THE VOICE OF ISLAM
Vol. 10, No. 3,
December 1961
By Professor Khurshid Ahmad
PRESIDENT Muhammad Ayub Khan, immediately after the resumption of full powers, declared that Pakistan was brought into existence for the achievement of certain ideals, which were unfortunately relegated to the lumber-house during the post-Quaid period and which must now be revived and achieved. This was a call which rekindled the hopes of the people and blazed a new trail.
Pakistan is not a mere geographic expression. It is the embodiment of an ideology and of a new concept of nationhood. It seems to be in the fitness of things to study the Pakistan Ideology in its real historical perspective.
The Pakistan movement was an expression of Muslim India’s inherent desire to establish an Islamic society and an Islamic State. The movement was inspired by the ideology of Islam and the country was partitioned so that a homeland might be founded for Islam, wherein the efficacy of the Islamic way of life may be demonstrated in a world torn by ideological conflicts and social schisms.
The Genesis of the Islamic Movement in India
Islam came to India through Muslim traders, travellers and sufis. With the spread of Islam the desire to establish an Islamic Polity in the sub-continent gained strength. Muslim rulers, in response to the aspirations of the Muslim masses, introduced Islamic law (the Shari’ah) and established the Shi’ar-i-Islam. Although monarchy and despotism, institutions alien to the letter and spirit of Islam, prevailed in the land, the Shari’ah did constitute the law of the land and there was no mass-deviation from Islam. This was not the best of situations, for Islam was not being followed in all its fullness. But there was also no movement against Islam, and it was hoped that through sustained effort things would, in the course of time, be corrected. It was during the reign of Akbar that a calculated effort was made to minimise the socio-political role of Islam and to evolve under the patronage of the state, a new religion-a hotch potch of Hinduism, Buddhism, Paganism and Islam. This produced a strong reaction among the people, who revolted against this idea and a movement was born for the re-establishment of the Shari’ah. It was spear-headed by Shaikh Ahmad of Sirhind, the Mujaddid Alf-i-Thani, who propagated the teachings of Islam in a systematic way, proclaimed the truth undeterred by threats, roused public opinion, fought undaunted against the forces arrayed against him and even suffered imprisonment in the historic Gawaliar Fort. As a result of the movement launched by him the anti-Islam policy of Akbar fizzled out almost immediately after his death and the Mughal emperors gradually became Islam-oriented, so much so that history witnessed in Aurangzeib an ardent soldier of Islam, in whose reign codification and enforcement of Islamic law was accomplished.
The torch which the Mujaddid Alf-i-Thani lighted was kept burning by the later generations and the movement progressed under the guidance of several leaders of thought and action. Shah Waliullah of Delhi made valuable contributions towards the reconstruction of Islamic thought and laid the foundations of an Islamic renaissance. All the Muslim reformers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries drew their inspiration from that great beacon of learning.
Under Shah Isma’il Shaheed and Saiyyid Ahmad Shaheed the-movement for the establishment of the Islamic State took concrete shape. They fought the Sikhs and the British Imperialists and their ultimate objective was to establish Khilafat ‘ala minhaj-i-Khilafat-i-Rashidah, (Islamic State on the pattern of the State established by the Rightly-Guided Caliphs). In the words of Sayyid Ahmad Shaheed:
“The only desire that spurs me is that the law revealed by the Almighty which we call the Shari’ah may be enforced in all the lands and on all the peoples and there should remain no conflict or tussle in this respect. My objective is to accomplish this task-it may be achieved through my hands or through someone else’s. What I want is that this must be done. And I shall resort to all those means and devices (which are permitted by Islam and) which seem to help in the achievement of this end.”
Although Sayyid Ahmad and his armies could not succeed in their immediate objective they ignited a fire in the hearts of the people and the movement continued even after the martyrdom which he and many of his companions achieved. This movement left indelible impressions upon the minds of the Indian Muslims which no amount of British repression could efface. The bloodshed at Balakot continued to inspire the people, and indeed the history of that movement continues to inspire us even today.
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan tried to strike a compromise with Western thought but, despite his sincerity modernism could not gain ground. Shibli Nu’mani, Abul Kalam Azad, Muhammad ‘Ali (of the Comrade fame), Iqbal, Zafar ‘Ali and Mawlana Mawdoodi-all have been leaders of the same renaissance movement and each one of them gave a new impetus to it. Shibli tried to restore confidence in Muslim culture and presented afresh the historical role of Islam and of the Prophet of Islam. Abul Kalam Azad (in the days of his famous Al-Hilal and Al-Balagh) shook Muslim India from its stupor and called it back to the original Message of Islam. Muhammad ‘Ali revived the Muslim interest in Indian politics, strengthened the pan-Islamic feelings and championed the Khilafat Movement which constitutes a turning point in the modern political history of Muslim India. Iqbal, through his poetry and his Lectures, moved the soul of the younger generation and appealed to them to re-achieve the glory that is Islam. And Maudoodi expounded the philosophic and the intellectual foundations of the modern renaissance movement.
This is the intellectual background to the demand for Pakistan. The Pakistan Movement was not the product of any political accident.
It was the natural, crescendo of history and it goes to the credit of Iqbal and Quaid-i-A’zam Muhammad ‘Ali Jinnah that they grasped the slow whisper of history and piloted the movement on lines which, within a decade of the latter’s taking it up, resulted in Pakistan becoming a throbbing reality.
The Two-Nation Theory
The idea of Pakistan owes its origin to the belief that Muslims are a nation apart, an ideological community, and it is a dictate of their faith to establish a state, a society and a culture in the light of the principles laid down by the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The idea of separate Muslim nationhood is as old as Muslim society itself.
Al-Beruni, who visited the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent in the ninth century, writes :
“The Hindus entirely differ from us (i.e., the Muslims) in every respect,”
“One might think that the Hindus had intentionally changed them (i.e., their customs and ways of living) into the opposite, for our customs do not resemble theirs, but are the very reverse; and if ever a custom of theirs resembles one of ours, it has certainly just the opposite meaning.”
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan said in 1882:
“Is it possible that under these circumstances two nations- Muslim and Hindu-could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and drive it out. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable.”
Even Sir William Hunter, in his The Indian Mussalmans, speaks of Muslims as a community, a race, exhibiting “their old intense feeling of nationality”.
Iqbal and the Qua’id
It was in this historical background that Iqbal suggested the idea of a separate Islamic state in India. While suggesting the idea of Pakistan in his Presidential Address of 1930, he said :
“The life of Islam as a cultural force in this country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory. This centralisation of the most living portion of the Muslims of India will eventually solve the problem of India as well as of Asia.”
This was essential so that the Indian Muslims might become “entitled to full and free development on the lines of his own culture and tradition.”
Quaid-i-Azam based his plea on the same grounds. During the Jinnah-Gandhi Talks he said:
“We claim the right of self-determination as a nation and not as a territorial unit.”
In March 1944, while elaborating the concept of Pakistan, he said:
“Our bed-rock and sheet-anchor is Islam. We are one and we must move as one nation and then alone we shall be able to attain Pakistan.”
In June, 1945, he said:
“There is only one course open to us: to organize our nation, And it is by dint of our own arduous and sustained efforts that we can create strength and support our people not only to achieve our freedom and independence, but to be able to maintain it and live according to Islamic ideals and principles.
“Pakistan not only means freedom and independence, but the Muslim Ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure and which we hope others will share with us.”
In November, 1945, he said:
“The Muslims demand Pakistan, where they could rule according to their own code of life and according to their own cultural growth, traditions and Islamic laws. Our religion, our culture and our Islamic ideals are our driving force to achieve our independence.”
Mr. Liaquat All Khan affirmed the same concept of Pakistan when, while moving the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in 1949, he said;
“Pakistan was founded because the Muslims of this subcontinent wanted to build up their lives in accordance with the teachings and traditions of Islam, because they wanted to demonstrate to the world that Islam provides a panacea to the many diseases which have crept into the life of humanity today.”
The above is a clear statement of the Pakistan Ideology and it consists of:
The concept of the separate nationhood of Muslims;
The idea that Pakistan is the homeland of Islam and a laboratory for the demonstration to the world the efficacy of the Islamic ideology; and the partition of India on the basis that Pakistan should consist of those areas which have a Muslim majority.
In fact, only one point of the Pakistan Ideology has so far-been fulfilled. Our mission is yet uncompleted and the nation is to march ahead until it fulfills the Pakistan ideology in its entirety. And that is what the Qua’id-i-Azam said on the eve of Independence:
“The establishment of Pakistan for which we have been striving for the last ten years is by the grace of God an established fact today, but the creation of a state of our own was a means to an end, not the end in itself. The idea was that we should have a state in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own light and culture and where principles of. Islamic social justice could find free play.”
The world beckons us even today
