17.11.2013 Sectarianism through history
By Tahir Kamran
Muharram brings with it a brutal demonstration of the ‘clash and collision of sectarian identities’. The mayhem caused at Gujranwala, where three Shia mourners were killed as a result of firing on the Shia Majlis organised to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, is ample testimony to it. To our dismay, any incident of Shia-killing has ceased to surprise many Pakistanis now, even out of Muharram.
But when did sectarianism become the principal constituent of our identity?
According to many who speak against the Shia faith, sectarianism has risen to prominence since the February of 1990, when Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi was killed in Jhang. Maulana Jhangvi was the founder of Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, an anti-Shia outfit, which he conjured into existence in September 1985 at Jhang. That outfit was ostensibly a response to the creation of a Shia organisation Tehreek-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqh-i-Jafria at Bhakkar, a town in the south east of Lahore in 1979 by Shia cleric Mufti Jaffer Hussain. He adroitly mobilised the Shia community in 1979 against Zia ul Haq’s intended promulgation of Zakat and Ushr Ordinance in Pakistan, a legislation that radically conflicted with Shia jurisprudence.
Islamabad was virtually besieged by the Shias for several days, with the result that Zia had to give way. Shias were exempted from Zakat which, for them, was a morale-boosting victory.
Both these organisations had their respective militant wings, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-i-Muhammad. Encouraged by this outcome, Mufti Jaffer Hussain continued to build on the foundation of Tehreek-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqh-i-Jafria. This mobilisation of Shias, avidly supported by Iran under Imam Khomeini, nudged the Sunni-Deobandi faction into forming their own organisation.
Many analysts attribute the ensuing sectarian frenzy, that plagues Pakistan even to this day, to the assassination of Allama Arif ul Husseini, a charismatic Turi alim of Shia persuasion from Parachinar, in 1988, only a few months before Zia ul Haq’s plane exploded near Bahawalpur. Some speculate that the targeted killing that Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has fostered since its inception in 1994 was in fact sparked by the killing of Ehsan Illahi Zaheer, a firebrand Ahl-i-Hadith scholar, with a feverish antipathy towards the Shias.
All said and done, however, pinning down a single explanation for violence only leads to tenuous conclusions. Tracing the evolution of Shia-Sunni divergence through history, however, is a more manageable task.
Sources alluding to the anti-Shia stance among Sunnis circumscribe the pamphlet of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (Mujjadid Alif Sani) entitled ‘Rad-I Rawafiz’, which was an acerbic response to the soaring influence of Iranian nobility in the Mughal Court. One ought to bear in mind that continual migration from Iran to India had become commonplace since Humayun’s sojourn in Iran as an exile. The assassination of renowned contemporary Shia alim Nurullah Shushtri at the behest of Jehangir is also proposed as an illustration of the anti-Shia posture adopted by the Mughals.
Similarly Aurangzeb’s Sunni disposition and his rampaging expeditions to Golcanda and Bijapur (the Shia States) are also cited as evidence that the odds had been against the Shias in the 17th century.
Having referred to all these incidents, it is hard to notice the anti-Shia ideology and practices impinging upon the collective perception of Indian Muslims simply because the difference between the two sects had blurred. Even Shah Waliullah’s drift towards puritanical Islam, and Shah Abdul Aziz’s condemnatory treatise ‘Tuhfa tu Athna Athari’ could not make any great impact on the general Muslim populace.
It was only after the creation of Dar ul Ulum Deoband (1867) that both of them came to be celebrated for their reformist-scholarly prowess. Besides, sectarian ideology started pervading into the Sufi orders too. Nineteenth century Chishti Sufis like Suliman Taunswi and Shams ud Din Sialvi had turned anti-Shia. Up till early 19th century instruction in religion, the Juma prayer was invariably offered together by both the communities, because Shias did not organise separate Friday prayers.
But then, from the second half of the 18th century, influences from Arabia led to the crystallising of sectarian identities. Thus, a revisionism found its foothold here, raising questions over the validity of the basic postulates of Shi’ism, and the sectarian camaraderie prevalent in South Asia until this time was further eroded by the dismantling of centralised Mughal power structures.
Political decline tends to give rise to exclusionary behaviour and religious Puritanism is propounded as the most efficacious route towards the political revival of the Muslims, not only in the case of India but also in Turkey. The emergence of Shia rule in Awadh, which lasted for 136 years, the advent of Usuli Ulema and the proliferation of Shia in the Punjab obviously contributed significantly in establishing the sectarian schism. During the same era, the Shia faith began to strike roots in Awadh, particularly when Asaf ud Daulah became the Nawab (1775-1797AD). His devotion and profound interest in the Shia faith not only helped in its spread in Awadh and beyond, but such ventures as Asfi Imambara and Dargah-e-Hazrat Abbas in Lucknow were undertaken which later on served as powerful symbols of the newly emergent Shia ethos of Lucknow.
The commencement of congregational Friday prayers among Shias was another ‘epoch making event’ of Asaf ud Daulah’s reign. The doctrinal chasm between the two sects became more pronounced when Usuli alim Dildar Ali Nasirabadi Ghufran Ma’ab started castigating Sufi beliefs and practices like the concept of Wahdat ul Wujud, the doctrine of Kashf (inspiration), wajd (mystical ecstacy) and practices like singing, dancing and beating drums. More provocative was the Usuli practice of publically cursing the first three Caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman. As Cole reveals, Dildar Ali and his student Kinturi defended such practice, generally called as tabarra for usurping the claim of Ali as the successor of the Prophet.
From the 1820s and particularly with the ascendancy of Nasir ud Din Hayder as Badshah in 1827, tabarra during Muharram became an abiding feature in Awadh to the chagrin of Sunnis. But the situation changed markedly when Sunnis retaliated to the recitation of Tabarra by instituting the practice of Madhe Sahaba, a fervent affirmation of the righteousness of the Companions of the Prophet. Majlis-i-Ahrar played an important role in popularising the campaign of Madhe Sahaba. It led to violent clashes between the two sects which continued intermittently and which even the recommendations of Piggot Committee (est.1908-9) or the report of Justice Allsop (1937) were unable to control.
The most violent sectarian riots took place in 1938-39 when the UP government decided to clamp a ban on Madhe Sahaba on certain days.
The inferences drawn from the history of sectarian clashes between the adherents of the two denominations point to the fact that Tabarra against the first three caliphs sits at the very heart of the conflict. That exactly is the reason the biggest anti-Shia organisation was named the way it is, Sipah-i-Sahaba (one must read Sahaba as Abu Bakr, Umar and Usman). Other polemical disputations have seldom led to a situation of open confrontation.
Now that the polarisation between the sects has widened further, the chances of any rapprochement seem slight. The funneling of funds from abroad to various militant organisations is exacerbating this problem. Sadly enough in Pakistan, what is meant by Sharia is the intended preponderance of Sunni Hanafi law, which would be promulgated obviously at the expense of other minority sects.
Now the situation has come to such a pass that, even if Shias abandon tabarra altogether, their safety, particularly in the days of Muharram, can hardly be guaranteed. The Government’s weak-kneed approach in extirpating the sectarian differences is encouraging those who use religion to shed blood and cause mayhem.
Until this changes, history will keep repeating itself every Muharram.
The writer is a noted Pakistani historian, currently the Iqbal Fellow at the University of Cambridge as professor in the Centre of South Asian Studies