Islamic Society In Modern World Aftermath of the Colonial Period

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1981

Indian Muslims have always been keenly aware of the differences between their own communal group and the Hindus on the one hand, and between themselves and the Christian foreigners on the other. This awareness of a separate Muslim identity was much stronger at the level of the elite, however, than at the level of the masses. At times, these feelings erupted into calls for jihad against the British, for example, the Wahabi and Fraizia movements. They also manifested themselves in the creation of religious schools, like Deoband, to preserve the Muslim way of life. Finally they emerged as the reformist Aligarh Movement to promote modern education, reinterpret the teachings of Islam, and secure the rights of Muslims as a minority community. In the early twentieth century, various attempts were made to forge a united front with the Hindus for an India independent of Great Britain. These attempts met with repeated failure.

John Breuilly, ed., The Oxford Handbook on the History of Nationalism

The period under consideration was one of profound political, ethnographic, and ideological transformation in the Middle East. The centralizing policies and Turkishnationalist agenda of the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (Young Turks) in the years following the Ottoman Empire's 1908 Revolution led to tensions with sociopolitical elites in the empire's Arabic-speaking regions. Ottomans' entry into the First World War was the occasion for the organization of the Armenian Genocide, while the Greco-Turkish conflict of the early 1920s culminated in the massive transfer of Muslim and GreekOrthodox populations between Greece and Turkey. Ottomans' defeat in the First World War also led to the partition of the Arab Middle East between Britain and France under the cover of League of Nations mandates. Britain's Balfour Declaration created a framework for the resumption and acceleration of Jewish immigration to, and land purchase in, Palestine under the auspices of the Zionist movement. With the disappearance of the Ottomans' pan-Islamic and supra-national framework of political legitimacy, the region's Arab elites embraced the nationalist idea as the organizing principle of their political praxis. Yet the division of the region into separate European-ruled territorial entities (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Palestine) created long-term tensions between the ideals of Pan-Arab unity and loyalty to one's individual state.

The concept of Nationalism has two aspects: negative and positive. One’s natural love for one’s people or country is not only allowed in Islam but appreciated unless no undue favor or partiality is made, or else, it will become Asabiyah which is strictly prohibited in Islam. This Asabiyah in its both three forms: Asabiyah, Qawmiyah and Wataniyah, did more harm to Muslim integrity and unity than good. Arab nationalism played major role to cause the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. The phenomenon of rivalry between Arab and Ajam is another example of pride in nationalism within the fold of Islam. Nationalism in its present form is a foreign ideology imported from Europe. Europe suffered two great wars in the twentieth century on the basis of nationalism. But the Muslim countries adopted the ideology uncritically. Nationalism effected the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Some Islamic scholars like Allama Iqbal in favor of Islamic nationalism emphasized the creation of a nation state to save the Muslims’ religion and culture from the overwhelming Hindu religion and culture. On the contrary, the scholars like Abul Kalam Azad and Husain Ahmad Madani opposed the idea of a nation state on the same basis of religion and supported united Indian nationalism. They were of the opinion that countries are formed on the basis of geography not on religion. Muslims being a universal Ummah should not confine themselves in the boundaries of nation states.

The development of the modern nation states throughout the Arab world is a fascinating and heartbreaking process. 100 years ago, most Arabs were part of the Ottoman Empire/Caliphate, a large multi-ethnic state based in Istanbul. Today, a political map of the Arab world looks like a very complex jigsaw puzzle. A complex and intricate course of events in the 1910s brought about the end of the Ottomans and the rise of these new nations with borders running across the Middle East, diving Muslims from each other. While there are many different factors leading to this, the role that the British played in this was far greater than any other player in the region. Three separate agreements made conflicting promises that the British had to stand by. The result was a political mess that divided up a large part of the Muslim world.

Social Science Quarterly, 2015

Objectives. Turkey, Algeria, and Pakistan have been persistently challenged, since their founding, by both Islamist and ethnic separatist movements. These challenges claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people in each country. I investigate the causes behind the concurrence of Islamist and ethnic separatist challenges to the state in Turkey, Algeria, and Pakistan. Method. This research employs comparative historical analysis, and more specifically, a most different systems design. In addition to small-N cross-national comparison, I also designed an intertemporal comparison, whereby Turkish, Algerian, and Pakistani history is divided into four periods, corresponding to preindependence, mobilization for independence, postindependence secular nation-building, and Islamist and ethnic separatist challenge periods. Results. Contrary to the prevailing view in the scholarship, this article formulates an alternative reinterpretation of Turkish, Algerian, and Pakistani nation-state formation. These three states were founded on the basis of an Islamic mobilization against non-Muslim opponents, but having successfully defeated these non-Muslim opponents, their political elites chose a secular and monolingual nation-state model, which they thought would maximize their national security and improve the socioeconomic status of their Muslim constituencies. The choice of a secular and monolingual nation-state model led to recurrent challenges of increasing magnitude to the state in the form of Islamist and ethnic separatist movements. The causal mechanism outlined in this article resembles what has been metaphorically described as a "meteorite" (Pierson, 2004), where the cause is short term (secular nationalist turn after independence) but the outcome unfolds over the long term (Islamist and ethnic separatist challenges). Conclusion. A distinct and counterintuitive path of nation-state formation has been identified based on the cases of Turkey, Algeria, and Pakistan. This research demonstrates that a contradiction between the goals of the original mobilization that establishes the state and policies of its postindependence governments can be a major structural source of instability and violence in the long run. These findings suggest that theories of nationalism that were developed based on the European experience of ethnic or linguistic nationalism need to be modified in explaining the religious nationalism that is found in the origins of some of the major nation-states in the Muslim world.

In this paper, arguing against the depiction of Pakistani nationalism and anti-colonial struggle as a secular movement, I have made an attempt to show how religion had an important role to play in the nation building of Indian Muslims. I have discussed how Pakistan was created after a post-colonial struggle based on an Islamically motivated mobilization against non-Muslims-both the colonizers and Hindus. In the later part of the paper, I have examined how that the political elite that led the anticolonial struggle initially used Islam to mobilize the masses, but once it came to power, it chose a secular and monolingual nation-state model with excuse of maximizing their national security and improving the socioeconomic status of their Muslim constituencies. This choice of a secular and monolingual nation-state model has resulted in recurrent challenges of increasing magnitude to the state in the form of Islamist and ethnic separatist movements. I conclude by arguing that the contradiction between the goals of the original mobilization that established the state and policies of its post-independence leaders and governments is a major structural source of instability and violence in the long run.

The Lines That Bind: 100 Years of Sykes-Picot, 2016

The balkanization of the Middle East date of the demise of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, during which France and Britain divided the region in different states. The separate independence of Syria and Lebanon in 1945, the division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab entities, the latter immediately annexed by the Kingdom of Transjordan, were a consequence of the introduction of French and Mandates British. The end of the Cold War and the fall of the USSR did not result in the region a new wave of balkanization, as in the former Yugoslavia. But the major conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia again weaken the Arab states of the Middle East, challenging the boundaries resulting from the Sykes-Picot.

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research, 2019

The years 2014-2018 marks the centenary of the World War I which was practically fought in Europe but left deep imprints beyond the European boarders and indirectly involved the whole world. At that time India was the largest British colony having about one fourth Muslim population from whom British snatched power and being ruled by the British also took part in the war. Hindus and Muslims were the two major communities of India and when the war broke out both pledged loyalty to the British. The defeat of Turkey left Indian Muslims into confusion and consternation. Being the only surviving Muslim empire, ruling large Christian population and ostensibly capable of resisting Europe, Turkey had been the pride of the Muslims. Turkey, being a symbol of the worldly power of Islam and the seat of its 'universal' caliphate, provided common platform to the Muslims. Turkey had also given the feelings of security to the Indian Muslims in the midst of the Hindu majority. The spirit of cooperation and loyalty with the British that had been so evident at the beginning of the World War I was wholly destroyed at the end of the War and the stage was set for a protracted struggle. The War instigated organized movements for the independence of India. The Indian Muslims launched a movement at the end of the WWI Known as Khilafat* (Caliphate) movement for the protection of the institution of Caliphate. The anti-British nature of this movement got full support of Gandhi, who advocated political agitation on a massive scale. The Hindu-Muslims alliance and the Khilafat movement ended in 1922. Although the movement did not achieve its goals and Caliphate was abolished in Turkey but it united the Muslims of India against British for the first time for their own cause. The British promises with the Indian Muslims during WWI regarding the protection of the institution of Caliphate, and the dismemberment of Turkey after the War;replacement of pan-Islamism with western nationalism;birth of modern and secular Turkey opened new avenues of thinking for the Muslims of India. The feeling of distrust and insecurity made inroads among Indian Muslims that paved the way for political transformation of India. In the post war period by passing through different crisis the Indian Muslims envisioned their future. Nationalism emerged as a strong phenomenon and on the basis of being a separate nation from Hindus they demanded a separate homeland that eventually led to the creation of Pakistan.