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8/10/2019 Ahmad - The Shrinking Frontiers of Islam - 1976
1/16
The Shrinking Frontiers of IslamAuthor(s): Aziz AhmadReviewed work(s):Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1976), pp. 145-159Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/162598.
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2/16
Int.
J.
Middle East
Stud.
7
(1976),
145-159
Printed
in
U.S.A.
Aziz Ahmad
THE
SHRINKING
FRONTIERS OF ISLAM
I
I
have borrowed
the
term
frontier from the
late
Professor
Joseph
Schacht'
for the Islamic marches where Islamic political power and Islam were once firmly
entrenched.
Unlike
him
I
would
apply
this term
also
to the Islamic marches
in
Europe:
Spain
and
Sicily.
Division of
Islamic
lands
into
geographical categories
The
Central Islamic Lands
and
the
Further Islamic
Lands,
has
also
been
adopted
in
the
recently published
Cambridge History
of
Islam.2
These Islamic
frontiers are:
Spain,
Sicily,
and
the
Balkans
in
Europe;
the
Qipchaq
steppes,
Crimea,
and
Central
Asia in what is the
Soviet
Union
today;
a
gradually
advancing
Islamic
frontier
in
Sub-Saharan
and
Tropical
Africa;
and
the
Indian
subcontinent,
Malaysia,
Indonesia,
and Mindanao in
South
and
South-
east Asia.
Like
all
frontier
regions,
the
frontiers of
Dar
al-Islam
have
been
exposed
to
external
danger
and
some of
these
frontiers have
totally
or
partly
collapsed.
In
some
of
these
frontier
countries,
after
the
end
of
Muslim
political
power,
Islam
as a
religion
has
disappeared
or is in
danger
of
disappearing.
Of these
regions,
in
Sub-Saharan
Africa,
Islam seems to
be
making gradual
headway.
In
Southeast
Asia,
it is
secure
in
Indonesia. With the
expansion
of
Malaya
into
Malaysia,
it
faced to
a certain extent
not
merely
the earlier
problem
of a
large
and
economically
influential
Chinese
minority
on
the
mainland but
also
that of integration of non-Muslim ethnic elements in Borneo. The Constitution
of the
government
of
Malaysia
has
been
able
to solve these
problems
successfully
retaining
the
predominantly
Muslim
personality
of the
state
of
Malaysia.
After
the
incorporation
of
Borneo into
Malaysia
the Inter-Governmental
Committee
recommended in
1963
that Islam should
be the
religion
of
Malaysia,
but that
there should
be no state
religion
for
the
Borneo
states.3
In
Southeast
Asia the
only region
where Muslims face
a
challenge
is Mindanao
and
the smaller southern
islands
in
the
Philippines
where
the
Muslims
have been
1
Joseph Schacht,ed.,
The
Legacy of
Islam
(Oxford, I974).
2
The
Cambridge
History of
Islam
[CHI],
ed.
P.
M.
Holt,
Ann
K. S.
Lambton,
and
Bernard
Lewis
(Cambridge,
I970).
3
Harry
Miller,
The
Story of
Malaysia (London,
1965),
p.
235;
see
also E.
I.
J.
Rosenthal,
Islam in the
Modern National
State
(Cambridge, 1965), pp.
287-306,
359-36I.
I45
8/10/2019 Ahmad - The Shrinking Frontiers of Islam - 1976
3/16
I46
Aziz
Ahmad
reduced to
a
minority
by
the influx of
large
Christian
elements
from
the
north
and
where Muslims
rose
in
armed rebellion in
I973.
From other Islamic frontier
regions
Islam has either
totally disappeared
or
faces
a
threat
to survival
after
the
collapse
of
Muslim
political power.
This
his-
torical
phenomenon
shows a
certain common
pattern
of cause-and-effect
relation-
ships.
To
begin
with,
a viable
Muslim state disintegrates
yielding
place
to
smaller,
often
mutually
warring,
principalities
which are
unable
either to stand
individually
or to unite
together
against
a
rising
hostile
power.
The
Muslim doctrine
of
hijra
leads to
the
emigration
of
the
elite
from
these
areas to more secure
lands
in
the
Muslim
world.
In
due
course the masses
are
converted
to the faith of the hostile
political power,
and
Islam
ceases to
exist
or is
in
danger
of
extinction.
To illustrate this theoretical framework, I am selecting four frontiers of Islam:
Spain
and
Sicily,
whence
Islam
has
totally disappeared;
and
Russia
and
South
Asia
where
its survival
is
to
some
extent
threatened,
though
much more
so in
Russia
and
much
less
so
in India.
II
All
these four
regions:
Spain,
Italy,
the
Qipchaq steppes
and Central
Asia
in
Russia,
and
India
had
viable
and,
except
for
Sicily, powerful
Muslim states.
In
Spain
the
Umayyad caliphate
was
a bastion of Muslim
power,
but
it suffered
from
one
structural
weakness which was
to
a
great
extent
responsible
for the
limited
role
of
Islamic
power
and
presence
in
the Iberian
peninsula.
It
was
basically
an
Andalusian
state;
its
outlying
provinces
with their
capitals
at
Merida/Badajoz,
Toledo,
and
Saragossa
were the
lower,
middle,
and
upper
thughlir
or
Marches
of
the
Umayyad
caliphate.4
The
Umayyads
allowed considerable
latitude
to the
amirs
in
charge
of these
marches
and considered
them as territories of
secondary
importance.
As
a
result Islamization
there
did
not
progress
to
any
significant
extent
and
was
basically
confined to
a
comparatively
small
part
of
the
peninsula,
Andalusia.
The
'Amirid
dictatorship
which seized
power
from
the
Umayyads,
merely
nominally
acknowledging
them
as
sovereigns,
was a
continuation
of
the
Islamic
central
state
at
least for some
time. But
it
eroded
the
unity
of Muslim
power
by
drastically
reducing
the
prestige
of the
Umayyad
caliphal
house.
In the
end
it
was no match for
the
internal
strife
that
had been the
characteristic
of
Islamic
Spain
almost
from
the
beginning.
4
E.
Levi-Provencal,
Histoire
de
l'Espagin
miusulmane
(Paris,
1950),
I,
154
and
passin;
in greater detail, idem, L'Espagne
nlusu111anle anC
Xe siecle (Paris,
1932),
pp. 115-127; J. Bosch
Vila,
Algunas
consideraciones sobre
'Al-Tagr
en
Al-Andalus'
y
la divisi6n
politico-adminis-
trativa de la
Espafia
musulmana,
in Etudds
d'Orientalislme
dediecs
a la
Mwmoire
de
Levi-
Provencal
(Paris,
1962),
I,
23-33;
Hussain
Mones,
La divisi6n
politico-administrativa
de
la
Espafia
musulmana,
Revista
del
Instituto
de
Estudios
Islamicos
en
Madrid,
V
(I957), 88-98.
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The
shrinking
frontiers of
Islam
I47
The
Christian
states
that
had
survived
in
the
north of
the
peninsula
presented
another
challenge
to
the
Umayyad caliphate
and to
the
'Amirid
dictatorship
alike.
This
was
the
re-Christianization of
whatever
territory
they managed
to
seize
more or
less
permanently.
They
settled
Christians,
either
of
their own
territories
or
refugees
from Muslim
areas,
on the
occupied
territories.5
Their
gains
were
thus
consolidated
from
the
very beginning
of what later
came to
be
called
Re-
conquista.
By
comparison
the
brilliant
victories of
'Abd
al-Rahman
III and
al-
Mansuir
were
ephemeral
and
contributed
in
no
way
either to
the
permanent
ex-
tension or
to
the
consolidation
of
the
Muslim
presence
in
the
peninsula.
In
Sicily,
the
Kalbite
principality
was a
viable,
though
not
a
powerful,
state.
It
was an
almost
independent
march
of the
Fatimid
caliphate.
The
Kalbites
con-
tinued to strike coins in the names of the Fatimid
caliphs
and to receive honorific
titles from
them.
It remains
to
be
investigated
whether
Kalbite
Sicily
was
more
closely integrated
into
the economic fabric of
the Fatimid
state
than the
Zirid
principality
before
al-Mu'izz.
Between
947
and
1039
the Kalbite
dynasty
remained
firmly
entrenched
in
Sicily,
though,
as in
Umayyad
and 'Amirid
Spain,
there
were
continuous
uprisings.
At its
height
the
Muslim
population
in
Sicily
may
have consisted
of half
a
million,6
settled more
densely
in
the western
and
south-
eastern
parts, especially
the
Val
di Mazara.
In
the
Qipchaq steppes
in
what
is
Russia
today,
Jochi's
Horde
developed
after
some time into the
powerful
khanate of the Golden Horde. The
greater
part
of
the clans
that formed
the
Horde were
Turkish,
and
in
language
and
culture
the
Turkish
element was
predominant.
The essence
of the Horde's
civilization
was
nomadic. Thus
in
I334
Ibn
Battfita
saw the
ordu
of
Ozbeg
moving
from
place
to
place
like
a vast mobile
city
with
mosques
and
bazaars.7 Had
they
remained
totally
nomadic the Tatars
(Turks)
of
the
Qipchaq might
have
disappeared
from
history
at
an
early stage
of
Russian
impact.
In
fact,
their
nomadism
was
counterbalanced
by
prosperous
urban centers
with
thriving
crafts
and
trade. Some
of
these
towns,
like
Sarai-Berke,
were founded
by
the Tatars themselves.
Even in the first and abortive
phase
of the Islamization of
Jochi's
Horde under
Berke
(I256-I267),
Islam
seems
to
have met with
considerable
success
in its
Mongol aristocracy.
Several
of
his
amirs had
imams
and muezzins
in
their ser-
vice.8
Berke's
foreign policy
was
oriented
strongly
toward
Islam,
especially
in
his
disapproval
of
Hiilagii's
action which
put
an end to
the 'Abbasid
caliphate
in
1258,
and in
his
subsequent
alliance
with
Mamlik
Egypt
against
the
Il-Khans.9
5
Levi-Provencal, Histoire,
I,
79
and
passim.
6
Denis
MacSmith,
A
History of
Sicily:
Medieval
Sicily
800-1713
(London, I968),
p.
II.
7
Ibn
Battuta,
Voyages,
ed.
C.
Defremery
and B. R.
Sanguinetti
(Paris, 1857),
II,
380.
8 Ibn 'Abd
al-Zahir
in W. F. von
Tiesenhausen,
Sbornik materialov
otnosjascikhsya
k
istorii
Zolotoi
Ordy (St.
Petersburg,
1884),
I,
54;
B. Grekov
and A.
Jakoubovski,
La
Horde
d'Or
et la
Russic
(Paris,
I96I), p. I53.
9
Tiesenhausen,
op.
cit.,
I,
202
(al-Dhahabi),
274
(Ibn Kathir);
B.
Spuler,
Die
Goldene
Horde
(Wiesbaden, 1965),
p. 213.
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The
shrinking
frontiers
of
Islam
I49
religion.
His theocratization of the state
changed
the course of
the
subcontinent's
history.
III
In
all
the four
cases
under
study-Spain, Sicily, Qipchaq-Central
Asia,
and
India-the
viable or
powerful
Muslim
state
disintegrated
into successor
states at a
time
when
a
strong
hostile
power
was
emerging.
The
fragmented
successor
states
were unable
to face
the
challenge
of
the
rising
hostile
power,
were
unable to
unite
against
it,
and were
conquered
piecemeal.
In all these
lands Islam
ceased
to be the
ruling political power.
In
Spain
the
'Amirid
dictatorship
collapsed
about
Ioo9
and
gave
way
to
the
emergence
of
as
many
as
thirty
small
principalities.
These,
known
to
history
as
the
muluk
al-tawzt'if
or
reyes
de
taifas, represented
a
particularism
which
has
been
de-
scribed as
both
regional
and
ethnic
in
the
sense
that
some
of
them were
ruled
by
Arabs,
others
by
Berbers,
the
Thaqaliba,
and
by
the
local
Spanish
Muslims.15
Strangely enough
the three
thughur-Badajoz,
Toledo,
and
Saragossa-did
not
suffer from
the same
fragmentation
as the Muslim
heartland,
Andalusia.16
There
was not a
monolithic
hostile
power
in
Spain,
but the northern Christian
states, though not united, were individually stronger than the individual reyes de
taifas.
The
former
were
generally
successful
against
the latter.
Even the
principality
of
Seville,
the
most
illustrious,
if
not
the
strongest,
of
these
petty
states,
was
reduced
to
pay
tribute to its
Christian
adversary-a
significant
reversal
of historical roles.
Whenever the
Christian states
annexed
any
Muslim
territory,
they
continued
their
policy
of
settling
Christians,
now
mainly
the Christian
Mozarabes
from
Andalusia,
on
these lands. Thus
the
re-Christianization of the
peninsula
continued
in
a
move-
ment from north
toward south.
By
Io85
after
the fall
of
Toledo,
al-Mu'tamid
of
Seville
and some
other
Muslim
principalities felt so threatened that they had to invite the Almoravid Yfsuf ibn
T/ishufin
to
their
rescue.
Yfisuf's decision in
Ioo9
to
stay
on in
Spain
and to
incor-
porate
the
principalities
of
the
reyes
de
taifas
into his dominion
was
on
the one
hand
a
policy
of
empire-building
but
was
on the other
the
only
course
possible
to
restore
to
Spain
the
unity
of
Islamic
power
to stem the tide
of
Reconquista.
The Almoravid
rule
in
Spain
can
be
viewed
as
the
first
interregnum
during
the
historical
process
of the
fragmentation
of
Muslim
territories
into successor states.
It
reversed
the
trend of
fragmentation temporarily,
for
half a
century,
while it
delayed
the momen-
tum of the
Reconquista
for
only
a
little over
a
quarter
century.
The final
collapse
15
R.
Dozy,
Histoire
des
musulmans
d'Espagne (Leiden,
I86I),
IV,
1-2;
A.
Prieto
y
Vives,
Los
reyes
dc
taifas:
Estudio hist6rico-numismatico
(Madrid,
1926);
W.
Montgomery
Watt,
A
History
of
Islamiic
Spain (Edinburgh, 1965),
pp.
I03-III,
I47-I54.
16
Bosch
Vila,
Algunas
consideraciones sobre
'Al-Takr
en
al-Andalus',
p. 25.
8/10/2019 Ahmad - The Shrinking Frontiers of Islam - 1976
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I50
Aziz
Ahmad
of Almoravid rule
in
Spain
was
brought
about
by
the
inherent
disintegrative
trends
and revolts of
the
Spanish
Muslims.
Whatever was left
of
Muslim
Spain
in the
middle
of
the
twelfth
century
was
again engulfed
in
chaos. Once
again,
between
1145
and
1170,
there
arose
numerous Muslim
petty
states,
several
of them
paying
tribute
to Christian
Kingdoms.
The
extension
of
the
Almohad
empire
into
Spain
from
II70
to
1230
can be
de-
scribed as the
second
interregnum
during
the
period
of
Muslim
anarchy.
The
Almohad
victory
over
Alfonso
VIII
of
Castile
at
Alarcos
(July
1195)
gave
what
turned out to be
a
short-lived
promise
that at least a
part
of what
was
Islamic
Spain
could survive as a
united
state. This
hope
was
shattered
in
July
1212
when the
Kingdoms
of
Leon, Castile,
Navarre,
and
Aragon joined
together
to
inflict
the
fateful
defeat
of Las
Navas de
Tolosa.
Fragmented
Christian
states
joined
together
into
a
single
and unified
front
to shatter the unstable
unity
of
the
Muslim state
and
splinter
it
once
again
and
in
due
course
to
absorb
these
fragments
one
by
one. The
third
period
of
Muslim
successor states
after
the
Almohads
easily
succumbed
to
the
Reconquista.
The survival
of
Granada from
1235
to
1492
for
two and a
half
centuries as
a
tributary
and vassal of
Castile
had its
parellels
later in
other
Muslim frontiers.
The
Union of
Castile and
Aragon
with
Ferdinand
and
Isabella
(1479)
created
the
monolithic
hostile
power
that
in
1492
dealt
Granada
its
deathblow
and
ended
the
Muslim
chapter
of
Spanish
history
and
the
Spanish chapter
of Islamic
history.
The
difference
between the
Spanish
Reconquista
and the
Norman
conquest
of
Sicily
is
that
in
the former
case the
Spaniards
themselves
drove
the
Muslims
out,
and
in
the
process
of
doing
so
emerged
eventually
as
a
strong
power,
whereas
in
the
conquest
of
Sicily
it
was a
foreign
power,
the
Normans,
which,
though
aided
by
the
Christians of
the
island,
was
decisively
victorious over the
Arabs
by
dint
of
its
unity
and its
superior
military organization. Compared
with the
Spaniards,
the
Normans
were
also
much more
tolerant
of
the
vanquished
Muslims.17
As an Arab
writer
puts
it,
the
primary
cause of
the
ruin of the
Muslims
in
Sicily
was mutual discord.18 The whole of Muslim
history
in
Sicily
had been riddled with
turmoil
and
uprisings
which had been
kept
tinder
tenuous
control
by
the
Aghlabids,
the
Fatimids,
and the
Kalbites.
The
deposition
in
1052
of
the last
Kalbite
amir,
Hasan
al-Salmsaml,
proved
to
be the
point
of no
return
for Sicilian
Islam. Arab rule
broke
up
into small
fragments.
A
small
oligarchical
group
seized local
power
in
Palermo.
'Abd
Allah
b.
Mankit became
independent
in
Mazara,
Ibn
Hawwas
in
Girgenti,
and Ibn Thumna in
Syracuse.
Ibn Thumna
occupied
Palermo;
he
then
seized
Catania,
killed
its
potentate
Ibn
Maklati,
and married
his
widow
Mlaymfina
who was a sister
of
Ibn
Hawwas.19 Defeated
by
Ibn
IHawwas
near
Castragiovanni
17
F.
Gabrieli,
La
politique
arabe
des
Normandsde
Sicile,
Studia
Islanica,
IX
(I958), 83.
18
Ibn
Abi
Dinar,
Anno
484,
in
M.
Amari,
ed.,
Biblioteca arabo-sicula
(Ital.
vers.)
(Turin
and
Rome,
1881-82),
II,
287-288.
19
Ibn
al-Athir
(ed.
Tornberg),
X,
I3I.
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Islam
15I
he
summoned the
Normans
to his aid.
Between
io6i
and
I09I
Roger
I
completed
the
conquest
of
Sicily.20
Coming
to the
Qipchaq steppes
in
Russia,
the
disintegration
of
the Golden Horde
began
in
1359
in
the
course
of
civil strife.
In
1362
it
was
defeated
on
the
Sinyukha
by
the
Grand
Principality
of
Lithuania.
Between
1376
and
1415
Tokhtamish
united
it
for the
last
time,
but
he
was twice
defeated
by
Timur,
in
1375
and
I379.
Tokhtamish's
effort
had
succeeded
in
creating
only
a
short-lived
interregnum
of
unity.
From
1438
there was
general
chaos
in
the
Qipchaq
steppes.
In the cities
and settled areas
commerce and
agriculture
continued,
and
out of
these
nuclei there
emerged
the
important
successor khanates of
Kazan,
Astrakhan,
and the Crimea.
In
Kazan
the Russians tried
to
retain
a
pro-Russian
khan
without
much
success
They
were able to make use of the non-Muslim elements of Kazan in their conflict
with
that
khanate.
Finally
Ivan
the
Terrible
annexed
Kazan
in
1552.
Astrakhan,
which
was
founded
in
1466,
accepted
in the
sixteenth
century
Ottoman
influence
to
a
limited
extent in
its own
interest.
With
the
fall of
Kazan
it was too weak
to
withstand
Russia
which
annexed
it
in
I556.
The Crimea
enjoyed
a
certain
measure of
independence
since
the end
of the
fourteenth
century,
which was
consolidated
by HIajji Giray (d.
I466).
In
I475,
under
Mengli,
the
Crimea
accepted
Ottoman
suzerainty.
The Ottoman sultans
assumed the
right
of
appointing
or
dismissing
khans
in
the Crimea
in
consultation
with the mirzcdswho were leaders of CrimeanTatar tribes, four of whom were
by
tradition more
predominant
than the others.21
The Crimea's
fate came to
be
bound
up
with
the
strength
or
weakness
of the Ottoman
Empire
vis-a-vis the
rising
monolithic hostile
power
of
Russia
which
had
already
overwhelmed
Kazan and
Astrakhan.
In
I570
the
Ottoman-backed
Crimean Tatars
were
strong enough
to
attack
and
burn
Moscow.
But
only
four
years
later
in
1574,
the
Russians were
able
to
impose
the
treaty
of
Kiichiik
Kaynarja
on
the
Ottomans,
by
which Crimea
became
theoretically
independent.
In
1783
the
troops
of
Catherine
the
Great
an-
nexed
Crimea
to the
Russian
empire.
In Central Asia, the three successor states of Shaybanid Ozbegs, Bukhara,
Khokand,
and
Khiva were
small,
disunited,
and
exposed
to
the
expanding
might
of Russia.
In
Bukhara,
the
Mangit ruling dynasty
was weaker than its
predecessor,
the
Janid.
Finally
in
I868
General
K.
P.
Kaufmann
occupied
Samarqand,
which
was
ceded to the
Russians,
and
the
khanate
of
Bukhara
became a
Russian
pro-
tectorate,
though
with internal
autonomy
and
religious
freedom.
The
region
of Khokand
asserted
its
independence
of
Bukhara toward the
close
of
the
seventeenth
century.
In the
middle of
the
nineteenth the
nomad and
the settled
elements
of
its
population
were at
strife. The
Russian
impact
on Khokand was
20
M.
Amari,
Storia
dei musulmanidi
Sicilia,
ed.
C.
A.
Nallino
(Catania,
1935),
III,
15-183;
U.
Rizzitano,
Ibn
Thumna,
El2,
III,
956; idem,
Ibn
al-Hawwus,
El2, III,
788.
21
C.
M.
Kortepeter,
Ottoman
Imperialism
during
the
Reformation:
Europe
and the
Caucasus
(New
York,
1972),
pp.
7-8.
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Aziz Ahmad
gradual,
but more
decisive
than in the case
of Bukhara.
In
1875
the
territory
of
Khokand was annexed and incorporatedinto the Russian empire.
The
Khanate of
Khiva had
its
period
of
expansion
under
Khan Muhammad
Rahim
between
I806
and
1824,
but
soon
after,
between
1827
and
1864,
it was
riddled
with revolt and
internecine
struggle.
Russian
encroachment
began
in
1834
and resulted
finally
in
the decisive
victories
of
General
Kaufmann
in
1873
which
reduced
that
khanate
to
a Russian
protectorate
in
the
sense
that its
foreign
policy
came to be
controlled
by
the Russians.22
As
in
Russia
the
Muslims
of
India
faced
challenges
of monolithic hostile
powers
in
two
stages;
in the
case of Russia
those of the
Czarist
regime
and the
Soviet
Union,
and in South Asia those of the British Indian Empire and subsequentlythe Republic
of India.
The
successor
states
to the
iMughal
empire
in India
were
non-Muslim as
well
as
Muslim.
In
fact,
the
non-Muslim successor
states,
especially
the
Maratha Confed-
eracy
and
the Sikh
state
in the
Punjab,
were more
powerful
than the
Muslim
successor
states,
like
Bengal,
Awadh,
and
Hyderabad.
Of
the
Muslim successor
states
only Mysore
under
Haydar
'Ali
and
Tipfi
Sultan
rose
to be
powerful
enough
to
wage
a
struggle
against
the British
and
the
Marathas,
and
finally
succumbed
fighting against
a
military
alliance between
the
British,
the
Marathas,
and
the
Nizam of Hyderabad.Under the British East India Companya numberof Muslim
successor states were annexed to the British
territory.
These
included
Bengal
and
Awadh,
the two
principal
successor states of northern
India. In
the
south,
Mysore
was
given
to
a
Hindu ruler under
British
suzerainty
while
Arcot was
annexed.
Of
the Muslim
successor states
only Hyderabad
and a
few
other
principalities
survived
as British
protectorates.
On
the
other
hand a
large
number
of
Hindu
successor states
survived as
protectorates,
though
with
reduced areas.
The
Muslim
successor
states
of
the
Mughal
empire
provided
employment
and
job
opportunities
for
the
Muslim
middle
classes.
Their
annexation led
to the
impoverishmentof Muslim elite and masses, especially in Bengal.23
The
Muslim
community
as
a
whole
did
not
suffer
much
under the
British.
In
fact,
after
the
I87os
it
developed
a sense of
political community,
and
in
due
course
a
political
separatism,
which
was
encouraged by
the
British.
The
separatism
was
motivated
by
an
apprehension
regarding
the
economic,
cultural,
even
religious
future
of
the
community
vis-a-vis
the
three-times-larger
Hindu
community,
which
would
inevitably
be
the
ruler
and decision-maker
in
India
when
parliamentary
institutions
introduced
by
the British
matured,
and the
British
empire
was
replaced
by
an
indigenous
democracy.
Muslim
separatism
led
eventually
to the
division
of
the
British Indian
Empire
22
B.
Spuler
in
CHI,
I,
468-494.
23
W. W.
Hunter,
The
Indian Musalmans
(London,
I87I),
passim.
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Aziz
Ahmad
is
necessary
after the
conquest
of
Mecca.32 It is
not until
we
come to
Ahmad
b.
Hanbal,
who was
persecuted
for
his
strong
anti-Mu'tazilite
traditionalism
under
al-Ma'mfin
and
al-Mu'tasim,
that we meet an
emphasis
on
the
value of
hijra.3
It
was natural
that
the doctrine
of
hijra
should
have been revived
by
the Muslim
elite when the Islamic
frontiers were
on
the
retreat,
as
in
Spain
and
Sicily,
or
when
the heartlands
of
Islam
were overrun
by
hostile
forces,
as
during
the
Mongol
onslaught
and the
Crusades.
Large
numbers of the Muslim
elite
migrated
to
Egypt,
Anatolia,
and
India
after the
Mongol
conquest
of
Central
Asia,
Persia,
and
Iraq.
Ibn
Jubayr
denounces
those who
stayed
on
in
the land of
the
Franks
(at
Acre)
dur-
ing
the
Crusades,
served them
and
lived
with
the abominations
they
practiced.34
The
doctrine of
hijra
was involved
with
two serious
drawbacks from the view-
point
of
Islam
in
the lost
areas.
Only
the
elite,
which
formed a
very
small
percentage
of the
total
population,
had
the means to
emigrate
and
the
talent
or the
financial
resources
to
rehabilitate
itself in
new
surroundings.
The
other,
and the more
serious,
drawback
was that
the
emigration
of the
greater part
of
the
elite
left
the
Muslim
masses
leaderless
and
susceptible
to
conversion to
the
faith
of
the
non-Muslim
conquerors.
In
Spain,
the
Mudejares
(from
Arabic
mudajjan:
permitted
to
remain
or
subordinates )
had
in
the
early
stages
a
position
parallel
to
that
of
non-Muslim
comlmunities
in
an
Islamic
state,
observing
their
religious
rites
and
living
according
to their
customs
under
Muslim
qi'ids.
They
paid
a
capitation
tax,
just
as the
non-
Muslims
paid
jizya
in
a Muslim
state.
They
had to
wear distinctive
dress
and
to
live
in
the
Muslim
quarters
of the
towns.
In the
thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries
they
culturally
influenced
their
rulers;
but there must have
been
during
this
period
steady
migration
from
among
them to other
Muslim
lands.
In
the
fifteenth
century
the
lot
of
the
Mludejares
worsened.
Their
religious
survival
began
to
face severe
difficulties when the
Spanish regime
of
Ferdinand
and
Isabella took
over the
responsibilities
of
administering
the
Inquisition.
Cardinal
Ximenez
di
Cisneros influenced the
Spanish
government
to
such
an extent
that
copies
of the
Qur'an
and other Islamic literature were burned.
The insurrection
of the
Muslims
which
followed was
ruthlessly suppressed,
and
in
150I
the
Muslims
of
Granada
were
given
the
choice
of
baptism
or exile.
In
1525-1526
the
Muslims
of other
provinces
in
Spain
had to face the same choice.
The bulk of
Muslim
Spain,
most
probably,
accepted Christianity
while the
religious
and
commlercial
elite
migrated
to North Africa and the
Ottoman
empire.
In
1526
the
Moriscos of
Valencia were
expelled.
32
Bukhari
(Leiden,
I862-I9o8),
56:I,
26, 194; 58:22;
63:45; 64:53;
Muslim
(Cairo,
A.H.
I283/I866), 33:83-86;
Abfi
Da'fid
(Cairo,
A.H.
1292/1875),
15:2;
Tirmidhi
(Cairo,
A.H.
I292/I875),
19:33;
Ibn
Maja
(Cairo,
A.H.
1313/I895),
II:I2;
Nast'i
(Cairo,
A.H.
1312/1894),
39:9.
33
Ahmad
b.
Hanbal, Musnad,
II,
315;
III,
370
et
seq.
34
Ibn
Jubayr,
Rihla
(Beirut,
I959),
pp.
279-280.
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155
In
1566
there was fresh
legislation
against
whatever
tiny
residue of
Muslims
had remained in
Spain.
The Moriscos
of
Spain
revolted
in
the
Alpujarras
in
1568,
counting
upon help
to be
provided
by
the Ottoman
beglerbeg
of
Algiers.
Finally,
the edict of
expulsion
promulgated
by Philip
III
in
I609,
followed
by
another
such
edict
in
I619,
forced the eviction
of
half a
million Muslims
from
Spain.
After
that
no
Muslims were left in
Spain.
Norman
Sicily
was
much
more tolerant
of
the Muslim
survival
than was Catholic
Spain,
and much
more
saturated with
Muslim culture. But here
also we
see the
same
process
at work.
A
large
number
of
'ulamn'
and staunch Muslims
migrated
from
Sicily shortly
after
the
conquest
of
the island
by Roger
I,
who
was
by
no
means
intolerant;
and
another
wave
of
migration
accompanied
the
retreating
forces
of
Ayyfib
b.
Tamim,
the Zirid.35
The
migration
of
the
intellectuals
and
other
elements of
the
Muslim elite
continued
throughout
the Norman
period.
While
in
the
cities
respectable
and some
times
prosperous
Muslim
communities
had remained under
the
early
Norman
rulers,
in
the
feudalized
countryside they
became
serfs and
villeins,
their lot
being
hardly
better
than
that
of
slaves.
The
counterpart
of
the
Norman
religious
and
cultural
tolerance of
the
Arabs
was the Norman
sovereign's
position
as
the defender and
helper
of
Christianity
(ndsir
al-nasraniyya),
his
relationship
with
the
Pope,
and
his
efforts
toward
the
establishment of the Catholic Church in
Sicily
at the
expense
of Islam. As the
power
of
the
Norman
sovereign
weakened
after
William
II,
the
feudal
hierarchy,
which held
the
rural
Muslim
population
in
tutelage
in
association
with
the
Catholic
church
which
regarded
conversion
to
Christianity
as
a
meritorious
work,
made
the
survival
of Islam
difficult in
Sicily.36
Even
under
William
II,
Ibn
Jubayr
noticed
the Muslim
elite
continuing
to
migrate,
seeing
no
future
for
itself
in
Sicily,
and
encouraging
its
daughters
to
marry
Muslim
visitors from
other
lands. The
temptation
as
well as the coercion
to
convert
to
Christianity
was
disrupting
the
patriarchal
Muslim life. Even the
tolerant William II would force some of his leading Muslim officials to renounce
their
faith.37
With
the
decline of
the
Norman house
of
Hauteville
the
position
of
the Muslims became
even
more
precarious.
The
year
II89-90
sealed their
fate,
with their
revolt and its
sanguinary suppression.
After
this
the Arab
element of
Palermo
almost
disappeared,
as
the
Muslim
population
of
other
Sicilian
cities
already
had.
Only
in
Val
di
Mazara in the
mountains did
Muslim
resistance
continue,
culminating
in
1222-23
in
the
resistance
of
Mirabetto
(Ibn
'Abbad)
during
the
reign
of Fredrick
II. The Muslim
revolt
was
finally
suppressed
between
1243
and
1246,
when
the
otherwise
liberal
and
Arabophile
Fredrick
exiled
the
remaining Muslim populationfrom Sicily to Lucera on the Italian mainland.This
35
Ibn
al-Athir,
Anno
484,
in
Amari,
Biblioteca
arobo-sicula
(Ital.
vers.),
I,
448-449.
36
Gabrieli,
La
politique
arabe,
Studia
Islamica,
IX
(1958), 92.
37
Ibn
Jubayr,
Rihla,
pp.
3I3-316.
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Muslim residue in
Lucera
was
consistently
under
pressure
from Charles
II
d'Anjou
to
convert
to
Christianity,
first
by
persuasion,38
and
in the end
by
regi-
mentation,
when the Arab
colony
of Lucera was
destroyed
by
his order in I300.39
Facts
are
not
available
as to
whether
any,
and
if
so what
percentage
of
Tatar
elite
migrated
from
Kazan and Astrakhan
after the Russian
occupation.
In
the
case
of
the
Crimea
it has been
estimated
that
possibly
half
the
Muslim
Tatar
population
migrated
to
the
Ottoman
empire
after
annexation
by
Russia.40
Russian
peasants
were settled in
the
Crimean
peninsula
as
well
as
the
steppeland
of the
Nogays.
The Tatars in
the Crimea
were thus
reduced to
a
minority,
while
the
Nogays
were removed
first to the
Kuban,
then
to
the
north
of the Sea of
Azov.
A
policy
of
forcible
conversion of
Tatars
to
Christianity
was
adopted
after
the
Russian
conquest
of
Kazan,
where a Christian Tatar
community,
that of the
Kryashens,
came
into
being.
This
policy
was
suspended
by
the liberal
Romanovs,
but was revived
by
Peter
the Great
and
continued
until
the
accession
of
Catherine
II.41
Conversely,
between
I905
and
I916
there was some conversion
to
Islam
among
the Finnic
people
of Middle
Volga,
such as
the
Maris,
the
Mordvinians,
the
Udmurts,
and
the Christian
Turkish
Chuvash.42
Around the
beginning
of
the
twentieth
century
and
during
its
first decade
the intellectuals
of
Muslim
Russia
formed
the
vanguard
of
the
propagation
of the
pan-Turkic
movement
within
Russia,
as
well
as
outside
it
as
an
intellectual
diaspora.43
When the Czarist
regime collapsed
during
the First World
War,
Russia had
the
third
largest
Muslim
population
in
the
world,
between
I5
and
I8
million,
and
next
only
to the
Muslim
population
of the British and the Ottoman
empires.
The
Muslim
population
was
dispersed
in
several
parts
of
Russia,
in
the
Volga-Ural
region,
in
Siberia,
in
Central
Asia,
and
in
the
Caucasus
and the
Crimea.
For
over half a
century
the
effort of the
Soviet
Government
has been to
absorb
this Muslim
population
within the
general
Russian ethnic
fabric,
and to
involve
it
in
the
Soviet state
ideologically
by de-Islamizing
it. This
policy
has fluctuated
according
to
political
necessity
and
expediency.
In
March
1918
the
national
miove-
ment of the Tatars of Kazan was
suppressed.
In
I923, teaching
of
religion
to
children below the
age
of
14
was
forbidden.
The
use
of
the
Arabic
script
was
abolished
in
1928-29.
The
period
between
1928
and
Russia's involvement
in
World War
II in
1941
was
that of direct
attack
on
Islam. The
hajj,
which
also
meant
contact
with Muslims
of
other
lands,
was
forbidden.
Between
I929
and
38
For instance
in
1294
Raymond
Lull
was
specially
commissioned
by
Charles
to
confer
with
the
Saracens
of
Lucera,
P.
Egidi,
ed.,
Codice
Diplomatico
dei Saraceni
di
Lucera
(Naples, 1917),
p. 32.
39
P.
Egidi,
La colonia saracena
di
Lucera
e
la sna
distrluione
(Naples,
1912),
pp.
75-76.
40
M. E.
Yapp
in
CHI,
I,
502.
41
A.
Bennigsen
and Chantal
Lemercier-Quelquejay,
Islam
in the
Soviet
Union
(New
York,
1967),
p.
12.
42
Ibid.,
p. 27.
43
S.
A.
Zenkovsky,
Pan-Turkism
and
Islam in Russia
(Cambridge,
Mass.,
1960),
passinm.
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Islam
157
I939, 33,000
mosques
were
closed down in the areas
of
Muslim
concentration
throughout
Russia.44
Such policies were held in abeyance during the war years I94I to
I945.
In
1945
antireligious policies
toward the
Muslims
of
Russia
were
revived.
In
several
areas
in
Russia the
Muslim
majority
was
transformed
into
a
minority
through
large-scale
Russian
immigration.
Kazakhs
have become
a
minority
in
Kazakhstan. In
the
Bashkir
A.S.S.R.,
the Bashkirs are
today
a
minority.
In
the
Tatar
A.S.S.R.
the
Tatar
percentage
of the
total
population
is not
more
than
one-half.
The Tatars of the Crimea were
accused
of
collaborating
with
the
Germans
in
World
War
II
and
exiled en masse
to
Kirghizia.
The
colonial
objectives
of
the Czarist
regime
in
Central Asia were
two: To
develop
it as
a
raw cotton producing area to feed the Russian textile industry, and to settle
Russians
in
the
area.
Both
these
objectives
continue
to be
pursued
by
the Soviet
Union.
In
Russia,
according
to
Muslim and
Western
specialists, very
little
of tradi-
tional
Islam
has survived.
But
it
still
survives
as a social
bond of union
which
enables the
Muslims
to
differentiate
themselves
from the
Russians. 45
This
estimate of
Professor
Bennigsen
was
made some
years ago.
Now he
is
more
optimistic
about
the survival of Islam in
Russia.
His
optimism
is based
on
two
points:
First,
the
population explosion among
Muslims in
the
Soviet
Union
indicates that the Muslim population is multiplying at a much higher rate than
the Russian
population;
and
second,
the
effort of the Russian Muslims
to
conserve
their
identity by
refusing
to
migrate
voluntarily
from
the areas of
their
concen-
tration,
and
by
adhering
at least
symbolically
to
Islam
by
observing
strictly
the
rite
of
circumcision.46
This
optimism
may
have
to,
be
considerably
modified
in
the
face
of
Russian
coercive
measures,
which
may
lead
to
forced
migration
and
dispersion
within
the
Soviet
Union,
the
Russian
genius
for
assimilation,
and
a
possible
prohibition
of the
rite
of circumcision.
Compared
with the Soviet
Union,
the
Islamic
presence
has
a
considerably
better
chance of survival in South Asia, though there too it is beset with formidable
challenges.
The
Muslim
population
of
the
subcontinent
is now
divided
into three
states:
India,
Pakistan,
and
Bangladesh.
In India
it
is
about 10
percent
of
the
total
population,
which is
generally
Hindu.
The
government
of
the
Indian National
Congress
which
has ruled the
country
since
1947,
as well as India's
constitution,
declare India
to be
a
secular state.
The
British
government
in
India had
provided
a certain
measure
of
economic
and
educational
protection
for
the Muslims
of
India,
especially
since the
I87os.
This
patronage
was
withdrawn from
them
by
the
independent government
of
44
Bennigsen
and
Lenercrci-Quelquejay,
Islam in
the
Soviet
Union,
pp.
I49-15I;
Akdes
Nimet Kurat
in
CHI,
I,
627-639.
45
Bennigsen
and
Lemercier-Quelquejay, op.
cit.,
I83.
46
Bennigsen
in Seminar
at
the
University
of
Toronto,
November
1972.
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158
Aziz Ahmad
India,
ironically
enough
in
the name of secularism. While
individual
Muslims
have
risen to
very
high
positions
in
India,
including
that of
the Head
of the
State,
the total
employment
of Muslims in
the
Central
and
Provincial
government
offices
is
less than
I
percent,
or
one-tenth
of
what
they
should have
had
according
to their
percentage
in
population.
There
are
no
Muslim
industrialists,
as
almost
all
of
them
migrated
to Pakistan
in
quest
of better
opportunities
and less
competition.
For the same
reason there are
few
big
businessmen.
There
are
a
large
number
of
Muslims
engaged
in
retail
trade,
but
they
are
very
insecure
owing
to
the
riots
organized
by
the
strongly
anti-Muslim
political
party,
Jana
Sangh,
second
in
strength only
to
the Indian
National
Congress.
The
pattern
of these
riots is to
sack
and
burn the
houses
and
shops
of the
Muslims,
taking
away
their means of
livelihood and even the roof over their
heads,
reducing
them to the level of a low
caste,
ironically enough
in
a modern
India
which
is
winning
its
fight against
the
traditional
iniquities
of
caste structure.
Recently
the
government
of
Indira
Gandhi
was
able
to control the anti-Muslim
communal
riots to
some
extent;
and if her
party
retains its
power
and
strength
there
is some
hope
of
security
for
Muslims.
If
the
Jana
Sangh
comes
into
power,
their fate
is
sealed,
though theoretically
it
concedes
that the
Muslims
may
worship
the
Islamic
way,
but
they
must live
the
Indian
(an
aphorism
for
Hindu )
way.47
The
Jana
Sangh
also
stands
for
the
unification of
India,
through
the
destruction
of
Pakistan.48
The secularism of the Indian government also has loopholes detrimental to
Muslims.
It
upholds
Hindi
to
be the
language
of
the
state,
not
merely
as
a twin
of
Urdu which
would
have
brought
the two
languages
and
the
two cultures
(Hindu
and
Muslim)
closer
together,
but
recommends
in India's Constitution
that
Hindi
draw for
its
vocabulary
resources
primarily
on Sanskrit. 49
This
hard attitude
was softened
to some
extent
in
the
report
of the
Official
Language
Commission
which allowed
borrowings
into
Hindi
from
Urdu.50
And
in
recent
years
apart
from
Kashmir,
where
Urdu is
the first
language,
Urdu
has been
accepted
as a
second
language
in
three
provinces.
But,
in
the meantime
a
generation
of Indian
Muslims has grown up, the majority of which, under economic and educational
stress,
cannot
read
or
write
Urdu,
the
language
of their
religious
and cultural
heritage.
The Muslim
masses
in
India
are
even worse
off
than
the middle classes which
are
reaching
a
point
of economic
disability
where
they
can no
longer
afford
to
send
their
children
to school.51 The
almost total
lack
of
employment
opportunity
for
the Muslim masses
may
force them in
the end
to
accept
Hinduism,
which
is a
highly
assimilative
religion;
but
so far there
is
no indication of that trend.
Actually,
47
The Organiser, December 31, I95I, p. 5.
48
Manifesto
of the
Jana
Sangh
in
the
Organiser,
October
29, 1951.
49
Constitution
of
India,
Article
35I.
60
Official
Language
Commission,
Report
(New
Delhi,
I957),
p.
235.
51
Abid
Husain,
The
Destiny of
Indian Muslims
(London,
I965),
p.
I32.
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I59
with
the
intense
activity
of
two
religious
organizations,
the
Jama'at-i
Islami
and
the
Tahrik-i
fman,52
religious
instruction has
been
intensified,
syncretic
Muslim
communities have been won back to traditional Islam, and as Dr. Abid Husain
has
concluded,
though
there
was confusion
in their minds
and frustration
and
resentment in
their
hearts,
their
religious
faith never
wavered. 53
The
migration
of
Muslims from
India to Pakistan
can be classified into
three
categories.
By
far the
largest migration
followed
the
communal riots
of
1947,
through
an
exchange
of
populations,
the Hindus and
Sikhs
of
West
Pakistan
going
to
India
and the Muslims
of
East
Punjab,
Delhi,
and the
western
(listricts
of Uttar
Pradesh
to Pakistan. This
was
a mass
migration
including
all
classes
of
population.
The
second
category
consisted
of members
of
the Muslim
elite who
migrated
to
Pakistan for ideological reasons. The third category consisted of members of the
intelligentsia
and
some
groups
of common
people
who
felt
economically
insecure
in India
or
who
migrated
in
search
of
better
and
more secure
job
opportunities.
It
is
difficult
to estimate what
percentage
of the
Muslim elite
migrated
to Pakistan
and
what
percentage
chose
to
remain
in India.
By
far
the
greater
bulk of
the
Muslim
masses
remained
in
India.
The
basic
fact is that
though
the Indian
Muslims
con-
stitute
only
10
percent
of
the Indian
population,
this
Io
percent
amounts to
over
60
million. Their
number is
their
chief
strength
for survival.
Pakistan,
the
Granada of
the South Asian
subcontinent,
came
into
being,
at
least ideologically, as the state of the Muslims of India. But it has had difficulty
evolving
into a
single nation. Its
decision-making
elite
during
the
first
quarter
of its
existence
has
come
mainly
from the
dynamic
province
of the
Punjab.
It
has
exploited
other
regions
and
denied them
a
sense
of
participation.
A
strong
move-
ment
for
secession
in
East
Bengal
was
countered
by
severe
military
repression.
Indian
military
intervention
succeeded
in
defeating
and
splitting
Pakistan into
the successor states
(West)
Pakistan and
Bangladesh.
In
West
Pakistan
regional
and
disintegrative
trends
are
still
at
work;
its survival
or
ultimate
disintegration
cannot be assessed at this
stage.
Whatever
happens
to
Pakistan vast Muslim
population areas would remain, including Bangladesh, which survives at the
pleasure
of
India;
and
with
them the
Muslim
presence
in
the
subcontinent
is
likely
to
continue in the
foreseeable future.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
52
M. Anwarul
Haq,
The
Faith Movement
of
Mawldnd Muhammad
Iylds
(London,
1972).
53
Abid
Husain,
op.
cit., p.
I34.