In the name of religion

For a change, it is Sufis and Barelvis, and not Salafis or Wahabis, who are in the news after the Bombay High Court ruling which lifted the ban on entry of women in sanctum sanctorum of Haji Ali Dargah. The Haji Ali Dargah Trust imposed the ban on women some five years back.

As the Salafis are against the very concept of visiting dargahs and offering of ‘chaadar’, be it by men or women, they are nowhere in the picture on this issue. 

The ban on entry came as a surprise for many as women have been thronging various dargahs all over the sub-continent for the last several centuries. But it is also true that Haji Ali Dargah Trust is not the only one to impose ban. There are several others, where women are not allowed. In fact there is a famous fatwa of Ahmad Raza Khan, the founder of what is called Barelvi school of thought, against the entry of women in dargahs.

So it would be wrong to suggest that the ban on entry of women in Haji Ali amounts to Wahabisation or radicalisation of Sufism. The issue is not so simple as it is being made out by a section of media.

So far as entry of women in mosque –– not dargah or grave –– is concerned, the Salafis or Wahabis are more liberal than Sufis and Barelvis. Even in as orthodox a society as Saudi Arabia –– a bastion of Wahabism ––women openly pray in mosques. So is the case in Shia Iran. It is the followers of Hanafi school in India, who discourage women from offering prayer in mosque.

While opposing Salafi extremism, the policy-makers and media often end up ignoring recent developments in the Sufi camp. It would not be fully appropriate to equate modern-day Sufis with the saints of 12th, 13th and 14th centuries.

The issue deserves a dispassionate study, especially in the light of the execution of Mumtaz Qadri –– who belonged to the Qadri Sufi order –– in Pakistan. Thousands of his supporters took to the streets and laid siege to Islamabad. Even lawyers went on a warpath when his trial was going on in the court.

Mumtaz was hanged in February last for killing Pakistani Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, in 2011 after he demanded change in blasphemy laws.

No doubt, one cannot ignore the terror unleashed by neo-Salafists, who incidentally have now started threatening the very country, which promoted them –– that is Saudi Arabia. But in doing so one cannot ignore some other historic facts.

It is the Peers, Khanqahs and Sajjada Nashins of Punjab and Sind who played a crucial role in supporting the Pakistan movement. Many of them openly backed the Kashmiri separatists too.

Recently slogans were raised in favour of Islamic State –– an out and out Salafi outfit –– in the rally of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a senior leader of All Parties Hurriyat Conference. Though as a Sufi leader he condemned Islamic State and said it has no role to play in Kashmir, yet it is also a fact that Mirwaiz had, at times, joined hands with those who are close to Salafism.

If many Sufis backed the demand of Pakistan, Jamiat-ul-Ulema, the organisation which strongly opposed the British rule and partition of the sub-continent, is often branded as a Salafi outfit by some scholars. Jamiat had then associated itself with the Congress and its tallest leader Husain Ahmed Madni –– who had to spent three years in Malta Jail –– was the biggest champion of Hindu-Muslim unity and ‘Muttahida Qaumiyyat’ (Composite Nationalism). Ironically, Madani deeply valued his appreciation of the family heritage of Sufism. His family belonged to the 19th generation of Chishtiya order.

Often anti-Congressism within some politicians compel them to dub Jamiat as the ideological guide of the Taliban. The same set of people shower praise on the followers of present day Sufism, or on what is called the Barelvi school of thought. The Jamiat is called a Deobandi organisation as Madni and some other ulema were associated with Dar-ul Uloom, a seminary in Deoband (Saharanpur) Uttar Pradesh.

The reality in the sub-continent is that one cannot strictly compartmentalise Muslims as Salafis, Barelvis or followers of any Sufi order. Nothing exemplifies it better than Madni’s own family connection with Sufis. As it is not obligatory for Muslims to follow any particular schools of thought, most of them prefer to remain indifferent to such disputes. Believe it or not there are many Sufi khanqahs (convent), which are in control of Deobandis.

Though Deobandis are not as hardliners as the Salafis, yet it is also true that in the recent past some of their ulema had drifted towards the Saudi brand of Salafism. Thus it is convenient for critics to label all of them as Wahabis. But petro-dollar, more than ideology, seems to have played a more important role in influencing them. Now after the rise of Islamic States and Saudi Arabia’s aggression of Yemen, such Deobandi ulema have started dissociating themselves from the royal family in Riyadh.

It cannot be denied that many Indian ulema associated with the movement launched by Mohammad bin Abdul Wahab in Saudi Arabia in 18th century, were at the forefront of the 1857 War of Independence against the British.

On the other hand Chechens, who have been fighting the Russians since 19th century, are not the followers of any Salafi movement. In contrast they are followers of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, whose great war-hero was Imam Shamil (1797-1871). It needs to be mentioned here that Wahabism did try to make a vain bid to enter Caucasus but they failed.

In the sub-continent it is Sufis and Barelvis, who protest more strongly than Salafis, against any attempt to malign the image of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). It was they who aggressively took to streets against Salman Rushdie in several places.

The ban on the entry of women in a Sufi dargah by the Trust cannot be seen in isolation. On various issues like the triple talaq and the Uniform Civil Code, the Sufis or Barelvis have views similar to what Deobandis and hardline Salafis harbour. They are all represented in Muslim Personal Law Board against whom some Muslim women are fighting. It would be naïve to ignore these facts and dub the Sufis as more ‘liberal’ and ‘open-minded’ as many in the media do. 

The writer is a senior journalist