Lecture and Explanation, Reading to be covered:
Momin, A. R., 1977, The Indo-Islamic Tradition, in Sociological Bulletin, Vol. 26, No. 2, September, pp. 242-258
Keywords: Islamic Tradition, Islam in India, Sufi, Ajlaf, Ashraf, Ashrafization and De-Ashrafization, Pasmanda, Caste System in Indian Muslim,
The University of Delhi, Bachelor of Arts, Sociology of India
 |
| The Indo-Islamic Tradition by AR. Momin (Sociological Bulletin, 1977) Image Credit pexels-konevi-2236674 |
This article is describing the relationship between Hindu and Muslim as well as how cultural assimilation has changed both Hindu and Muslim.
#What-is #CULTURAL-ASSIMILATION Find-Here https://www.britannica.com/topic/assimilation-society
The Article is emphasizing on the cultural exchange between Hindu and Muslim. The cultural exchange has also happened naturally because most of the Muslims have not come from the outside rather they converted from Hindu or those who use to live in India.
In simple words, the majority of Muslims are those who converted to Islam.
When they were converted into Islam they also brought some Indian culture, custom, rules, gender and caste relations to Islam. Both Hindu and Muslim living together therefore Hindus are also learned from Islam. These things have resulted from a new culture in India.
The article is heavily emphasized the caste system in India, among both Hindu and Muslim.
In general, it is believed that the caste system only exists in Hinduism, but this not true. However, we also must not forget that the caste system in Islam is gone from Hinduism, after conversion.
Even after the conversion Muslim didn’t leave their caste identity. Hindus are converted into Islam with their caste identity.
It means Hindus retain their caste identity in Islam also. Therefore we can find the caste system in Islam in India just like among Hindus.
However, this is also important that those who come from the outside (of India) believed that their social position is above the native Indian, inclosing those who converted into Islam irrespective of their previous caste identity in Hindu.
Most of them are converted into Islam because of the message of peace of Islam, not by force.
The article is also talking about the origin of the language of Urdu. Most people, in general, thinks that Urdu is belonging and originated from Islam, but Urdu is an Indian language with a Persian script.
Let’s go through the article:
Pg. 242
The Islamic conquest of India was accomplished in the second decade of the eighth century with the fall of Sind and its cultural integration with the Muslim empire.
After the establishment of the Muslim empire, a large number of people are converted to Islam.
A small number of these conversions were motivated by the desire and the possibility of change in social status through state employment and patronage.
Some conversions were also held by force but that was an exception.
These conversions were held because the Islamic message of peace, equality, and universal human brotherhood was the immense appeal to those sections of Indian society which were groaning under the oppressive weight of the caste system.
Sufis thoughts were also appealed to the oppressor. This conquered their heats with the power of under standard, compassion, and humanity.
When they converted to Islam they also brought their faith, ancestral beliefs and practice, their occupational hierarchy, and their caste consciousness.
All these played an important role in the indigenization of Islam.
The Sufis especially of the Chishtiya Order were the first among the Muslim intellectual elite to interact closely with the Hindu.
Pg. 243
The Sufis has an attitude of tolerance and understanding towards Hindu and Hinduism. The Sufi ideal of service to humanity as the essence of faith held a tremendous attraction for the masses. They also learned the local languages and conversed with people in their own dialect.
These helped in removing the barriers of caste, class and creed. The Bhakti Movement was also played a role to come Hindu Muslim together. And all these things made Sufi acceptable to the common people.
THE INDO-ISLAMI TRADITION
In this section, the author has discussed Robert Redfield’s concept of Little Tradition and Great Tradition.
Little Tradition: consists of folk, unwritten, regional customs and features
Great Tradition: consists of philosophic-literary articulation and reflection of the elite groups.
Robert Redfield also acknowledges that there is a constant interaction between the two traditions
In the Indian context, this is very hard to formulate culture within these two categories.
Therefore, S. C. Dube has offered a six-fold classification of traditions. They are
1) The Classical
2) The Regional Tradition
3) The Local Tradition
4) The Western Tradition
5) The Emergent National tradition
6) The Sub-cultural traditions of Special Groups
Pg. 244
S. C. Dube is saying that this framework of classification has the merit of being applicable in a comprehensive manner to all sections of the Indian population. However, these classifications don’t include the Muslim (identity and structure as per A. R. Momin).
From the Islamic perspective
Little Tradition is – Folk customs, rituals and institutions – which are not indigenous to the Islamic faith like caste
Great Tradition is – Religion and philosophical views of the Sufis, as well as in a certain composites style of art and music, literature and architecture
For the author besides the Muslim mystics, the Muslim kings also played a significant role in the evolution of the Indo-Islamic tradition.
The Indo-Islamic Little Tradition
The author is saying that the Indian Muslim keep practising their pre-conversion day’s culture and beliefs. This is against Islamic great traditions.
For example, those converted from local to Islam are still attached to their caste hierarchy and stratification.
Even they still use to practice the Hindu rituals including going to the temple.
Pg. 245
Imtiaz Ahmad concludes by saying that the customs and rituals observed by the Muslim communities at the time of marriage are the adaptation of the customs and rituals observed by the Hindus within the region.
The features of the caste system is existing in Indian Islam just like a Hindu, like endogamy, occupational specialization, status hierarchy, and belief in ritual purity and pollution.
The difference of Caste System Among Hindu and Muslim
Hinduism ideological sanction or justification of status inequalities based on birth. However, in fact, the egalitarian ideology of Islam is opposed to the notion of a preordained hierarchy which is the backbone of caste.
According to Imtiaz Ahmad, The overall conclusion, therefore, is that there exist a system of caste among Indian Muslim but it differs from the Hindu model in certain crucial respects. The existence of this system is due to the acculturative influence of the surrounding Hindu environment.
The caste-like notion can be also traced to Islam in History. The Arab historian-philosopher, Ibn Khaldun, has noted that the people of pre-Islamic Arab were overly conscious of superiority based on birth and descent.
Pg. 246
When Muslims are coming to India they too very conscious about their racial supremacy. They did not like the idea of appointing the local Muslims in high civil and military posts. Similarly, those who converted into Islam from the Hindu upper-caste tried to maintain the same hierarchy.
Indigenization of Muslim
For the author, the question of the existence of caste among Indian Muslims is also related to the process of indigenization. This is reflected in immigration and settlement.
Pg. 247
Ashrafization and De-Ashrafization
Ashrafization in Islam = Sanskritization in Hindu
De-Ashrafization in Islam = De-Sanskritization in Hindu
The Imperial Gazetteer of India (1907) mentioned the division of Muslim communities in India into Ashraf and Ajlaf.
Ashraf – this includes four ethnic groups of foreign extraction: - Sayyid, Shaikh, Mughal, Pathan, they are just like a Hindu Upper Caste in Islam, plus those who converted from the Hindu Upper Caste also considering themselves Upper Caste in Islam.
Watch Salman Khan here
https://twitter.com/StudyWithAnil/status/1371717410479251459
Ajlaf – Artisan and service castes among Islam, were mainly low caste Hindu who was converged Indian Muslim. Their position in Islam is the same as they were in Hindu.
Those who converted from the upper caste Hindu to Islam also claim to be higher status in Islam, like upper caste Islam
After getting economic upliftment the Low Caste Indian Muslim is started calling themselves an Upper Caste Muslim – found by Zarina Ahmad
Some castes, which are converted from Hinduism, have claimed foreign ancestry.
PLEASE NOTE: most of the Mulsim leaders in Indian Politics are coming from the upper caste Muslim.
Pasmanda Muslim
Ali Anwar, former Member of Parliament (MP) from Janata Dal United (JDU) coined the new term for the Backward Muslim a “Pasmanda Muslim.”
Ali Anwar in 1996, won the KK Birla Foundation fellowship for journalism to study the lives of Dalit and backward caste Muslims in Bihar. This reporting led to a book titled “Masavat ki Jang” (Fight for Equality). This book gave new identity and strength to the Backward Caste Muslim in India.
Pg. 248
What is de-Ashrafization of Indian Islam (De-Sankritisation)
This is similar to the concept of de-Sanskritization given by Majumdar (1958). It indicates a tendency among the high caste Muslim to adopt the customs and features of the traditionally low caste groups which have become economically and politically dominant. It is also found the marital relationship also.
Pg. 249
Muslim endogamous blradari (fraternal community)
Westernization among Indian Muslim
The industrialization has transformed the economic structure and life of the Muslim
Pg. 250
The new economic (as well as social) conditioned have forced Ashraf category Indian Muslim to adopt the lowly occupations
However, some scholars have noted that the Ashraf-Ajlaf dichotomy into which the Indian Muslim population is supposed, does not offer a realistic and adequate picture of status gradations and caste distinctions among the Muslim at the regional level.
Pg. 251
Imtiaz Ahmad (1966) has observed that this dichotomy is comparable to the varna system among the Hindu. However, the Ashraf-Ajlaf categories do not constitute meaningful units of distinction for the study of social stratification among Indian Muslims.
However Indian Muslim to have the idea of hierarchy even among the Ashraf, for example, the Shaikh who would rank below the Sayyids according to the traditional hierarch, occupy a position equal to the Rajput Muslim. This phenomenon existing in Indian Islam as same as Indian Hindu.
Like Hindu caste endogamy the Ashraf do not marry their daughter to the Ajlaf.
The Indo-Islamic Great Tradition
The interaction between Islam and Hinduism also found expression in
Pg. 252
… certain religious views and philosophical reflections, as well as in art and music, literature and architecture, all of which had a synthetic and syncretic flavour. This aspect of the Hindu-Muslim culture confluence comprises the Indo-Islamic Great Tradition.
When the Mongols destroyed the Islamic cultural centres of Central and Western Asia in the middle of the 13th century, a large number of poets scholars and artists migrated to Muslim India. In India, it was the pluralistic and syncretic atmosphere that the poetry of Amir Khusrau and a composite style of music and architecture developed. The Sufis and their disciples looked at the Indian Great Tradition with sympathetic eyes. One of the most forceful expressions of the Indo-Islamic Great Tradition is to be found in the development of a composite style if Indian music.
Pg. 253
Another embodiment of the Indo-Islamic Great Tradition is the Urdu languages.
Islamization
The process of syncretism and synthesis which was encouraged by the Sufis was not always a smooth affair.
There was a reaction from the fundamentalist Ulema. They were also thought this is un-Islamic practice, and therefore they were against it.
Pg. 254
For another fundamentalist, this was the Hinduisation of Islam.
Tableegh Movement
The Ahl-i-Hadith movement, which emerged in the 19th century, and the Tableegh movement, which originated during the early part of the 20th century, were opposed to all innovations (bida) and regarded then as antithetical to the spirit of Islam.
Some Muslim drop customs and features that are held to be un-Islamic.
And, there was also a historical process in which many Hindu communities and castes borrowed cultural features of the Muslim like dress, food habit and custom.
Pg. 254-55
READ 2nd Paragraph, this is like Sanskritisation among Indin Muslim.
Conclusion
The caste system is existing in Islam just like Indian Hinduism. However, the basic difference between Hindu Caste System and Indian Muslim Caste System is that like Hinduism Islam does not accept or justify making difference between its followers.
Just like Hindu Upper Caste Indian Muslim have Ashraf and just like Hindu Lower Caste Indian Muslim have Ajlaf or Pasmand Muslim.
Lecture, Study Material, and More
Keep Visiting ~ Stay Curious
){kind=link}
0 Comments