Review: Text And Context, Quran & Contemporary Challenges by Arif Mohammed Khan

It was a  simply a coincidence that while I was driving to Lucknow to board flight to Delhi for a seminar, I stopped by at my friend Omar Farooq’s residence where my friend Irshad Ilmi gave me a book meant for someone to read and return while I am travelling to use my time. The book was Arif Mohammed’s Text and Context: Quran and contemporary Challenges. My review is as follows:-

The book was an interesting and timely collection of mostly newspapers articles written by the author over a period from 2008 to 2010. Taken together, the articles convey a statement of the author’s conviction and understanding of Islam as a religion in modern India. It is the voice of someone who has served the Indian state in a number of capacities and breaks with the dominant Muslim establishment positions on Muslim personal law (Shah Bano case and others) and the general tendency towards marginalization and ghettoization. The book is appropriately dedicated to Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, the nineteenth-century Indian modernist, and may be read as a continuation of that tradition. In general, it appeals for a direct reading of the Qur’an for its values and its teachings, with only occasional reference to the history of its exegesis or some of the other ways in which the meaning of Islam developed in the past and present (jurisprudence, exegesis, theology, mysticism or philosophy).

The articles together arguably constitute a statement told partly, but not wholly, in response to the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008.  A large number of articles are directed against the idea of Islam as a foundation of a nation such as Pakistan; and against terror in the name of Islam to which such religious nationalisms are indelibly linked in the view of the author. The author says relatively little on Muslims and other minorities as targets of Hindu nationalism, except as reactions to how Muslims, or the religious establishment in particular, have chosen to identify themselves as a distinct and embattled minority. Khan focuses much more on the Indian state’s effort to keep its secular direction on course, and little about its own embattled history with religion. Thus, for example, he recalls Indhira Ghandi’s reminder to the Deoband theological school in 1980 that they belong to India rather than her own more controversial political record on religion and nationalism. The longer history of religion and the Congress is not touched by the author.

More than three hundred pages, the book covers a large number of entries and topics. Helpfully, they are divided into seven sections: Education and Knowledge (5 essays); History (4); India (26); Islam (12); Muslim society (5); Pakistan (6); Terror and Jihad (12). The number of essays on India clearly dominates the book. This number may be increased if other essays focusing entirely on India are added to the twenty-six. Most of the essays are fairly short (2 or 3 pages), sharply-written and to the point. Often, it seems that they are they much too short for the important issues being raised. But they are very successful in putting forward a point for the reader to reflect upon. Some of the issues raised are repeated, but this is not surprisingly given the nature of the original publication. There are two fairly long entries that stand out. The first is a review of an Atlantic Report on the need to support Pakistan in its fight against terrorism and radicalism, in which the author dilates on his views on the foundation of Pakistan and that connect (inevitable according to the author) with radicalism.  The second long entry in the book is an interview with Abu ‘l-Kalam Azad on India, Islam and the impending partition. The interview is much welcomed as a perspective on Islam and the state in its own right.

The first section (Education and Knowledge) opens the author’s central focus on India. It extols India as the home of human scientific enquiry. Furthermore, it also introduces the author’s model of Islamic scholarship and vision in the person of Mawlana Abu ‘l-Kalam Azad. And it also decries the division of sciences into religious and non-religious sciences. The last-mentioned topic opens the first of many salvo against his adversaries, the ulema, who have ironically thrived on this clearly modernist division of the sciences between the secular and the religious. Ironically, modernity inaugurated and promoted the clear separation of religion from other spheres of human activity. The next section on history sheds light on the record of religious pluralism that Muslims promoted. There were, of courses, other approaches as well. The author reflects on the Khilafat Movement that introduced a new kind of religious politics for the modern period; “command politics” which instrumentalized religion. This legacy has sadly continued into the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

The central section on India covers many topics. There are two central issues that are prominent. The first is that Muslim historians (such as the great historian al-Tabari (d, 923) were familiar with India and were writing very appreciably about its scholars and tradition. And the second point relates to the author’s central view on religion in a state. The main argument here for Khan is that religious identity is very similar to other social identities such as language and culture. All these identities are very different from national identity. All Indians share a national identity even as they differ from each other in other respects. In support of his arguments, he reflects on religious reformers within India that stressed the unity and convergence of religions; on the British who emphasized these identities in order to secure power; and the mistake of Muslims to demand special favours on the basis of their religious affiliation. With respect to the latter, he supports special measures for the disadvantaged, but not for groups such as Muslim who include both privileged and the under-privileged persons. Khan displays’ great erudition as he also turns to Ibn Khaldun’s theory of the state to support his argument. In his correct reading of the latter’s famous Muqaddima (Prolegomena), tribal and religious solidarity were clearly separated. He uses this insight to suggest a foundation for arguably the different matter of the separation of religious and national identities. Such suggestive readings abound in the book, but the congruence between the solidarities of Ibn Khaldun and modern identities remains to be unraveled. He also touches on the history of Islam in India, pointing to the vast gap between the rulers and the ruled. Less convincing is his cursory treatment on Kashmir where India and Pakistan are presented as neatly divided good and evil national intentions respectively.

The next two sections, Islam and Muslim Society, captures Khan’s view on Islam. Islam is derived mainly from the general teachings of the Qur’an, and not in specifics. Values of reasoning, generosity and tolerance form the cornerstone of Islam. Sir Sayyid Khan comes up as the model reformer, but Azad’s idea of ‘shared truth’ (mushtarak haq) seems to capture an important foundational principal. These were thwarted by politicians in the history of Islam, but most importantly by religious leaders (ulema). And in independent India, in particular, the latter were preserving a culture and mode of life that perpetuated abuse and injustice. Personal status convictions, symbolized in the Shah Banoo Case, created a barrier between the state and individuals. The state in this scenario was a source of justice and liberation. I felt myself ambivalent in Khan’s presentation. On the one hand, I could not agree less that Personal Status law in India (and elsewhere) were sheltering and covering up family abuse (particularly directed at women). At the same time, the success of the ulama was guaranteed by the generally invasive instruments of the modern state. This function of the ulema needed more careful attention to detail to ascertain the balance between communities and the state, particularly in comparison with other apparently benign projects of the state.

The penultimate section gets into Pakistan. This section is also about India, since it creates a binary opposition with the two countries. Pakistan is clearly founded, according to the author, on a policy of hatred towards the other. India, on the other hand, is based on a shared Indian heritage. Khan also draws a direct link between this founding policy and the rise of militancy and terrorism. The section contains the interview with Abu ‘l-Kalam Azad that I have mentioned before. The interview is telling, both against those who founded Pakistan on the basis of Islam, and in my opinion, also against Khan. Azad does not seem to have such clear idea of a secular polity and private belief system as Khan. The interview brings out the complex way in Islam was conceptualized by these early Muslim leaders. On the other hand, it may be an important statement of how secularism has come to be supported by Muslims in India as it is more extensively discussed by Irfan Ahmad in a recent book.

 The final section, Terror and Jihad, consists of short essays mostly on the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008. Apart from reiterating his conviction of religious values, Khan brings out an important way in which Muslims are usually addressed in global discourse. He points out that in all the references to peoples and groups in the American President’s address, only Muslims are singled out by their religious identities. He reminds the readers that Sir Sayyid opposed the pan-Islamic values of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, suggesting an unlikely link between all modern Islamic political activism and radicalism. In this final section, Khan does include an important point on rejecting the use of jihadis, preferring the use of fasadis (sowers of anarchy) to deprive them of their legitimacy but also using a Qur’anic term to label them.

In general, this is a useful set of articles on which there will be much disagreement. There is no doubt, however, that the issues raised by the author needs attention by all South Asians. In conclusion, I want to turn to the title of the book for a final comment. This pair (text and context) has become very widely used in local and global discourse since it was raised by the Pakistani intellectual Fazlur Rahman more than half a century ago. It has become a slogan for the reform of Islam to solve the problems of Muslims in the modern world. The author does not deal with the issue directly, but readers may read these essays as an expression of Indian Islam (to be clearly contrasted with Pakistani Islam). From an observer’s perspective, this reading would not be too far off the mark.

However, it is not clear if the author would agree with this judgment. Khan is more adamant about some permanent values for Islam that in his view have too often been hijacked in the past and present. His is appealing to a fundamental core of an Islamic essence, rather than the contextual articulation of someone living in a particular time and place. Khan is not alone, and his conviction was shared by all modern Muslims since Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan. It was a sentiment shared particularly by those who argued for change and reform within Islamic tradtions. They formulated a new essence and a new social project which they declared embodied the real, true Islam. Like Khan in this book, they offered some good advice and made some good suggestions. However, they could have presented their new conceptions with a little more self-reflexivity. In the spirit of ijtihad, they often forgot to repeat the phrase “And God knows better.”

The book presents an excellent window into another voice of Islam in India. I am tempted to put it aside as a glib Indian apology, but feel attracted to its perspectives that are too often overlooked and ignored. In 2010, however, I would have loved to see some self-reflexivity on the modern Islamic project as its critical vision on the Islamic nationalistic and ghettoized one. And God knows Better.