‘Deoband Movement Sheds Light on Religious Diversity'

ISLAMABAD: The Deoband movement in the subcontinent, despite its common doctrinal heritage, is not a monolithic entity and represents a diversity of religious and ideological orientation.

Dr Mumtaz Ahmad expressed these views at a public lecture organised by the Islamic Research Institute of International Islamic University (IIIU), Islamabad.

It is pertinent to mention that Dr Mumtaz Ahmad teaches Political Science at the Hampton University, USA and currently he is on an official visit to Pakistan.

Presenting a lecture at the IIIU, he said the Deoband seminary was established to protect the cultural and traditional values of Muslims.

He said the Deoband movement represented several different, although not necessarily mutually contradictory, streams of religious and political orientations, despite its façade of unity.

Dr Ahmad identified these diverse orientations as (1) the Sufi stream; (2) the reformist stream; (3) the sectarian stream; (4) the anti-colonial-Jihadi stream; (5) the Muslim nationalist stream; (6) the socialist stream; and (7) the Tablighi stream.

He argued that the role of the Deoband Ulema until the mid-1960s was more like that of a pressure group trying to influence public policy rather than as contenders for political power.

He said the Ulema-based groups became active in national politics only during the later half of the Ayub Khan regime in response to the modernising policies of Ayub Khan that threatened their power and privilege.

Another factor that brought them into political arena was the rise of the revivalist Jamaat-e-Islami that challenged their monopoly on Islamic religious discourse and threatened to trespass on their social constituencies.

Dr Ahmed said that Ayub Khan's development policies also created new and expanded avenues for financial support for Ulema, their madrassas, and their religio-political activities.

At the same time, an equally important logic was dictated by the Afghan Jihad of the 1980s that launched a new alliance of Deobandi Ulema with the state.

It was this alliance that made them dynamic in Pakistan's domestic politics as well as in the regional conflicts, he said.

The madrassas affiliated with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam champions of Afghan Jihad against the Soviets played a pivotal role in mobilising popular support and volunteers for Jihad.

Dr Ahmed said that once the Deobandi establishment in Pakistan entered the world of Jihad, it made full use of its vast institutional resources - mosques and madrassas - and enormous manpower of madrassa students.

The rise of their doctrinal followers, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the networking of their sectarian and Jihadi outfits, the new front of Jihad in Kashmir, and the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, together created the environment in which Jihadi rhetoric had tended to become "the core element of Deobandi identity in today's Pakistan," Dr. Mumtaz concluded.

The public lecture was chaired by Islamic Research Institute Director Dr Zafar Ishaq Ansari while IIUI President Dr Anwar H Siddiqui, was the chief guest on the occasion.

Both Dr Zafar and Dr Anwar highlighted the great contribution made by Ulema to the Pakistan movement.

Dr Zafar said that Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Maulana Zafar Ahmad Usmani and Mufti Muhammad Shafi played a key role in advancing the cause of Pakistan.