Publisher: Oxford University Press, New Delhi
Year: 2001
Pages: 271
Price: Rs.595
ISBN: 019565520-6
The Muslims of Bengal, including the present-day state of
Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, form the single
largest Muslim ethnic group in the world after the Arabs. This book,
a collection of ten essays, seeks to provide a broad overview of the
Bengali Muslim identity. Although each of the essays deals with a
particular aspect of Islam in Bengal, they all seek to grapple with
what, for many Bengali Muslims, has seemed an almost insoluble
dilemma -- whether they are Bengalis first or Muslims, and how their
ethnic loyalties can be reconciled with the demands of a faith that
transcends national boundaries. Little is known about how the Bengal
countryside, particularly the eastern part of the province, located
far from the centers of Muslim political rule, emerged as the home to
the largest number of Muslims in the South Asian sub-continent.
Richard Eaton, in his brilliantly researched essay, explores the
fascinating process of the Islamization of the people of eastern
Bengal, a process that he believes began in the sixteenth century. He
writes that conversion to Islam was actually discouraged by the
Mughal governors of the province, but, despite this opposition, large
masses of Bengalis turned Muslim. Relying on hagiographies of local
Sufi saints and Mughal land records, he argues that the process of
Islamization in Bengal must be seen as, above all, a result of the
agrarian policy of the Mughals. Mughal governors, eager to augment
their revenues from the land, provided rent-free land grants to both
Hindus as well as Muslims to cut down the dense forests in the
eastern parts of the province and bring them under settled
cultivation. The Muslim pioneers in this region employed local,
largely aboriginal tribal people, as cultivators on the new lands.
After their deaths they began being revered as saints, being
attributed with supernatural powers. Gradually, these aboriginal
people were Islamized, a process that did not reject previously-held
beliefs directly, but accommodated Islamic elements within pre-
existing cosmologies. Hence, conversion to Islam in eastern Bengal,
as indeed in many other parts of India, took the form of an extended
process of cultural change over several generations, rather than a
sudden and complete change in identity, beliefs and allegiances.
Because of the nature of the process of Islamization in Bengal, the
Bengali Muslims continue to share much in terms of world-views,
beliefs and practices with non-Muslim Bengalis, a phenomenon which
Ralph Nichols observes in his paper on Islam and Vaishnavism in rural
Bengal. While many ulema and Muslim reformers see this shared
tradition as a sign of incomplete conversion or as `unlawful
innovation' (bid`at), Nichols seems to suggest that it was actually
through developing this shared tradition that Islam was able to make
headway in Bengal in the first instance, successfully expressing
itself in terms which the Bengali peasants would find understandable.
Peter Bertocci examines, in his contribution, the way in which rural
Bengali Muslims understand their faith in precisely these local
terms, drawing close parallels between institutions and identities
that both Bengali Muslims and Hindus construct their own social
worlds.
The local Bengali expression of Islam (a term I deliberately use
in place of the more commonly used expression Bengali Islam) is not a
static, unchanging phenomenon, however. From the eighteen century
onwards, reformers and radicals have been active in Bengal, seeking
to purge the Bengali form of Islam of what are seen as `un-Islamic
accretions', seeking to bring it in line with a shari`ah-centric
scripturalist understanding of Islam. Muhammad Shah's paper looks at
this process of reform in the context of the Khilafat movement in the
early years of the twentieth century, arguing that one of the
principal aims of the Bengali activists in the movement to protect
the Ottoman Khilafat was to reform the Bengali Muslim tradition,
bringing it closer to a shari`ah-centred understanding of Islam as
defined by the reformist ulema. Yet, the Khilafatists were not alone
in seeking to redefine the ways in which the Bengali Muslims
understood their faith at this time. Sonia Amin, in her paper on
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein, the pioneer of Bengali Muslim women's
education, and Shahadat Khan, in his article on the reformist and
anti-colonial activist Kazi Abdul Wadud, show how a different agenda
for the Bengali Muslims was also being articulated at this time,
centred on issues of modern education, women's rights and inter-
communal harmony. Despite the efforts of reformists, whether ulema or
modern, western-educated Muslims, the Bengali Muslims have been
unable, the book suggests, to comfortably reconcile their twin
identities: as Bengalis, on the one hand, and as Muslims on the
other. Joseph O'Connell discusses the ways in which Bengali Muslim
self-identity has undergone radical shifts in the course of the
previous century. Pitted against the Hindu `upper' caste bhadralok,
Bengali Muslims enthusiastically supported the cause for the separate
Muslim state of Pakistan, stressing their religious identity over
their ethnic identity. Yet, not long after the creation of Pakistan,
a strong movement based on a sense of a separate Bengali identity,
pitted against what was seen as the oppressive West
Pakistani `Other', emerged, galvanizing itself as a mass movement
that ultimately succeeded in creating the basis of the new state of
Bangladesh. O'Connell contends that torn apart as the Bangladeshis
are between their Islamic and Bengali identities, a new understanding
of national identity must be articulated, one based on humanism, not
shunning religion altogether, but drawing inspiration from humanist
strands in the various different religions that are practiced in the
country. This calls for a redefinition of what it means to be a
Bangladeshi Muslim today, seeking to express Islam in a manner that
takes into account modern sensibilities on issues related to
pluralism, democracy, human rights, and the rights of women and
religious minorities. This is a point also made by Shelly Feldman in
her paper on gender and Islam. The process may not be smooth,
however. As Enayatur Rahim shows in his brilliantly argued piece on
the Jama`at-i-Islami in Bangladesh, hostility to ethnic aspirations
and local identities, and an unwillingness to reflect and redefine
perspectives in the face of new situations on the part of influential
Islamist groups in the country do not help make matters simpler for
this task of developing new visions of religion. Overall, this book
excels as an overview of the social history of the Bengal Muslims.
The scant attention paid to the Muslims of West Bengal and the
Bengali-speaking Muslims of Assam and Tripura, and the silence on the
Tablighi Jama`at, easily the single largest Islamic movement in
Bangladesh and on the contemporary Bengali ulama are, however,
unfortunate. But, perhaps, that can be left for another book.
The article is taken from the follwing website:-
http://www.renaissance.com.pk/main.html
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