Let me now turn to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s questions.
Let me now turn to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s questions. I fear the Pandit’s articles reveal practically no acquaintance with Islam or its religious history during the 19th century. Nor does he seem to have read what I have already written on the subject of his questions. It is not possible for me to reproduce here all that I have written before. Nor is it possible to write here a religious history of Islam in the 19th century without which a thorough understanding of the present situation in the world of Islam is impossible. Hundreds of books and articles have been written on Turkey and modern Islam. I have read most of this literature and probably the Pandit has also read it. I assume him, however, that not one of these writers understands the nature of the effect or of the cause that has brought about that effect. It is, therefore, necessary to briefly indicate the main currents of Muslim though in Asia during the 19th century.
I have said above in the year 1799 the political decay of Islam reached its climax. There can, however, be no greater testimony to the inner vitality of Islam than the fact that it practically took no time to realized its position in the world. During the 19th century were born Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in India, Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani in Afghanistan and Mufti Alam Jan in Russia. These men were probably inspired by Mohammad Ibn-i-Abdul Wahab who was born in Naid in 1700, the founder of the so-called Wahabi movement which may fitly be described as the first throb of life in modern Islam. The influence of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan remained on the whole confined to India. It is probable, however, that he was the first modern Muslim to catch a glimpse of the positive character of the age which was coming. The remedy for the ills of Islam proposed by him, as by Mufti Alam Jan in Russia, was modern education. But the real greatness of the man consists in the fact that he was the first Indian Muslim who felt the need of a fresh orientation of Islam and worked for it. We may differ from his religious views, but there can be no denying the fact that his sensitive soul was the first to react to the modern age.
The extreme conservation of Indian Muslims which had lost its hold on the realities of life failed to see the real meaning of the religious attitude of Syed Ahmad Khan. In the North-West of India, a country more primitive and more saint-ridden that the rest of India, the Syed’s movement was soon followed by the reaction of Ahmadism – a strange mixture of Semetic and Aryan mysticism with whom spiritual revival consists not in the purification of the individual’s inner life according tot he principles of the old Islamic Sufiism, but in satisfying the expectant attitude of the masses by providing a ‘Promised’ Messiah. The function of this ‘Promised Messiah’ is not to extricate the individual from an enervating present but to make him slavishly surrender his ego to its dictates. This reaction carries within itself a very subtle contradiction. It retains the discipline of Islam, but destroy the will which that discipline was intended to fortify.
Maulana Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghanl was a man of a different stamp. Strange are the ways of Providence! One of the most advanced Muslims of our time, both in religious thought and action, was born in Afghanistan! A perfect master of nearly all the Muslim languages of the world and endowed with the most winning eloquence, his restless soul migrated from one Muslim country to another influencing some of the most prominent men in Persia, Egypt and Turkey. Some of the greatest theologians of our times such as Mufti Muhammad Abduhu, and some of the men of the younger generation who later became political leaders, such as Zaghlul Pasha of Egypt, were his disciples. He wrote little, spoke much and thereby transformed into miniature Jamal-ud-Dins all those who came into contact with him. He never claimed to be a prophet or a renewer; yet no man in our time has stirred the soul of Islam more deeply than he. His spirit is still working in the world of Islam and nobody knows where it will end.
It may, however, be asked, what exactly was the objective of these great Muslims? The answer is that they found the world of Islam ruled by three main forces and they concentrated their whole energy on creating a revolt against these forces:
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Mullaism. – The Ulema have always been a source of great strength to Islam. But during the course of centuries, especially since the destruction of Baghdad, they became extremely conservative and would not allow any freedom of Ijtihad, i.e., the forming of independent judgment in matters of law. The Wahabi movement which was a source of inspiration to the 19th century Muslim reformers was really a revolt against this rigidity of the Ulema. Thus the first objective of the 19th century Muslim reformers was a fresh orientation of the faith and a freedom to reinterpret the law in the light of advancing experience.
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Mysticism. – The masses of Islam were swayed by the kind of mysticism which blinked actualities, enervated the people and kept them steeped in all kinds of superstition. From its high estate as a force of spiritual education, mysticism had fallen down to a mere means of exploiting the ignorance and the credulity of the people. it gradually and invisibly unnerved the will of Islam and softened it to the extent of seeking relief from the rigorous discipline of the law of Islam. The 19th century reformers rose in revolt against this mysticism and called Muslims to the broad daylight of the modern world. Not that they were materialists. Their mission was to open the eyes of the Muslims to the spirit of Islam which aimed at the conquest of matter and not flight from it.
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Muslim Kings whose gaze was solely fixed on their own dynastic interests and who, so long as these were protected, did not hesitate to sell their countries to the highest bidder. To prepare the masses of Muslims for a revolt against such a state of things in the world of Islam was the special mission of Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani.
It is not possible here to give a detailed account of the transformation which these reformers brought about in the world of Muslim thought and feeling. One thing, however, is clear. They prepared to a great extent the ground for another set of men, i.e., Zaghlul Pasha, Mustafa Kamal and Raza Shah. The reformers interpreted, argued and explained; but the set of men who came after them, although inferior in academic learning are men who, relying on their healthy instincts, had the courage to rush into sun-lit space and do, even by force, what the new conditions of lfie demanded. Such men are liable to make mistakes; but the history of nations shows that even their mistakes have sometimes borne good fruit. In them it is not logic but life that struggles restless to solve its own problems. It may be pointed out here that Syed Ahmad Khan, Syed Jamal-ud-Din Afghani and hundreds of the latter’s disciples in Muslim countries were not westernized Muslims. They were men who had sat on their knees before the Mullahs of the old school and had breathed the very intellectual and spiritual atmosphere which they later sought to reconstruct. Pressure of modern ideas may be admitted; but the history thus briefly indicated above clearly shows that the upheaval which has come to Turkey and which is likely, sooner or later, to come to other Muslim countries, is almost wholly determined by the forces within. It is only the superficial observed of the modern world of Islam who thinks that the present crisis in the world of Islam is wholly due to the working of alien forces
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