Panel 37: Islam and Asian Modernities

Chair: Ebrahim Moosa, University of Notre Dame

Panelists

Muhammad Ahmed Bin Tariq, University of Melbourne, “The Discourse of English Education: Manners, Comportment and the Emergence of Modern Madrasas”

The establishment of modern madrasas went hand-in-hand with a critical appraisal of modern schooling arrangements by the ulama, who were worried over their effect on the faith and manners of Muslim students. However, religious scholars (ulama) were not alone in their critique on the moral effects of English education; Muslim modernists and colonial administrators were apprehensive about it as well. Three distinct sets of arguments were advanced in this regard: the Christianization and weakening of faith, loss of manners and comportment, and servility to colonial government. These discourses on English education, I argue, have played a formative role in the institutionalization of modern madrasas. In this paper, I will primarily focus on one strand of the broader argument: the loss of adab (manners and comportment) enacted through English education.I argue that adab signifies a hierarchical understanding of the world, which incorporates and informs relations with the society and religious tradition; the learning of appropriate manners prepares students to recognize the cosmological stations and corresponding social ranks, and the appropriate comportment helps them navigate through the contingencies of this hierarchically conceived world. Adab, therefore, is a necessary component of traditional learning, the loss of which can potentially lead to the loss of the proper hermeneutics i.e. the ability to decipher, understand, and embody the tradition. The institutionalization of madrasas was a process which involved such an elaboration of the concept of adab and its modalities.

Farhan Munir Abbasi, Quaid-i-Azam University, “From Ritualism to Extremism: A Radical Transformation of Shrines in Punjab”

The present study inspects into the subjugation of rituals and practices performed at shrines in the heartland city of Rawalpindi, located in northern Punjab, by religiously motivated groups and hardline Islamists. The growing religiosity has eradicated shared spaces integral to the city’s culture and tradition, which have been passed down through generations. Rituals associated with Sufi Islam, such as the distribution of food (Langar), free-style dancing (Dhamaal), and chants linked to the revered saint Qalandar Lal Shahbaz of South Asia, are now deemed heretical innovations by puritanical groups. These practices are exploited through exclusivist politics to marginalize religious and sectarian minorities from social and political spheres.

The study aims to foster the academic discourse on the transformation of society from ritualism to extremism, employing theological interpretations of the Quran and Hadith to marginalize the esoteric values of Sufi Islam. To achieve this objective, the research focuses on three prominent shrines in the Pothwar region located in Rawalpindi district, including the shrines of Bari Imam in capital territory of Islamabad, Shah Chan Charagh Rawalpindi, and Baba Lal Shah in Murree. This study also aims to bridge the academic gap on how a state institution like Auqaf and religious affairs department has turned these spaces of meditation into a tool to create and control the sectarian divides that are playing significant role in local and national politics. Key words: Ritualism, Rawalpindi, Extremism, Punjab, Pakistan, Islam.