New scholarship on religion and reform: Part - I

Despite a general apathy – or even despondency – about falling academic standards in Pakistan, some relatively young researchers and writers have made their mark in academic circles in the country. From Ali Raza and Ammar Ali Jan to Aasim Sajjad Akhtar and Ali Usman Qasmi (all beginning with an A), there is a new crop of intellectuals who have contributed to our understanding of history and society.

Ali Usman Qasmi stands out with his three books: ‘Questioning the Authority of the Past: The Ahl al-Quran Movements in the Punjab’ (Oxford University Press, 2011), The Ahmadis and the politics of religious exclusion in Pakistan (Anthem Press, 2014), and his latest contribution ‘Qaum, Mulk, Saltanat: Citizenship and National Belonging’ (Ilqa Publications, 2023). These books are a testimony to Qasmi’s dedication to top-notch academic work and his impeccable scholarship that have enabled him to emerge as a writer of considerable repute in South Asia. No library in Pakistan should ignore these marvellous tomes.

Let’s begin with his first book, ‘Questioning the Authority of the Past’. Islamic reform movements in South Asia have attracted the attention of researchers for a long time but not all have had their adequate share. The Ahl al-Quran movement has been a neglected area for academics, and Qasmi tries to fill the gap by paying due attention to it. The intellectual history of Islamic reform movements has been enriched by Qasmi’s work and while dealing with Ahl al-Quran he adopts a disinterested approach to comprehending this interesting movement that traces its roots to the so-called ‘nachury’ (naturist) circle of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan of the 19th century.

Both conceptually and intellectually, the study of Ahl al-Quran that Qasmi conducted appears to be a seminal work of its nature. Many scholars of Islam have simply discounted and even dismissed Ahl al-Quran followers as having no substance. Of course, it is one of the dogmas that have surfaced in the past couple of hundred years and has spawned numerous schools of thought from Ahl al-Hadees and Ahmadis to Barelvis and Deobandis. Most of the scholars belonging to one dogma tend to misread the major works of another and end up stirring dislike and even hatred towards other dogmas.

As Qasmi points out, Ahl al-Quran was not a single unified movement believing in one dogma, rather it was a set of disparate movements that originated during the late 19th century in various parts of India, mostly concentrated in northern parts of the Indian subcontinent. Qasmi locates the early thoughts of Ahl al-Quran in the articles and essays of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and takes his readers through the sermons and speeches by Maulwi Abdullah Chakralwi, Khwaja Ahmad-ud-din Amritsari and Ghulam Ahmed Parwez. These scholars appear to advocate for the centrality of the Holy Quran, espousing an unflinching adherence to its tenets.

Of course, all Muslims believe that the Quran is a Divine text whereas the significance of other texts varies in different schools of thought. Ahl al-Quran stressed that the Quran is the only Divine text that is central and occupies the sole distinction of being at the centre of all inferences of religious doctrines. Hadees literature is not uniform and not all sects of Islam adhere to the same books and there have been many questions related to the authenticity of books that contain such traditions attributed to a plethora of sources.

If the authority of such sources is unquestionable in one sect, another may raise doubts about their worth and veracity. The Ahl al-Quran were the ones who raised such questions and did not consider many books held in high esteem by different sects as trustworthy. To many Ahl al-Quran scholars, such books had lost their relevance in the modern world. Qasmi highlights that these scholars dissected classical works of exegesis and jurisprudential compendiums while others disliked their curiosity to question old texts that many held in high esteem.

The Ahl al-Quran were more interested in creating a discursive space so that they could dispel the impression that their religion was incompatible with the modern world. These impressions have been around for centuries but became more pronounced in the 20th and 21st centuries. Now all religions have to be tolerant of each other and project a more egalitarian outlook if they want to remain relevant and appear less conservative and more progressive in spirit. All religions have various versions and so does Islam and the version Ahl al-Quran presented has its own peculiarities.

Islamic modernism is not a new term and Qasmi is adept at unravelling this term with all its intricacies. He discusses in detail how the Ahl al-Quran – despite being in meagre numbers – were able to influence the politics of Pakistan up to the 1960s, especially during the Ayub Khan era from 1958 to 1969. In the 1960s, they informed the religious worldview of many Muslim bureaucrats – both civil and military – and appeared in consonance with modern sensibilities. Qasmi defines the purpose of his study as follows: “to locate, within the historical context of British Punjab and later independent Pakistan, the origins of the various Ahl al-Quran movements…”

Regarding the beginning of this movement, he elaborates: “It should be noted that Ahl al-Quran has been used as a generic term in the present study. Since the Ahl al-Quran refers to more of a reformist religious discourse rather than a group assembled under a single banner or a monolithic religious doctrine, no precise date can be given for their origin nor can any individual be credited for establishing it single-handedly.”

The introduction of the book itself spans 30 pages and gives a detailed review of the literature. The study has seven chapters with chapter two providing a historical survey of the various Sunni Muslim groups that emerged during the latter half of the 19th century. It helps in the contextualisation of their theological affiliations and backgrounds while the contestations about the religious traditions of these groups have also been covered. The most informative and instructive chapters are from three to six offering an extensive assessment of the emerging trends that Sayyid Ahmad Khan spearheaded.

Qasmi highlights that S A Khan and Muhammad Abduh of Egypt made attempts to write ‘rational commentaries’ of sacred texts making them in tune with the impact of colonialism, modernity and the findings of the ongoing scientific developments. They gave a fresh look to sacred texts, and tried to reconcile dogma with modern intellectual attitudes and relocated the authority of the texts through a process of interpretation in which history came to be of marginal significance.

Sayyid Ahmad Khan called for a rationalistic scrutiny of all extra material that was not part of the sacred texts. He discouraged the acceptance of such materials simply based on their chains of transmission. S A Khan inspired a more radical and revisionist approach among scholars who came to be known as the Ahl al-Quran in the 20th century. In chapter four, Qasmi probes the history of the shift from a paradigm from the traditions to absolute reliance on Quranic texts for religious guidance as Maulwi Abdullah Chakralwi propounded in the early 20th century.

Qasmi manages to give detailed historical and political context of late 19th and early 20th century Punjab. He argues that during that period inter-religious polemics – mostly among Muslims, Christians and Arya Samjis – presented disputative binaries of authentic versus inauthentic sacred texts. The book also discusses the controversies that such religious polemics of various religious scholars generated. Qasmi pays special attention to the ideas of Khwaja Ahmad-ud-din Amritsari to project Islam as a universal religion. On the basis of textual analysis, the writer argues that Amritsari’s projection of Islam as a universal religion had as its fulcrum the emphasising of the universally humanist teachings of Islam.

Finally, the book also discusses scholars and writers such as Aslam Jayrajpuri, Jafar Shah Phulwarwi, Tamanna Imadi, and Parwez who had a close association with the Ayub Khan regime and helped in the formulation of new family laws the good general enforced in the 1960s and helped Pakistani women in navigating their marriage and divorce issues.

To be continued

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK. He tweets/posts @NaazirMahmood and can be reached at: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk