETIC TRADITION OF PUNJAB The syncretic tradition of the Punjab was characterized by many features like pluralistic outlook, love for humanity, tolerance and emphasis on social equality. The most conspicuous feature of the syncretic tradition was that it was thoroughly imbued in the doctrine of Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud.53 It made the Sufi thought distinctively different from that of ulama or Muslim theologians who accorded primacy to shariah.54 This doctrine also allowed for the greater accommodation of the dissenting voices from other religions and sects within the trajectory Sufi thought.55 The very doctrine created physically peaceful and mutual cooperation among the religions as it negates the theory that only one religion represents the truth and the other religions are constitutionally incapable of approaching the reality.56 Thus it marked a considerable departure from religious theologians who espoused more puritanical concept of God. This doctrine constituted the integrated part of the humanistic theory of sufis.57 It made their message all embracing and universal. More significantly, it fostered a tradition of co‐existence in the social setting of the Punjab.

Shrine‐centered Islam became the hallmark of syncretic tradition. The concept of saintly intersession which is also considered as a constituent of syncretic tradition also became an integral part of shrine‐centered Islam. Especially Chishtiya Sufi shrines fostered the syncretic tradition, for instance, the shrine of Baba Farid, Ajudhan (Pakpatan) became the centre of syncretic tradition in the pre‐modern Punjab.58 A very popular Khanqah, situated at Sial Sharif that is offshoot of Chishtiya order gained popularity in the period of Chishtiya revivalism. Several big and small Gadis were associated with Sial Sharif.59 Within Punjab, especially in rural areas, there are millions of its disciples even today, directly or through its offshoots such as Golra, Marulianwala (Sargodha), Chachar Sharif, Bhera Sharif and Jalalpure.60

Richard M. Eaton’s book Essay on Islam and Indian History, also

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subscribes to this perspective. He has mentioned the names of following shrines which played pivotal role in solidifying the syncretic tradition in Punjab: Shaikh Jamal al‐Din of Hansi (Hissar District), Muhammad Shah in Basi Nau (Hoshirpur District), Nizam al‐Din Auliya in Delhi, Piran Kaler (Saharanpur District), Golra Sharif (Ralwapindi District), Tounsa Sharif (Dera Ghazi Khan District), Mukhan Sharif and Basal Sharif (Campbellpure District), Uch Sharif (Bahawalpure State) and the shrines of Kasur and Lakhneke (Lahore District), Kastiwala in Gurdaspur District and Panipat in Karnal District. All these were khalifas of Baba Farid’s shrine.61

The Khanqahi Nizam62 constituted another significant trait of this tradition which provided a langar (free kitchen), accommodation and futuhs (gifts) to the poor and marginalized communities, thus this institution provided solace to their sufferings.63 These Khanqahas were generally adjacent to the mosque or dar‐ul‐uloom, which also served as centre of disseminating syncretic discourse.64 With the passage of time these Khanqahas were transformed into madaris (religious schools),65 in which the pir assumed the role of a school teacher. This teacher or pir used to take verbal oath (baa’it) from his disciples.66

Pir‐i‐Muridi practice is also regarded as a constituent part of syncretic tradition. The pir used to appoint khalifas among their murids as a sign of acknowledging the services of any particular disciple who were also meant to serve as a transmitter.67 A similar kind of practice was dastar bandi which was particularly observed at the shrine of Baba Farid. Dastar (turban) was awarded to the appointed dewan (khalifa). Such ceremonies were mostly held on the fortieth day (also called chehlum) of the death of the saint.68 In the pir‐i‐muridi practices, the appointment of khalifas was usually associated with all Sufi hospices. To certain extent the sphere of influence of a khalifa was delineated by the master (murshid). This also signified the baraka (the territorial distribution of the spiritual power) of a particular disciple.69 Thus in this manner the spiritual expositions were widely disseminated through the khalifas and disciples. According to Richard M. Eaton, murids of the Sufis considered their pir as an ultimate authority. He contends that “murids of Baba Farid’s shrine probably saw themselves less in terms of adherents of ‘Book’ and more in terms of clients and sponsors of a theatre–Shrine that displayed the wondrous baraka of its saint through its pageantry, festivals and ceremony……For it was through its rituals that a shrine made Islam accessible to non‐lettered masses, providing them with vivid and concrete manifestation of the divine order and integrating them into its ritualized drama both as participants and as sponsors”. 70

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A disciple had to participate in a ceremony during which he made a solemn oath (bai’at), swearing spiritual allegiance to pir, and his spiritual descendants. Baba Farid mostly gave ta’widh (charm or amulets) to his followers,71 “who saw in these ta’widh a protection against evil, a boon for good fortune, or against for the cure of an illness”.72 Some practices were peculiar to certain pirs. For instance the shrine of Baba Farid has its bahisti darwaz (a door of paradise): “Numbers of pilgrims, both Hindus and Muslims came to visit the shrine and all who pass through this doorway (Janati Darwaza) are considered saved from the fires of perdition”.73

The reliance on oral discourse for disseminating the religious teachings was another peculiar characteristic of the syncretic tradition. At that time oral tradition and person to person contact was considered necessary.74 The common people took bai’at to their pir who gave them certain instructions about dhikr and meditation which was considered sufficient for the eternal salvation as well as the panacea for his sufferings and pains.75 Its incorporation of oral tradition apart from a few other reasons, made it distinctively different from the scriptural Islam believed and professed by orthodox ulama.76

(III)

SYNCRETIC TRADITION OF PUNJAB THROUGH MYSTICAL POETRY The interaction of Bhakti saints and Islamic Sufis produced a popular treasure of regional poetry which was deeply enshrined in syncretic tradition. A direct relationship between the individual and God came to be substituted in the Indo‐mystical tradition by the devotees, seeking intercession from a revered local Sufi master to reach the Supreme Being.77 “The Bhakti reformers gave a helping hand to the Sufis in bringing about Hindu Muslim unity….It fostered the feelings of religious tolerance between the Hindus and Muslims and electrified the process of synthesis between their socio‐cultural traits”. 78

Syncretic ideas found their most visible expression in the mystical poetry. In the absence of written tradition, this tradition was carried through oral medium which also helped in disseminating such ideas to the common people. Poetry of Baba Farid, Shah Hussain (1539‐93), Sultan Bahu (1628‐91), Waris Shah (1706‐1798) and Bulleh Shah (1680‐1758) influenced the receptive minds of people in the Punjab. Baba Farid Shakar Ganj was among those earliest exponents of syncretic tradition who used poetry as a mean of professing his teachings. The main themes in his poetry are respect for murshid,

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humility, love for humanity, tolerance and a endorsement of common cultural heritage among various religious communities.79 The following couplets amply reflect his philosophy.

O Farid, God lives in His creatures. Whom I term evil, there is nothing but God.80

O Farid, black my clothes, black my guise Full of sins I walk about, people canonize.

In this verse Baba Farid expressed his humiliation.81

Every human heart is a pearl. If you seek to the beloved do not break any one’s heart.82

Shah Hussain was another exponent of syncretic tradition. His poetry reflects a strong influence of Chishtia saints and Bhakti cult.83 His poetry centered on love for humanity and religious tolerance.84 His poetry also criticized priests for holding fundamental beliefs and dividing the society on religious lines.85

Travelers, I to have to go; I have to go to the solitary hut of Ranjha.

Is there anyone who will go with me? I have accompany me and how I setout alone.

Travelers, Is there no one who could go with me? The river is deep and the shaky bridge creaks as people step on it. And the ferry is known haunt of tigers. Will now or lonely hut of

Ranjha. During long nights I have been tortured by my raw wounds. I

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have heard he in his lonely hut knows the sure remedy with me, travelers.86

Shah Hussain was a disciple of Shah Bahlol Qadri of Chiniot and he had spent his early life in the attainment of knowledge and spiritual meditation, Hindu influence was explicit in his thought.87 Shah Hussain revived the tradition of Punjabi poetry that was initiated by Baba Farid.

Another Sufi poet of pre‐modern Punjab was Sultan Bahu. Like Shah Hussain Sultan, Bahu gained immense popularity in the Punjab. He belonged to the Qadria order and remained against the religious discrimination.

Some merge with the Beloved form in the idol‐shrine of their hearts, While others pore over scriptures in mosques, gaining nothing. Scholars renounce their, superior, learning. O’ Bahu, when they learn the prayer of love.88

Bahu's mystical poetry was an expression of disillusionment with formal, legalistic and institutionalized forms of religion.89 He preached an absolute love and devotion to God. While expressing his remarks about the mullah (Islamic theologian) Bahu says:

All night you spend in prayer and worship, All day you indulge in slanderous talk.

The power and authority of the world is false, o Bahu! True is the sovereignty of the faqr. 90

Having read a thousand books they feel they know. But as they have not read the one essential word love,

They wander astray, and poor ones are lost.91

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Through detachment from this world under the guidance of a sufi one can successfully tame his soul. Sultan Bahu stressed the importance of piri‐muridi relationship and argues that:

My Master has planted in my heart, The jasmine of Allah’s name

Both my denial that the Creation is real

And my embracing of God, the only reality has nourished the seedling down to its core.

When the buds of mystery unfolded Into the blossoms of revelation,

My entire being was filled with God’s fragrance. May the perfect master be ever blessed, O Bahu!

Who planted this jasmine in my heart.92

Syncretic tradition is fully expressed in Bahu’s following couplets:

I am neither a Sunni nor a Shia; Both make me sick, both cause me heart burn

The arid part of my journey ended When I turned away from both

And plunged into the ocean of oneness.93

Bahu opposed the differences between Shia and Sunnis and highlighted the purification of soul by submitting oneself fully to the spiritual tutelage of the murshid. The lover of God does not take into account any specific version of humanism prescribed by a particular creed or sect. He appeared to have submerged in the self of his murshid. His poetry also underscores the importance of murshid and his bai’at:

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If you desire to attain the oneness of God, the master with your heart and soul.

When the Master casts his merciful glance on you, The buds of mystery will unfold Into the blossoms of revelation.94

Baba Bulleh Shah, another prominent exponent of syncretic tradition was the disciple of Shah Inayat Qadri (1648‐1728) who was well initiated in Hindu philosophy.95 Baba Bulleh Shah vehemently criticized orthodoxy in his poetry. “The sheer joy in the ordinary delights of life and the familiarity with which Bulleh Shah addresses God is just one example of the type of poetry which has over the centuries imbued subjectively into the consciousness of the common folk of the Punjab”.96 He indicated that the human archetype was conceived even before the creation of universe. His poetry and particularly the genre of kafis are profoundly steeped in wajudi essence: 97

Bullah Shah’s another couplet reflects his Wajudi belief.

Not a believer inside the mosque is I Nor a pagan disciple of false rites Not the pure amongst the impure Neither Moses, nor the Pharoh98

In this kafi he questioned the religious beliefs and claims of emperors and also argues the equality and love for humanity. The syncretic tradition also finds reflection in the following couplet:

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Reading the Vedas and Quran (they) are tired.

By bowing to the ground, the foreheads are worn out. God is neither in the temple nor in Mecca.

One who has found love, his light is powerful99

Waris Shah is another representative of syncretic tradition who inspired many through his forceful poetic messages. Many commentaries were written on his famous folk love tale of Heer Ranjha which enormously influenced the sensibility of locals in the Punjab. He also highlights the necessity of bai’at of pir in the following couplet:

No path can be found without a saint, And milk pudding cannot be cooked without milk.100

Waris Shah disapproved religious orthodoxy:

Believing they are well read muftis feel they can give judgment. But without love they have remained ignorant. More studying gives no knowledge of God. For that there is only one apt word: Love.101

This brief over‐view suggests that syncretic tradition was forcefully expressed in the mystic poetry and effectively served as a medium of professing Wajudi ideas. This poetry is not only the manifestation of individual thinking but also reflects the pluralistic values among the locals. Mian Muhammad Baksh (1830‐1907) sums up the essence of syncretic tradition in his following couplet:

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At first comes Shaikh Farid Gang Shakar, who is the man of sainthood, Every word of his tongue is a leader towards right path.

Sultan Bahu comes who is a special righteous man The Dohas by him are like a shining sun everywhere.

By listening Bulleh Shah’ kafis the infidelity of inside vanished He had been swimming in the river of oneness.

Waris Shah is the master of talking, none can refute him. 102

CONCLUSION By rejecting the orthodox beliefs professed by theologians, the syncretic tradition reformulated or re‐defined the religious values of Islam in this region and provided it a pluralistic outlook.103 Due to the syncretic tradition, the heartland of Indian society (Gangetic belt) also absorbed certain features of Muslim culture.104 The pluralistic values contributed towards the enrichment of Punjabi society in cultural terms. It made Indian Islam characteristically different from the other Muslim societies such as in the Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East.105

Mystic poetry of all the above mentioned Sufis significantly contributed in the growth and development of syncretic tradition giving rise to the humanistic features of love to all, Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud, freethinking, music, dance and saintly intercession.106 Syncretic tradition is also reflected in the Punjabi folklore which was commonly shared by people from various denominations, 107 which profoundly influenced the local sensibility. The folklore comprises various forms of poetry like duhas, tapas, mahiyas, romantic epics etc, which became peculiar feature of popular culture of Punjab.108 Ayesha Jalal opines: “The Sufi mystical and folk tradition in Punjabi poetry vibrates with many of the same sentiments as can be found in its counterpart in Sind. Equally influenced by the Islamic impact, in its Persian and Arabic variants, the mainly oral literature of this region was disseminated by itinerant local bards and subsequently recorded”.109

Syncretic tradition also facilitated the emergence of new religious cults especially Sikhism which synthesized various features of

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Islam and Hinduism. Its founder Baba Guru Nanak believed in the Islamic concept of God and rejected polytheism in any form.110 “The syncretic movement of Sikhism in the Punjab was intimately linked with Kabir, some parts of his work it incorporated Adi Granth”,111 even some portions of Baba Farid’s poetry are included in Sikh religious text.112 Not only Sikhism but Pinadri band may also be seen as the offshoot of syncretic tradition in the Punjab. They comprised both Hindus and Muslims and had “developed a syncretic popular religion in which the goddess Kali featured alongside Muslim saints as the object of veneration”.113

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END NOTES 1 According to the American Heritage Dictionary Syncretic Tradition means ‘reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, the merging of two or more originally different inflectional forms. Religious syncretism exhibits the blending of two or more religious system into a new tradition.’ According to Catholic Encyclopedia ‘syncretism’ means to designate the fusion of pagan religions; it is the process by which elements of one religion are assimilated into another religion resulting in a change in the fundamental tenets or nature of those religions.’ The Sufi ethos that constitutes equality, social justice, Suleh Kul, Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud ideology and accommodationist vision. All these factors of syncretic tradition created pluralistic outlook among the Sufis. 2 Qazi Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib (Lahore: Vanguard Books Limited, 1977), p.333. 3 Rene Guenon, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrine, (trans.), Marco Pallis (London: Luzac & Company, 1945), pp.261‐62. Also see Ibid., p.339. 4 Ikram Ali Malik, Tarikh‐i‐Punjab, vol.1 (Lahore: Salman Matbuat, 1990), pp.98‐99. Robin Rinehart also traces the origin of syncretic ethos in ancient Indian philosophy. Also see Robin Rinehart, “The Portable Bulleh Shah: Biography, Categorization and Authorship in the Study of Punjabi Sufi Poetry”, Numen, Vol.47, (1), (1999), p.68. 5 Buddha Prakash, Political and Social Movements in Ancient Punjab (Lahore: Aziz Publishers, 1976), p.7. 6 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.340. 7 Tara Chand, Influence of Islam on Indian Culture (Lahore: Book Traders, 1979), p.132. 8 Guenon, Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines, pp.261‐62. 9 Chand, Influence of Islam on Indian Culture, p.112. 10 S. A. A. Rizvi, Shah Waliullah and His Times (Canberra: Ma’rifat Publishing House, 1980), p.358. 11 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, pp.26‐27. 12 J. L. Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India: Medieval Indian Society and Culture, (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 1983), p.200. 13 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.339. 14 Auliya Rinjon Mahatir, Philosophy of Religions, (trans.) (Lahore: Fiction House, 1999), pp.164‐65. 15 Though Chishtiya and Suhrawardyia Orders the influence of Rumi and that of Ibn‐ul‐Arabi in the form of poetry reached India by the end of 13th century onward. Mathnawi of Maulana Rumi served as the carrier of Wajudi ideas in India among the Sufis. See Richard M. Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.190. Also see Asghar Ali Engineer, “Sufi Islam: the harbinger of peace” in the Tribune, March 28, 2002.

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And Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Lahore: Sang‐e‐Meel Publications, 2003), p.130. 16 Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p.17. 17 Qazi Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.324. 18 Noor Ahmad Chishti, Tahqiqat‐i‐Chishti (Lahore: Al‐Faisal Nashran, 2001), p.174. 19 Ikram Ali, Tarikh‐i‐Punjab, vol.1, p‐88. 20 Ibid. 21 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.324. 22 Ali, Tarikh‐i‐Punjab, vol.1, p.99. Also see Afzal Iqbal, “Influence of Rumi on the Culture of South Asia” Journal of Pakistan Studies Vol.2, (1&2), (1993), p.52. 23 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.325. 24 Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, p.191. 25 Mystical poetry of Baba Farid, Shah Hussain, Baba Bulleh Shah and Sultan Bahu pertained these symbols, which was amply testimony of the theory of Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud. 26 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p.345. Also see Murry T. Titus, Islam in India and Pakistan, (Karachi: Royal Book Company, 1990), p.156. Also see Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Tarikh‐i‐Masshaikh‐i‐Chisht (Lahore: Mushtaq Book Corner, n.d), pp.451‐496. 27 Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India, p.202. 28 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.203. 29 Romela Thapar, Early India: From Origin to AD 1300 (New Delhi: Penguin Books Limited, 2002), p.488. 30 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.325. 31 Ibid., p.327. 32 Mubarak Ali, Barr‐e‐Saghir Mein Musalman Moashray Ka Almiyya, (Lahore: Fiction House, 2005), p.85. 33 Vali‐ud‐Din, Cultural History of India, cited in Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India, p.199. 34 Satish Saberwal, “On the Making of Muslim”, Historian (unpublished), p.2. 35 Ali, Tarikh‐i‐Punjab, vol.1, p.97. 36 Qazi Javed, “Punjab ki Sufiana Tarikh Par Aik Nazar”, in Mubarak Ali (ed.), Seh Mahi Tarikh (Lahore: Fiction House, Jan,2001),p. 57. 37 Rizvi, Shah Waliullah and His Times, p.358. 38 Shaikh Muhammad Ikram, Abi Kausar (Lahore: Edar‐i‐Saqafat‐i‐Islam, 1990), p.222. 39 Richard M. Eaton has provide a detailed account of their conversion at the hands of Baba Farid. See for detail Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, p.215. 40 Tahir Mahmud Malik, “Silsila Qadriya Ka Bani” Jang (April 29, 2007). 41 Abdul Majeed Sindhi, Pakistan main Sufiyana Tehrikain (Lahore: Sang‐e‐Meel Publishers, 2000), pp.85‐86. 42 Majeed, Pakistan main Sufiyana Tehrikain, pp.83‐90. 43 Najeeb Ashraf cited in Ikram, Abi Kausar, p.456. 44 Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India, p.190.

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Amir Khan Shahid, Syncretic Tradition 45 Chand, History of Freedom Movement in India,Vol‐1, (Lahore: Book Traders, 1979), p.208. 46 Ibid. 47 Aitzaz Ahsan, The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp.138‐39. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Ikram, Abi Kausar, p.465. 52 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.340. 53 Ibid., p.325. 54 Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India, p.202. 55 Ibid., p.207. 56 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.339. 57 Mukash Akbar Abadi, Masail‐i‐Tasawaf (Lahore: Book Home 2004), p.67. 58 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.333. 59 Nizami, Tarikh‐i‐Masshaikh‐i‐Chisht, pp.494‐496. 60 Interview with Muahmmad Ashraf Sialvi Muhtamam Jamia Ghauthiya Mehria Sargodha dated January 8, 2007. 61 Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, pp.229‐30. 62 Khanqah denoted a hospice where Sufis accommodated their disciple for spiritual training. Also see David Gilmartin, “Religious Leadership and the Pakistan Movement in the Punjab” Modern Asian Studies, Vol.13, no.3 (1979), 490. 63 Mubarak Ali, Barr‐e‐Saghir Mein Musalman Moashray Ka Almiyya, p.85. 64 Maksub Ahmad Khan, “Khanqahs: Centers of Learning” in Mansura Haider (ed), Sufis, Sultans and Feudal Orders, (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2004), pp.71‐3. 65 Ibid. 66 Francis Robinson,” Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27(1), (Feb., 1993), p. 238. 67 Gilmartin, “Religious Leadership and the Pakistan Movement in the Punjab”, p. 491. 68 Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, pp.239‐41. 69 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p.346. 70 Richard Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, p.204. 71 Ibid., p.‐239. 72 Ibid., p.205. 73 Ibid., p.242. 74 Robinson,” Technology and Religious Change”, p.238. 75 Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, p.239. 76 Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Commentaries, Print and Patronage: Hadith and the Madrasas in Modern South Asia” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol.62(1) (1999), p.60. 77 Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850 (Lahore: Sang‐e‐Meel Publishers, 2001), p.17. 78 Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India, p.207. 79 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.326.

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Amir Khan Shahid, Syncretic Tradition 80 Baba Farid cited in Syed Afzal Hussain and Agha Amir Hussain, Azeem Sufi Bazurg Baba Farid (Lahore: Classic, 1992), p.307. 81 Shafqat Tanveer Mirza, “Dohas of Baba Farid”, Dawn (Jan, 2006) 82 http/www.apnaorg.com, Hassan N. Gardezi, “Sufi Mysticism of Indus Valley” (accessed on 26 Jan 2006) 83 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.342. 84 http/www.apnaorg.com (accessed on 26 Jan 2006) 85 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.342. 86 http/www.the‐south‐asian.com (accessed on 26 Jan 2006) 87 Javed, Barr‐e‐Saghir Mein Muslim Fikr, pp‐167‐68. 88 Sultan Bahu, Abeyant of Hazrat Bahu, Eng. Trans, Maqsood Saqib, (Lahore: Suchet Kitab Ghar, 2004), p.31. 89 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.345. 90 Bahu, Abeyant of Hazrat Bahu, p.65. 91 Bahu, Abeyant of Hazrat Bahu, p.39. 92 Ibid., p.31. 93 Ibid., p.150. 94 Ibid., p.50. 95 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.349. 96 Jalal, Self and Sovereignty, p.21. 97 Mehr Ali Golrwi, Mirat‐al‐Irfan (Lahore: Pakistan International Printers Limited, 1986), p.1. 98 Bulleh Shah, Kalam Baba Bulleh Shah (Lahore: Edara‐e‐Peaigham al‐Quran, 2006), p.153. Also see Taufiq Rafat, Bulleh Shah: A Selection, (Trans), (Lahore: Vanguard Publications, 1982), pp‐68‐71. 99 Ahsan, The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan, p.146. 100 Kalam Waris Shah quoted in Saeed Ahmad, Great Sufi Wisdom Waris Shah (Rawalpindi: Adnan Books, 2003), p.39. 101 Ahsan, The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan, p.147. 102 Mian Muhammad Baksh, Kalam Mian Muhammad Baksh (Lahore: Shabir Brothers, n.d), pp‐109‐10. 103 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, pp.330‐37. 104 S. M. Ikram, A History of Muslim Civilization in India and Pakistan, (Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1997), pp.250‐51. 105 Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India, p.202. 106 Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, pp.146‐154. 107 Wendy Reich,” The uses of Folklore in Revitalization movement”, Folklore, Vol.82, no.3, (Autumn, 1971), 233. 108 Reich, “The uses of Folklore in Revitalization movement”, p.234. 109 Jalal, Self and Sovereignty, p.21. 110 I. H. Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo‐ Pakistan Subcontinent 610‐1947 (Karachi: Ma’rifat Limited, 1977), p.131. 111 Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1964), p.152. 112 Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo‐ Pakistan Subcontinent, p.132. 113 C. A. Bayly, Origin of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p.217.

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Hussain Ahmad Khan, Negotiating With Other

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REVIEW ARTICLE NEGOTIATING WITH OTHER: CONCEPTUALIZING

CULTURE AND POWER

HUSSAIN AHMAD KHAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE,

SINGAPORE Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration of Landscape and History (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1988) Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre‐State in 19th Century Bali (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980) James L Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995) Contemporary historians have paid a particular attention towards conceptualizing the interaction of various cultures. They investigated such negotiations with different analytical tools: a few used Foucauldian and Saidian paradigms to understand this negotiation as a mean of exerting power, many others emphasized upon a complex process of exchange and transformation of cultural values. How can we study a culture, what is the relationship of power with culture and rituals, can ideas be formulated by studying the encounter of individuals with a barren land? All these inter‐related questions are addressed in the books under review. These books are similar in a sense that all of them deal with the encounter of different cultures, identifying multiple voices, and conceptualizing tradition within an alien land. These books also see a relationship of power with culture and explore the delicacies of this relation in the social settings of different societies. The books under review study the interaction of alien/different cultures in different societies.


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(I)

Grounded in local history drawn from a range of cultural, temporal and spatial settings, The Road to Botany Bay conceptualizes complex ways in which taken‐for‐granted historical assumptions of the aborigines, Australia’s earlier inhabitants are discursively (re)produced, negotiated and contested. Like his other publications,1 Paul Carter contends that whatever written about the colonized states has been distilled through the version of the First Fleet Chroniclers like Philip, Tench, Collins, Hunter and White.2 The real colonized is still groping in the darkness in order to be rightly understood and interpreted, and to speak for itself.

The title of the book deceptively reminds us of a fertile land or a coastal area, however, it is a barren place full of burnt bushes and ashes without a single trodden path that could be found. The metaphorical allusion of ‘The Road to Botany’ depicts “a fantasy about the other place”, a place that is still to be discovered, a land to which limitless fables are associated. Thus it points to the history of history‐less people, the subjects on their own land and who are yet to be treated as actors. It is also the sensibility of first generation of explorers who thought Australia as a “place of market schemes, the place of highwaymen, unseen violence”, etc.3 Moreover, Carter identifies this road to a journey towards a new geographical history, i.e., spatial history as opposed to the Imperial history. The Road to Botany Bay sheds the veil of imperial studies and introduces the history of ecological records and their implication in the construction of history. Its interest lies in the unfinished maps, travel records and unread footprints that provide us with the pre‐historical details. The history, not concerned with a chronological order but to the “historical beginnings”, is labelled as the spatial history. In order to authenticate the analyzed annals, every chapter of the book is punctuated with a line taken from the existing records of the historians.

Carter devotes a whole chapter in dealing with the problem of referentiality in the Australian backdrop. It examines Captain Cook’s act of giving names to Australian coasts, mountains and terrestrial planes. The historians have to juggle with the double identity of Cook, as a person and as a mythical character. Both categories reflect the extreme nature of Imperial history and the problem begins when these traits are confused in the historical writings. “His descriptions of the Australian coast are said to be less


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than fulsome and, much worse, he never came back”.4 Thus the character of Cook oscillates between critical remarks of Thomas De Quincey, and the positive appraisal of John Cawte Beaglehole. Where De Quincey has reservations on Cook’s act of giving name, Beaglehole thinks it subtle and discrete. Whatever criticism is generated by the Western historians, it centres on the issue of ‘historical positivity’ that leads to the neat Imperial mind set. Clark believes that the important aspect in Cook’s act of giving names is “the active nature of the explorer’s space and time’. His names ‘claimed no finality or universal validity. On the contrary, they were deployed contextually, strategically… They alluded to the journey itself, as it unfolded horizontally, revealing itself as a succession of events”.5 Hence, Cook traces “the genealogy of particulars” rather than going in chronological or thematic intricacies.

Carter argues that the colonizers imagined the colonized. For instance, Caleb Burchett, one of the explorers of Australia, created his own space which was not actually present before his arrival. He interpreted the map by using his ability to translate it symbolically. Carter contends that the historians and explorers, ironically, relied on stories of socially oppressed convicts. The wild imagination of convicts led them to present the Botany Bay as a path which leads to a definite place. Ironically, their metaphoric representation and figurative language was the legacy of the Western reasoning.6 It resembled the British’s portrayal of the British Empire. For convicts, Botany Bay was the symbol of freedom that could substitute the loss of their space. The first fleet historians mocked at the convicts for their “fertility of imagination” and storytelling, yet they exploited the convicts’ creative skill for their own purpose of history making. Thus the fabrication of the events by the convicts “represented strategies for constructing a believable place‐‐‐ a place in which to speak and, no less important, a place from which to escape”.7 In other words, another space is carved out on the map of history that reflects the agony of dislocation in mythic fantasies.

According to Carter, the Western historians are unable to find out the spatial significance of a place in the generic discourse of history. The place is treated just like a stage which is dependent on its actors. Carter specifically discusses this point with reference to the history of Australia. He opines that for historians like Clark and Blainy, “Australia was always simply a stage where history occurred, history gives a theatrical performance”.8 These historians ascribe the


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role of staging an event to history and not to the historians. To them the history reveals itself in an orderly manner and writes its own destiny. Carter attributes such passive, reduced and static role of spatial orientation to ‘imperial history’. The imperial history gives us neat classifications and treats all histories as fit in the pre‐existed taxonomies. The logic of cause and effect of imperial history blurs our vision and leads us to illusive alleys of an “emergence of order from chaos”. The dramatic role of history weaves a heroic narrative where the historical events and characters are stumbled into performing a fable.

The second misrepresented fact is the “cultural absence” of the aborigines who are merely treated as a “prop”. Their role is reduced and contrasted against the heroic fable of Cook as the discoverer of Australia. Carter contends that the Road to Botany Bay also sheds light on the aborigines. It was their “meeting place”, and also symbolizes the encounter with nature and savages.9 Carter equates these savages with convicts and argues that both categories made their appearance in white history as comparable entities on the basis of unreasonableness and uncivilised behaviour. Both are identified as tale‐bearers. Aborigines lost their language and culture, and became silent entities on the pages of histories. Carter argues that aborigines’ history is a symbolic history. They are absent or partially present in our historical consciousness10. This very absence from our historical consciousness leads us to question the “form and historically constitutive role” of our histories.11

Carter uses the history of place and space to question the assumptions of the Western historians. To him, the task of spatial history is to restore the suppressed and muffled voices that are heard and understood through their personal space. It may begin in one’s fantasy, but represents a mythic past. In case of Botany Bay, the aborigines destroyed the floral beauty of the land as it hindered their path. What the convicts saw was actually the aftermath, not the integral part of that place, however, through the ashes the whole metaphoric story was emerged. Spatial history brings into discussion the fossilized past and makes us flee from the physical to the metaphysical. Its objective is to negate the pre‐defined boundaries and to show us the “plurality of historical directions”. It leads us to think about the history that does not fit into any prior taxonomy or classification and to generate a nihilistic approach.

Carter does take help from Derrida12 in elaborating fossilized past when he terms spatial history like ashes which we can


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neither ignore not comprehend. This leads him to identify the fractured history. We cannot understand past as it was. We can only know its traces. It is precisely here that he becomes critical of imperial and western histories. But his overall argument remains Eurocentric in nature when he says that in historical discourse, aborigines are absent or silent. Carter apparently ignores the cultural transformation from one form to another, especially in the interaction between a colonized and colonizer. In a new form, older values always exist. It is understandably so because Carter’s analysis looks at convicts and aborigines with the same conception. If the history of colonial Australia is not that of massacre or murder, then there should be a kind of negotiating ground which can help in understanding the aborigines. Another problem in his discourse is that he questions cause and effect relationship in historical discourse yet argues that knowledge is the effect of power. In this sense he is contradicting himself. By adopting such approach, Carter fails to explain the accidents, innovation, and the epistemic crisis that the empire faces in colony where it (empire) needs help of locals to overcome these problems.

(II)

Status was everywhere, whether it was in ideas or in constructed social reality. It was in the heart of culture which was not imposed through oppressive state apparatus, but by using ritualization.13 This ritualization or acts of performance defined the very notion of hierarchical structure and gave it legitimacy. This is the main theme of Clifford Geertz’s book, Negara: The Theatre‐State. Geertz’s use of symbols and rituals in power structure is somewhat similar to Yuri Lotman. Both deploy the technique of semiotics to define the system of hierarchies and order in the society.14

Geertz associates the notion of historical centrality to Negara (literally means town, city) while conceptualizing Indonesian history. The word, Negara, in its broadest sense means the high culture that a city supports. There were many Negaras which are difficult to trace on the basis of evidence. From the fifth century onwards, various kingdoms rose, reigned, fought and fell “in a steady, broadening stream”.15 The process of “state formation and dissolution”16 came to an end with the Dutch occupation of the region. The development of pre‐colonial Indonesia was not a monolithic entity rather it comprised loose networks of variegated


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states. Arrival of Muslims and then Dutch brought radical changes in Indonesia, but still Bali remained unaffected from developments. For Geertz it can be considered “a model of Negara” that can be used for understanding the history of Indic Indonesia (i.e. Cambodia, Thailand, Burma).

Unlike other countries where rituals and ceremonies were means of accumulating and extending power, Balinese state rulers treated power as a mean to achieve some sacred ritual, i.e. “power served pomp, not pomp served power”17. The fantasy of Balinese state lied in the sanctity of pride over all other matters. The rulers of this state thought that the power and sovereignty was naturally given to them by God, and it was their duty to preserve it. Such thought was half influenced by the Indian caste system. Suicide was considered a dignified way to end one’s life, and the local rulers preferred it rather than getting subjugated by the foreign invasions.

The hierarchical state could not have been possible without a support from the lower stratum of the society. In south Bali, this support came from the caste system. It was based on two broad categories triwangsa (comprising three varnas – Brahmana, Stria and Wesia), the other was Sudra (may also be called outsiders). “Triwanga” were further divided into those “who owned power and those who did not; and whereas the former received deference and obedience from the Sudras, the latter received deference alone”18.

Kingship was another important institution. The groups maintained their identity through endogamy and by the process of differentiation. Emergence of a new group within the same old group made hierarchical structure flexible. Another important social institution, Clientship, helped in maintaining the state structure. It constructed a relationship not only within different groups but also with other regions.19 This clientship had several forms like spiritual, commercial and political etc. Along with the clientship was another cushion to state organization, i.e., alliance. These alliances were among the individuals, groups and regions and extracted strengths from “cultural and symbolic” entities and associations rather than “sociological and structural”20 links. For instance, exchange of gifts, symbolic association with six Great Temples (Sad Kaliyangan), contracts and treaties. These treatises not only defined “official players in this superordinate game”, but also “codified the pretexts upon which the alliances could be broken”21.

The Negara always tried to absorb village society which was somewhat “self contained, cosmologically based organic unit”22. The


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nobles build their houses near the palace of their core‐line king”23. Unlike gentry, peasantry’s polity was local‐centric. It had three major roles: (i) to order and regulate community life (ii) to oversee irrigation and (iii) the management of popular rituals. For each of these functions separate institutions were established which had their own hierarchies. They were “non‐coordinated rather, they intersect and overlap”24. A state official (perbekel) linked villager to the lord. It was not a coercive relationship rather “ceremonial system” helped to operate the system.25

Hierarchical structure was also manifested in the political spectacles. Such type of “ceremonial life was as much a form of rhetoric as it was of devotion, a florid boasting assertion of spiritual power. Leaping alive into flames was only one of the grander statements of a proposition that royal tooth filings, royal temple dedications, royal ordinations, and in the puputans, royal suicides made in other, no less categorical ways: there is an unbreakable inner connection between social rank and religious condition. The state cult was not a cult of the state”26. Such culture can only be understood by explaining some expressed “symbolic forms” and relationship of these symbols with the social fibre, which Geertz terms as a “hermeneutic circle”27. King had central place in all these ceremonies and “the place where he sits” – palace‐ became “a sacred symbol, a replica of the order it was constructed to celebrate”28. In Bali, “the state drew its force, which was real enough, from its imaginative energies, its semiotic capacity to make inequality enchant”.29 Greetrz’s main contention is to restore native’s voice as he had argued in his many writings,30 which led him to take refuge in conceptualizing Bali’s rituals as an end rather than a source of power. However, he does not explain much about the audience of such events where the rulers committed suicide. In such a way, Geertz not only fails to substantiate his basic hypothesis (power serves pomp rather than pomp serves power) but also fails to fulfil his agenda of restoring the voice of locals.

(III)

James Hevia’s book is about ‘Guest Ritual’, imperial audience, and rites through which Qing dynasty executed its foreign policy. The book also examines the working of British embassy under Georg Lord Macartney in the late eighteenth century. It questions many notions like “Chinese world order”, “sinocentricism”, “tribute system”, and


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interpretations of Sino‐Western conflict by Euro‐American intellectuals regarding the fixity of Chinese culture in remote past. Hevia’s main intention is to “construct a symmetrical account, one that would not privilege either the Qing or British record of events and would in the process help to breakup simplistic dichotomies” (like China/West, tradition/modernity, etc.).31 Hevia explores an old issue with a new dimension to objectively analyse the facts. By borrowing the analytical tools from Edward Said, Gramsci, Foucault and Raymond William, Hevia pursues a historiographic genre with anthropological understanding of Qing ritualization. His study investigates the cultural misunderstandings resulting from the formation of discrete imperial structures of sovereignty and power. He critically evaluates the sources in English and Chinese languages about Macartney’s mission and treatment of Sino‐Western encounter. Hevia unravels the cross cultural power in the Chinese and the British statecraft.

The book analyzes the initial meeting between Lord Macartney, the representative of the East India Company, and the Qianlong emperor. Hevia consults the original Chinese sources in order to present the story of Chinese side. While planning and organizing the British embassy in China, the main purposes were to serve not only economic interests of the British Empire, but also to project ceremonial values of the motherland. For Hevia, the latter aim of the British embassy was primarily to celebrate “the national character” of the Great monarchy in Asia. “Qing court was probably the most sophisticated in Asia”32 and might get easily impressed with the “rhetorical display” of Macartney’s English manners. Here, Hevia critically analyzes the use of British vocabulary items like ‘diplomacy’, ‘trade’, and the British interpretation of ‘China’ and ‘oriental sensibilities’. Sensibility of all such notions was manifested in a letter from George III to the Qianlong emperor. George III began his letter by showing equality between the monarchs of both China and the Great Britain with all the titles of Sovereignty like ‘His Most Sacred Majesty’, ‘Supreme Emperor of China’ etc. Then George III unravels his purpose of sending the British fleet to China, which was to discover new territories and to gain knowledge. The main purpose of establishing embassy in China also remained the same. According to Hevia, “[it was] the way in which the British ambassador insisted on presenting it that provides a point of entry into the cultural world from which the letter came”33. In the late eighteenth century, the British ‘bourgeois civil society’ was cognizant of the significance of


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‘diplomacy’ and ‘trade’ “as the two mechanisms for communicating across national boundaries”.34 The so‐called public opinion was generated through this class, who disdainfully rejected the values of the lower strata of the society by labelling them ‘vulgar’. Such foundations of bourgeois civil society were also engrained in the British embassy, which “provided rich metaphors for translating Chinese actions’ into familiar behavioural categories”.35 Chinese nation was presented as “speaking one language, governed by one law, and sympathizing in the same manners”.36 On the contrary, the English government was a combination of different hierarchical orders, aristocracy, and democracy. The Chinese fashion of art and architecture became a part of eighteenth century Europe, yet it was considered as the ‘mere fabrication of European style’. Even the acts of British ambassador in the Chinese court were interpreted as a mean of celebrating the sovereignty of the British Empire.

One way of understanding the traditional philosophy of a state is to study the rituals of its people. With this notion, Hevia analyzes “the textual sources of Guest Ritual” and traces the exclusive and inclusive nature of lords and their hierarchical structures. He begins this study by presenting a stark contrast between the English and Chinese meanings of ‘Guest’. Contrary to the English meanings of Guest, the Chinese connotations mean the people below the rank of the emperor.37 According to Hevia, “the lesser lords are said to come to court and make offerings. That is, they present petitions and local products (fangwu), things unique or special to their domain”.38 It furthers the difference between higher and lower domains. To Hevia, in Chinese civilization or at least in the court ritualizations, the relationship of people with the things was more important than the relationship of people among themselves. This whole ontological process leads to “the process of centring” where the “engagement between cosmic pattern and human classification continually channels action away from extremes and toward a contingent spatial centre that temporarily constitutes a cosmo‐moral order made up of the Cosmos, earth, and humanity”.39 The primary purpose of this ritual is to provide the occasion where the strength of ‘lesser lords’ is acknowledged and considered inclusive. The process of Guest Ritual gives us the theory of asymmetry that is missing in the British Imperial structures. Hevia deduces all this information from the section on the Guest Ritual of Comprehensive Rites of the Great Qing and Lord Macartney’s account.


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Hevia’s methodological approach is different from the Rankian and EH Carr’s tradition of common truth. He intends to “destabilize the taken‐for‐granted relationship between sources (facts) and interpretation”.40 He admits that all historical accounts are political in nature but his intention is to locate “our own historiography” that is concerned with our daily life. Like Said and Foucault, he acknowledges that the present defines the past; European and Chinese accounts of Europe may be viewed within this perspective. The book, as a whole, presents a well knit argument. It not only provides new facts about the first British embassy in China but also explores them in a new way. One major problem in the book is that it treats multifarious tendencies in the Chinese culture.

However, it fails to appreciate the multiplicity of voices in the European thought. One also feels overemphasis on power structure which ignores the forces at work. The actors who were actual part of the event are de‐contextualized and assigned a place within the power structure. Although the author did try to contextualize Macartney’s tendencies but more description of the Chinese background may have been useful for the reader. However, the more problematic point in the book is the projection of nationalism in the functioning of British embassy. Many studies suggest that the nationalism developed in the nineteenth century British Empire. However, Hevia studies it in the eighteenth century Britain.


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END NOTES

1 Paul Carter, The Lie of the Land (1996), Material Thinking: Collaborative Realisation and the Art of Self‐Becoming (2004). 2 Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration of Landscape and History (New York: Knopf, 1987), p. 295. 3 Ibid., p. 318. 4 Ibid., p.1. 5 Ibid., p.7. 6 See a good commentary on western tradition of testimony, Rick Kennedy, A History of Reasonableness: Testimony and Authority in the Art of Thinking (NY: University of Rochester Press, 2004) 7 Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, p. 295‐6. 8Ibid., p. xiv 9 Ibid., p. 320 10 Ibid., p. 327. 11 Ibid., p. 350. 12 For Derrida’s conception of history, see Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 13 John W. Schoenfelder, “New Dramas for the Theatre State: The Shifting Roles of Ideological Power Sources in Balinese Polities”, World Archaeology, Vol. 36, No. 3, The Archaeology of Hinduism (Sep., 2004), p. 399. 14 Andrey Zorin and Nicole Monnier, “Ideology, Semiotics, and Clifford Geertz: Some Russian Reflections”, History and Theory, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Feb., 2001), pp. 57‐73. 15 Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre‐State in 19th Century Bali (NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), p.4. 16 Ibid., p.4. 17 Ibid., p.13. 18 Ibid., p.26. 19 Ibid., p.35. 20 Ibid., p.40. 21 Ibid., pp.42‐3. 22 Ibid., p.45. 23 Ibid., p.46. 24 Ibid., p.53. 25 Ibid., p.81. 26 Ibid., p.102. 27 Ibid., p.103. 28 Ibid., p.109. 29 Ibid., p.123.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive_Fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive_Fever


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30 Clifford Geertz, "From the Native's Point of View": On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Oct., 1974), pp. 26‐45 31 James L Hevia, “Postpolemical Historiography: A Response to Joseph W Esherick”. Modern China, Vol. 24, No. 03 (Jul., 1988), pp. 321‐22. 32 James L Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1995), p.59. 33 Ibid., p.62. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., p.65. 36 Ibid., p.67. 37 According to Hevia, the whole process of Guest ritual is based on the binary oppositions like upper/lower, superior/ inferior (contrary to the English connotation where guest is a person of equal rank). The Chinese implication of this word is of host (according to the English meanings the two words stand in contrast with each other). Hevia first explores the preface of the Guest Ritual text. It starts with the invocation of Zhou rulership. The preface implies both the process of inclusion and exclusion. In case of inclusion, the address of the Emperor extends towards the whole world (the word, siyi implies the four directions). On the other hand, the word qin refers to ‘bring close’ the other domains as the Chinese monarch is based on the hierarchical structures. Here, Hevia alludes to the distracted translation of the word, yi, which originally means ‘other peoples’ and the British sources referred to it as ‘barbarians’. 38 Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, p.121. 39Ibid., p. 123. 40Ibid., p.224.

Basharat Hussain Qizilbash, Book Review

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HAFEEZ MALIK, US RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN (THE IMPERIAL DIMENSION) (KARACHI: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2008) Hafeez Malik’s US relations with Afghanistan and Pakista” attempts to interpret and explain the sole superpower’s relations with these two countries from the rise to the fall of Taliban during the Clinton and Bush administrations. Afghanistan has been a battleground of foreign powers and local warlords for almost three decades, and according to a senior British military official, it is likely to remain destabilized for another three decades, as well. In the coming months, under the new US President Barack Obama, more American troops are expected to be committed to Afghanistan. Oil is often cited as the main cause of US occupation of Iraq but there is no such reported wealth in Afghanistan. Then, why is the US so much interested in a country, which is the fourth most backward in the world having an adult illiteracy of 71 per cent, where half of the population does not have reliable sources of food and water, and where one out of four children dies before attaining the age of five. One explanation given by the Americans in the justification of their occupation of Afghanistan is that the Taliban government was a source of terror in the world due to an extremist brand of religious ideology pursued by it and their sister organization Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden. US President Bush will be out of office by January 2009 but he and his colleagues represented the American mindset about Islamic radicalism. Bush publicly labeled the Taliban as “Islamic fascists” and claimed that Osama wanted to set up “a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain” and termed his own policy against them as “his crusade, this war on terrorism (that) is going to take a while.” His Vice President Dick Cheney and the former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld emphasized that Qaeda wanted to establish a global caliphate across Asia, Africa and Europe. General John Abizaid, the C‐in‐C of Central Command in 2005 interpreted the threat in a more perceptive manner by stating that “they will try to re‐establish a caliphate throughout the entire Muslim World…the caliphate’s goals would include the destruction of Israel. Just as we had the opportunity to learn what the Nazis were going to do from Hitler’s words in Mein Kampf, we need to learn what these people intend to do from their own words.” In order to understand as to how real are the American apprehensions Dr. Malik has referred to the English translation of


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Osama’s twenty – four fatwas by Professor Bruce Lawrence and James Howarth. Two fatwas were issued from Sudan (1994‐95); four from Afghanistan (1996‐98); five from (1998‐2001) explain his views on the nuclear bomb, relations with Mulla Omer and the 9/11 attacks; another six from (2001 – 2002) deal with “crusader wars”, relations with US and her allies; and the last seven (2003 – 2004) contain his pronouncements on the Iraq war and the fate of Saudi Arabia. The author contends that though Osama’s pronouncements were couched in Islamic terms, “his political ideas and demands were perfectly secular.” Dr. Malik thinks that Osama is quite clear about the objectives of US foreign policy as he firmly “believes that the United States is fundamentally an enemy of Arab states, supports Israel at their expense, and plans to occupy the Muslim lands in order to control their major resource – oil – with the help of collaborative Arab regimes.” He added, “ we strike them because of their injustice towards us in the Muslim world, especially in Palestine and Iraq and their occupation of Saudi Arabia.” After discussing the Qaeda threats and the consequent American perceptions, the author quotes Professor Stephen Helms, who argues that “Qaeda’s principal aims in its war with the US are to drive the US forces out of the Gulf, to end US support for Mubarak (of Egypt), and to end US support for Israel. All three aims are perfectly secular…” Dr. Malik states that in spite of the fact that Osama “does not justify terrorist operations against the United States in order to subordinate ‘unbelievers’ to the true faith of his interpretations” and present his jehad as ‘legitimate self‐defence’, the fact of the matter is that his jehad has been frighteningly lethal and has therefore invoked a corresponding deadly response from the Americans. Keeping in view the Qaeda threat, many think tanks have been set in the world to analyze the nature and potential of this organization. One such think tank is the Century Foundation headed by Richard A. Clark, who served Bush I, Clinton and Bush II as a Special Assistant for Security and Counterterrorism. Their analysis suggests that Qaeda operates at four levels. The first level consists of the (400 to 2000) inner circle hard core operatives, who engage in terrorist operations. The second level contains about a dozen Qaeda related jehadi groups with a following of 50,000 to 2,00,000 people, who are willing to commit terror acts and die as suicide bombers. The third level extends over 200 to 500 million people who identify with Qaeda’s cause and provide moral and logistical support whereas the fourth level is the Muslim Community living in Muslim countries and the diaspora. The Century Foundation’s 2004 report concluded that only about one‐tenth of one per cent of Muslims were jehadis and


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that “the threat to (US) is not ‘terrorism’, or even terrorist organizations, but rather the jehadi terrorists who seek to hijack Islam and use violence to replace governments with non‐democratic theocracies” (p. 266). A significant number of Qaeda sympathizers could be found in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Under a complex system, it recruited sympathizers by paying reasonably well stipends and even paid modest pension in some cases. According to the confessional statement of an Algerian Qaeda veteran, some members were paid $ 60 to 90 on quarterly basis. When the Pakistan government was negotiating peace deals with the local Maliks in South Waziristan, it found out that they were bound to provide shelter or employment to militants because they had taken huge loans from Qaeda (p‐214). An arrested Taliban leader revealed in 2004 that he had personally distributed over Rs.100 million to disrupt Hamid Karzai’s presidential election in Afghanistan. In spite of much discussion and debate, the Western academics remain divided over the true objectives of Qaeda. To the eminent French scholar Olivier Roy, the Qaedaites are global jehadis who view the growing Western influence as an encroachment on the Muslim Ummah. They represent that generation of Muslims who were brought up in the West due to migration of their families and are therefore dissociated from the native cultures and detached from the religious moorings. At the same time, they have failed to assimilate in the European cultures and are thus ‘deterritorialized’. In other words, the Qaedaites are a transnationalized floating mass of universal Ummah which neither belongs to the East nor to the West. On the contrary, Professor Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago thinks that Qaeda is “less a product of Islamic Fundamentalism than a simple strategic goal: to compel the United States and its Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian peninsula and other Muslim countries.” Pape has reached this conclusion after collecting data of seventy‐one terrorists who killed themselves between 1995 and 2004 in attacks sponsored by Qaeda. His analysis drew three interesting conclusions: One, a very large number of those attackers were Arabs from the Gulf where the Americans have stationed their forces since 1990. Two, the other terrorists belonged to Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco‐the countries considered to be the closest allies of the US in the Muslim world. Three, ironically, none of them belonged to Iran, Sudan and Libya whom the US State Department branded as “state sponsors of terrorism.”


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Osama’s refuge in Afghanistan brought the American wrath on the Taliban regime. Although the Taliban were routed within 102 days, in effect, this war was won with a cheque‐book and the massive air power. The CIA bought the support of Northern Alliance for a paltry cash of $ 1 million. The big warlords each in the north and the Pashtun belt in the south turned against the Taliban at the price of $ 50,000 whereas the loyalty of each of the relatively smaller warlords was purchased by the payment of ten to twenty thousand dollars in cash. In all, the CIA paid $ 70 million in bribing the anti‐Taliban elements but this figure does not include the payments made to the senior Pashtun tribal leaders in their secret bank accounts around the world. While the US carried an active military compaign against the Qaeda and Taliban from October 2001 to May 2003, mysteriously, it allowed Mulla Omer and Osama to escape from Afghanistan. According to an American specialist on Afghanistan, the combined force of Taliban and Qaeda consisted of 125,000 men with only 25,000 as serious fighters but strangely the entire might of the Pentagon has not been able to completely subdue them in the last six years. It is generally believed that the Taliban and Qaedaites escaped to the difficult mountainous terrain along the Pak – Afghan border, so Pakistan became a test case for the American policy makers. Since 9/11, Pak – US relations have been determined by the Afghan question but at the same time this issue generated a debate within Pakistan whether these two nations have had a ‘true’ or ‘false’ relationship. After the twin towers collapsed, Pakistan was told by the then US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that it ‘faces a stark choice: either it is with us or it is not. This is a black and white choice with no gray.” Pakistan was also handed a single sheet of paper containing seven conditions which were not negotiable. The author thinks that Pakistan accepted the diktat for three reasons: firstly, if Pakistan had refused, the US might have turned to India or a Central Asian state to achieve her objectives in Afghanistan. Secondly, the American vindictiveness could have lead to Pakistan’s punishment in Kashmir and the possible destruction of her nuclear assets by the Indian Military (p‐189). Proponents of ‘false’ Pak – US relationship also point out that the repeated US commitment to strengthen democratic institutions worldwide including Pakistan is a total sham because when democracy in foreign lands does not serve the US national interest, it is blithely jettisoned. Pakistan is a perfect example. Initially, the US imposed sanctions when Pakistan tested nuclear weapons and General Musharraf imposed marital law in 1999 but after 9/11 as Pakistan’s services were desperately required in the war against terror, President


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Bush waived off both sets of sanctions on 22nd September and 27th October 2001 paving the way for American military sales and assistance to Pakistan. If this is not double standard then what is it? Naivety of President Clinton was equally grotesque. Three days after Musharraf had toppled Nawaz Sharif’s government, the US Ambassador William Milam delivered him a letter from Clinton chastising the general for the illegal coup and urging him to announce a road map for the restoration of democracy but at the same time begged Musharraf to help US in apprehending Osama. Either the Americans are simpletons or they are fooling the world. They wanted Musharraf to deliver Osama ‘dead or alive’ to them hence the ‘irritant’ of restoration of democracy in Pakistan virtually disappeared between the two states. Later, Bush warmly received Musharraf in the White House in 2002 and 2004 and praised him as “a leader of great courage and vision.” As the war against terror raged around the world and the US pressed Pakistan “to do more,” the opponents of close cooperation with the Americans in Pakistan began to urge that we should not act as a vassal state because sooner or later the US would ditch us the same way as it ditched us after the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was this scenario which compelled a senior US official, the Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to probably admit for the first time the ‘false’ nature of relationship between the two countries: “For years we had an unbalanced policy in South Asia….People would look at it superficially and say we had a great relationship with Pakistan, but it was in a way a false relationship because in the first instance it was built against the India – Soviet Union axis, and then latterly it was against the soviet occupation in Afghanistan….So we didn’t have a policy for Pakistan, we had a policy with Pakistan directed at something else…what we are desirous of is for our Pakistani friends to try to develop a relationship about Pakistan.” How this complex relationship has to be conducted in future, will be the first big test of the Obama presidency.

BASHARAT HUSSAIN QIZILBASH


Ashfaq Ahmad Lone, Book Review

AYESHA JALAL, PARTISAN OF ALLAH (LAHORE: SANG-E-MEEL PUBLICATION, 2008) In the background of the prevailing extremist ideologies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ayesha Jalal locates the roots of the concept of Jihad in the shifting historical context of South Asia. She traces two shades of the concept of Jihad; as an ethical praxis and as a war against infidels. It is with the owning and pursuing of the later version of jihad by Syed Ahmed and Ismail Shaheed in the history of subcontinent when the debates regarding jihad prevailed.

Jihad can be understood etymologically as to strive against an undesirable opponent ‐‐‐‐ an external enemy, Satan, or the base inner self. The root word, Jahada, appears forty one times in the eighteenth chapter of the Quran and all the times it is not used in the sense of sacred war. In the first century of Islam, the Kharajite, ‘the Extremist sect’, defines it as legitimate violence against the enemies of Islam. For the Kharajites both infidels and Muslims deviated from the Quran and the practices of the holy Prophet are considered as the enemies of Islam. Almost all the early Muslims legal schools, however, strongly condemn and reject the Kharajite version of Jihad. The Muslim Legists view that moral wrongs can be eradicated through preaching good and forbidding wrong and they term it as the Jihad of the tongue. In the period of Umayyad and Abbasiad, the rulers persuade the legist to define Jihad as an armed struggle and divorce it’s meaning as an ethical struggle. The Muslim legists, following the directions of Umayyad and Abbasid rulers, keep the ethical meaning of Jihad out of authentic collections of Hadiths. Many sufisitic understanding, however, contest this narrow interpretation of Jihad and consider the spread of religion by the sword as the political dominion of Islam. Sufis and scholars such as Ibn Miskawayh, Abu Hamid al‐Ghazali and Jalaluddin Rumi favored the ethical meaning of Jihad.

The sufistic and scholarly interpretations influence the south Asian mystics and religious scholars. Before Shah Wali ullah, the ideology of jihad is a needless meaning for the Muslim rulers as their rule translates India into an Abode of peace (Dar‐ul‐Islam). The Central Asian Hanfi scholars and jurists such as Abu Yusuf, Muhammad Ash Shaybani, and Ibn Abi Bakr Marginani confer the blue prints for Islamic jurisprudence in subcontinent in the period of sultanate. They, in the absence of the textual sources, favour the preexisting social customs in the newly conquered territories. According to the Jurists, “Jihad could only be waged against the Dar‐ul‐Harb” (an abode of war). Although, it is a fact that Muslim rulers always associate themselves

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with their religious identity, yet their temporal interests remain incompatible with the sacred law. This incompatibility however fails to trouble their religious understanding. In the history of subcontinent, therefore the sharia always remains subsidiary to the law ordained by the temporal rulers.

Shah Wali ullah makes an attempt to purify sharia from the Badiths while following Sheikh Ahmad Sirhandi. He, however, also makes an attempt to harmonize the tension between the wujudis (pantheist) and shuhudis (theist) as well as between the Sufi tariqah and the sharia when the Muslim power faces decline. He proposes stiff measures to counteract non‐Muslim influences and also emphasizes the external over the internal dimensions of Muslim identity. For him, Islam is the most perfect religion because it instructs jihad as a self‐correcting principle that help preventing dispersion in Muslim community. He further holds that only a Muslim caliph having a strong army at his disposal can wage jihad. The Caliph then, after winning the war, must follow strictly the examples set by prophet. He also writes many letters to the Muslim rulers and military commanders and persuades them to take up arms against the non‐Muslim in order to strengthen Muslim power in India.

The Balakot war was an attempt by Sayyid Ahmad Shaheed and Maulana Ismail Shaheed to translate the revolutionary ideas of the Ahmad Sirhandi’s ideas on Sunni reforms and the elimination of Bidath with shah Wali Ullah’s jihad movement. It is severely criticized by many of their contemporaries such as Maulana Fazl‐I‐Haq Khairabadi, a senior disciple of Shah Abdul Aziz. He serves the East India Company before becoming the chief Justice of Delhi in 1855 and after the fall of Delhi he extends his cooperation to the British. As a philosopher of logic and a rationalist, he promotes secular learning. He tries to curb the Shah Ismail’s Wahabi Jihad movement and he, along with other leading Ulema, issues a fatwa declaring Shah Ismail as an infidel and even recommends his execution.

In British India when the loyalty of the Muslims of India are questioned for waging war against queen many leading Scholars such as Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi and his followers repudiate the doctrine of Jihad in order to safeguard the interest of Muslims. For them, as long as the Muslims are allowed to practice their religious rituals without any restriction India must be considered as an abode of Peace. Many leading secular figures such as Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Nawab Abdul Latif Khan and Syed Ameer Ali, follows this point of view.

After the war of independence, the intellectual discourse on jihad was primarily based on the sense of belonging to the worldwide

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community of Islam. Jamaluddin Afgani, Abul Kalam Azad, Obaidullah Sindhi and Muhammad Iqbal endorsed this very concept of Islamic universalism that was a response to the western concept of territorial nationalism. After partition Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi popularized his own interpretation of jihad. According to him, Islam is a revolutionary religion, which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals. For him Jihad is the only way through which an ideological state can be established that can ensure the well being of the mankind and eliminate all the injustices prevailed in the world.

The last section of the book focuses upon the mechanism of Jihadi ideology as it prevails in the contemporary Pakistan and Afghanistan. After the soviet invasion of the Afghanistan US government invest billions of dollars in the Jihad movement in order to destabilize the Soviet Union. The policy was devised and secretly approved by the US president Jimmy Carter. Pakistan played an important role in fostering the Islamic fundamentalism and its state agencies (ISI) became the chief patron to the madrassas propelling an extremist and violent form of Islam. The Mujahidin were trained by the intelligence agencies of America and British with the enthusiastic help of Pakistan and this policy was pursued till the fall of Soviet Union. But after 9/11 America turned against the Talibans and Pakistan was forced to become an ally of the US in the war against terrorism. Musharraf regime, following the US agenda, acted against the Islamic militant groups though keeping intact Pakistan’s Kashmir policy.

MUHAMMAD ASHFAQ AHMAD LONE


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Notes for Authors

1. Research papers, notes, review articles, comments, rejoinders and book reviews-in English only should be sent in duplicate together with floppy in MS-Word to: Dr Tahir Kamran, The Editor, The Historian, Department of History, GC University, Lahore (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]). 2. Papers will be accepted for consideration on the understanding that they are original contributions to the existing knowledge in the fields of History, International Relations, International Political Economy, Current Affairs, Strategic Studies, Women Studies, Sociology Journalism, Political Science, Statistics, Psychology, Philosophy, etc. 3. Each paper should be typed and should carry a margin of an inch and a half on the left-hand side of the typed page. 4. The first page of the research article should contain the title of the paper, the name(s), abstract and any acknowledgements. 5. Tables for the main text and each of its appendices should be numbered serially and separately. The title of each table should be given in a footnote immediately below the line at the bottom of the table. 6. Endnotes should be numbered consecutively. 7. All references used in the text should be listed in alphabetical order of the author's surnames at the end of the text. References in the text should include the name(s) of author(s) with the year of publication in parentheses. Attempt should be made to conform to the style of the Journal. Further information on questions of style may be obtained from the Editor of this Journal. 8. Each author will receive two copies of The Historian. 9. Book Reviews should give a description of the contents of the volume and a critical evaluation of the book. It should not exceed 05 or 06 typewritten pages. Each request for a book review in the journal must be accompanied by one copy of the book concerned.

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