The nation of Islam

There has been lot of discussion about nation state in the twentieth century and yet there is no unanimity of views on this controversial subject. The concept of nation state becomes all the more controversial in a country which lacks religious, cultural and linguistic homogeneity and wherein various religious and linguistic groups are present. In modern parlance the concept of nation state runs into several problems in a pluralistic society like India. The classical nation state came into existence in Europe on the basis of shared linguistic and cultural heritage and future economic vision. That was not the case in colonised countries in Asia and Africa. The colonial countries did not establish their colonies in religiously and linguistically homogeneous areas. They established their rule wherever they could capture power and brought about administrative unity. These administratively unified areas clubbed together became a nation state when the colonial masters left.

However, in some countries like India severe conflict took place about the concept of nation state when the colonial masters were about to leave. The Muslim League which claimed to be the sole representative of the Indian Muslims rejected the concept of composite nationalism and advanced the theory of religious nationalism. In fact the idea of religious nationalism was mooted for the first time on Indian sub-continent. It was never mooted before anywhere else in the world. Nationalism was so far associated with shared history, culture, language and ethnicity but not with religion. It is also interesting to note, and we have stressed this elsewhere too, that the theory of religious nationalism was advanced by secular elite of the community and not by its religious leadership.

It is also important to note that the two nation theory was born more out of political considerations than on grounds of religion. It was result of competition for power between secular elites of the two communities rather than justified by theology of Islam or Hinduism. The religious leaders of Muslims opposed the theory and justified composite nationalism on religious ground. Territory and not religion forms the basis of nationalism, they argued. The most articulate theorist among religious leaders who rejected the theory of religious nationalism was Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani belonging to the Deoband school of `Ulama.

Similarly among Hindus too, it was not religious leadership which justified the two nation theory but ‘secular’ leadership led by Vir Savarkar and others. Neither Muslim League was a religious party nor Hindu Mahasabha was. The leaders of Hindu Mahasabha agreed with Jinnah and his Muslim League that Hindus and Muslims were two different ‘nations’. It is different thing that the Hindu Mahasabha, unlike the Muslim League, did not demand partition of the country. It stood for Akhand Bharat under the Hindu hegemony. The Hindu Mahasabha, and later the RSS, wanted to establish the Hindu Rashtra wherein Muslims, Christians and Parsis will be treated as foreigners and will have no citizenship and political rights. Guru Golwalkar, the then RSS chief had expressed these ideas in his two books A Bunch of Thoughts and We – Our Nationhood Defined.

As pointed out above there is absolutely no justification at all for the theory of religious nationalism. If propounded it raises very awkward problems which are very difficult to solve. No wonder than that the theory has been thoroughly discredited. In the case of Islam it raises even more awkward problems. Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani was well aware of these problems and he raised them in his seminal book Muttahida Qaumiyyat aur Islam (Composite Nationalism and Islam). There are several Muslim nations today in the post-colonial world. If Islam could be the basis of nationalism then there should be only one nation. It is territorially impossible, one can argue, there being no contiguity. Even if this argument is theoretically accepted, then the question arises why those countries which have territorial contiguity – like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and several of central Asian nations, on one hand, and several Arab countries with territorial contiguity, on the other, merge into one nation?

No Muslim country will ever take such an idea seriously. An attempt was made during Nasser’s time to merge Egypt, Syria and Libya together and create United Arab Republic in early seventies. Though all three were overwhelmingly Muslim and Arab countries the union did not last more than a couple of years. This union gave rise to intractable political problems and at last it was dissolved. In this case not only religion but also the language was also same (Arabic). Still the political union between these countries could not last. When the Saudi King objected to Nasser’s use of the term ‘Arab nationalism’, and suggested instead ‘Islamic Umma, Nasser rightly pointed out that what was in common between an Arab Muslim and an Indonesian Muslim except their religion? How can they come together politically? And we saw above even three Arab countries with the same language, apart from religion, could not come together.

The question of identity is of primary importance in the formation of nation. What is, then, the basis of identity? Identity, most commonly, is based on shared sense of history, culture and language. Religion, it may be emphasised, may or may not be common. Religion alone, it should be noted, cannot provide viable and cohesive base for common nationalism. In the classical European model too, though Christianity was a common factor Europe was divided into different nations on linguistic and cultural basis. Thus in the formation of nation common language, culture and sense of a shared history plays quite an important role.

In the case of Malaysia, Malay nationalism, apart from Islam, plays an important role. Malay identity to them is as important as their religious identity. In fact it is difficult to make distinction between their Malay and Islamic identity. This identity is unique to them which they cannot share with other Muslims in Malaysia or elsewhere. There are non-Malay Muslims in Malaysia. They are of Indian origin but they have very different sense of identity from the Malay Muslims. Malay nationalism is a different category by itself. It is dominant category of nationalism in Malaysia.

Malaysia is a pluralist country like India. There are Chinese, non-Malay Muslims, Christians and Hindus. Malay Muslims are around 45% but constitute the largest group. The Chinese are about 37 per cent, next only to Malay Muslims. The UMNO is the dominant political party, which is mainly a Malay Muslim party but also has in its fold other minorities. It could be mainly compared with Indian national Congress. Like the Congress, after independence, the UMNO has the support of minorities. Though the Congress today in India has lost much of its prestige and minority support, the UMNO, in Malaysia, still retains it.

There are some striking differences also in the Malaysian and Indian situation. The Malay Muslims, unlike the majority Hindus in India, were a socially, educationally and economically a highly deprived group. It was the Chinese who were educationally and economically most dominant. The Malay Muslims were organised under the banner of Malay Islam and fought for their rights. They came mostly from rural areas. The revivalist movement represented the aspirations of these rural Malay Muslims. The revivalist movement could easily be co-opted by the state by giving deserving concessions to Malay Muslims. Thus Malaysian Islam has its own unique cultural characteristics and Malay nationalism does not share a sense of common cultural and historical heritage with other Muslims in or outside Malaysia.

Indonesian Islam has again its own unique cultural and historical characteristics. Hinduism was a dominant force in Indonesia during early medieval period and hence there is greater impact of Hinduism on Indonesian Islam, particularly the Javanese Islam. Bhasa Indonesia has several words of Sanskrit origin and Hindu names like Sinta (Sita) and Lakshmi are quite common among the Muslims in Indonesia. Similarly names like Ram and Vishnu are common among Muslim men. Abdur Rahman Wahid, now the President of Indonesia, once told me in a seminar in Jogjakarta that the greatest preacher of Islam in Indonesia was one Maulana Vishnu. These are unique socio-cultural characteristics of Islam in different countries and Muslims and non-Muslims in these countries have a shared sense of culture and history and it this shared sense of history and culture which impart them a common sense of national identity.

In many Arab countries there are Jews and Christians who speak Arabic and share with Muslims common history. In Jordan, for example, there is a large number of Arab Christians who live in peace with Muslims and share common history and culture with them. In Lebanon too the Muslims and Maronite Christians share nationalism with each other. Though there was a violent conflict between them, it was engineered more by outside forces like Israel than internal religious one. Once that problem was sorted out they live as one nation with a sense of political unity.

All these examples clearly bring out the fact that political unity and sense of common nationhood need not depend on religious unity but on political, historical and cultural factors. Religious nationalism is not a viable category as same religion can be, and oten is, embraced by different racial, ethnic and cultural groups. Religion, it should be remembered, is a spiritual and moral category whereas nationalism is a political cum territorial category. The two should not be confused together. Composite culture can be a more viable base for nationalism than religion alone. Religion provides for common spiritual experience and shared moral and ethical vision whereas nationalism provides for shared political concerns, cultural practices and historical heritage. South Asia had such common heritage. Its division was brought about by extraneous factors like British imperial policies rather than by differences of religion. A South Asian confederation is a must for this region to usher peace and prosperity in the region.

There are also political theorists in post colonial period who reject the whole idea of nationalism.

Source : http://ecumene.org/IIS/csss33.htm