The Naqshbandi/Saifiyya Battle for Islamic Tradition
Kenneth Lizzio
Senior Democracy Advisor USAID/Indonesia
Islam, they say, is a stumbling block to the progress of the state;This story was not known before and now it is the fashion.Forgetting our religious loyalty in all our affairsFollowing Frankish ideas is now the fashion
.— Ziya Pasha
T
he Islamic world after 1850 underwent a profound crisis — socially, culturally politically, and economically — as a result of contact with the West. In most cases, contact occurred through colonization, although
a few Islamic governments had themselves introduced modern reforms as a means of holding colonial powers at bay.
Whatever the vehicle of change, in the Asian sub-continent Islamic responses to modernity were as diverse as they were divisive. Some religious leaders called for a return to “origins” through Islamic texts, an idea that mutated into a puritanical scripturalism in certain quarters. Others attempted to adapt Islam to Western values and institutions, an approach that has come to be known as “political Islam.” But, as Rex O’Fahey has observed of the Moroccan saint Ahmad ibn Idris’s (d. 1837) response to French colonialism, in addition to rejectionist (reformist) and accomodationist (Islamist) approaches to Western influence, there is a third group of Muslim leaders who are simply “ignorers” of the West.
1
This approach has also been called “traditionalist” or “revivalist.” While traditionalism may benefit technologically and economically from Western improvements, it seeks to remain culturally and politically uninformed and unchanged by Western values and institutions.
This article examines each of these strategies — revival, rejection, and accommodation — as they were employed by different branches of Naqshbandi/Mujaddidi Sufis in response to the advent of modernism first in the Asian sub-continent and later in Afghanistan. It will also examine the consequences each approach had for their adherents and their teachings
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in particular. Naqshbandis who adopted reformist approaches — whether rejectionist or accomodationist — paradoxically ended up capitulating to the very processes they sought to resist. Specifically, the decision by lineal Mujaddidi Sufis to reform the positive heritage accumulated over the first ten centuries of Islam by adopting modern social and political roles led to a loss of their spiritual function as initiating shaikhs. In the case of one major order, however, the Naqshbandiyya/Mujaddidiyya/Saifiyya, led by Pir Saifur Rahman, the traditionalist or revivalist approach has been key to maintaining its original identity as a mystical order. Revivalism has enabled the Saifiyya to avert what Weber referred to as the “routinization of charisma,” a process thought (quite mistakenly) to be inevitable over time. This article also shows how social, geographical, and historical differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan have shaped identities and further sharpened fault lines between the largely Afghan Saifiyya and Pakistani reform groups. It is in Saifur Rahman’s opposition to these groups and vigorous defense of his position that his own identity comes through.
Revival and Reform
Since the Prophet’s death in 632, there have periodically been dynamic responses within Islam to conditions created by political or social change or a perceived decline in the moral status of the Islamic community. As John Voll notes, generally these responses have taken two forms: revival and reform.
2
Each form has its own historical genesis, sociopolitical environment, and conceptual frame of reference. Of course, revival and reform are not in themselves mutually exclusive options or approaches, though typically their adherents regard them as such.
Revivalism denotes a type of Islamic movement that emerged in the pre-modern period in response to
internal
developments within the community. The idea derives from a Prophetic utterance that on the eve of every century God will send to the community an individual (or individuals) to renew its religion. Revivalism signifies an affirmation of the fundamental principles of Islam in accordance with the Qur
’a
n, sunna, and four schools of law, the cornerstones of Sunni Islam.
3
Whether the concern is the community’s moral decline and/or changes in the social and political structure, it entails no major reformulation of the teachings.
4
Rather, it is simply a renewal of practices that have fallen into disuse. The idea of regeneration is contained in the term itself:
tajd
i
d
, renewal (or
i
h
y
a
”
al-sunna
)
.
The person who renews Islam in this sense is a
mujaddid
. John Esposito notes:
Pre-modern revivalism was primarily a response from within Islam to the internal socio-moral decline of the community . . . In contrast to later Islamic modernism, pre-modern revivalism simply sought to restore and
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implement an existing ideal, not to reformulate or reconstruct new Islamic responses to modern change.
5
However, revivalism does not imply a static or unbending approach to change. As Voll points out, in addition to the continuities in revivalism, there are “some significant reformulations which give the . . . movements a distinctive intellectual action and framework.”
6
In contrast to the
tajd
i
d
is
i
s
l
ah
, or reform. The term
i
s
l
ah
appears frequently in the Qur
’a
n, and refers to striving for the moral perfection of individuals.
7
As Voll notes, “
i
s
l
ah
is directly related to the task of the long line of God’s messengers whose works are described in the Qur
’a
n . . . those who work for
i
s
l
ah
the
mu
s
li
hu
n
, are frequently praised in the Qur
’a
n, and they are described as being engaged in the work of God.”
8
In its early application,
i
s
l
ah
represented a total allegiance to Prophetic tradition and a rejection of Sufism as innovation. In the modern period,
i
s
l
ah
refers to urban-based reform movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that arose in reaction to European expansion. As O’Fahey notes, these movements, called the “Salafiyya” (the righteous), are urban products of a colonial or quasi-colonial environment that look outwardly against the West.
9
Although
i
s
l
ah
also advocates a return to first principles of the Qur
’a
n and Sunna, in practice it involves a reformulation of Sunni teachings accumulated during the first ten centuries of Islam. What makes reform possible is the reformers’ rejection of the four schools of law. They criticize Muslims who practice
taql
i
d
for their blind adherence to antiquated practices. To deal effectively with the new challenges facing the Islamic community, reformers emphasize the need for
ijtih
ad or individual interpretation of the Qur’an and sunna, provided one has sufficient education to do so. As A. Murad points out:
In their attempt to reform Muslim educational and legal systems and religious practice, the supporters of islah were well aware that they were attacking the traditional structures of society, yet they felt it was essentially to renovate these structures so that a new much-needed social and cultural dynamism should be given to the community . . . Nevertheless, neither the traditionalist Sunnis nor the members of the brotherhoods were disposed to recognize the legitimacy of their efforts.10
Indeed, as Murad observes, insofar as reformers seek to effect social change, arguments put forth by reformers sound less a moral and spiritual note than a socio-cultural one. In sum, while both taqlid and islah aim at reform of the Islamic community, taqlid effects it through an affirmation of the Sunni Islamic heritage; islah, by contrast, advocates modification of the heritage itself.11 In Morocco and Indonesia, the Asian sub-continent, and just about everywhere else in the Islamic world, reform meant returning to the sacred
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texts, the Qur’an, hadith and shari‘a as the only acceptable bases of religious authority, a practice Clifford Geertz has aptly called “scripturalism.”
Roots of Revival on the Sub-Continent and Afghanistan: the Naqshbandiyya/Mujaddidiyya
In seventeenth-century India, Muslim adoption of popular Hindu practices was threatening Islam with complete dissolution. To counter the threat, a Naqshbandi shaikh, Sayyid Ahmad al-Sirhindi (d. 1642), undertook a far-reaching intellectual and spiritual revival movement.12 Enacting the Naqshbandi principle of khalwa dar anjuman, Sirhindi undertook a crusade for the restoration of Sunni mystical Islam.13 On the basis of his own spiritual experiences, Sirhindi claimed to have rediscovered that the true mystic path lay in strict adherence to Islamic law and the exemplary behavior of the Prophet.14 These norms were encoded not only in the Qur’an and hadith but in the other major components of the Sunni mystical tradition: law, theology, philosophy, and especially mysticism. In Sirhindi’s view, shari‘a and tariqa formed aspects of a single synthesis, though he clearly valued the inner, essential aspect of the shari‘a above its outward or formal one.15
Sirhindi’s reaffirmation of the primacy of the Qur’an and sunna in Sufi doctrine and practice, a synthesis of shari‘a and †ariqa that al-Ghazali had accomplished in the twelfth century, was partially successful in cleansing Islam of Hindu influence. For this Sirhindi earned the title of “Mujaddid “Alf al-Thani” or “Renewer of the Second Millennium.” Significantly, he appeared at the end of a cycle of spiritual decline that lasted almost a thousand years. Sirhindi was thus a renewer not merely of the century but of the millennium. For this reason, in the eyes of adherents his appearance assumes the magnitude of prophethood. Although, strictly speaking, Sirhindi cannot be called a prophet, “prophetic perfections” were bestowed on him. Yohanan Friedmann observes that with the advent of Sirhindi, “the perfections regained their splendor to such an extent that the millennial period is barely distinguishable from the prophetic one. The religious situation has been changed for the better, and the Day of Judgment has been postponed again.”16 So important is Sirhindi to the thought and practice of the Mujaddidiyya/Saifiyya order today that it would not be an exaggeration to say that he occupies a place in it second only to the Prophet himself. Aziz Ahmad sums up his legacy thus:
There is no doubt his writings and his influence checked the process of Indian Islam’s disintegration into syncretic heresies. . . . But, on the other hand, his easy victory . . . gave to Indian Islam the rigid and conservative stamp it bears today. In a way, he was the pioneer of what modern Islam is today in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent — isolationist, self-
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confident, conservative, deeply conscious of the need of a reformation but distrustful of innovations, accepting speculation in theory but dreading it in practice, and insular in its contact with other civilizations.17
Sirhindi’s practice of dispatching khalifas back to their native regions to carry on his missionary work led to the implantation of the Naqshbandi/Mujaddidi teaching in Afghanistan. Fourteen of the twenty khalifas he designated were from Afghanistan and Central Asia.18 Sirhindi’s third son and successor, Ghulam Muhammad Ma‘sum (d. 1668), greatly accelerated its diffusion by designating over seven thousand khalifas. Many of these khalifas were from Afghanistan and returned home to conduct missionary work.19 The order’s strict observation of the shari‘a and the absence of a major institutional center of Islamic learning in Afghanistan helped mitigate potential opposition from the non-Sufi ‘ulama.20 The rapid spread of the Mujaddidiyya is also attributable to the order’s revitalized spirituality, one of Sirhindi’s most enduring legacies. In time, the Mujaddidi branch supplanted rival Naqshbandiyya turuq, becoming the most widespread and influential order in Afghanistan.
Lineal Mujaddidis (see Fig. 1) were quick to establish close ties to King Ahmad Shah Abdali (r.1747–1772), the founder of the Afghan state. When his son Timur (r.1772–1793) moved the capital to Kabul, he granted the family land and a residence in the Shur Bazaar district of the city. There the Mujaddidis set up a khanaqah and madrasa; its pir would henceforth be known as the Hazrat (lord) of Shur Bazaar. Despite the family’s close proximity to the royal court, the Mujaddidis played little direct role in political life in the nineteenth century, content to remain apart from government so long as the interests of Islam were not threatened. Indeed, Asta Olesen notes that during this period, “one may assume that the Hazrats had devoted themselves exclusively to the spiritual aspects of pirhood.”21
Direct Mujaddidi involvement in political affairs began during King Amanullah’s reign (1919–1929). Initially, Fazl Muhammad, Shams al-Mashayakh, had enjoyed close personal relations with the King. He had presided over the Amir’s coronation ceremony. Later Shams and his younger brother, Nur al-Mashayakh, enlisted tribal support for the Amir’s jihad against the British. In return Amanullah rewarded the family with several thousand acres of land in the Koh-i Daman region north of Kabul.
The radical secular nature of the King’s later reforms eventually led the Mujaddidis to turn against him. In the ensuing struggle, many religious leaders rallied with the tribes around a Persian-speaking Tajik, Baccha-i Saqqao, “son of a watercarrier.” Baccha had been something of a Robin Hood in his home region of Shamali, Koh-i Daman, robbing highway caravans and distributing the booty to the poor.22 Baccha seized the throne in January 1929 but his rule was short-lived. When he began to imprison some of the Mujaddidi leaders
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over differences with them, Shams al-Haq and the acting Hazrat withdrew their support, precipitating his downfall a year later.
Baccha’s brief reign signifies much more than an anomalous episode in traditional Afghan politics, as some historians believe.23 Olivier Roy points out that the appearance of Baccha represents an underlying structure of ‘ulama and Sufi brotherhoods within Afghan society.24 Usually politically quietist, they have surfaced twice in the twentieth century — in 1929 and again in 1978–79
Figure 1. Genealogy of the Naqshbandiyya/Mujaddidiyya in Afghanistan2
1 Olesen notes from this point the silsila for the Mujaddidi family does not correspond to others,suggesting rivalry over succession may have already begun.2 Mujaddidi family interview by author, Peshawar, 5 May 1997; Balkhi, Tarikh-i awliya”, 138.
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— in response to direct threats to the Islamic order.25 Indeed, when Baccha seized the throne, it was his father’s Naqshbandi pir, Shams al-Haq Kohistani Mujaddidi (d. 1930), who recognized his rule with the customary tying of a cloth belt (kamerband) around Baccha’s waist.26 Baccha may also have been Kohistani’s murid.27 Shams endowed him with the religious title Khadm-i Din-i Rasullah, “servant of the religion of the Prophet,” and Baccha took the title of Amir (not King). While historians may never reach a consensus on the significance of the movement, from the Afghan perspective, the power of the tribes had been harnessed to overthrow Amanullah’s reforms and restore the shari‘a.28 It represents the perfect realization — if only momentary — of Islam’s triumph over foreign influence.
Shams al-Haq was a direct descendant of Sirhindi and a pir from a rural branch of the family. (He was also the murshid of Saifur Rahman’s first teacher, Shah Rasul Taloqani.) Like many Naqshbandi pirs, Shams had a strong aversion to contact with the government and other modern forms of political activity.29 He was antagonistic toward Amanullah’s government because of its anti-religious policies but, apart from his investiture of Baccha, he did not actively oppose it. Shams’s coronation of Baccha is emblematic of his lineage’s attitude toward the emerging secular state: Only when the existence of Islam (and by extension mystical Islam) is in jeopardy must a religious leader assume an explicitly oppositional role vis-à-vis the state. Otherwise, its shaikhs have consistently followed a policy of political neutrality.
Under Nadir Khan (r.1929–1933) a modus vivendi was reached between religious leaders and the government that effectively removed Islam as a subject of debate for the next three decades.30 The more conservative religious elements in the country, as well as Naqshbandi shaikhs, were mollified that after Amanullah no leader attempted to enact reforms that would have jeopardized the role of Islam in society.
Reformism in Afghanistan: Political IslamBy the late 1950s, however, the persistent trend toward secularization led
some religious figures, including members of the Mujaddidi family, to adopt an entirely new tactic to preserve the interests of Islam: Islamism or political Islam. The Islamist movement began in Afghanistan in 1958 in the Faculty of Theology at Kabul University. Its teachers had studied at Al-Azhar in Cairo, where they came into contact with the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin).31 Islamism is a modern term for a modern phenomenon: the attempt to define Islam as a political ideology in line with the major ideologies of the twentieth century. The concept of Islamism derives chiefly from the ideas of two Egyptian thinkers, Sayyid Qu†b (d. 1966) and Hassan al-Banna’ (d. 1949), the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Islamists represented an entirely new generation of religious leaders in Afghanistan. Whereas traditional Afghan ‘ulama were educated in the private Deoband and Brelwi madrasas of the sub-continent. Islamists were products of state madrasas. Their roots lay not in the old, private religious networks but in the modern sectors of society. They also owed more to the intellectual ferment of Egypt than to the revival or even the reform movements of the sub-continent. Their Western orientation is reflected in the term they used to describe themselves: not “alim but roshanfikr or a new (i.e., Western) kind of intellectual, as Roy notes.32
Echoing the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood, Afghan Islamists advocated a form of Islam based on the political ideologies of the West. They rejected as ineffectual the revivalist approach that relies mainly on traditional religious education to counter Western influence. While some Islamists are sympathetic to Sufism, they believe that the political quietism and religious conservatism of the shaikhs are themselves obstacles to modernization. Islamists thus represented an abrupt departure from traditional Afghan society.
A leading Islamist in Afghanistan has been Sebghatullah Mujaddidi, the current head of the lineal branch of the Naqshbandis. Like other Islamists, he studied Islamic law at al-Azhar. Since 1952 he has been active in the Islamist movement in Afghanistan to the detriment of his role in the Naqshbandiyya †ariqa.33 He does not claim to be a pir, and admits that Nur (d. 1956) was the last real pir in his family (even though Nur’s successor, Muhammad Ibrahim, is widely viewed as having been the last pir).34
Olesen is among a number of scholars who speculate that Sebghatullah’s activities are an expression of “radical Islamic tendencies,” which resulted in a division within the family. While previous Hazrats of Shur Bazaar epitomized mystical Sunni Islam, Sebghatullah endorses reformist Islam in the form of the modern political party.35 Whoever the last pir was, might not Sebghatullah’s failure to succeed that pir be viewed as a consequence of the very secular influences he struggled against?36 After Nur, but certainly after Ibrahim’s assassination in 1979, no one in the family line was able to serve as the embodiment of the silsila’s baraka passed down for centuries from shaikh to disciple. Another consequence of the Mujaddidi family’s intense involvement in national politics was its rupture from some of the northern Naqshbandi branches. While the family insists it represents all of the Naqshbandis in Afghanistan, the Saifiyya reject this claim.
Reform in Pakistan: Panj PirsWhile Afghanistan remained insulated from reformist impulses in the
nineteenth century, the sub-continent was undergoing a profound social upheaval.37 The crisis began with the collapse of the Mughal dynasty and the
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rise of the British. The imposition of British imperial rule led to a devastating loss of power among ‘ulama and Sufis alike. There was also continued dilution of Islam by popular Hindu practices. Prescriptions for restoring Islam invariably called for a return to the pristine age of the Prophet and the original period of revelation. Of course, what this meant in terms of doctrine and practice meant different things to different people. Nonetheless, the central question concerned the extent to which the Sunni heritage should be modified to accommodate the unprecedented challenges facing the community.38
It was a Naqshbandi/Mujaddidi shaikh, Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762), who spearheaded reform in the Asian sub-continent. Despite being a spiritual heir of Sirhindi, Wali Allah nonetheless sought limited reform of the old traditions. He believed that since the four schools of law were based on legal decisions formulated during the first three centuries after the Prophet, they were prone to error.39 From his studies in the Hijaz, Wali Allah brought back an emphasis on written hadith as a means of more precisely determining Islamic norms. Although he did not reject taqlid entirely, he accorded primacy to hadith over fiqh. His aim was to reconcile various opposing groups in Islam, including the four schools of law.40 To accomplish this, he re-opened the gates of ijtihad only to those, it is important to note, capable of exercising sound legal judgment.
A century later, Wali Allah’s emphasis on hadith made its way into the influential Deoband Seminary in India. Deoband had been established by ‘ulama and Naqshbandis in 1867 in the wake of the devastating British victory in the Great Rebellion of 1857.41 Deoband sought to restore an Islam in disarray by disseminating correct knowledge of Sunni doctrine and practice. It eschewed politics — even opposition to colonialism — and dedicated itself to educational and scholarly activities. Barbara Metcalf writes that, between 1860 and 1900, many ‘ulama pursued:
a strategy of turning within, eschewing for the time all concern with the organization of the state and relations with other communities. Their sole concern was to pursue the religious heritage . . . and to disseminate instruction in authentic religious practice and belief. They sought to be and to create in others personalities that embodied Islam. To this end, they preached, wrote, offered legal opinions and acted as spiritual guides to their followers.42
A fundamental aspect of this heritage was Sirhindi’s synthesis of shari‘a and †ariqa:
The effectiveness of the Deobandis was judged to rest in their synthesis of the two main streams of the Islamic tradition, that of intellectual learning and that of spiritual experience. They themselves understood this unity of shariat (the Law) and tariqat (the Path) to be firmly within
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the bonds of Islamic orthodoxy, for they took the Law and the Path to be not opposed but complimentary.43
Despite Deoband’s debt to Sirhindi, there are indications that early on there were ideological differences within the seminary over the importance of hadith.44 For less than twenty-five years after Deoband’s establishment, the emphasis on hadith had crystallized into a distinct movement. Two of Deoband’s leading students, Siddiq Hassan Khan (d. 1890) and Maulana Nazir Hussain (d. 1902), founded a reform movement, the Ahl-i Hadith. Both men at one time had been Naqshbandis whose families had been brought into the reformist milieu by Wali Allah.45 Largely a reaction to the persistence of polytheistic and animistic practices in Islam, the Ahl-i Hadith denied the validity of the schools of law and also rejected philosophy and theology.46 Endorsing ijtihad, they believed every Muslim is free to arrive at his own interpretation of the Qur’an and sunna provided he or she had sufficient education to do so. To achieve its reform mission, the Ahl-i Hadith built an extensive network of madrasas to teach the Qur’an and sunna to the exclusion of other sources of Islamic law and thought.
In addition to their advocacy of ijtihad, from the start the two men exhibited a marked ambivalence to Sufism. Siddiq was a Naqshbandi, though he believed Sufism to be a private matter. He also disapproved of the pir-murid relationship (rabi†a) (practiced in a highly devotional form in the Punjab) and held worship at tombs to be un-Islamic. Hussain, who helped establish the movement in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), also included Sufism in his teachings. However, the movement as a whole rejected Sufi esoteric interpretations of the Qur’an and sunna, as well as mystic claims to possession of hidden knowledge (“ilm al-ghaib).47
In its emphasis on a single standard of interpretation based exclusively on the Qur’an and hadith, the movement became more rigid with time and the passing of generations.48 All three of Nazir Hussain’s leading students omitted Sufism from their teachings. One of Hussain’s students, Maulana Tahir, was instrumental in spreading the movement in the NWFP in the twentieth century. In the NWFP the Ahl-i Hadith is commonly known as Panj Pir, the name of Tahir’s native village.49 It is deeply ironic that the Ahl-i Hadith, which today vehemently opposes Sufism, is called Panj Pir. For the name of Tahir’s native village commemorates five such pirs, underscoring the esteem villagers held at one time for Sufi shaikhs.
After partition in 1947, the growth of Panj Pir schools paralleled the rapid spread of Deoband madrasas in the NWFP and Baluchistan.50 But while Deoband schools tend to be rural, the Ahl-i Hadith are stronger in the modern commercial centers, especially in the northern Punjab and Karachi. Panj Pir
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efforts to spread their teaching in Pakistan’s tribal areas initially met with resistance.51 The somewhat xenophobic Pathan tribes systematically persecuted them, often razing their homes in tribal uprisings (lashkar). Buoyed by reformist zeal and Saudi financing, however, Panj Pirs persisted and today make up roughly ten percent of the population of the NWFP.52 There are about two hundred Panj Pir madrasas in the province, each with 500 to 2,000 students.53 One of Tahir’s student’s, Sayyid Da’ruf, heads a madrasa in the NWFP outside Peshawar. It is a large well-appointed facility, atypical for private madrasas in the region.
Like other reform movements, the Panj Pirs regard the pir-disciple relationship as a form of polytheism (shirk) and a superstitious vestige of the past. They openly criticize Saifur Rahman as being a “magician” who wields a kind of hypnotic power over gullible individuals so as to enrich himself. They also reject Sufi claims to hidden knowledge (“ilm al-ghaib), maintaining such knowledge is reserved for God alone. It a strange irony of history that Wali Allah’s attempt to unify the Islamic community had over time produced the very opposite effect. As reformers came to rely increasingly on scriptural norms to define Islamic identity, the approach mutated into a full-blown scripturalist movement that rejects Sufism, deeply dividing Muslims in the sub-continent.54
The Revivalist Movement of the Mujaddidiyya/SaifiyyaAs mentioned earlier, the Mujadddidiyya/Saifiyya order today had been
a branch of lineal Mujaddidis up to the time of Shams ul-Haq Kohistani. After Kohistani, there is a rupture between the Mujaddidi family and the lineage of Pir Saifur Rahman from whom the current branch takes its name.
Born in 1928 in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan, Saifur Rahman comes from a long line of Afghan religious scholars or akhunzada. His father was an ‘alim and Sufi of the Qadiri order, the predominant order in the tribal area. Saifur received his formative and advanced religious education in Pakistan’s NWFP. In the early 1950s, following completion of compulsory military service, he moved to Kunduz Province in northern Afghanistan where he opened a mosque. It was in Kunduz ten years later where he met his first spiritual teacher in the Naqshbandi order, Shah Rasul Taloqani. He later took initiation in Afghanistan’s other three orders: Qadiri, Suhwaradi, and Chishti. Until the late 1970s, he lived in northern Afghanistan, a stronghold of Naqashbandis, though he acquired disciples from all parts of the country by virtue of his baraka. Whether by accident or design, being based in the northern areas put the order outside the reach of a historically weak but increasingly secular central government.
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In the late 1970s, the Communist government of Nur Muhammad Taraki, seeking to blunt opposition to its sweeping social and economic reforms, embarked on a campaign of outright extermination of Sufis. In late summer of 1978, Saifur Rahman received a tip that he was about to be arrested and fled to the NWFP. He then joined many tribal and religious leaders in declaring jihad against the government and one year later against the Soviets. After several moves around the NWFP occasioned chiefly by controversy over the startling effects of his baraka on disciples, he eventually settled in the tribal area of Pakistan where he is now based.
Whether for reasons of personal style or age, Saifur Rahman rarely leaves his khanaqah, preferring to receive disciples from all parts of the region and, in some cases, the world. As an initiating sheikh, he conducts daily séances of dhikr with disciples — male and female alike, though in separate quarters — and delights in the display of divine energy or baraka that is daily evident in his lodge. The transmission of baraka from shaikh to disciple early in the disciple’s career is a hallmark of Mujaddidi Sufism. Sirhindi called this indiraj-i nihaya dar bidaya (“inclusion of the end in the beginning”), which aims to provide the disciple a taste (dhawq) of spiritual experience at the outset of apprenticeship as a motivation to spiritual practice. Typically, disciples often manifest this sudden spiritual awakening by involuntary shaking, weeping, or even laughing. The increasing number of disciples coming to the khanaqah is as much testimony to the power of his baraka as it is to the dwindling number of mystics following the Taraki-Soviet pogrom of Sufis in Afghanistan.
What explains the spiritual power of this branch of the Naqshbandiyya/ Mujaddidiyya? To begin with, in contrast to the activism of the Mujaddidi family, the branch of Saifur Rahman has held steadfastly to a policy of non-involvement in modern forms of political activity. Such political detachment is particularly striking in view of the Naqshbandi principle of khalwa dar anjuman, which enjoins Naqshbandis to exercise influence among rulers in order to create conditions that prevailed during the original umma of the Prophet’s time. It was successfully invoked by Sirhindi to revive an Islam on the brink of extinction. It also served as a mandate for political action by the Mujaddidi family in Afghanistan but — and this is the crucial difference — in an entirely non-traditional, i.e., modern context. Explanation for the Saifiyya branch’s departure from this practice thus lay in the radically changed political and social contexts of the modern period. Prior to and during Sirhindi’s time, the imperial state was Islamic and the authority of Naqshbandi shaikhs was generally recognized by its leaders. By contrast, as an evolving Western construct, the state in twentieth-century Afghanistan is alien to Saifur Rahman’s conception of the state whereby religion informs all aspects of life conceived as an integral whole. He therefore sees its bifurcation into secular and religious
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spheres as illegitimate. Saifur Rahman’s refusal to engage the state or its institutions is a refusal to accept the state’s claim to moral authority over the individual, for that authority ultimately comes from God alone.55 For his part, Saifur Rahman regards Islamists as a product of the West, not as an authentic Islamic defense against it. Islamism is a very capitulation to the West in social, cultural, and political terms. From the Pir’s perspective, the success of the traditionalist approach in safeguarding mystical life is confirmed by the radical mutation accomodationists such as Islamists have undergone in attempting to counter the West. In an effort to incorporate a place for Islam within the modern state, lineal Mujaddidis relinquished the defining characteristic of their teaching: the ability to provide individuals direct access to the transcendent, which is the quintessential function of pirhood.
Just as reform movements in Afghanistan provide a foil for understanding Saifur Rahman’s conception of his role vis-à-vis the modern state, his clash with Pakistani reform movements illustrates how he conceives of his role vis-à-vis modern society. The Pir’s approach is informed by both Sirhindi’s revivalism and his perception of the crisis affecting Islam in the region. During most of the nineteenth century, the Islamic community was more homogeneous than it is today. The British presence actually strengthened Muslim solidarity, as fault lines came to be drawn between Muslims and non-Muslims, not among Muslims themselves.56 In the late twentieth century, it is not colonizers but chiefly the proliferation of Muslim reform groups that threatens to undermine the integrity of traditional Sunni teachings.
As Voll and Levtzion note, one of the central themes of revival is the call to judge existing society:
The mission of renewal involves an act of judgment which identifies existing practices and faith of Muslims as not being in accord with the original pure form of Islam. Essentially, this involves the act of identifying a person, group, or institution as being ‘unbelieving’ or kafir.57
In a recent article in one of Pakistan’s Urdu newspapers, for example, a Panj Pir journalist accused Saifur Rahman of being “a false prophet.” In another incident, a khalifa of Saifur Rahman in Lahore, Hajji Abdul Ghaffur, had sent documents to a printing firm containing references to Saifur as qayyum and qutb (saviour and pole of the universe). The documents came to the attention of a Panj Pir journalist there, Fazal Rahim, writing under the pen-name, “Shari‘a Yar” (friend of the shari‘a) for an Afghan weekly newspaper, Surat.58 In a series of articles, Rahim vilified Saifur Rahman for appropriating some of the ninety-nine names of Allah to describe himself, an act he deemed blasphemous. Rahim argued that, as God’s active attributes, such terms as
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al-karim (the generous) and al-rahim (the merciful) are reserved exclusively for God alone. (He seems to have conveniently ignored the fact that his own name was Rahim.)
Saifur Rahman responded to these charges in a book published in Urdu on Islamic faith, Fatwa-i Saifiyya.59 In Fatwa, he explains the terms he uses to emphasize his subordinate relationship to the transcendent:
When I write to someone in Arabic, I sign my name ‘al-faqir [the poor] Saifur Rahman.’ And if I write it in Pashtu or Persian, I write ‘faqir Saifur Rahman.’ I am a poor slave (banda) of Allah.60
Time and again, he points out that God’s active attributes are nonetheless qualities shared with humans:
One of Allah’s names is haqq (right). But it is used in relation to many things, in many ways. For example, we say, “he is right, it is your right to do so, the right of a wife, of a husband, and so on. If Wahabis and Panj Pirs think it is shirk to share these qualities and characteristics [of God], then there would not remain a single Muslim on earth from Adam up to the present time.61
In Kataghan and Badakhshan and Turkmenistan, even in Afghanistan’s eight northern provinces, each head of a village is called arbab. So the people say that he is the arbab of this or that village. In Nangrahar, Kunar, Laghman, Paktia, and throughout Pakistan the head of a village is called malik, which is also the qualification of Allah.62
The Pir’s tone is one of moral outrage as he lashes out at the author of these attacks on him:
I hear that Shari‘a Yar’s original name is Fazal Rahim Karim and that Shari‘a Yar is his title. He is either a jealous Wahabi, Panj Piri, or related to another perverted sect, or he is ignorant and uneducated. He does not understand or does not want to understand.63
According to a hadith of Muhammad, peace be upon him, to call a person an infidel who is not an infidel but a Muslim, then the accuser himself becomes an infidel. These groups are the enemies of Sufis because they deny the miracles (karamat) of the saints (‘awliya ’).64
In responding to the charge that his claim to possess hidden knowledge is blasphemous, the Pir attempts to turn his critic’s logic on itself:
On the one hand he (Shari‘a Yar) says that “ilm al-ghaib belongs only to Allah and anyone who claims it is an infidel. Yet on the other he himself employs “ilm al-ghaib for he has not seen me nor the person who had commissioned the printing of this card. Neither I nor Hajji Abdul Ghaffur has told him about our beliefs. Until you have not seen bad, it is better to think good about one of the faithful (mu”min). Heed the words of Rumi’s Mathnavi:
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Abandon wrong thinkingO’ bad thinkerBad thinking is to be called a sinAs backbiting is like eatingThe flesh of a human beingSixty years have passedBut you are still satisfied with it.
In support of his argument, the Pir draws heavily from Rumi’s epic poem and other texts of Sunni mystical Islam, in particular the Qur’an, hadith, Hanafi fiqh, and Sirhindi’s Maktubat. In his writings and in interviews with journalists, Saifur Rahman condemns as kafir virtually all Muslims not in general accord with the exoteric teachings of the Mujaddid.65
In defending Sufism against reform groups, the Pir also enacts a form of jihad, jihad al-da“wa. An educational form of struggle, it involves an effort to spread Islam among unbelievers by peaceful means, usually in speech or writing.66 Related to this is jihad al-tarbiyya, the spread of Muslim values and institutions within Islamic society as a struggle against corruption and decadence.67 Just as Sirhindi had done three centuries ago, Saifur Rahman dispatches his disciples to engage his critics in debate in mosques and more modern fora, such as on the radio.
The Pir also concurs with fatawi condemning these movements. In these religious edicts, the Pir restricts himself to those issues that concern belief, ritual or personal behavior, and ignores conduct of state. According to Barbara Metcalf, this approach has been the traditional one in the sub-continent.68 In his struggle with sectarian groups, Saifur Rahman maintains that he takes no side, not even with the Deoband school in which he studied. He characterizes his position strictly in Sunni revivalist terms: “I am an imitator of Hanafi in law ( fiqh), a follower of Maturidi in opinions (iman), and of Sirhindi in mysticism (tassawuf ).”69
As some of the mosques in the vicinity of the khanaqah are Panj Pir, the conflict is waged on an institutional level as well. One of the Pir’s khalifas described the relationship with neighboring mosques as “a cold war” in which each tried to drown out the other’s sermons with loudspeakers. In 1996 fearing they were on the brink of jihad, tribal leaders intervened and succeeded in defusing tensions. The Pir, however, continues to broadcast the Thursday evening ceremonies (dhikr) in which the disciples’ ecstatic utterances and praise of the Pir can be heard from a half-mile away. He also broadcasts the Friday sermon (khu†ba) and the calls to prayer. Despite these periodic flare-ups, the conflict is nonetheless restrained. Both sides are heavily armed and acutely aware that any violence could quickly escalate out of control.
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In the Pir’s view, there can be not the slightest tolerance of reformist ideas, for that would invite an insidious dilution of the teachings.70 While showing tolerance toward laxness in matters of practice, he makes no allowance for those who oppose or threaten to alter traditional Sunni teachings:
The learned of the Ahl-i Sunna are united with regard to the person whose actions are to be called non-Muslim. The person with ninety-nine percent the actions of a non-Muslim and only one percent of those of a Muslim, then that person should be called a believer. But Khwarijis, Panj Pirs, and Wahabis with only one-percent of the work of a non-Muslim is an unbeliever (kafir) . . . Allah save us from them.71
Even though he endorses taqlid, in order to make allowance both for Sufi practices and modern change, he employs Sirhindi’s distinction between good innovation (bid “a-i hasana) and sinful innovation (bid “a-i saiyia):
Though its origin cannot be found in the Qur’an, hadith, or fiqh, it (bid “a-i hasana) is not against the sunna. For instance, wearing a large turban, eating bread made of filtered flour, constructing tombs to saints, studying math, chemistry, philosophy or medicine, there are so many, but the learning of these subjects is not prohibited or sinful. Imam Rabbani (Sirhindi), may God bless him, has merely said that none of bid “a-i hasana is enlightening.
Given the Pir’s fastidious adherence to tradition, it is not surprising that he resists siding with other Sufi shaikhs if he deems that they, too, are at variance with the precepts of Sunni Islam. In one fatwa, for example, he rejected the fatwa of the late Golra Sharif (d. 1997), a prominent Sufi in Rawalpindi, prohibiting a female of a sayyid family from marrying outside of it. He has also described to local journalists Maulana Sufi Muhammad’s militant tariqa as “a bad tariqa.”72
Because of its relative isolation, Afghanistan remained for a long time immune to the crises that spawned so many reform movements in the Indian sub-continent. Nor did reform movements make inroads into Afghanistan until the 1950s. Thus, while reform leaders were trying to cope with the welter of problems besetting Islam in the sub-continent — British colonialism, Hinduism, saint worship — Saifur Rahman’s spiritual antecedents remained insulated from these perturbations. Even when change did come to Afghanistan in the form of an increasingly secular government, the lineage remained largely unaffected. Based in the semi-rural north, the order lay beyond the reach of a weak state. Moreover, the state’s two grand efforts at modern reform — in 1929 and 1978 — were poorly planned, and they quickly faltered in the face of religious and tribal opposition. Consequently, until the
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1950s, the order simply did not have to struggle with the myriad political, social, and cultural transformations that Pakistani society faced. There was no challenge to the traditional order from without, and it remained free to pursue mystical education in the centuries-old manner. Geographical isolation allowed it to endure but modernity has inevitably changed the political landscape with the emergence of the modern state and consequent Islamic reform. That such an approach did not entail complete political withdrawal is evidenced by the militant Naqshbandi response to the national crises of 1928 and 1978.
For his part, even though Saifur Rahman refuses to adapt the teaching to modern forms of political expression, he nonetheless plays an important social role in the discourse on reform of Islam. Equally concerned with addressing the perceived decline of Islam since the eighteenth century, he maintains that the correct response to modern change is to ignore it and to seek refuge within a Sunni mystical tradition renewed by Sirhindi three centuries ago. For their part, the Saifiyya believe the very idea of adapting Islam to modern political structures contains the seeds of Islam’s demise. Paradoxically, the outcome is not a victory for “true” Islamic norms and values but a triumph for its adversaries. For this reason, Saifur Rahman draws the fault lines sharply between his conception of Islam and that of modern reformers. They are outside the pale of traditional Islam, or kafir.
To refer to the Pir’s approach as “revivalist” is misleading, however, as it implies a cycle of degeneration and renewal that does not apply to the Saifiyya order. For the Saifiyya has retained uninterrupted its centuries-old identity and function as spiritual educators. Rather, revivalism is a specific socio-historical approach for dealing with change in the external environment.
If we are not to view traditionalism in terms of some static and timeless religious realm, what then changes? To begin with, the Saifiyya order no longer enjoys the prestige or influence it once did with rulers. It is alienated from a world it sees as encroaching all around it and which it can do nothing to hold back. As Olivier Roy has observed, traditionalism can never provide the basis for a coherent political program. It is “riddled with nostalgia and clings to an imaginary timeless realm under attack from pernicious modernity.” Thus, it entails a lessened political role for Saifur Rahman in Afghanistan until such time, if ever, that a perceived shari‘a government is restored in the country. Another change has been that Saifur Rahman has been forced to retreat from the relatively modern sectors of society, increasingly to rural areas, first in the north of Afghanistan and later to Pakistan’s tribal area. Perhaps, most importantly, he has also altered his mystical teaching style to answer the bewildering number of competing groups in Islam: he dispenses baraka unconditionally to visitors to his lodge as a means of communicating directly
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and non-discursively the divine reality at the heart of Islam, an act that lends the Saifiyya its distinct intellectual action and framework.
In flight for over twenty years from turmoil in Afghanistan and hemmed in on all sides by hostile reform groups in Pakistan, Saifur Rahman adheres faithfully to the revival model provided by Sirhindi. He will continue to do what he has done before and through all the years of his country’s vicissitudes: to pray, preach, be a moral exemplar and guide, and most importantly, serve as a living fount of grace to his disciples. Meanwhile, the world outside the khanaqah becomes more tumultuous, the Islamic community more divided, as each group attempts to impose its brand of Islam with ever-greater force.
Endnotes1. Rex O’Fahey, Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisiyya Tradition
(London: Hurst & Co., 1990), 5.2. John O. Voll, “Renewal and Reform in Islamic History: Tajdid and Islah,” in Voices
of Resurgent Islam, ed. John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 32–47. For a further treatment of these concepts, see John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
3. Naqshbandi Sufism views itself in full accord with Sunni Islam, its mysticism being a deeper apprehension of Sunni precepts. Nonetheless, many Sunni ‘ulama reject Sufism on antinomian grounds. The tension between such ‘ulama and Sufis is periodically reconciled by outstanding religious leaders on grounds of doctrinal compatibility. In fact, the reconciliation between the strictly legal (shari‘a) and mystical (†ariqa) aspects of Sunni Islam is often one of the special achievements of revival leaders (mujaddid ). Perhaps, the most renowned mujaddid was the mystic-theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111).
4. There is little consensus among scholars as to whether ijtihad forms a necessary component of revivalism and a precise typology of revival and reform movements has yet to be formulated. Both Esposito and Voll maintain that revivalists advocate ijtihad as a means of radical reform of the community. However, as this article shows, in the sub-continent it was precisely ijtihad, which opened the way to alteration of Sirhindi’s teachings. In law Sirhindi adhered to the Hanafi school. In the Mujaddid ’s conception of Sunni Islam, one is enjoined to follow one of the mujtahids for they are sound guides to better understanding of the Qur’an and the sunna. The better the imitation (i.e., of the mujtahids), the better the revival mission accomplished.
5. John L. Esposito, Islam and Politics (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984), 32, 35.
6. John O. Voll, “The Revivalist Heritage,” in The Contemporary Islamic Revival: A Critical Survey and Bibliography, ed. Gary E. Gorman (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 27.
7. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v. “Islah.”8. John Voll, “Renewal and Reform in Islamic History,” 33.9. O’Fahey, Enigmatic Saint, 25.10. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v. “Islah.”11. Despite his succinct discussion of revivalism and reform, John Voll tends to use
the two terms in a confusing manner, as do many scholars. Drawing from Fazlur Rahman’s spurious characterization of revival movements as “neo-Sufism,” Voll states that revivalist movements such as the †ariqa Muhammadiyya (of which the Mujaddidiyya is one)
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represent “a new emphasis on the role of the Prophet as a model for moral conduct . . . the reformed [my ital.] †uruq . . . maintained a positive attitude toward direct involvement in the affairs of this world instead of a more mystical, otherworldly orientation.” To the contrary, Naqshbandi emphasis on the Prophetic model pre-dates Sirhindi as does its involvement in worldly affairs. See Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam, ed. John O. Voll and Nehemia Levtzion (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 9–10.
12. The single best study of Sirhindi’s life and work is by Yohanan Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi: An Outline of His Thought and a Study of His Image in the Eyes of Posterity (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1971).
13. While the term literally means “solitude in a crowd” it enjoins adherents to engage in political activity for the moral improvement of society. Sirhindi’s Maktubat, a collection of 536 letters to the members of the royal court, other influential individuals, and his disciples, forms the canon of his revival teachings.
14. Indeed, a later Naqshbandi, Mir Dard (d. 1785), would call this path †ariqa Muhammadiyya.
15. Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, 48.16. Yohanan Friedmann, “The Idea of Religious Renewal (Tajdid ),” in Prophecy
Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 100–101.
17. Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 189.
18. Three of his leading Afghan shaikhs were Maulana Ahmad (d. 1617), Shaikh Yusuf (d. 1624–25), and Shaikh Hassan, all of whom had originally come from Bark south of Kabul, returning there as Sirhindi’s khalifas in the early seventeenth century. Shaikh Hassan was particularly active in eradicating religious innovation in the Kabul-Qandahar region. Other khalifas went to Balkh, Kabul, Badakhshan, Kohistan, Laghman, Ghorband, and Logar. Asta Olesen, Islam and Politics in Afghanistan (London: Curzon Press, 1995), 48.
19. For a discussion of Sirhindi’s khalifas, see Sayyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India (New Delhi: Munshiram, 1978), 2: 223–240.
20. David Edwards, “Charismatic Leadership and Political Process in Afghanistan,” Central Asian Survey, 5 (1986): 274.
21. Asta Olesen, Islam and Politics, 163.22. Ibid., 172.23. Olesen, for example, calls it, “yet another case of social banditry in the
‘Hobsbawmian’ sense.” Islam and Politics, 149. Leon Poullada saw little of religious significance in the entire affair, citing tribal conflicts as the chief underlying dynamic. Leon B. Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919–1929 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973).
24. Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 66.
25. Residents of Shamali had earlier played a significant role against British incursions into Afghanistan during the second Anglo-Afghan war (1879–80). Two Naqshbandi shaikhs, Mir Majedi and his brother Mir Darvish, led attacks on the British cantonment in Kabul. Baccha’s own father had taken part in these hostilities.
26. There is some disagreement as to who crowned Baccha king. The version provided by a Mujaddidi family historian essentially agrees with Edwards’s assertion that it was Shams al-Haq. The Mujaddidi family, interview by author, 5 May 1997. See also Edwards, “Charismatic Leadership,” 298. Roy, on the other hand, says the investiture was performed by Hamidullah Khan Akhundzade, the Pir of Tagao. Roy, Islam and Resistance, 67.
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27. Klaus Jakel, “Reform und Reaktion im Afghanistan,” Mardom Nameh 3 (February 1977): 39. The Mujaddidi family, however, disputes the assertion that Baccha was a Sufi.
28. Despite recognition by a Mujaddidi shaikh, as a Tajik Baccha was unacceptable to the numerically and politically dominant Pathan tribes. Baccha attempted to win their support by appealing to Nur al-Mashayakh. Nur, however, who was in Lahore during the entire period of unrest, was neutral toward Baccha, perhaps aware that a Tajik usurper would have little staying power. Ostensibly, Nur was biding his time until he could identify a more durable successor to Amanullah.
29. Afqar ‘Aibadila, Darrat al-bayan (N.p., 1992), 144–146.30. By establishing a national organization of ‘ulama, the government had been able
to co-opt many religious leaders.31. For a useful typology of the various forms of Islamism, see William E. Shepard,
“Islam and Ideology: Towards a Typology,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 19 (1987): 307–335.
32. Roy, Islam and Resistance, 43.33. When he returned from al-Azhar to Kabul in 1952, Sebghatullah refused offers of
government jobs. He chose instead to maintain the authority of Islam among the young by teaching at the government Habibiyya Lyceum. Accused of conspiracy in 1959, he was imprisoned for four and a half years by the Daoud government. Upon his release, he was exiled to Egypt. In 1972, to counter the growing influence of the Communists in Afghanistan, he founded a political party, the Jami‘at-i Islami. The following year he went to Denmark where he established several mosques in various parts of the country. After the Communist coup in 1978, he went to Peshawar where he established a new party, the National Liberation Front. From 1989 to 1992, he served as President of the Afghan Interim Government. Today he resides in Peshawar, where he plays a leading role in the current negotiations for a settlement to the civil war.
34. Insofar as Sebghatullah is the son of Nur’s brother, Muhammad Ma‘sum, Sebghatullah’s political activities may also have been an expression of rivalry for leadership within the family.
35. Olesen, Islam and Politics, 234.36. For this reason, Roy writes, “contradictory influences are at work within the
Mujaddidi family. They are linked to the royalist establishment but view the Westernization of the country’s customs and legislation with distaste; they are wealthy, but stand outside the capitalist forms of development; they occupy official posts, but they form part of the political opposition; they are conservative, but are also linked to certain radical currents (political Islamism) within Islam.” Roy, Islam and Resistance, 43.
37. Later Afghan Kings would perceive a threat to the socio-political order posed by so-called “Wahabi” doctrines emanating from Pakistan. To thwart their advance, they commissioned religious leaders to write pamphlets against them. Amir ‘Abd al-Rahman (r.1880–1901) supervised a groups of thirteen ‘ulama to compose a treatise refuting Wahabi doctrine and setting forth the principles of Hanafi law. See Christine Noelle, “The Anti-Wahabi Reaction in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan,” Muslim World 85 ( January–April 1995): 23–48. It was not until the 1950s that Panj Pirs made any inroads into the country as a result of the rapid growth of Ahl-i Hadith madrasas in the NWFP after partition where increasingly young, Pashtu-speaking Afghans studied. See Olivier Roy, Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1995), 82.
38. Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 5–6.
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39. Muhammad Daud Rahbar, “Shah Wali Allah and Ijtihad,” The Muslim World 45 (October 1955): 346–358. In mystical philosophy, too, Wali Allah deviated from the Mujaddid, believing the wujudi position, or “oneness of being” to be legitimate.
40. Noelle, Christine. “The Anti-Wahabi Reaction in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan.” The Muslim World 85, no. 1–2 ( January–April 1995): 23–48.
41. Two of its founders, Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi (d. 1877) and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (d. 1905), were disciples of the third, Imdad Allah (d. 1899). See Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 174–175.
42. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 11–12.43. Ibid., 139. In contrast to Wali Allah, Deoband was strictly Hanafi in law. In
theology, its ‘ulama generally followed the Ash’ari school.44. See also Barbara Metcalf, “The Madrasa at Deoband: A Model for Religious
Education in Modern India,” Modern Asian Studies 12, no. 1 (February 1978): 111–134.45. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 275–276.46. The appearance of the Ahl-i Hadith as well as another reform movement, the
Tabligh-i Jama‘at, can be linked to the corruption of Sufism in the Punjab in the nineteenth century. There the pirs lacked personal piety, their authority having derived from the shrines of their ancestors. Because of their considerable local influence, Muslim states were quick to harness the shrine-based pirs to the power of the state with offers of land, offices, and honors. The British established similar ties to these pirs as a way of establishing control over the rural areas. See David Gilmartin, Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 45–49. For a detailed study of the politicization of pirs during the colonial period, see Sarah F. D. Ansari, Sufis, Saints and State Power: The Pirs of Sind, 1843–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
47. Fazlur Rahman calls the Ahl-i Hadith “a right-wing extreme of Deoband” when, in fact, it represents an abrupt departure from original Deoband doctrine. See Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 41–42.
48. Bruce Lawrence points out that the appearance of new sects typically occurs with generational changes in leadership. See Bruce B. Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age (1989; reprint, Columbia: South Carolina, 1995), 118.
49. Although Panj Pirs are not directly related to the Wahabis, the hadith-based reform movement that took hold in the Arabian Peninsula in the eighteenth century, Pakistanis make little distinction between that reform movement and those of the sub-continent, referring to them collectively as “Wahabi.”
50. Many scholars tend to conflate these two groups, which themselves clearly distinguish between one another.
51. Jamal Malik erroneously believes they have no ambitions to spread into the NWFP. See Jamal Malik, “Dynamics among Traditional Religious Scholars and Their Institutions in Contemporary South Asia,” The Muslim World 87 ( July–October 1997): 199–219.
52. This estimate is based on conversations with religious scholars at Peshawar University and local Panj Pir leaders.
53. Sayyid Abdul Salaam al-Da’ruf, interview with author, 23 April 1997.54. David Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, 61.55. For this reason, within the sphere of Pakistani politics today, Saifur Rahman
confines his remarks to the religiosity of particular politicians. In an interview with a journalist in May 1996, for example, he bluntly described the head of the Awami National Party of Pakistan, Abdul Ghaffur Khan, and all of the party’s members as kafir. He has also publicly stated that Pakistan’s President and all government officials are legally bound by
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the precepts of Islam to accept his religious authority. “The False Prophet Has Entered the NWFP,” Shahafat (Islamabad), 23 May 1996, 1.
56. In his study of Mujaddidi Shaikh Shah Abu al-Khair of Delhi, Warren Fusfeld notes, “while the role of a Sufi shaikh is to lead Muslims closer to God and to produce in them the qualities which will make them better Muslims, Abu’l Khair stressed those aspects of Islamic behavior which led to an increasing awareness of the unity of the Muslim community and the intrinsic solidarity of all Muslims. Warren Fusfeld, “Naqshbandi Sufism and Reformist Islam,” in Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Ideology, ed. Bruce B. Lawrence (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984).
57. Voll and Levtzion, Eighteenth-Century Renewal, 25.58. Surat (Lahore), 6 September 1986. The paper is now defunct.59. Saifur Rahman, Fatwa-i Saifiyya (N.p., n.d.).60. Ibid., 3.61. Ibid., 28.62. Ibid., 39–40.63. Ibid., 36.64. Ibid., 18.65. Shahafat, “The False Prophet,” 1.66. For a discussion of the various forms of jihad in an Afghan context, see M. Nasif
Shahrani, “Marxist Revolution and Islamic Resistance,” in Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan, ed. M. Nasif Shahrani and Robert L. Canfield (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1984), 2–57.
67. Ibid.68. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 148.69. Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 944) was a Hanafi jurist and founder of one of the two
Sunni schools of theology that bears his name. His theology is associated with the Hanafi legal school. Maturidi’s doctrine is more rationalist that the other school of theology, Ash‘arism. He believed that man is obliged and able to gain knowledge of God and to thank Him by using reason independent of revelation. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v. “al-Maturidi.”
70. Compare Saifur Rahman’s aggressive defense against his critics with the conciliatory approach of Egyptian Shaikh Muhammad Zaki Ibrahim in Johansen, Sufism and Islamic Reform in Egypt.
71. Rahman, Fatwa, 20.72. In November 1994, Maulana Sufi Muhammad, leader of the Nifaz-i Islam, led an
uprising in Swat, Malakand Agency against government attempts to replace local law with uniform civil codes. He demanded the restoration of Islamic law. Eventually, the government suppressed the uprising in which both tribal and government forces were killed. For more details, see Edwards, Heroes of the Age, 221–223.
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