The Ulema and the Reification of Islamic Religious Traditions in Colonial South Asia

Islam should be understood as exhibiting a plurality of religious traditions based on a variety of sources leading to different sets of interpretations in response to multiple socio-political and economic factors and historical currents. Generally, the academic literature on Islam differentiates between the traditions of orthodox and modernistic Islam. These traditions are neither mutually exclusive nor internally homogeneous. Nevertheless these labels provide significant insight into the recent history of Islamic discourse when qualified with certain additional lines of argument. The first of the two appellations, that is orthodox Islam, is a misnomer insofar as it pre-supposes a normative pattern of excellence on which there is a general, if not absolute, unanimity or concurrence of opinions among the Muslims as to what constitutes Islam and its sets of beliefs and practices. What needs to be emphasized is that this so-called orthodox Islam, variously referred to as scriptural, fundamentalist and revivalist Islam, is a recent phenomenon and can more accurately be understood as a reification of particular Islamic traditions emphasizing the sacredness of certain scriptural sources. Or, as Clifford Greetz said, ‘Orthodox Islam should more aptly be described as an Islam striving to be Orthodox’.Footnote ⁸ These scriptural sources do not only comprise the Quran, Hadith collections and jurisprudential compendiums, rather, they encompass a wide range which includes, among many others, historical chronicles, biographies of the Prophet and saints, hymns, and travel memoirs. The sacredness attributed to these sources by their adherents or believers, argues Richard Eaton, is not entirely due to their perceived, intrinsic divine origins or to their sacredness. They are discursively located insofar as they are traceable in written or oral genres that have sufficient historical depth and credibility to lend them the weight of authority and relate them in someway to the Quran or the traditions of the Prophet.Footnote ⁹ Thus, Islamic religious traditions, including those which are scripture-based, are not only diverse but are also historically constituted so always subject to contestation and redefinition.Footnote ¹⁰ Those who espouse these traditions are themselves subdivided into different groups who particularize specific aspects of the reified Islamic tradition or textual source over the other in their derivation and understanding of ‘true’ Islam. This is testified by the emergence, and subsequent crystallization, of doctrinal creeds and practices of groups such as Ahl-i Hadith, Barelvi and Deoband. Their origins can be traced to the early nineteenth century Jihad movements and the reformist currents later when the Ulema's role as guides to Islam for individual Muslims increased manifold in the absence of a central Muslim political authority required for enforcing Islamic traditions. They sought to impress upon the Muslims the need for strictly adhering to (what they described in their respective ways) the true Islam as derived from the scriptural authority of Quran, Hadith and other sources. Among them, Deoband and Ahl-i H'adith share a common ancestry traceable to Shah Wali Ullah and his progeny. Although they had similar views on the undesirability of local cultural and custom-based practices—such as ‘Urs’ Footnote ¹¹ and other shrine-related rituals—as being an accretion to ‘original’ Islam (bid'at) ‘untainted’ by Hinduism, they had dissimilar views on the desirability of following any particular school of law or fiqh for the purpose of adhering to the beliefs and practices of Islam in the best possible way. Ahl-i Hadith claim that Quran and Sunna alone—and not any particular school or book of fiqh—are adequate for the guidance of Muslims in their beliefs and practices. Deobandis and the Barelvis, on the other hand, are strict Hanafis who see in their preferred particular school of law the truest embodiment of the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet's Sunna and hence the ideal guide to lead a life based on Islamic traditions. The difference between Deobandis and Barelvis, then, is largely that the latter justify meditational, custom-laden practices closely associated with the pirs of the shrines and a similar evocation of the supernatural powers and blessings of other revered figures from the Muslim past. What is common to them, however, is the vision of Islam as a closed religious system with clearly defined dogmas and practices, encapsulated in the works of the scholars of Islam, matchless in their eruditeness and piety, written hundreds of years ago without there hardly being any need or room for further improvement, addition or revision.Footnote ¹² There is no disagreement on the essentialism of Islam among them. It is just that those adhering to a reified religious tradition describe the essentialism of Islam in their separate ways based on different sources. This explains why these competing essentialisms fail to derive a consensual definition of a Muslim.Footnote ¹³ In independent Pakistan, these groups believing in the reified Islamic traditions were represented by such political parties as Jamiat Ulema-i Islam, Jamiat Ulema-i Pakistan and Jamat-i Islami.Footnote ¹⁴ Although in the initial years of Pakistan's history these religious groups and parties were able to submit joint declarations and statements on some occasions about the broad outlines of an Islamic state, they could not offer concrete guidelines—even in their individual capacities—when it came to the finer details of such a state. Noted Jamat-i Islami ideologues, like Maulana Maududi and Amin Ahsan Islahi, contributed to the general idea of an Islamic state emphasizing the need for collation of jurisprudential sources in order to set an acceptable model for all the Muslims but could not go beyond setting guidelines for this purpose.Footnote ¹⁵

The Power Elite's Vision of Islamic Modernism

A detailed study of ‘Pakistani establishment’—especially for the period immediately following the creation of Pakistan—is lacking. It has been taken for granted that Pakistan, since its inception, has been under the domination of a select clique of big landowners, senior military and civil bureaucrats and major industrial houses. While the political observers are correct in their reading of the elitist-state structure of Pakistan, there remains a need for a comprehensive study of those at the helm of the affairs in order to develop a better understanding of the complexities and processes involved in determining the course of state policy towards different issues. But, only a few generalized interpretations have been offered. For example, Khalid B. Sayeed has simply defined the power elite of the nascent state of Pakistan as originating from the middle-class professional groups like lawyers and civil servants, merchants and capitalists, and the big landowners of, mostly, Punjab and Sind.Footnote ¹⁶ Muhammad Waseem's ‘structuralist approach’ is more thorough but lacks the support of extensive empirical data on the class origins of the power elite.Footnote ¹⁷ This gap is partially filled by Asaf Hussain's Elite Politics in an Ideological State: the Case of Pakistan which is a specialized study of the elite groups operating in Pakistan. Although it tabulates the relative shares of landed, bureaucratic, religious, industrial, professional and military elites in the power structure of Pakistan's polity,Footnote ¹⁸ it is not much concerned with the ideological makeup of various elite groups nor in establishing a connection with the policies of state pursued by them. Shirin Tahir-Kheli has simply defined the Pakistani political elite as comprising ‘those men who had been thrust into power by virtue of their pre-independence activities’. They were the key members of the Muslim League and worked specifically for the creation of Pakistan;Footnote ¹⁹ the political elite was the only ‘real’ elite in Pakistan in 1947 supplemented after a few years with the power of a bureaucratic elite. The importance of the latter can be gauged from the fact that they were involved not only in the process of policy-making but were also instrumental in implementing these policies.Footnote ²⁰ In 1954, the military elite's incorporation into the coterie of a power-elite structure was formalized with the induction of serving commander-in-chief of armed forces, General Ayyub Khan, into the cabinet.Footnote ²¹ The instability of the political regime due to the unrepresentative character of its mandate and lack of democratic institutionalization, made way for Ayyub Khan to scrap the rudiments of a democratic polity in Pakistan and impose martial law in 1958. His reign, which lasted till 1969, is regarded as the military-bureaucratic nexus.

Jamal Malik's coinage of the category named Colonial Urban Sector (CUS) is most helpful in situating the socio-economic contours of the concerned players. The CUS, as described by Malik, consists of ‘representatives of the (Colonial) state, especially of large trade associations, representatives of Government, the higher grades of bureaucracy, the police and the army, professionals and the self-employed, the intelligentsia and the higher formal sector of education’. The agriculturalist elite has been categorized by him separately.Footnote ²² This helps to explain the role of non-traditional, modern and elitist institutions like Atchison College, Sandhurst, Aligarh College, and Government College Lahore, in shaping the religious and western-liberal worldview of the power elite. It is from these institutions for modern learning that most members of the power elite received their education. A considerable majority of the senior bureaucrats, military officers and powerful landlords shared these similar educational backgrounds. In this context, the ideological make-up of these power elite can best be described in the words of Wilfred Cantwell Smith as that of a modernized Muslim bourgeoisie who maintain ‘a generalized and sometimes profound allegiance to a somewhat undefined Islam, and an operative and sometimes fiery sentiment of cohesion with the Muslim community’.Footnote ²³

What Smith has referred to as an ‘undefined Islam’ can be understood and elaborated within the discourse of Islamic Modernism impinging upon the religious world view of these modernized Muslim bourgeoisie who later became the power elite of Pakistan. There cannot be a precise definition of terms like ‘Islamic Modernism’ and ‘Muslim Modernist’. These terms can be interpreted in varied ways, ascribed to a disparate set of groups and persons as a differentiating referential from those like Deobandis, Barelvis and Ahl-i Hadith. In this paper, the terms ‘Islamic Modernism’ and ‘Muslim Modernist’ have been understood as an intellectual endeavour challenging those texts and authorities held in revered esteem by the more traditionally trained religious scholars. It attempts also to interpret Islam, in varying degrees, within the discursive framework of Western notions of humanism, enlightenment and rationality. The intellectual currents of Islamic modernism among the Muslim scholars of South Asia date back to the second half of the nineteenth century when British colonialism and the concomitant pervasive influence of modernity challenged the traditional hierarchies of social order and intellect. The most important component of modernity was the one that purportedly espoused ‘a philosophical discourse veering towards a rational, scientific world-view, and a political system emphasizing individual responsibility and representative democracy.’Footnote ²⁴ Taking a cue from the changed socio-economic, intellectual and political context of their times, the Muslim modernists underscored the need to revive the ‘real spirit’ of Islam, understood and interpreted by them as being essential rationalistic. That this spirit was perceived by them to be wanting among the Muslims was attributed to the false interpretations made by religious clerics over centuries. Whilst these modernists emphasized the importance of acquiring Western knowledge for socio-political gains, they simultaneously championed the cause of bringing about a rationalistic interpretation of Islam that could be compatible with the dictates of the rapidly changing world around them. Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) was the first Muslim scholar in South Asia to raise such concerns about the non-conformity of traditionally held religious views of the Muslims with the recent advancements in the field of rational sciences.Footnote ²⁵ Sayyid Ahmad Khan's panacea for facing these challenges to Muslim faith is tied up with renouncing taqlid (imitation of the juristic findings of the classical scholars of Islam) and making way for fresh thinking, especially, in social and political aspects of Islamic law and theology through the exercise of independent reasoning within the discursive framework of Islam (Ijtihad). He remarked:

Hence, by linking the question of independent reasoning and fresh legislation in Islamic law to mutating dictates of ‘material facts of life’, Sayyid Ahmad Khan lays open vast fields of non-religious, politico-administrative and social aspects of Islamic law which are open to revision. Since these latter, non-religious, postulates of law are derived mostly from HadithFootnote ²⁷ and Fiqh (jurisprudence) sources, it was required of Sayyid Ahmad Khan to mitigate the authority of the Prophet by describing the personage of Muhammad as fallible insofar as he was opining on those aspects of social and political life which did not have a direct bearing on the teachings of Islam regarding religious observations and moral-ethical exhortations about human conduct generally described in the Quran. Even in the domain of religious doctrines and practices, Sayyid Ahmad does not give in to the authority of the Prophet unconditionally. He is critical of the unquestioned reverence of Muslims for the vast corpus of Hadith literature from which most of the religious edicts are derived and which serves to be appended as evidence in support of a particular doctrine or practice. He calls for a rationalistic scrutiny of the contents of Hadith (matn) instead of simply accepting them on the basis of their sound chains of transmission (isnad).

Whilst diluting the importance of the Prophet's sacred authority and normative ideal of action and deconstructing the notion of inviolability of jurisprudential compendiums, Sayyid Ahmad builds up his argument in favour of religio-social reform among the Muslims by centralizing the importance of the Quran as the only repository of Divine guidance and the primary sacred text of Islamic traditions. Others’ sources for guidance—whether Hadith or classical works of Tafsir (Quranic exegesis) and Fiqh—are described by him as having only secondary significance. This precludes these sources from impeding the possibility of a revised interpretation of the Quran and enables a derivation of edicts and commandments thereof about religious beliefs and practices which are more in tune with the imperatives of modern sensibilities and material requirements.Footnote ²⁸ In pursuance of this objective of impressing upon Muslims the primacy of the Quran as a universal, all-encompassing text with a rational approach, Sayyid Ahmad Khan wrote a Quranic exegesis of his own. In this work he takes a fresh look at the Quran, without the support of all extraneous material in the form of Hadith or classical Tafsir, in order to strip the Quran of all its legendary tales and fables of supernatural events so as to reconcile dogma with modern intellectual attitudes. The dialects of this new exegetical approach involved relocating the authority of the text through a process of interpretation whereby the details of history came to be of marginal significance and only the moral vision of Islam as a whole remained relevant.Footnote ²⁹

Sayyid Ahmad Khan's revisionist ideas about the relevance of vast repositories of Islamic tradition, and the need for a rationalistic selection from Hadith sources, inspired a new generation of Muslim scholars.Footnote ³⁰ Mostly educated in Aligarh or British universities abroad, this new religious corps de elite was steeped in the Western tradition of rationality and enlightenment, yet cognizant of its identity as ‘Muslim’ and adherent of God's best and last religion. With the elite scholarly contributions to the field of Islamic law history and theology, a new version of Islam gradually emerged which differed in many aspects from the traditionally held views of the majority of Muslims. The most important members among this new class of Muslim intelligentsia were Sayyid Amir Ali (1849–1928) and Maulvi Chiragh Ali (1846–1895). Like Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Amir Ali gives primacy to the Quran as the most essential source of Muslim law and argues against limiting Ijtihad to only the first few centuries of Islam. He wrote:

The most important figure, other than Sayyid Ahmad Khan, in the discourse on Islamic modernism during the late-nineteenth century to radically revise traditionally held Muslim views regarding Hadith, and even the Quran, was Maulvi Chiragh Ali.Footnote ³² His intent is similar to that of Sayyid Ahmad Khan: he is concerned with projecting Islam as a religion which shuns stagnancy and is compatible with the compulsions of changing of times. For this purpose, Chiragh Ali goes to the extent of questioning the role of Islamic injunctions in formulating civil laws and its relation with the functioning of the state and the management of its political affairs. He expresses these views in The Proposed Political, Constitutional and Legal Reforms in the Ottoman Empire and other Mohammedan States, published in 1883. In this book he clearly aims at making Muslim political and civil law amenable to change. This he accomplishes by presenting the Quran as no more than a book of moral exhortations meant for the spiritual purification of the Arabs. It is not meant to give detailed guidance about civil law or lay down principles of jurisprudence. This is why verses relating to such issues number only 200 out of the 6,000 total verses of the Quran. Even these verses mostly comprise a single word or an isolated sentence and hence do not allow much leverage for deducing rules or laws for civil and political institutions. What have been regarded by the Muslim jurists as verses dealing with civil law are, in fact, the Quran's judicious and harmless accommodations with some of the civil and social institutions of Arabs due to their state of decadence. This is most true about the Quran's dealings with matters pertaining to polygamy, divorce, concubinage and slavery. According to Ali:

Chiragh Ali has elaborated this stance further in Critical Exposition of the Popular Jehad published in 1885Footnote ³⁴, by adding that these ‘laws’ had been introduced to allow the transformation of a barbaric community to a higher state of civilization and not as a general rule for all the communities of the world which already have the desired level of civilization.Footnote ³⁵ Not only does Chiragh Ali introduce the rule of distinguishing between the religious and the secular in Quranic contents—which Sayyid Ahmad Khan had done in the case of Hadith—he even questions the fixity of those of its contents dealing with religious rituals and obligations. His belief that the Quran does not prescribe a clear way of performing Salat (Islamic mode of daily worship) and simply commands the believers to remember God anywhere and at anytime without mentioning any definite time for offering the prayers,Footnote ³⁶ is a view that has later been used by Ummat-i Muslima—one of the Ahl al-Quran groups based in Amritsar.

Ahl al-QuranFootnote ³⁷ is a peculiar intellectual endeavour in the ongoing discourse on Islamic reform, originating mainly from Punjab in the early twentieth century, which evaluates the contours of the Prophet's authority, sceptically looks at the authenticity of his recorded words and persistently seeks revisions of the estimated relative status of both the Quran and Hadith in relation to each other and in their capacities to guide the Muslims in matters of belief and practice. It can be followed from this description that Ahl al-Quran is not a term for an agreed-upon dogma established along sectarian lines under a centralized authority or organization. But, while admitting that they exhibit a variety of ideas on the Quran, Hadith, the Prophet, and other sources of authority from the past, those described as Ahl al-Quran groups and individuals still share the same discursive space insofar as they all challenge the imposing edifice of these authorities of the past. This explains why this term is used for various individuals and organizations despite the fact that they themselves are opposed to their description as ‘Ahl al-Quran’.

The shift from a paradigm envisaging a central role for the Prophet in matters of Islamic beliefs and practices to absolute reliance on the Quranic text for religious guidance was brought about by Maulvi Abdullah Chakralavi (d. 1916) at the turn of the twentieth century. He was the first person to coin the term ‘Ahl al-Quran’ as a distinct Muslim group in modern history of South Asian Islam. Maulvi Abdullah started broadcasting his maverick interpretations through a journal entitled Isha'at ul-Quran, along with tracts and monographs on various aspects of Islam. Maulvi Abdullah Chakralavi's idea of the rejection of the entire corpus of Hadith literature (Inkar-i Hadith) and exposing the idea of Quranic comprehensiveness and excellence as the only required divine source of religious guidance for the Muslims, appears to be located in the context of late-nineteenth century religious controversies resonating in Punjab. Such an approach was in line with a growing trend among adherents of different religious traditions in Punjab to specify the scriptural authority of their respective religions and insist on its excellence as the only valid Divine text. Maulvi Abdullah's principle of exclusive reliance on the Quran for the derivation of details pertaining to dogma and ritual observances met with little success. One of Maulvi Abdullah's contemporaries, Khvaja Ahmad ud-Din Amritsari (d. 1936), shares a similar stance on Hadith but does not endorse its replacement with the Quran in all those aspects of religion for which non-Quranic sources like Hadith, Tafsir and Fiqh were originally being used. His main concern, and that of the organization called Ummat-i Muslima and the journal Balagh (later Al-Bayan) patronized by him, regarding these non-Quranic sources is that their objectionable and cultural specific contents impacts the projection of Islam as a rational and universal religion. This required Ahmad ud-Din to extricate Arab-centricity out of Islamic injunctions and to extend reverence to all the prophets and prophet-like figures of the world instead of exclusively focussing on the personage of Muhammad. While Khvaja Ahmad ud-Din Amritsari absolves himself of the responsibility of furnishing the details for Quran-based ritual observances by holding the view that the external form of these rituals matters for little, other Ahl al-Quran scholars have negotiated the information vacuum arising from the exclusion of the Prophet's authority—in the form of his words recorded in Hadith collections and practices observed by the Muslims for various rituals and social-moral etiquettes—in a variety of different ways. Aslam Jayrajpuri (1881–1955), Professor of History and Islamic Studies at Jamia Millia in Delhi, does not accept the authenticity and authority of Hadith literature but accepts the validity of the prevalent mode of Muslim ritual observances. For him the prevalent methods are in consonance with Sunnat-i Mutvatir i.e. a tradition or Sunnat of the Prophet that has been practiced by such a large segment of the Muslim population over a long period of time that it cannot qualify to be untrue. In recent times, Ahl al-Quran ideas have been carried forward by Aslam Jayrajpuri's disciple Ghulam Ahmad Parvez (1903–1985). Unlike most other Ahl al-Quran scholars, it is easier in the case of Ghulam Ahmad Parvez to describe him as a ‘Modernist’—instead of a critic or revisionist of traditional beliefs and practices—for he had a specialized knowledge of western modernity and presence of European enlightenment's epistemological framework as a referential point in his writings. He is distinguished from the likes of Amir Ali and Chiragh Ali in that the bulk of his writings are in Urdu.

What makes Parvez the centre figure of controversy in the discourse on Islamic reform, and allows him to be used as the tagline for the popular description and perception of various strands of thought held among the Ahl al-Quran, is not just the novelty of his ideas but the success he achieved in disseminating them through his copious writings and establishment of effective organizational structures.Footnote ³⁸ Parvez was a prolific writer who wrote on varied themes of Islamic socio-political and economic system, dogmatic disputations, history and Quranic exegesis. He has been the bestselling author among all the Ahl al-Quran scholars whose books are being repeatedly reprinted to this day. This continuous popularity of Parvez's work is as much for his persuasive style of rather flowery prose as it is because of the organizational structures in the form of Idara Tulu‘-i Islām and its various branches that he had established during his lifetime. After his death the Idara has continued to register its impact by continuing with the issuance of its monthly journal Tulu‘-i Islam and the publication of Ghulam Ahmad Parvez's writings.

Pervez's concept of Islam is that of a comprehensive religion (Din) which, in the wide range of its beliefs and activities, does not entail anything that is essentially and completely immutable nor does it envisage a fixation with past authorities provided there exists a Markaz-i Millat (Central Islam Authority)—a caliphate patterned on the precedent set by the Prophet (Khilafat ‘ala Minhaj al-Nubuwwat). This central Islamic authority—and not just any authoritative ruler who has grabbed power—provides the political and executive framework for the establishment and successful working of Divine commandments in the Muslim community and progressively reviews the Islamic laws and practices. Its authority to do so is derived from the Quran itself and in validation of the precedent set by the Prophet and his successive pious Caliphs in the running of state and religious affairs. There are, however, certain ‘Permanent values’—mostly ethical-moral exhortations—and edicts, clearly and most unambiguously stated in the Quran. The proposed legislations, interpretations and amendments have to take place within the contours specified by these permanent values. So while the Ulema include—in addition to the Quran—Hadith as a source of the permanent values and major repository of supposedly unchangeable aspects of laws, beliefs and practices, Parvez limits himself to accepting the authority of the Quran alone in dictating the permanent aspects of Islam, and that too in terms of the values or principles it enjoins and rarely in forms less unconstrained. Hence the scope for state's initiative in amending Islamic laws and introducing fresh legislation in those areas previously not covered by the law, is considerably enhanced.

In order for such a state and central Islamic authority to come into existence, Parvez became an ardent supporter of the Pakistan movement and remained a Pakistani nationalist par excellence throughout his life. After the creation of Pakistan, Parvez wrote even more extensively on the matters of state and the role expected of the new rulers regarding the implementation of an Islamic system in Pakistan. It was during 1947–1969 that Parvez most actively pursued the cause of disseminating his own ideas by producing a prolific amount of literature and establishing his scholarly credentials among a select class mostly comprising young college graduates, members of professional services and others with a similar ‘modern’, non-traditional understanding of Islam. Also, Parvez was trying to get himself and the Idara T'ulu‘-i Islam recognized by the power elite as the only one among the scholars on Islam who wielded ideas that could usefully be employed for the establishment of an Islamic state along the lines of Islamic modernism.

Relating Islamic Modernism to the Pakistani Power Elite

That the discursive tradition which developed with Islamic modernism was foregrounded by the power elite in their policies regarding Islam in Pakistan can be highlighted by alluding to a number of sources dating back to that period. To begin with, the link between the ideas espoused by various Islamic modernists and critics of reified Islamic traditions and the religious worldview of the Pakistani power elite can be amply correlated by citing references from their own statements and writings. Statements to these effects were made at different forums by individuals of significant governmental authority and observations noted in several important judicial reports, commissions and decisions. Jinnah, the founder of the new state, expressed his solemn belief—few months before his death—that ‘salvation lies in following the golden rules of conduct set for us by our great law-giver, the Prophet of Islam. Let us lay the foundations of our democracy on the basis of truly Islamic ideals and principles.’Footnote ³⁹ Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, stated in unequivocal terms that theocracy or a government by priests was an idea alien to Islam and that using this term for the future polity of Pakistan was an act of mischievous propaganda.Footnote ⁴⁰ Speaking at the All Pakistan Political Conference in 1949 held in Punjab University, Abdur Rab Nishtar—the Governor of Punjab—spoke of the ‘basic guiding principles’ of the Quran and Hadith and the provision for elaboration of laws and policies in conformity with these principles.Footnote ⁴¹ As the prime minister of Pakistan Khvaja Nazim ud-Din (1951–1953) emphatically asserted:

There is little wonder, therefore, that legislative measures adopted and constitutional schemes proposed during this period reflected the ideas highlighted above. The 1949 Objectives Resolution is one such example when Pakistan was effectively declared as an Islamic state exercising authority delegated to it by Allah through the people of Pakistan. But the state—as visualized in the Resolution, which has served as a preamble for the successive constitutions of Pakistan—did neither envision any special authority for the Ulema nor accord recognition to their possible role in the actualization of the Resolution's provisions. What piqued certain quarters of the Ulema even more were parts of the Objectives Resolution which ‘over-emphasized’ the need for democratic polity and protection of minority rights.Footnote ⁴³ On the other hand, for the drafters of the Resolution and members of the power elite steeped in the traditions of Western liberalism, the Objectives Resolution was no more than a vaguely pious statement without any substantial consequences for the political setup of the country. In their opinion,

Hence, by the time the first constitution of Pakistan was drafted in 1956, the power elite had allowed only for a ceremonial adornment of the constitution with Islamic principles and the acceptance of some token demands of the Islamic parties like naming the state as an Islamic Republic. The recommendations made by the Objectives Resolution, Board of Ta'limat-i Islamiyya (Board of Islamic Teachings) and the Basic Principles Committee found little, if any, place in the Constitution. Islam was not declared or mentioned as the official religion of the state, and the National Assembly speaker—who was to assume the office of presidency in the absence of the latter for whatever reason—was not required to be a Muslim.Footnote ⁴⁵ A so-called repugnancy clause was enshrined in the 1956 and later constitutions stipulating that all laws repugnant to the Quran and the Sunna were to be repealed.Footnote ⁴⁶ However, this did not lead to a large scale revision of existing laws, nor did the claim of the Ulema as the repositories of Islamic knowledge to arbitrate on the relative ‘Islamicity’ of laws accepted.Footnote ⁴⁷ Even when changes were proposed to the existing laws, the opportunity was used to undermine the authority of the Ulema by way of ignoring the traditional reading and understanding of Quranic edicts, thus enlarging the scope of legislative powers and providing legal relief where it was hitherto found wanting in the traditionally practiced Islamic law.Footnote ⁴⁸

This much trumpeted emphasis on the want of dynamism in the field of Islamic law, was disputed by Maulana Maududi in 1958. He was responding to a statement by S.A. Rahman—who at that time was serving as a judge for the Supreme Court of West Pakistan—that the field of fresh legislation is wide open and that the classical jurisprudential compendiums need to be updated, albeit in line with the ‘permanent values’ specified by the Quran, so as to make them compatible with the challenges and demands of the modern world.Footnote ⁴⁹ Rahman, as head of the commission set up in 1958 for law reforms, stood for the vindication of the majority of a population's preference for embodiment of Islamic principles in law and constitution.Footnote ⁵⁰ It was only that he wanted the task to be entrusted to chosen representatives instead of to the Ulema so as to leave the room open for new legislation and reinterpretation of the old laws. He echoed Aslam Jayrajpuri in asserting that in matters of ritual practices the Sunna has been continuous, definite and, hence, binding, but for the rest one needs to be dependent on Hadith which is a less credible source and requires authentication on the basis of content analysis. Maududi's response was a succinct rejoinder to the oft-repeated modernist argument in favour of fresh legislation and reformation of existing laws: he argued that the Prophet was not simply a priest who dictated certain permanent values but was mandated with the task of setting up an Islamic order based wholly on Divine principles. The laws introduced for this purpose, and the mode of their practice, interpretation and implementation has come down to the Muslims in the form of Hadith and the Sunnat.Footnote ⁵¹ The members of the superior judiciary, however, were convinced in their distrust of Hadith literature. The famous Munir Report—a probe into the Punjab disturbances of 1953 resulting from aggressive agitation to get the Ahmadis declared as non-Muslims—expressed its reservations about the authenticity of Hadith literature and its authority to determine the legal code.Footnote ⁵² The report, probably inadvertently, reiterated Chiragh Ali's viewpoint on the role and status of Hadith by questioning skeptically whether the

The report is extremely critical of the idea of mixing state with religion and the role of Ulema in politics, and comes closest to being the most important official document in Pakistan's legal and judicial history by proposing nearly secular principles of state without mincing its words. A continuation of similar trends is to be seen in an important decision delivered by Justice Shafi in 1960. The judgment, in contravention to the traditional stipulation of Fiqh, awards custody of children to a widow who had remarried. In his detailed views on the sources of Islamic law and possibilities of their reinterpretation, the Judge claimed for himself the right to interpret the ‘permanent values’ of Islam and the laws derived therein. He maintained the view that, if Abu Hanifa had the right to interpret the Holy Quran without the assistance of traditions, and in the light of existing circumstances, then the same could not be denied to other Muslims. Such blind adherence to the authority of the grand masters of yesteryear was to lead to stagnation in thought and deprive Islam of its status as a dynamic, universal religion.Footnote ⁵⁴ He was further of the view that ‘the exegesis of the Holy Quran should be developed by judges as well as by the chosen representatives of the people by a subtle method of reasoning and analogy in the light of the given facts’.Footnote ⁵⁵ The observations made by the judge about the historicity of Hadith literature and the ‘objectionable’ content of some of its narrations, was not so dissimilar to that of Tulu‘-i Islam. He was especially critical of those traditions related to the wives of the Prophet which disclose in a ‘naked manner’ the private talks between them and the Prophet.Footnote ⁵⁶ Such attitudes towards ‘authentic’ collections of Hadith, and ideas regarding the role of the nascent state in the amendment of Islamic law, were translated into concrete measures as the power elite adopted a conscious policy of promoting, what it considered to be, a rationalist and modernist interpretation of Islam and curtailment of obscurantist forces.

Instituting Islamic Modernism

In order to achieve the purpose of establishing Islamic Modernism as an undisputed influence in determining the role of Islam in a Pakistani state, institutional arrangements were made and a number of individuals sponsored to disseminate literature laced with such ideas. The Institute for the Reconstruction of Islam, set up by the government of Punjab a few months after the creation of Pakistan, was one such institution. It was headed by an Austrian Jewish convert to Islam, Muhammad Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss) with Nazir Niyazi acting as its assistant director. During the brief period for which this institute remained in existence, Muhamamd Asad came up with some tracts in which he elaborated the concept of an Islamic state. He put forward the view that no specific form of government has been prescribed by Islam and it is up to the Muslims of every age to agree on one that suits their conditions. However, any such state must be based on the principle of mutual consultation and embody some essential Islamic ideals such as the supremacy of the Quran and the Sunnat, socio-economic justice, universal suffrage, the right to dissent, and permission to form political parties.Footnote ⁵⁷

Of more significance was the Idara Thaqafat-i Islamiyya (Institute for Islamic Culture).Footnote ⁵⁸ This institute was established in 1954 in Lahore, largely due to the efforts of Khalifa Abdul Hakim who impressed upon his old time friend from the days of his service in Hyderabad Deccan—the then Governor General Ghulam Muhammad—to allocate funds and land for establishing an institute that could ‘popularize a modernist interpretation of Islam and counteract extreme rightist and fundamentalist forces.’Footnote ⁵⁹ The assigned task required a reappraisal of the centuries old jurisprudential codifications and the right of the legislature to amend them or draft wholly new ones more suitable for modern times. For this purpose, Khalifa Abdul Hakim—like many other modernist thinkers of Islam in South Asia, especially Ghulam Ahmad Parvez—resorted to distinguishing the Permanent and Impermanent values of Islam. The Permanent laws of Islam, as prescribed in the Quran, are hardly more than ten pages long. The rest are Permanent values and broad principles in the light of which laws should be drafted. While these values and principles are ‘permanent’, the laws drafted within the precincts demarcated by them remain subject to revision to cope up with the dictates of changing times. Khalifa, while elaborating on the Islamic Ideology extending to social, political, economic and legislative domains of societal life and state activities, observed:

A debate on the extensive powers of the legislature necessarily involved a discussion on the role and significance of Hadith. It was because these institutions were limiting themselves to the laws of the Quran as being eternal and did not take into consideration the fact that the bulk of Islamic laws are derived from the jurisprudentially relevant sayings and arbitrations of the Prophet and their later incorporation in Hadith collections and codification in the books of Fiqh. It may not have been possible for the Institute for Islamic Culture to side outright with the view of Ahl al-Quran in ascribing a temporal status to the juristic interpretation of Islam or, at least, to discard Sunna as a source of guidance in the affairs of state and individual belief and practice. The status of Hadith literature was, however, taken to be as of doubtful origin and significance. Khalifa noted about Hadith:

The policy of the Institute with regard to the concept of a modern state's legislative authority, and especially to the status of Hadith, is evidenced by the inclusion of Khvaja Ibad Ullah Akhtar and Jafar Shah Phulvarvi—both with varying degrees of affiliation with the Ahl al-Quran version of Islam—in the Institute and the publication of their works. They were among the first research fellows—among others who had either madrassa training or were college graduates—who were inducted into the instituteFootnote ⁶² and had a religious and academic outlook that carried forward the idea of a fresh enquiry into the Islamic law, limiting the role of the hardcore Ulema in the interpretation of Islam and avoiding an overdosed confluence of state and religion.

The published works of these research fellows was also indicative of the intellectual outlook of the institute itself and the spirit of free enquiry it sought to encourage among the intelligentsia interested in the discourse on Islam. As editor of Ummat-i Muslima-sponsored journal, Al-Bayan, Khvaja Ibad Ullah Akhtar suggested there should be a broad range of powers accorded to the state allowing for its legislation in spheres settled by Prophet and jurists. According to him, the delegation of these extensive legislative powers stemmed from the idea that the Shariat of Islam is not static, fixed or defined. No man's findings or dictates—no matter how respectful his designation may be or how widely recognized is his astuteness as a scholar—can be put forward as immutable law. It rests exclusively with the appointed and representative government of the Muslims to give shape to Islamic laws and rules. In doing so the consultative assembly can benefit from a variety of sources, including personal judgments of learned scholars and those of the Prophet as recorded in the form of Hadith but arrived at after a process of consultation with sahaba (Companions of the Prophet) and consideration of prevailing circumstances. The judgments so made might have had a binding obligation during the life of the Prophet Muhammad but now, with an assembly in place, the previous obligations under law can be discussed and revised by members of the assembly.Footnote ⁶³ Writings like these, and the fact that Khvaja Ibad Ullah Akhtar had been a known member of Ahl al-Quran, reinforced Ulema's misgivings regarding the working of Idara Thaqafat-i Islamiyya.

Even more provocative for Ulema were the works of Jafar Shah Phulvarvi (1902–1982) published by the Institute. In his numerous monographs and tracts for the Institute, he supported many government policies and ‘modernistic’ trends and ideas that it sought to instill in the minds of the populace. These included reforms in marriage laws, the introduction of family planning techniques and a continuation of interest-free banking. His own proposals for reforms in the marriage law appeared before the Marriage Commission was set up in 1955. Jafar Shah's reforms proposed to curb polygamy and streamlining of divorce procedure by setting up arbitration councils.Footnote ⁶⁴ The underlying argument was that the provision for polygamy was a conditional one and that the state had the authority to put suitable constraints on its practice.Footnote ⁶⁵ As for the problem of interest and the banking system, Jafar Shah contributed to a discussion in Thaqafat—a journal published by the Institute for Islamic Culture—in which a retired government official had asked whether the interest received by him in the form of a provident fund and monthly pension came under the category strictly forbidden in Islam. In his response, Jafar Shah opined that the term Riba employed by the Quran is translatable as ‘Usury’ and not ‘Interest’.Footnote ⁶⁶ There is no doubt in his mind that Usury is absolutely prohibited but certain forms of interest—like commercial interest which in its modern form is quite different from what was prevalent during the Prophet's lifetime—are permissible.Footnote ⁶⁷

Ayyub Khan's Vision of Islam and its Implementation in Pakistan

The period of Ayyub Khan's rule (1958–1969) provides the best example of a Pakistani power elite's calculated policies to push through certain reforms, contain the influence of Ulema and instill a self-conceived vision of modernistic and rationalistic Islam among the people. To begin with, Ayyub Khan—like many other like-minded members of the power elite, especially those in the military—believed in Islam as a progressive, egalitarian and dynamic force whose real spirit was wanting among the Muslims of the day because it had slipped into the hands of retrogressive Mullahs. In order to dwarf all the aristocratic and theological forces of regression, Ayyub proposed—even before he had overthrown the government—the building up of political, social and economic institutions of Pakistan on the principles of the Quran.Footnote ⁶⁸ Such building up was not to result in retrogression, as the task was to be entrusted to the intelligence of the chosen representatives of the people and also because Ayyub Khan's own idea of an Islamic state was not dissimilar to that of Khalifa Abdul Hakim or Muhammad Asad. He believed that Quran did not ordain a specific constitution for an Islamic state and that it was left open to the pious caliphs after the death of the Prophet to run the affairs of state in their understanding of Islamic principles in a particular situation. In his own words:

Unlike others, however, Ayyub Khan did not shirk from expressing the mutability of rules and regulations derivable directly from the Quran. In a letter to Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, Ayyub wrote:

Still, Ayyub Khan reposed his faith in what are vaguely and disparately understood as principles of an ideally Islamic state, but it was not lost upon him that the mere name of Islam could not create a progressive nationhood. This task required provision of ‘viable new content’ addressing social policies and legal problems. It was understood by Ayyub that if this viable new content

He pinned the success of these efforts on those educated in western-style colleges but who subscribed wholeheartedly to Islam and believed in the building of Pakistan into a strong and dynamic state. The role of Ulema in this process was less desirable for him on account of his own perception of their failure to grasp the realities, compulsions and problems of the modern age. He believed that Ulema were less interested in extending a helping hand to the establishment of an ideal Islamic state in Pakistan but more interested in regaining their position of strength and influence that they had lost to the educated classes—disowned by them as heretics for taking to Western ways—since the advent of British rule.Footnote ⁷²

To effectively utilize Islam for national cohesion and progressive societal outlook, Ayyub Khan pushed through his agenda of social reform in the name of liberal interpretation of Islam, discouraging symbolic invocation of religion as part of domestic or foreign policy. He took a hard line with the Ulema—who offered not just religious but also political opposition—to the extent of resorting to a violent repression of their activities or covert use of state resources to limit or ‘reform’ their role in society.Footnote ⁷³ One of the earliest of such measures adopted by Ayyub Khan was the promulgation of the West Pakistan Waqf Properties Ordinance in 1959 giving government the power to take control over and to manage shrines, mosques and other properties dedicated to religious purposes.Footnote ⁷⁴ This nationalization of private Auqaf, for which Ayyub was spurred into action by the writing of Javed Iqbal suggestive of curbing the powers of the pirs and sajjada nishinsFootnote ⁷⁵, presented his regime's three cherished goals of a strong central government, economic development and modernization of religious institutions. The Auqaf department became instrumental in training the Ulema as prayer-leaders for many important mosques and shrines of significant religious import and spiritual authority. It also made the Ulema subject to state patronage and it became expected of them to receive some education of the ‘worldly knowledge’ in order to qualify for appointment at those religious sites managed or controlled by the state.Footnote ⁷⁶ Besides that, Ayyub Khan perfected the policy of institutionalized dissemination of his preferred vision of Islamic modernism and encouraged and supported those among the religious circles that came close to sharing his ideas. In pursuance of the former agenda, Ayyub appointed Fazlur Rahman in 1962 as director of the newly established Central Institute of Islamic Research. As for the latter part of the strategy, Ayyub Khan developed a special nexus with Ghulam Ahmad Parvez who, in turn, supported the regime and its policies wholeheartedly.

In the following sections an attempt has been made to explain the policies of Ayyub Khan to use Islam as a source for progressive and cohesive nationhood. These policies included introducing liberal reforms in Islamic law and extending support to institutions and like-minded individuals with the purpose of promoting a discursive space for Islamic modernism in opposition to that of the reified Islamic traditions. This strategy will be shown to have reached its highest mark in 1967 when a major effort was made to promulgate the supremacy of Islamic modernism over and above that of the ‘Mullahs’.

Liberalizing Islamic Laws in the Name of Social Reform: The Family Laws of 1961

The promulgation of Family Laws in 1961 offer the most important example whereby the power elite bypassed the authority of the Ulema and appropriated, albeit briefly, the right to legislate in matters of private law—hence encroaching upon the domain which had been held by the Ulema. After 1971, especially during General Zia-ul-Haq's era, the situation was reversed and the Ulema regained their position in dictating the terms of Islam-specific laws. This trend has since continued and a recent exception can be noted when amendments were made in the Hudud Ordinance of 1979. The law was amended in the name of following the ‘true spirit’ of Islam by opting for an interpretation of Islamic injunctions regarding various sexual malpractices that disregarded the recommendations offered by the Ulema.Footnote ⁷⁷

The issue of reform in family laws to the benefit of women had been raised in British India as well, where it had become exceedingly difficult for women to seek divorce from their husbands or to claim child custody and maintenance allowance in case a divorce was granted. The disempowerment of women from initiating the divorce proceedings had given rise to sporadic cases, mostly in Punjab, where women would become apostate in order to fulfill the condition for one possible way of divorce according to Hanafi law. Alarmed by this situation, a notable scholar, Ashraf Ali Thanavi, allowed for the application of Maliki law—even though such interchange of fiqh is normally never allowed by the Ulema—so as to ease the difficulties of women by allowing them the right to initiate divorce proceedings.Footnote ⁷⁸ The Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, incorporating these recommendations, was passed in 1939.

The question of women's rights and reforms in the family laws became a central issue of concern after independence.Footnote ⁷⁹ What brought it to larger public attention was the second marriage of the then Prime Minister, Muhammad Ali, to his personal secretary and the ensuing reaction of women's groups.Footnote ⁸⁰ The outcry raised by these groups forced the government to appoint a commission for proposing suitable reforms in Muslim personal law. The appointed Marriage Commission comprised Chief Justice Abdur Rashid, Begum Shah Nawaz, Begum Anvar G. Ahmad, Begum Shams, Khalifa Abdul Hakim, Inayat-ur-Rahman and Ehtasham-ul-Haq Thanavi.Footnote ⁸¹ The commission prepared its report in the light of responses from different religious groups and individuals to a questionnaire sent out by the commission. The recommendations of the commission were largely those which had already been offered by Jafar Shah Phulvarvi and published by the Idara Thaqafat-i Islamiyya. It called for divorce rights and maintenance allowance for women and suitable limitations in the practice of polygamy. The argument was a repetition of that of Khalifa Abdul Hakim in support of mutability of non-Quranic laws. Accordingly, the report of the Marriage Commission stated that definite laws and regulations prescribed by the Quran do not exceed a few pages. By stating this position on Islamic law, it was tacitly being implied—much in consonance with the ideas of Ghulam Ahmad Parvez—that the Sunna is not a binding source of authority. The report also said that the Prophet did not intentionally fix rules and laws so as to avoid their incompatibility with the conditions of later times. His immediate followers made use of their rational faculties within the limits prescribed by the Quran and the Sunnat to tackle newly emerging problems.Footnote ⁸² Therefore, by invoking the ‘progressive’ and ‘libratory’ spirit of Islam at the expense of classical compendiums of law and stipulations of Hadith collections, the scope for changes in Muslim personal laws was justified.

The proposals submitted by the Marriage Commission were not immediately translated into legal reforms due to opposition from the Ulema, and political instability in the country during the 1950s. However, the advent of Martial Law and the reformist agenda promised by the Martial Law administrator, General Ayyub Khan, rekindled the spirited efforts of women's groups to get the recommendations of the Marriage Commission implemented. These efforts came to fruition in 1961 when the Family Laws Ordinance was issued. The provisions of the Ordinance ‘rationalized’ polygamy, provided for the registration of marriage and divorce, secured maintenance rights for women and awarded a compulsory share in the inheritance to the children of a pre-deceased son or daughter. The Ordinance was an improvement on the Muslim Marriage Dissolution Act 1939 which had allowed women to initiate divorce proceedings and enhanced the chances of securing the custody of their children.Footnote ⁸³ It also amended the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 (famously known as the Sarda Bill) by raising the legal age for marriage from 14 to 16 for females and from 18 to 21 for males.Footnote ⁸⁴

The Ordinance, its provisions and promulgation meant different things for many of its votaries and also for its opponents. Such issues as the abolition of child marriages and orphaned grandchildren's rights to property had long been demanded by Islamic modernists and the Ahl al-Quran. The fulfillment of the latter demand especially was clearly an affirmation of the stance taken by Khvaja Ahmad ud-Din Amritsari and later supported by Aslam Jayrajpuri and Ghulam Ahmad Parvez. Insofar as the Ordinance encroached upon the Ulema's right to interpret Islamic laws, it was a reflection of Ghulam Ahmad Parvez's ideas for severing the duality between the temporal and religious compartmentalization of state structure.Footnote ⁸⁵ As far as Ayyub Khan was concerned, the promulgation of the Ordinance, despite severe opposition, impressed upon the minds of its targeted audience, the Ulema, a visible imprint of the policies regarding Islam that he wanted to pursue. What was equally important to him was that these changes in Islamic law were being enforced at the expense of ignoring the prevailing traditional practices. Perhaps for the first time in Pakistan such an argument had been employed in a piece of legislation favouring changes in the structure of family laws and that too by a legal team whose knowledge of Islam certainly did not exceed that of trained experts in the field. It was not just a question of ameliorating the social conditions of women it was also an attempt to exclude the Ulema and disenfranchise them from—what they regarded as their exclusive and privileged domain—dictating the scripts of Islam-specific laws. Thus the right to legislate and reform could be claimed in the name of Islam without creating an image that it was being done under pressure from religious forces, or that prior approval of them was a prerequisite when it came to dealing with Islam in any respect.

In their opposition, the Ulema—despite the fact that they issued a joint statement in the condemnation of these laws—had different approaches towards the Islamic credentials of the reforms introduced and amendments required to rectify its aberrations. They objected to making the registration of marriages compulsory and the imposition of a fine in the case of non-compliance. The pre-emption of second marriage by involving the local administration was unanimously considered by them as an addition to Islam. Instead of putting restrictions on a man's supposedly unfettered right to marry more than one wife, the Ulema proposed judicial safeguards for the aggrieved wife whereby the judiciary could settle things in her favour. Child marriages were not disallowed by them on account of their preferred reading of a particular Quranic verse condoning marrying-off non-menstruating girls.Footnote ⁸⁶ With regard to the divorce procedure stipulated in the Ordinance, differences along theological lines emerged amongst the Ulema themselves. According to the provisions of the Ordinance, the mere pronouncement of ‘I Divorce thee’ three times at a single sitting (the so-called ‘triple divorce’) or over a prolonged period did not bring about a legal divorce between the couple. Rather, it was taken as a starting point of divorce proceedings spanning over a few months in which, first, there had to be an arbitration council to bring the estranged parties together to negotiate a settlement to avoid the marital breakup. This proposed arrangement boldly refutes the established practice in the Hanafi law whereby a triple divorce immediately puts an end to marriage. By refusing to accept this procedure, the drafters of the law had effectively appropriated for them the right to amend ‘anomalies’ in the Hanafi law. In theory, it was no longer the Hanafi edicts but the recognition extended by the courts that carried legal weightage in determining the conclusion of marriage or divorce. Among the Ahl-i Hadith, however, ‘triple divorce’ at one sitting is considered equivalent to a single divorce and not to the three mandatory for dissolving a marriage. This was why the Ahl-i Hadith leader Daud Ghaznavi called upon the Ulema to make cautious appraisal of the proposed law and not to reject it outright. The Ahl-i Hadith insisted that even though the present rulers were not trustworthy in matters pertaining to religion, it would be unwise not to support legislation in favour of the suppressed classes that could even be justified in terms of its compatibility with Islamic law and ethos.Footnote ⁸⁷ But the Ahl-i Hadith, along with many other supporters of the Ordinance, found the new divorce procedure objectionable. Tulu‘-i Islam's objection was that an arbitration commission can only be formed before the pronouncement of divorce. Once this pronouncement has been made, it no longer remains possible to put the matter to any council.Footnote ⁸⁸ Even among the members of the Council of Islamic Ideology, the majority opinion was that the Quranic injunctions regarding divorce and arbitration have been intermingled resulting in a confused, unpractical divorce procedure being adopted. Another point of dispute among the Council members was the issue of an orphaned grandchild's right to inheritance. J.N.D. Anderson—the most well known authority on law reforms across the Muslim world—noted the complications arising out of the new arrangement enforced by the family laws. He compared the Pakistani law with similar reforms in Iraq where the law did not provide for an explicit share to the orphaned grandchild but made a provision for a mandatory will in his or her favour. On the imbalance resulting from the provisions of the Pakistani Family Laws on the traditional scheme of distributing shares among the legatees, Anderson wrote:

Despite clear discrepancies in the ‘Islamic’ content of the family laws, as admitted by its proponents and pointed out by the opponents, all efforts to repeal it have failed. A Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (Repeal) Bill was moved in the assembly by Abbas Ali Khan of East Pakistan in 1963. The Bill failed to muster the required majority. A more serious challenge to the family laws came under the Zia-ul-Haq regime when the Ministry of Law issued a strong worded recommendation for the abolition of these laws. The statement said:

General Mujib-ur-Rahman—a known sympathizer of Ghulam Ahmad Parvez in those days and a close aide of the then President because of his assignment to run the important Information Ministry—claims that he had prevailed upon General Zia-ul-Haq ‘not to touch these laws’.Footnote ⁹¹ He defended these laws because they offered some relief to women and, probably, because of his own inclination towards Parvez's ideas, some of which had been incorporated into the family laws.

‘Institutionalized Liberalism’ under Dr Fazlur Rahman

Fazlur Rahman's association with the Ayyub government raised several concerns among the Ulema about the ‘secular agenda’ of the regime. What fuelled their suspicions was the alleged similarity between the views of Fazlur Rahman and Parvez on the status of Hadith and the Sunna, although with regard to the latter Rahman claimed to be toeing the traditional beliefs of the Muslims. His controversial and disrespectful ideas of some unanimously agreed-upon dogmas among Muslims came to light when the question of Riba was discussed in 1962. The issue cropped up because of a delay in the passage of a budget bill on the grounds that it was un-Islamic because it showed income and expenditure calculated on the basis of interest rates. When the matter was put to the Council of Islamic Ideology, of which Fazlur Rahman was a member, its report stipulated that present-day realities were not favourable for the elimination of Riba. It also cited concern and criticism of certain Ahadith which clashed with Council's understanding of the term ‘Riba’ and unreservedly called for its abolition. This note, drafted by the Council, was leaked to the Press and led to considerable public outcry. Fazlur Rahman was primarily ‘framed’ as the author of the note and for his close proximity with the person and ideas of Ayyub Khan. What also came under criticism was Fazlur Rahman's continuing links with the Islamic Studies Centre at McGill University and his scheme of inviting scholars from abroad to train scholars at home for researching Islam.Footnote ⁹² But regardless of these controversies, Rahman continued to enjoy the trust and support of Ayyub Khan, and within the close circles of the Council of Islamic Ideology did not deter from offering his bold and ingenious interpretations on various themes. One interesting example is the discussion on the proposal to ban alcohol in Pakistan. While the rest of the members unanimously favoured a ban on all drinks with the slightest alcoholic content, Rahman dissented and argued that the drinking of alcohol was permissible, provided it did not result in intoxication. By this logic he allowed the consumption of beer and likened it to Nabiz—a fermented drink made from dates with an alcoholic content of up to five per cent—whose consumption was considered acceptable by some Companions of the Prophet and jurists.Footnote ⁹³

In 1967 Fazlur Rahman was again dragged into controversy over the question of mechanical slaughter. It so happened that the Pakistani High Commission in London sought an opinion about the decision of British authorities to make use of machine slaughter for animal food. Although Mufti Shafi—the most prominent and learned of the Deoband scholars at that time—decreed in favour of this practice on condition that the person pressing the button must recite bismillah, Rahman's statement that even that much was not required became highly controversial, in the light of reports that the government of Pakistan was engaged in constructing mechanical slaughterhouses in the country in a hushed atmosphere.Footnote ⁹⁴ The conservative resentment against him was fuelled further by the contents of his book, Islam, which had been published a year ago in which he was alleged to have construed that the Quran was not external to Prophet Muhammad and that his Divine inspiration came from within. For attributing ‘man-made qualities’ to the Quran, Rahman was denounced as Munkir-i Quran (denier of the Quran)—worse than Parvez who was Munkir-i Sunnat (denier of the Sunnat).Footnote ⁹⁵ This issue was taken to parliament and a number of demonstrations took place during 1968. In February of the same year, the Islamic Research Institute organized an international conference to commemorate the fourteen-hundreth anniversary of the Revelation of the Quran which served as a forum for espousing liberal themes and modernistic interpretation of Islam and hence handed to the demonstrating religious groups yet another reason for resentment against Rahman. The government, which by that time had lost considerable ground to the opposition, led mass campaigns on various political issues, and could only offer meek support to Rahman. As agitation went out of control between May and August 1968, the law minister, S.M. Zafar, advised Fazlur Rahman to quit.Footnote ⁹⁶

It should, however, be noted that Fazlur Rahman's directorship of the Islamic Research Institute did not lead to churning out religious literature that was always in tune with the religious world view of Ayyub Khan.Footnote ⁹⁷ What was more worthy of consideration was the perception about the religious ideas of Fazlur Rahman that had cropped up in the minds of the Ulema and the Ayyub Khan's continued willingness to stand firm by him for the longer period of its tenure, despite pressures to the contrary.

The Ayyub-Parvez ‘nexus’

Ayyub's support of Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, his interest in promoting the latter's ideas and occasionally assisting its organizational growth, was due to the confluence of their religious ideas on matters of mutual concern. The link between them was an open secret during the whole of Ayyub Khan's period in office and was another aspect of his policies regarding Islam that invited hostile reaction from conservative quarters.Footnote ⁹⁸ The intense disliking of the Ulema for Parvez and his proximity to government circles was not lost upon Ayyub Khan. Confidential reports submitted to the government highlighted the reasons for such animosity between the Ulema and Parvez.Footnote ⁹⁹ The report noted that this rivalry between the two pre-dated the creation of Pakistan, when Parvez had opposed the nationalist Ulema on the issue of Pakistan and later rebutted their ideas to establish a theocracy in Pakistan. The report also advised that the government distanced itself from ‘P.’ (that is Parvez) to dispel the perception of the influence his ideas had in framing the constitutions and other reforms being introduced by the regime. The situation was being exploited by the Ulema who could not have targeted the president directly but had found an indirect method of criticizing the president and the M.L. [Martial Law] regime by launching a campaign against P. They had also a suspicion that the new constitution then under preparation might be influenced by P's views. The fatwa issued by these Ulema against P. a few days before the announcement of the new Constitution, was in fact meant to serve as a basement for the opposition of the Constitution if it contained anything supporting P's views.

It was therefore not in the government's interest to strengthen the misgivings of the opposition. At the same time it was deemed inadvisable to suppress P's ideas so that the religious forces did not obtain a false sense of leverage over the regime.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ The middle course of action suggested was that the members of the Islamic Advisory Council be drawn from ‘major sects’ alone as it would automatically leave out P. who never claimed to belong to any sect.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Parvez's link with Ayyub Khan in the following years, however, does not seem to have been affected much by this report.

A cordial relationship with almost all the successive regimes in Pakistan was perhaps considered vital by Parvez as a survival strategy amidst hostile opposition extended to him by the Ulema. Before Ayyub Khan, there were similar rumours of government assistance to Parvez during Governor General Ghulam Muhammad's rule for the reason that T'ulu‘-i Islam was mostly uncritical of the most controversial policies and acts of the ruling regime. Parvez defended eulogizing Ghulam Muhammad's ‘services’ in that he always made an open, frontal attack against retrogressive forces and painted a progressive image of Islam at important political and international forums. Another reason for which he received kudos from Parvez was his act of dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in 1954 which thwarted the possibility of Bengalis—under the sway of influential Hindu intellectuals in their part of Pakistan—passing a resolution resulting in the amalgamation of Pakistan into India or at least to become a part of some confederation.Footnote ¹⁰² Thereafter, throughout the Martial Law regime of the 1960s Parvez extended unqualified support to Ayyub Khan and then hastened to congratulate Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on swearing in as the new ruler of Pakistan, although he had come to power by riding on the massive wave of anti-Ayyub Khan sentiments among the people. He requested a personal meeting with Bhutto, supported his vision of a socialist economy, and ensured his full support for its implementation.Footnote ¹⁰³

Although Parvez suggested scrapping the democratic set-up and imposing Martial Law back in 1957,Footnote ¹⁰⁴ the reason he received the President's attention was different. He, and his ideas, were first introduced to Ayyub Khan by one Habib-ur-Rahman who was a great admirer of Parvez's writings. Habib-ur-Rahman was the police chief in Abbottabad and was responsible for security arrangements whenever Ayyub visited his ancestral hometown nearby.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Due to the facilitations offered by Habib-ur-Rahman from an early date in the Martial Law regime of Ayyub Khan, a close affinity was established between him and Parvez. For Parvez, Ayyub had the ‘heart and soul of a true “Momin”, undoubtedly animated with the desire to strive for the greater of glory of Islam.’Footnote ¹⁰⁶ He pinned all his hopes on Ayyub for the setting up of a truly Islamic state. In his coming to power he saw the completion of ‘some Divine scheme’ for the enforcement of the Quranic principles—an accomplishment ‘unique and unparalleled in Muslim history since the days of (Hazrat) Abu Bakr and (Hazrat) Omar’.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Ayyub, on his part, admired the scholarly credentials of Parvez and shared his unorthodox approach towards Islam. On one occasion when Parvez called on Ayyub Khan and presented him with one of his writings, Ayyub noted the following observation about Parvez:

Ayyub wanted to make use of Parvez's scholarly knowledge of Islam, the mouthorgan of his organization Tulu‘-i Islam, and the local Tulu‘-i Islam units spread all over the country to put through his agenda of reform and propagation of religious ideals cherished by both of them. For this purpose, a joint strategy was chalked out whereby the government was to support Tulu‘-i Islam by financing the publication of certain ‘reformist literature’. In order to kick-start the publication project, Parvez requested substantial funds totalling 1,50,000 Rs per annum to purchase printing material and to hire office staff. This amount excluded the additional sum of 50,000 Rs which, if granted, was to be used to buy a printing press for Tulu‘-i Islam.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ It is difficult to ascertain whether the requested funds were all furnished or not but documentary evidence exists that Parvez, or for that matter Tulu‘-i Islam, was occasionally a recipient of direct financial support from Ayyub Khan. In May 1964, a letter sent to Parvez from the President's secretariat stated that as desired by the President a bank draft worth 25,000 Rs was being sent to him for a ‘special secret job.’Footnote ¹¹⁰ Parvez accepted the donation only after making clear that this amount was intended ‘to be spent towards the codification of the Holy Quran and on other literature in English on the interpretation and understanding of the Holy Quran.’Footnote ¹¹¹

While the details of the procurement of funds were probably sorted out by Parvez and members of the bureaucracy close to Ayyub Khan—like Qudrat Ullah Shahab and later Altaf Gauhar—the government departments, like the ministry of Information and the Bureau for National Reconstruction, used to feed Parvez with the ‘requirements’ of the state. These two departments did not always support the ideas put forward by Parvez. One such idea, pursued by Parvez with some enthusiasm, was the introduction of one, common sermon for Friday prayers. He drafted six specimen sermons and sent them for approval to Brigadier F.R. Khan who headed the Bureau for National Reconstruction. Parvez tried to make sure that the sermons met the ‘wishes’ of the Brigadier in terms of language and content and showed willingness to ‘produce at the rate of four “Sermons” a month’ if he could be provided with a typewriter and a stenographer.Footnote ¹¹² The project, however, did not take off as the Bureau did not show much faith in its feasibility.

One project for which Tulu‘-i Islam wanted to offer its services to the bureau and the latter was willing to accept it readily, was a smear campaign against the Jamat-i Islami and its leader and chief ideologue, Maulana Maududi. The Jamat and its leader had been a source of irritation for Ayyub Khan for holding views that were antithetical to that of Ayyub's and for engaging in agitational politics against the regime. For once Jamat-i Islami had to be banned, in 1964, on the pretext of damaging Pakistan's relations with Iran by writing an article about the Iranian government's persecution of Islamists in its country. On his part, Parvez too had scores to settle with Maududi. The two had once been supportive and appreciative of one another's efforts for the cause of IslamFootnote ¹¹³ but soon parted ways when Parvez unfolded his ideas on Hadith and Maududi's writings became increasingly targeted against the policies and leadership of the Muslim League. Soon after independence, Parvez used Tulu‘-i Islam as a platform to launch bitter attacks against Jamat-i Islami. He highlighted its alleged ‘anti-Pakistan’ credentials during the 1940s and in independent Pakistan, where Maududi was opposing military and government service under an ‘un-Islamic’ state, and was not willing to lend support to Pakistan's interference in Kashmir as a just act of war. On religious issues, Tulu‘-i Islam targeted Jamat's support-base among college graduates and the middle classes by focusing on his ideas disfavourable to women's rights and land reforms and his advocacy of slavery, possession of concubines, and capital punishment for apostasy.Footnote ¹¹⁴ More incisive was Tulu‘-i Islam's mockery of Maududi's claim as being the ‘reader of the Prophetic mind’ (Mizaj Shanas-i Rusul). It was argued that if Islamic law was based on the Quran and the Hadith, and if Maududi was to be the one arbiter sifting authentic Ahadith from forged ones, it would boil down to an arrangement where Maududi single-handedly had the authority to strike down any law or aspect of Shariat as repugnant to Islam for its alleged inconsistency with Hadith.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Stretching the argument further, Tulu‘-i Islam asserted that if the opinion of some Deobandi and Ahl-i Hadith scholars that Maududi could be described as a Munkir-i Hadith were to be accepted, then, in the light of the statement of Jamat-i Islami's own senior leader Miyan Tufayl Muhammad, such a person would be branded apostate who, according to Maududi's views, should be put to the sword.Footnote ¹¹⁶

Tulu‘-i Islam kept track of Maulana Maududi's statements and the activities of his religio-political organizations throughout the 1950s, and a book containing a collection of articles written by Tulu‘-i Islam in opposition to Maududi and Jamat-i Islami was published. Since the 1950s, a lot of new material has been produced by the Jamat, and Idara Tulu‘-i Islam planned to publish another book against Jamat-i Islami which it was to ‘publish [the book] at its own cost but . . . only if the Government consider[ed] the publication of a book of the contemplated nature advisable and useful.’ The proposed book would describe in considerable detail Maududi's and his party's attitudes towards, and activities

On another occasion the Bureau of National Research and Reference approached Parvez and requested that he write against ‘Maududiism’, especially in response to one of his recent articles about the righteous path trodden by the Jamat-i Islami.Footnote ¹¹⁸ Parvez was not content with writing a few articles to counter the influence of Jamat-i Islami and Maududi, but wanted a comprehensive plan to be introduced at government level. Jamat had fared better than expected during the 1965 elections and the idea of Jamat making further electoral gains prompted Parvez to suggest to Ayyub Khan a ‘three-pronged attack’ to ‘curb the activities of Jamat-i Islami’. He suggested ‘exposing’ the personal fascist conduct of Maududi, waging an ideological war with Jamat itself, and ‘equipping’ the Muslim League to enable it to take on Maududiism as a political movement.Footnote ¹¹⁹

It is difficult to estimate the benefits, material or otherwise, accruing to Parvez from his association with Ayyub Khan. While for the latter it became a political liability, just as was the case with Dr Fazlur Rahman,Footnote ¹²⁰ Parvez too did not escape criticism and further distrust from religious quarters. Ideally Parvez would have liked Ayyub Khan to introduce Tulu‘-i Islam literature in the curriculum and to personally identify himself with this Quranic movement to further the influence of these ideas.Footnote ¹²¹ But quite opposite to what Parvez aspired for, he often complained about being ignored by TV and radio, and that his publications were blacklisted in civil and military departments. His most cherished project of setting up a ‘Quranic College’ in Lahore could not materialize either, as he was almost snubbed in response to a request for some acres of land in Lahore.Footnote ¹²² Nevertheless, this decade-long honeymoon with the power elite certainly amplified the relevance and prominence of Tulu‘-i Islam's literature and of Parvez's writings. Perhaps it was this disproportionate amplification that incensed the Ulema and drove them collectively into blocking further openings for Parvez by declaring a fatwa of kufr against him.Footnote ¹²³

‘The Fundamental Conflict’

The attempts of Ayyub Khan to determine the role of Islam in accordance with his own scheme of things had not been abortive when it came to encouraging—as long as he was firmly saddled in power—a more liberal outlook and free enquiry within the organizations for research on Islam and related subjects of interest. He was cognizant of the fact that, if an agenda of reform was to be pursued, it was imperative to face the religious forces head on with vigour, so as not to give the impression of buckling under their pressure. In the latter, however, he was not always successful. He could not hold on to his decision of dropping the appellate ‘Islamic’ from the official name of the Republic of Pakistan and had to revert back to the original one by amending the constitution. Similarly, in a provision of the constitution that no law shall be made in contradiction to the Quran and the Sunna, the interpretation, understanding and practice of the twin terms was left open to followers of the respective sects. This was much to the chagrin of Ayyub Khan's own supporters among the liberals and the religious circles. Ayyub Khan's efforts to remove any limitation in the name of Islam on the legislative powers of the parliament also met a similar fate. He had tried to achieve this by a slight change of wording in the Objectives Resolution. The edited version, incorporated into the 1962 constitution as its preamble, said: ‘Whereas sovereignty over the entire Universe belongs to Almighty Allah alone, and the authority exercisable by the people is a sacred trust[. . .].’ The qualifying Divine authority which was previously stated in the resolution as ‘the limits prescribed by Him’ was thus removed. The First Amendment Act 1963 reintroduced this qualification to the constitution.Footnote ¹²⁴

These trends seemed to confirm the apprehension among the power elite that the influence of religious personnel was on the increase and that a comprehensive strategy was needed to stall its growth. In the 1965 presidential elections the religious parties polled better than expected by pocketing the anti-Ayyub Khan vote. The result of the elections was used by the protagonists of the ‘Fundamental Conflict’ project as a pretext to bait Ayyub Khan into thinking about pitching liberal forces against retrogressive ones. Such a course of action was considered necessary for eliminating the forces of religious resistance and to actualize the evolutionary progress towards social welfare and an ideally Islamic state. S.M. Zafar, who was law minister during the second tenure of Ayyub Khan's presidency, made a slanting reference to such growing perceptions among the ruling circles in a book published soon after Ayyub Khan was ousted from power. He talked about a

Ayyub Khan himself endorsed such a reading of the Pakistani society as being divided along two antagonistic classes: the modern educated and the Mullahs. He observed:

Ayyub Khan wrote this as a preface to his memoirs in 1967—the same year when he approved preliminary discussions on the outline of a project titled ‘The Fundamental Conflict’. The prime purpose of this project was to integrate the clerical forces—referred to as ‘Mullahs’ throughout the proceedings of the project—with the rest of the society and introduce them to modern knowledge so that they could become productive members of the society and help reduce the yawning gap between the modern educated and the religious classes.

The project was conceived by the Ministry of Information and was probably the brainchild of the influential bureaucrat Altaf Gauhar.Footnote ¹²⁷ Preliminary discussions to set the agenda of the project were held at Rawalpindi during a Governor's Conference between 23^rd and 25^th February 1967. It was accepted that Pakistan, where ‘the races and languages were so different and the areas were separated by a distance of 1200 miles, the mainstay of nationhood was religion.’Footnote ¹²⁸ Pakistan, unlike what happened in countries like Egypt and Turkey with comparatively more racial and linguistic homogeneity, could not afford to disregard religion. Now that Pakistan could not live without the inclusion of religion in its socio-political fabric, the dilemma before the delegates of the conference—as it had been for the Pakistani power elite since 1947—was to determine the role of religion in the affairs of state in such a manner that did not result in the prevalence of retrogressive forces in the country. This could not be avoided without taking the religious forces on board and indoctrinating them with the power elite's (and that of the so-called ‘enlightened’ educated class's) brand of progressive Islam. The focus of the whole project, therefore, was to highlight the dichotomy between the Mullah and the enlightened classes and suggest ways whereby the former could be roped into playing a constructive and desirable role in society. This required defining the current position of the Mullah in society and what was demanded of him by the power elite. Even more important was a discussion on the religious ideas of the Mullahs and how could he be infused with modernist currents so that he came closer to sharing a progressive version of Islam like the rest of society. The idea was effectively captured in a policy statement issued by the Ministry of Information as the initiator of the project:

At the ideological plane, the various proposals and papers submitted at the conference offered no viable solution other than vaguely to suggest that the Mullah be ‘modernized to a limited extent’, or a more long-term goal of breeding a new class who have a ‘proper’ knowledge of Islam and the realities of modern life.Footnote ¹³⁰ What was deemed to be a more practical measure for short-term gains was the policy of co-opting the Mullah, who was described as ‘living the life of a parasite and a beggar, by improving his social status and living standard. He could be usefully employed at various tiers of the Basic Democracies and paid respectable salaries through the Auqaf department for their services as the Imams at the mosques’.Footnote ¹³¹ The less hard-core among the Mullahs could be won over by such steps. Those who were expected to continue with issuing inflammatory speeches and to object to government reforms—for example reforms relating to family planning—were recommended to be dealt with strongly under some new provision in the penal code.Footnote ¹³² This approach was endorsed by Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, who personally had been hard hit by the issuance of a decree of apostasy against him by the Ulema. He supported such measures as keeping a strict vigilance over the Mullahs and advised to deal with their ‘subversive activities’ with a ruthless pugnacity’. He also recommended the initiation of treason proceedings against those who went beyond the boundaries in criticising the state and its legislation.Footnote ¹³³ He used the forum to heighten the perceived threat of Jamat-i Islami's growing strength and proposed strict actions against its operations and sources of funding. This point was further deliberated upon during the Governors Conference where it was agreed to take steps to ‘expose’ the anti-Pakistan character of the Jamat by isolating the Ulema for exposing and attacking the Jamat, or through the platform of a ‘non-official research organization’ of some political party.Footnote ¹³⁴ However, none of the proposals could be effectively translated into practical measures due to brewing differences among the members of the committee on the nature and utility of the concept of ‘Fundamental Conflict’ even before the project had formally taken off. S. M. Zafar raised a dissenting voice in this regard. His views on the project, anonymously quoted in the proceedings, were that there did not exist a fundamental conflict but only a misunderstanding between the two classes highlighted in the project. He reportedly said:

Therefore, after a few preliminary sessions, the whole project had to be scrapped in the face of opposition from within the committee, and the possible political fallouts in an already unstable situation in the country. Nevertheless, the project—and a discussion about it at the conclusion of a differentiated reading of the politics of Islam in Pakistan during the period 1947–1969—serves as a fitting reminder of the power elite's anxious envisioning of competing interpretations of Islam in all these years, and their urge to promote the discourse of Islamic modernism as it coincided with their own requirements and visions. In the shaping and realization of these preferential ends and versions, Ghulam Ahmad Parvez—and other like-minded religious scholars and researchers on Islam—had played no insignificant role.