The Historian 2009

The Historian
Volume 7 July-December 2009 Number 2
Department of History
GC University, Lahore
The Historian
Volume 7 (July-December 2009) Number 2
© The Historian is published by the Department of History, GC

University, Katchehry Road, 54000 Lahore, Pakistan.
No potion of this journal may be reproduced by any mechanical,

photographic or electronic process, or in the form of a photographic
recording without written permission from the copyright holders.
ISSN. 2074-5672
Price: 250 PKR

Editor: Tahir Kamran
Associate Editors: Irfan Waheed Usmani, Tahir Jamil, Hussain Ahmad Khan,
Noor Rehman
Assistant Editor: Umber bin Ibad
Design & Production Incharge: Shifa Ahmad
Editorial Advisory Board
David Gilmartin – Department of History, North Carolina State University, USA

Farhat Mahmud - Department of History, GC University, Lahore, Pakistan
Francis Robinson – Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London,
UK
Gyanesh Kudaisya – South Asian Studies Programme, National University of
Singapore, Singapore
Ian Talbot- Department of History, University of Southampton, UK
Iftikhar Haider Malik - Department of History, University College of Newton Park,
UK
Kathrine Adeney - Department of Political Science, University of Sheffield, UK
Mohammad Waseem – Department of Social Sciences, Lahore University of
Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
Mridula Mukherjee - Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, India
Pippa Virdee- Department of Historical and Social Sciences, De Montfort
University, Leicester, UK
Qalb-i-Abid – Department of History, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
Sharif-ul-Mujahid – Pakistan Study Centre, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan
Shinder S. Thandi - Department of Economics, Coventry University , UK
Shuan Gregory – Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK
Surrinder Singh - Department of History, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
Tariq Rahman – National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University,
Islamabad, Pakistan
Virinder Kalra - Department of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, UK
CONTENTS
THE HISTORIAN
VOLUME 7 JULY-DECEMBER 2009 NUMBER 2
ARTICLES
MAIN MERNEY KO PHER RAHA HOUN, MERNEY KO: GENEALOGICAL

SOCIOLOGY OF SIPAH-I-SAHABA PAKISTAN….TAHIR KAMRAN
5
A LITANY OF ERRORS: PAKISTAN’S KASHMIR POLICY (FROM 1996-

99)….IRFAN WAHEED USMANI 23
THE HISTORY OF HADĪTH LITERATURE: A REVIEW OF MUSLIM AND

WESTERN THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES…. ALI USMAN QASMI
43
THE END OF HISTORY: INTERPRETING HEGELIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN

GROUND AND BEING TOWARDS THEIR WAY TO TRUTH....UMBER BIN
IBAD 75
RELIGIOUS SYNCRETICISM IN PRE-MODERN PUNJAB…AMIR KHAN

SHAHID
105
REVIEW ARTICLE
NEGOTIATING WITH OTHER: CONCEPTUALIZING CULTURE AND POWER

….HUSSAIN AHMAD KHAN 127
BOOK REVIEWS
HAFEEZ MALIK, US RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN (THE

IMPERIAL DIMENSION) (KARACHI: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2008)
141
AYESHA JALAL, PARTISAN OF ALLAH (LAHORE: SANG-E-MEEL

PUBLICATION, 2008) 147
NOTES FOR THE CONTRIBUTORS AND BOOK REVIEWERS

Tahir Kamran, Genealogical Sociology of SSP
MAIN MERNEY KO PHER RAHA HOUN, MERNEY KO: 1

GENEALOGICAL SOCIOLOGY OF
SIPAH-I-SAHABA PAKISTAN
TAHIR KAMRAN
GC UNIVERSITY, LAHORE
PAKISTAN
ABSTRACT
This article explores how the “old” legacies of social
cleavages re‐define themselves in the postcolonial
social settings and adopt new tools to assert
themselves in the public sphere in order to create a
space for themselves in the power structure. By
taking the example of Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan (SSP),
the article argues that the causes ‘other’ than
ideological divide are equally important in tracing
the genealogical sociology of the militant
organization. Different groups and stakeholders
involved in the conflict deploy multiple strategies to
further their interests. The SSP epitomised not only a
violent struggle against Shia sect, but it was more
than this. Historically, it was also a legacy of Ahrar,
locally, it was a confrontation of urban nouveau rich
in collaboration with migrant community who was
politically dispossessed against Shia landlords; and in
a wider context it served as a mean to counter
Iranianization of Pakistan‐‐‐the agenda set forth by
Zia ul Haq’ and military establishment with the aid of
Saudi Arabia. Hence, at various levels the same
organization acted in multiple guises, purpose and
functionality by serving the interests of various
groups and states.

KEY WORDS: Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan, Sectarianism, Iran, Sunni,
Militancy, Jhang, South Punjab.

5
On 7 Muharram 1969, a mourning procession emerged from the

Imambargah Muhajirin after fajr (morning) prayer in Jhang, a city
located in the southeast of Pakistani Punjab. After passing through
many narrow streets, it was scheduled to end at Imambargah‐i‐
Qadeem. One of the important points of its route was Khewa gate
(one gate among three of the city) which was renamed as Bab‐i‐Umer
in the same month. Two Deobandi mosques, Masjid‐I Taqwa and
Masjid‐i Ahl‐i Hadith, were located on the very route of the
procession. A day prior to the procession, a huge billboard was
erected at the place. The district administration in a quandary of the
potentially powder‐bag situation. It proactively struck a deal between
the Sunni and Shia ulema, the salient feature of which was that the
procession would go through its usual route while the board would be
covered with a piece of cloth. Unfortunately, as the procession came
close to the gate, someone unveiled the board. Subsequently, a
processionist, Ashraf Baloch, an underling of the Sial Biraderi from
Jhang city soaked his shirt in the nearby drain and hurled it on to
where the name ‘Umar’, the second caliph of Muslims, was written. It
was an act of utter desecration for the Sunnis. Tumult ensued. By the
time the fury had subsided, six people had lost their lives including
2
Mawlana Shirin, a Khatib and prayer leader of Masjid‐i‐Taqwa. It was
the first instance of the two sects colliding head on in the city.
Although Yahya Khan’s take over and declaration of emergency on the
very day of the Bab‐i‐Umar incident prevented further loss of life yet
many Sunni clerics launched a strong campaign in the condemnation
of the Shia. It had a significant impact on the general public and more
so on the future electoral politics as it changed the socio‐political
matrix of Jhang in particular and the Punjab in general. The anti‐Syed
group capitalized on the Sunnis charged sentiments. In the
forthcoming elections, held in 1970, all three National Assembly
constituencies it paraded the widows of those killed in the incident in
3
black mourning dress in the Sunni congested areas of the city. This
fanned sectarian emotions and overturned the political chessboard.
This Bab‐i‐Umar incident became one of the many factors
that led to the birth of SSP and its militant orientation. However, this
aggressive posture cannot be completely attributed to the religio‐
ideological divide. In fact, many other causes may be identified to
unpack the apparently uniform sociology of the organization. This
paper seeks to analyze multiple faces of the SSP which can primarily
be associated to the elements/components involved in the party. The
paper is divided into two sections. First part explores the genealogical
transformation of Ahrarian anti‐Shia sentiments which finally
resurrected in the form of SSP in 1985. The grave impact of that legacy
6
was compounded with Iranian revolution, and Zia‐ul Haq’s anti‐Shia

policies, which added violence and regimentation of the organization.
But why did Jhang of all places became the base camp for anti‐Shia
militant movement? This very question is also touched in the first part
of the paper (although it is in its own‐self a separate topic for
research) by exploring the emergence of wealthy but politically
marginalized Sunni classes in the city. The second section of this paper
traces the modes of violence used by this militant outfit and the
reflection it had on the electoral results.

(I)

On 06 September 1985, Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi (1952‐1990)
alongwith Maulana Zia‐ur‐Rehman Farooqi (d. January 19, 1997),
Maulana Eesar‐ul‐Haq Qasmi and Maulana Azam Tariq (1962‐2003)
established the Anjuman Sipah‐i‐Sahaba which was soon after its
inception was renamed as Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). SSP
ideologues link the emergence of their organisation with such events
as Tabbara campaign conducted in Hassu Balail, Kaki Nau and Rodu
Sultan, small towns in the district Jhang, at the behest of Shia
landlords against the companions of the Prophet. They attach
extraordinary significance to the Bab‐i‐Umar incident which took place
in 1969. From the outset, the SSP adopted an aggressive posture. This
was seen at the Kul Pakistan Difah‐i‐Sahaba Conference (All Pakistan
th
Conference for the Defence of Prophet’s Companion) held on 7
February 1986 at Chandan Walla Mohalla Jhang Sadar. Haq Nawaz
Jhangvi 4 presented a welcome address which amounted to an
indictment against the Shia community at large. In Punjab, the
tradition of indicting Shia sect is not a new phenomenon, and its
genealogy may be traced to Ahrari’s condemnation of Shia
community. From its very inception, the movement’s leaders like Haq
Nawaz Jhangvi have acknowledged and eulogized the legacy of Atta
Ullaha Shah Bokhari and his colleagues in Majlis‐e‐Ahrar (established
in 1929).
With the emergence of Majlis‐i‐Ahrar‐i‐Islam, 5 a party
composed of Punjabi dissidents of the Khilafat Committee, the Punjab
witnessed a puritanical and agitational style of politics in the 1930s.
Most of the leaders were fire brand orators who could spell bind their
audiences for hours. The individual profile of the Ahrar leaders
suggests it as a composite organization representing all Muslim sects.
However, the core ideology and principal leaders adhered to Deobandi
Islam, like Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari and Habib‐ur‐Rehman Ludhianvi. It
had entrenched following among the lower middle income echelon of
7
the urban Muslim populace and particularly the artisans of Lahore,
Amritsar and Sialkot districts of the Punjab. Ahrar leaders like
Chaudhry Afzal Haq and Sahibzada Faiz‐ul‐Hasan mostly subscribed to
an ideology that had tangible Marxist content. 6 Iftikhar Malik holds
that Ahrar imbibed the ‘impact of the October Revolution in Russia
(1917)’. Therefore, Ahrar managed to carve out a constituency for
itself in the urban lower middle classes of the Punjab. It drew
immense support in the central Punjab because of the presence of
large Kashmiri Muslim communities in such cities as Amritsar, Lahore
and Sialkot. In fact, large number of Kashmiri Muslims migrated to
these cities from Kashmir because of ‘autocratically wayward methods
of administration’ of the Dogra rulers of the princely state. Killing a
cow was a cognizable offence punishable with seven years of rigorous
imprisonment. Special tax was levied on the slaughter of goats and
sheep even on Eid, a Muslim religious festival. A Hindu in case of
embracing Islam had to forfeit all his inherited property. Many Muslim
places of worship were either closed down forcibly or confiscated by
the state. Majlis‐i‐Ahrar was the first among the Muslim organizations
of political groups to raise voice against these atrocities of the state
against the Muslims. Large number of Ahraris forced their way into
Kashmir ostensibly to rescue Muslims from the oppressive rule of
Maharaja Hari Singh and the large number of its followers were
arrested. Majlis‐i‐Ahrar could not achieve its objective of freeing its
brethren from the oppressive Dogra rule. However, they secured
extra‐ordinary political mileage out of that agitation. Now it was
reckoned as the champion of the downtrodden Muslims.
The movement for the rights of the poor Muslims in
Kapurthala State raised its profile and popularity even further. The
princely state of Kapurthala, situated on the west bank of the river
Bias, in the Punjab had fifty‐seven percent of Muslim population but it
was ruled by a Sikh ‐‐ Maharaja Jagjeet Singh. The vast majority of
Muslims were peasants, living in abject misery. Sixty percent of the
state revenue accrued through the taxes paid by Muslim peasants.
Moreover the Hindu moneylenders subjected the poor peasantry of
Begowal and Bholeth areas of the state to the merciless economic
exploitation. So the situation was ripe for Ahrar to intervene
immediately after their Kashmir campaign which had won Ahrar
tremendous accolade as champion of the Muslims. The upward swing
in Ahrar’s popularity continued till the Masjid Shahid Ganj incident in
Lahore in 1935, which irreparably undermined Ahrar’s political
th
standing in the province. That mosque was built in the 17 century by
Abdullah Khan who was a personal attendant of Dara Shikoh, the son
of Emperor Shahjehan. Adjacent to the mosque was a kotwali where
8
some Sikhs were executed by Mughals as a result of an insurgency.
Later on, Sikhs built Gurdwara at the site of Kotwali during Ranjit
Singh’s reign, which was expanded in a due course to encompass the
mosque also. The issue remained dormant for almost over a century
however in 1930s the contesting claims over the site drew both Sikhs
and Muslims apart. Ahrar kept itself aloof from that contentious issue
which was exploited by persons like Zafar Ali Khan, the editor of
famous the Zamindar. Ahrar’s neutrality had a sapping affect on its
7
popularity.
Post Shahid Ganj situation was quite chequered for Ahrar as
its electoral strength got scuttled quite considerably, nevertheless the
impact that some of its leaders, particularly Bokhari, engendered had
a lasting resonance. The Madeh‐i‐Sahaba Movement (1937‐39) in the
United Provinces (UP) widened the sectarian chasm between Sunnis
and Shias. 8 A large number of Ahraris from Punjab travelled to Awadh
especially to court arrest. Awadh had a concentration of influential
Shias who invariably resorted to Tabbara, a practice of ridiculing the
first three caliphs, causing sectarian antagonism. Hence UP
government clamped a ban on the practice of Tabbara. In retaliation
to that ban Shia started ‘Tabbara Agitation’. To counter that agitation
Majlis‐i‐Ahrar started a practice of Madh‐i‐Sahaba, wherein the Sunnis
recited verses praising the ‘four rightly guided caliphs’. That situation
exacerbated the sectarian tension. However sectarian animosity was
papered over in the 1940s as the Pakistan Movement gained
momentum, thus mitigating the sectarian sentiments. Nevertheless,
sectarian differences could not be ironed out permanently as they
kept recurring finally culminating into the establishment of Sipah‐i‐
Sahaba Pakistan.
This resurrection of Ahrarian model in the form of the SSP
could not have been possible without Iranian revolution in 1979. It
had emboldened Pakistan’s Shias so that they “abandoned the Shia
tradition of political quietism”. 9 Sipah‐i‐Sahaba spokesmen were quite
strident in pointing out a huge amount of Shia literature being
produced in Urdu and freely distributed through the consistently
widening network of the Iranian cultural centres. In that literature
“Sahaba (or the companions of the Prophet, Abu Bakr,Omer and
Uthman) were denigrated in utterly brazen way”. 10 They had been
alleged to curse Sahaba publically, a practice which was called
tabbara, which caused disquiet among the Sunnis. So, not only
“awakened” but “emboldened” in the wake of revolution’s success in
Iran, Shias were visibly vociferous in putting forward demands for
“rights and representation” evincing firm belief in Khomeini’s support,
which he quite generously extended to them.
9
This favourable international environment encouraged

membership of Shia political movements sponsored both financially
and politically by Tehran. Tehrik‐i‐Nifaz‐i‐Fiqa‐i‐Jafaria Pakistan (TNFJ)
was one such organization having monetary and political ties with
Tehran. Proselytization to Shiism was yet another impact of “Shia
Revivalism” being vigorously pursued, evoking as a consequence a
sharp Sunni counterpoise. Qasim Zaman while drawing on the claim
made by Sayyid Arif Husayn Naqvi finds “considerable evidence of Shii
(sic) proselytization especially in rural and small towns of the
11
Punjab”. Furthermore the compulsory deduction of Zakat [tithe]
from bank accounts also became a reason for defections from Sunni
ranks. Many non‐practicing Sunnis got converted to Shia’ism just to
avoid having Zakat deducted from their yearly savings. 12 With the Shia
revival in Iran, as Nasr puts it, “the years of sectarian tolerance were
over. What followed was a Sunni‐versus‐Shia contest for dominance,
and it grew intense.” 13 Nasr’s assertion seems quite sweeping as the
phenomenon of sectarian differentiation had been inextricably
complex emanating from the interplay of myriad currents and cross‐
currents. Nevertheless, the Iranian revolution and the impact it cast
over the Pakistani Shias spurred Deobandi reaction which had so far
been sporadic. Manzur Naumani’s book, Irani Inqilab: Imam Khumayni
aur Shi’iyyat with its preface written by Abul Hassan Nadwi represents
a concerted response to the mounting Iranian influence in Pakistan.
Later on this book “became the gospel of Deobandi militant
organizations that in 1980s mushroomed across Pakistan to press the
14
fight against the Shia”. Sectarianism lays at the heart of the SSP’s
goals. Out of the eight aims spelt out by the founding members of SSP,
five are aimed at circumscribing if not completely extirpating Shia’ism
from Pakistan. Hussain Haqqani explores the role of Zia regime in
sponsoring such organisations like SSP as a counterpoise to the Shia
ascendancy. He maintains that:

The Zia‐ul‐Haq regime saw the SSP as a check on the
rise of Shia influence and gave it a free hand. Soon
covert links had been established between SSP and
Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which
managed official Pakistani support of Jihadi
operations in Afghanistan and Indian controlled
Kashmir. SSP cadres attended Afghan Mujahideen
training camps and returned to kill Shia leaders
within Pakistan. The rise of the Talban in the 1990s
further deepened the ties among Pakistan’s various
10
Jihadi groups, Deobandi madrasas and Sunni

sectarian organizations like Sipah‐e Sahaba. 15

Thus state patronage and foreign funding provided a favourable
environment for the expansion of such organisations as SSP and LJ
(Lashkar‐i‐Jhangvi). 16 In 1991, the SSP held the Haq Nawaz
International Conference in Islamabad, persons like Maulana Abdul
Qadir Azad, an employee of the Government of the Punjab and
Khateeb of Badshahi Mosque Lahore was one of the speakers.
Similarly, Senator Sami‐ul‐Haque’s participation in the conference
points to the state’s favourable disposition towards the SSP. 17
Maulana Abdul Hafeez Makki, 18 a scholar from Saudi Arabia was the
chief guest which fully illustrates the extraneous sources of support
furnished to the SSP.
The need to counter a ‘Shia threat’ in Pakistan was realized
by the Zia regime when the Shia protested when Zakat and Usher
Ordinance promulgated in 1979. This formed a crucial element in the
state sponsored Islamisation process. It brought Shias out in protest in
unprecedented numbers. The parliament in Islamabad was laid siege
by more than 50,000 Shias from all over Pakistan in July 1980. 19 They
came together under the banner of Wafaq‐e‐Ulema‐e‐Shia Pakistan.
The Imamia Student Organization (ISO) 20 played a pivotal role in
making the whole episode in Islamabad into a remarkable success. The
convergence of such a huge number of Shias in the federal capital was
made possible largely because of ISO’s unflinching endeavours. Thus it
was brought home to the government that “the mode of Zakat
collection enumerated in the Ordinance was not in conformity with
their beliefs and demanded that Shias should be treated in accordance
with their personal law.” 21 The siege of the parliament house in
Islamabad remained for two days, forced Zia‐ul‐Haq to amend the
Ordinance. Immediately afterwards the Shia clergy thought of
constituting an organization with an expressed objective to avert the
danger of the blatant “Sunnification” 22 of Pakistan and to safeguard
the interests of their community. Hence the TNFJ 23 came into being in
1979 in Bhakkar, under the leadership of Mufti Jaffar Hussain. 24 The
TNFJ became palpably assertive in its political stance when Arif‐ul‐
Hussaini succeeded Jaffar Hussain as its leader in 1984. 25 In 1993
there emerged its armed offshoot by the name of Sipah‐i‐Muhammad
Pakistan (SMP), under the leadership of Ghulam Reza Naqvi, the then
district President of Tehrik‐i‐Jafaria Jhang. By the end of 1994, SMP
established its headquarters at Thokar Niaz Beg, a suburb of Lahore
which possessed a sizable Shia population.
11
The above mentioned complexities beg a question, why did

the Jhang district became a breeding ground for the birth of SSP and
why not the other parts of the country. The very sociology of the
district provides this rationale. Contemporary scholarship has largely
ignored the sociology of spaces occupied by the victimizer and victims
in favour of meta‐narratives (like influence of outside forces‐‐‐role of
Iranian revolution, or Regan’s administration, Zia’s Islamization, lack of
democratic values, etc.). The Jhang district divides central from
southern parts of the Pakistani Punjab. The district is largely
dominated by the Shia land lords who drive their legitimacy from the
shrine practices and claim of having association with the family of last
prophet of Islam.
Almost eighteen biraderis inhabit rural Jhang, Sials being the
most influential because of their numbers, affluence and political
clout. 26 The Syeds are also politically powerful and wealthy. Jhang is
overwhelmingly a rural district in population terms. Nevertheless,
migrants from East Punjab form an important group in Jhang City.
They are drawn from the trading and weaving communities. Despite
their wealth these communities were traditionally marginalised in the
realm of power politics, by the dominant local landholders.
Jhang s’ history, until the reign of Walidad Khan Sial (died in
1747) in the early eighteenth century, is shrouded in “Cimmerian
darkness”. However the accounts of the Greek historians Arrian and
Curtius along with the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsang allude to its very
remote history that goes certainly as far back as fourth century B.C.
when this territory had its first taste of marauding at the hands of
Alexander in 327 B.C. 27 Despite Jhang’s ancient past, the documented
sources with some ‘validity claim’ do not go beyond eighteenth
century when the Sial rule was firmly in place. Therefore histories of
the Jhang and Sial tribe are inextricably enmeshed. Consequently the
adage “the history of Jhang is the history of the Sial” 28 has a
substantial element of veracity in it.
Rai Mal Khan’s (d. 1503) assumption of leadership ushered in
an era of Sial supremacy in Jhang. He meted out a crushing defeat to
the ruling Nauls, and rebuilt the city in 1462, which had been
devastated in the battle. Sial rule reached its zenith during the reign of
Walidad Khan (1717‐1747) spanning over three decades. His legacy
was sustained by his successors until Ranjit Singh’s rise to power in the
Punjab. Ahmed Khan, the last Sial Chieftain, after offering stiff
resistance to the Sikh army was eventually cowed in 1810.
Consequently Sial suzerainty over Jhang was ended. After Punjab’s
annexation in 1849, Sial chief, Ismael Khan, was co‐opted by the
British. He was duly rewarded for the services he discharged in 1857.
12
Thus the political importance of the tribe remained throughout the
colonial period as its chiefs fitted very well into the client‐patron
network, set up by the British. Sials continued to be influential after
independence, despite the fact that the Sial chief Inayatullah Khan had
opposed the idea of Pakistan in 1947. Presently, Amanullah Khan is
one of the many claimants of the Sial leadership but the internecine
conflicts among the Sials have weakened their power relative to the
Syeds in local politics. Apart from the Bharwana Sials of Tehsil Jhang
and Janjiana Sials of Shorkot, all leading Sials are Shia.
The prominent Syed families are that of Rajoa in Tehsil
Chaniot and Shah Jiwana in Tehsil Jhang. However Syeds have marked
presence in Shorkot and Uch. Most of them trace their descent to Sher
Shah, Sayyid Jalal‐ud‐Din Surkh Bukhari. 29 They own large tracts of
land in Jhang and Chiniot. Both the Syed families enjoyed full
patronage of the British as a reward to the “good service” that they
rendered as and when it was needed. Sayed Muhammad Ghaus, Syed
Charagh Shah, Sardar Hussain Shah and Syed Ghulam Abbas among
the Rajoa Syeds held position of pre‐eminence during British rule.
Presently Sardarzada Zafar Abbas is the leading figure among Rajoa
Sayeds. Similarly Syed Khizar Hayat from the Shah Jiwana Syeds who
“have always been of importance” was virtually reared up by the
British through the Court of Wards. His younger brother Mubarak
Shah and Syed Raja Shah‘s son Abid Hussain shot to the position of
political renown that still resonates in his daughter cum legatee Abida
Hussain and her cousin but political adversary Faisal Saleh Hayat. Both
of these Syed families are Shia thereby many political analysts looked
askance at them for manoeuvring sectarian loyalties for political gain.
The emergence of Abid Hussain on the political scene consigned Sials
to the position of insignificance particularly from the days in the run
up to the creation of Pakistan up to 1970 elections. Abid Hussain was a
close associate of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the 1940s and used his
influence quite sagaciously to earn ministerial positions in the 1950s.
In the political arena Sials had no leader who could match Abid
30
Hussain in terms of political insight and stature.
Syed‐Sial factional rivalries have contributed to
sectarianism. In Jhang, the politics of sectarian differentiation first
emerged during the 1951 Punjab election. Ironically the two Syed
families, Shah Jiwana and Rajoa, close relatives yet political
adversaries, in order to undermine each other politically lent
unswerving support to non‐Syed and Sunni candidates. Abid Hussain
successfully lured Pir of Sial Sharif into throwing in his lot for Maulana
Muhammad Zakir who pulled off a victory against Rajoa candidate
Sardar Ghulam Muhammad Shah from Chiniot constituency. Similarly
13
Rajoa Syeds went all out in support of Maulana Ghulam Hussain
against Mubarak Ali Shah, a candidate of Shah Jiwana group from
Jhang constituency. Despite the Shia‐Sunni difference being
considerably whipped up in the run up to the electoral contest,
Mubarak Ali nevertheless secured a comfortable victory. 31
Sectarianism was thus used as a ploy by Shia Syed families as part of
their factional rivalries. The power politics articulated in intra‐clan
divergence was transformed into inter‐clan rivalry in the span of two
decades. Hence the Syed in‐fight gave way to a Sial‐Syed contest for
power. As we shall see below, biraderi rivalries intersected with
sectarianism not just in electoral contests, but in outbreaks of violence
such as the Baba‐i‐Umar episode. This can be understood as a major
turning point in the rise of sectarianism in Jhang.
Over a period of time, the urban commercial classes emerged
who were primarily Sunni by sect, and were marginalized in the power
structure of the district. In order to carve out new spaces within the
existing power structure, local traders and bazaar merchants largely
supported and funded the establishment of the SSP and its off‐shoot
Lashkar‐i‐Jhangvi (LJ). Such sociology of the organization, in fact, not
only displaced biraderi influences on the political landscape of the
district but also tilted it towards violence which more or less became a
definitive pattern in the future elections in the district.
However, more obvious militant element in the SSP entered
in the late 1980s. The end of the Afghan War resulted in the
disbandment of a large number of well‐trained militants. Some of
these mujahideen were attracted to organisations like SSP which
readily employ them. The SSP was a cash rich organisation because of
its indirect funding from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Popular philanthropy,
much of which came from Deobandi sources, also swelled its coffers.
The Deobandi madrasa union; Wafaq‐al‐Madris that has its head
office in Multan, along with the Khair‐ul‐Madaris seminary, the
32
national centre for Deobandi instruction, openly supported the SSP.
Young zealots mostly recruited from the seminaries were sent for
training in the art of violence in Afghanistan. Therefore sectarian
militancy escalated to a considerable extent. LJ, under the leadership
of Riaz Basra, comprised those militants who were well instructed in
the use of explosives and guerrilla tactics. They went to Afghanistan
for training in a camp in Sirobi, near Kabul run by the Taliban Minister
33
Maulvi Hameedullah. They were not only growing in fighting power
but multiplying in numbers. Animosh Roul mentions six other splinter
groups of SSP besides LJ, namely Jhangvi Tigers, Al Haq Tigers,
Tanzeem ul Haq, Al Farooq and Al Badr Foundation. 34

14
(II)

Like most of the militant struggles, the anti‐Shia campaign of the SSP
thrived on human blood spilling. The cult of the martyr was very
effectively deployed by the successors of Haq Nawaz, which enhanced
not only SSP’ s electoral standing but also its renown. Ironically Shia
influence implicitly permeated into the SSP’s overall schema as the
Shia theological discourse is structured around the cult of the martyr.
Scores of martyrs and the ongoing sectarian strife afforded the SSP
35
“functional utility” that contributed immensely in perpetuating its
hold.
Sectarian killing began with the murders of Ehsan Ellahi
Zaheer in 1987 and TNFJ leader Allama Arif‐ul‐Hussaini in 1988. Haq
Nawaz himself had not many more days to live. On 22 February 1990,
his tumultuous life and career came to an end. 36 SSP’s rhetoric had
always been aggressive, but now deeds matched words. Eventually in
1996, LJ was to emerge as an armed off‐shoot of SSP. Militancy not
only intimidated Shias, but also increased SSP’s electoral support.
From the very outset SSP leadership sought influence in the National
Assembly in order to amend the Constitution so that there could be a
Sunnification of the Pakistani state. On that occasion the government
of Punjab was visibly perplexed about the law and order situation
during the period of mourning as this followed hard on the heels of
the murder of Haq Nawaz. As a pre‐emptive measure, the government
called together urban notables and leaders of SSP for negotiation.
Malik Saleem Iqbal, the Health Minister of the Punjab presided over
th
the proceedings on 16 July 1990. Members of the Jhang District
administration, the SSP leadership and other important persons were
made part of the negotiations and taken into confidence. Thereby an
Aman Muahida (peace agreement) was concluded to the satisfaction
of the government. 37 But only a few days after the agreement, a bomb
exploded at chowk Bab‐i‐Umer in Jhang city, killing three Sunnis and
injuring twenty eight. This effectively sabotaged the peace efforts. The
very site of the bomb explosion was not far away from Aman ullah
Khan Sial’s haveli in the Jhang city. Amanullah Khan is a leader of a Sial
clan in Jhang and adheres to the Shia. This is highly suggestive of the
fact that the efforts to bring peace to the conflict‐ridden city were
stymied because the important biraderis like Sials of Syeds had been
excluded as stakeholders in the whole process. The SSP did expand
beyond its roots in sectarian rivalries and biraderi politics in Jhang. It
organised itself remarkably well at district and tehsil level. According
to one estimate, the SSP had seventy‐four district and 225 tehsil level
15
units before it was proscribed on 12th January 2002. It additionally ran
seventeen branches in foreign countries including Saudi Arabia,
Bangladesh, Canada and the UK. With its 6,000 trained and
professional cadres and 100,000 registered workers 38 it was the best‐
knit and organised Islamic party in Pakistan after Jamaat‐i‐Islami. SSP’s
growing influence was accompanied by an association with violence.
While Jhang was the scene of many sectarian killings, they spread to
other areas of the Punjab and beyond. Although SSP attempted to
distance itself from the activities of the armed offshoot LJ yet it was
never done convincingly. LJ had links with ‘international terrorist’
movements which culminated in the banning of both organisations by
President Musharraf in response to the post 9/11 situation. Support
for SSP and LJ has as a result been driven underground.
Taliban had been a great source of inspiration for the SSP
leaders who sought to replicate their policies in Pakistan. Azam Tariq,
in October 2000 while speaking at an International Difah‐e‐Sahaba
Conference in Karachi said that “the SSP aims to transform 28 large
Pakistani cities into model Islamic cities’ where television, cinema and
music would be banned”. 39 Azam Tariq was an ardent supporter of
Jihad in Indian controlled Kashmir. When Masud Azhar founded Jaish‐
e‐Mohammad in the aftermath of his release in Kandahar, following
the hijacking of an Indian aircraft in December 1999, Azam Tariq
pledged to send 500,000 Jihadis to Jammu and Kashmir to fight Indian
security forces. 40
The SSP extremists had two major styles of operation:
targeted killings and indiscriminate shootings at places of worship. A
number of leading Shias were assassinated. By 1992, the SSP activists
had gained access to sophisticated weapons systems. Saudi Arabia was
the major source of funding as Iran provided financial support to Shia
outfits. In June 1992, the SSP adherents used a rocket launcher in an
attack which killed five police personnel. 41 The attempted
assassination of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in January 1999, is
yet another example. He was lucky that the bomb planted beneath the
bridge on the Raiwind Road on the route to his residence exploded
prematurely, but it was a clear testimony of how lethal the sectarian
terrorists had become.
During the 1990s, Iranian officials functioning in various
capacities in Pakistan became the victim of the SSP militants. Most
prominent among them was Agha Sadiq Ganji, Iranian Consul General
who was gunned down on 19th December 1990 by a young lad from
Jhang, Sheikh Haq Nawaz. 42 Ganji was widely believed by SSP
supporters to have masterminded Haq Nawaz Jhangvi’s murder.
However there was no tenable evidence of Sadiq Ganji’s involvement
16
other than his presence in Jhang on the day of Haq Nawaz Jhangvi’s
murder. Muhammad Ali Rahimi, an Iranian diplomat was another
victim of a targeted killing in Multan in 1997. The Iranian Cultural
Centre at Lahore was set ablaze the same year in January. It was in
retribution for the assassination of Zia‐ur‐Rehman Farooqi along with
twenty‐six others at the Lahore Session Court. Five members of the
Iranian armed forces were fatally ambushed in Multan in September,
sparking off a serious diplomatic row between Islamabad and Tehran.
“The targeting of Iranians was apparently meant to convey the
43
message to Shia militants that not even their “patrons” were safe.
Sectarian polarisation enabled the SSP to increase its vote
bank. This has similarities with the way in which communal violence in
a number of UP towns has strengthened the hold of the BJP. In the
central Jhang constituency in the 1990 election, Maulana Esar‐ul‐
Qasimi, Haq Nawaz’ s successor and vice patron, secured victory with
a considerable majority. As the Islami Jamohri Ittehad’s (IJI) candidate
for the National Assembly, he obtained 62,486 votes. He also
contested as an independent candidate on a Provincial Assembly seat
and defeated IJI ticket holder and favourite Sheikh Iqbal by a margin of
44
almost 10,000 votes.
Nawaz Sharif’s crackdown on militancy during 1997‐9,
together with the general disapproval of violence and militancy saw a
considerable decline in sectarian killing in the Punjab. From January
1999 to December 2000, not a single incident of sectarian violence
was reported. The military takeover on 12 October 1999 may be one
of the reasons that militant groups had assumed a low profile.
However the next elections held in 2002 under military rule reversed
the process. Azam Tariq won the election though he was in jail. Both LJ
and SSP along with their Shia rivals SMP and TNFJ had been banned by
45
Pervez Musharaf on 14 August 2001 and 2002 respectively.
Nevertheless, Azam Tariq was allowed to contest the elections as an
independent candidate. This decision evoked sharp reaction from
many quarters. Azam Tariq’s victory was quite unexpected. In fact, it
fits in well into the pattern in Pakistan in which representatives of
religious militant outfits tend to do well in the conditions of ‘guided
democracy’ because of the marginalisation of mainstream parties.
However after 9/11, such figures as Azam Tariq have had to act
circumspectly. After securing election victory instead of siding with the
opposition alliance of religious parties MMA, Tariq went along with
the pro‐ Musharraf Muslim League (Quaid‐i‐Azam) and managed to
secure the release of the imprisoned SSP activists. In October 2003,
Azam Tariq was killed in Islamabad; the death most foretold in the
history of Pakistan, according to the Daily Times, Lahore. There had
17
been 20 attempts on his life prior to it. Azam Tariq’s murder may be a
death knell to the SSP or Millat‐i‐Islamya (a name given to the
organization after it was proscribed in 2002). The resulting leadership
vacuum has rendered the organization rudderless. Consequently its
immediate future seems bleak.

CONCLUSION

“Main merney ko pher raha houn, merney ko” (I am looking for death
only) because Shia are using abusive language for the companions of
the prophet, said Haq Nawaz in one of his addresses to his devotees. 46
The very sensibility of top brass set the agenda for a militant struggle
against Shia sect. However, such die‐heart commitment to the cause
of Shia elimination or Sunnification of Pakistan does not subscribe only
to ideological commitment. While tracing the genealogical sociology of
SSP, this article contends that the old conflicts compound and re‐
emerge in a new context. In other words, the movement operated at
different levels in order to serve the interests of various groups and
stakeholders. At local level, the SSP may be viewed as a struggle of
emerging commercial class primarily comprised of immigrants and
marginalized locals against the Shia land‐lords. However, this violent
struggle never totally replaced biraderi politics. But within national
and international context, the SSP became an instrument of the
Pakistani state and of Saudi Arabia to counter Iranian influence within
the country, and to help in the Talibanization of Afghanistan.
The new modalities (like violence and election politics) were
deployed by the militant organization to further its interest in the
public domain. Other Sunni religious political parties also provided
legitimacy to this violence in the name of religion. The stage was set
by the Bab‐i‐Umer incident. But the old legacies of Ahrar also inspired
the struggle against the Shia sect. Shias were the focus for sectarian
militancy in the wake of the Afghan jihad and the Iranian Revolution.
The proliferation of madrasas with foreign funding provided much
needed cadres for SSP. As many studies suggest that soon after the
birth of SSP, it proliferated to other parts of the country like Multan,
Faisalabad, Sargodha and Bahawalpur. Karachi, too, was hit ominously
hard by the sectarian menace.
18
END NOTES
1
“Main merney ko pher raha houn, merney ko” (I am looking for death only).
Taken from Haq Nawaz’s speech. He was one of the founding fathers of the
Sipah‐i‐Sahaba (SSP). See complete text of the said speech on http://www.kr‐
cy.com/wasiyat/index.shtml, accessed on 05 December 2008.
This article could not have been possible without the useful feedback as a
result of my several talks and lectures, like discussion on ‘Shia‐Sunni Chasm in
Pakistan’ in Jan 2007 at the Peace Studies Department, University of Bradford,
and in Nov 2006, a seminar on the ‘Sectarian Militancy in Pakistan’ to the
faculty and students at the History Department of the University of
Southampton. However, the most fruitful response came at my presentation
on ‘Jhang: The Epicenter of Sectarian Violence’, from the Punjab Research
Group, Coventry University in Oct 2006 which enabled me to complete this
paper. This paper is an improved form of “The Political Economy of
Sectarianism: Jhang” published by the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU),
Peace Studies Department, University of Bradford, UK.
2
The whole event was narrated by Sayyid Thana al Haqq Tirmidhi, an eye‐
witness to the episode, August,2006.
3
Ibid.
4
“Haq Nawaz Jhangvi was born in 1954 in the town of Jhang. After completing
his primary education in Arabic and Theology, he left for Multan where he
studied in the renowned Islamic University, Khair‐ul‐Madaris. He qualified as
an Islamic Scholar/Alim in 1972 from this university at the tender age of 19.
After which he once more returned to his home town, Jhang.” For detailed
profile and speeches see “Haq Char Yaar ::: Sayings of Maulana Haq Nawaz
Jhangvi Shaheed (r.t.a)”, http://www.kr‐hcy.com/shaheed.shtml, accessed on
05 December 2008.
5
For the causes of the emergence of Majlis‐i‐Ahrar, See Jan Baz Mirza,
Karwan‐i‐Ahrar, vol.i (Lahore: Maktaba‐i‐Tabsara, 1975), pp.81‐84.
6
Iftikhar Haider Malik, Sikander Hayat Khan: A Political Biography (Islamabad:
National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research,1985), p.55.
7
Abdullah Malik, Punjab ki Siyasi Tehreekain (Lahore: Kausar Publishers,
1986), pp.194‐204. Also see David Gilmartin, Empire and Islam: Punjab and the
Making of Pakistan (London: University of California Press,1988), pp.99‐107.
8
Shia here denotes the Ithna‐I‐Ashari or Twelvers. They believe in the
institution of Imamat whereby the twelve imams are considered as the true
representatives of Islam as against Khilafat or Khulfa‐i Rashidin. See John L.
Episto, What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam (New York: Oxford
University Press,2002), pp.45‐47.
9
Here political quietism denotes taqiyyah or dissimulation. See Ian Talbot,
“Understanding Religious Violence in Contemporary Pakistan: Themes and
Theories” in R. Kaur(ed.), Religion, Violence and Mobilization in South Asia
(New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005), p.154.
10
Sahaba or the companions of the Prophet (Abu Bakr, Omer and Usman) are
held in a high esteem by the Sunnis whereas Shias condemn them as usurpers.
Shias consider Ali, the cousin and son in law of the Prophet as the rightful heir
19
of the Prophet instead of the first three Caliphs. Interview with Maulana Ilyas
Balakoti, Jhang, August 2006.
11
Sayyid Arif Husayn Naqvi, Tadhkira‐yi Ulama‐i‐Imamiyya‐i Pakistan
(Islamabad: Markaz‐i Tahqiqat‐i Farsi‐yi Iran wa Pakistan,1984) quoted in
Qasim Zaman, “Sectarianism in Pakistan: The Radicalization of Shii and Sunni
Identities”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 32(3), (1998), p.689‐716.
12
Hussain Haqqani, “Weeding out the Heretics: Sectarianism in Pakistan”,
Current Trends in Islamist Ideology vol.4, Hudson Institute Washington D.C.
November,2006 in
http://www.futureofmuslimworld.com/research/pubID.58/pub_detail.asp,
Accessed on, 3rd March 2008.
13
Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future
(NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006), p. 148.
14
Ibid.
15
Haqani, “Weeding out the Heretics”.
16
Encouragement from successive regimes and unremitting flow of foreign
funds(especially from Saudi Arabia) combining with absence of governmental
oversight have been cited as principal factors in the dramatic rise in the
numbers of madaras (European Commission 2002) quoted in Ali Riaz, Global
Jihad, Sectarianism and the Madrassahs in Pakistan (Singapore: Institute of
Defence and Strategic Studies, 2005), p. 5.
17
Zindgi (Lahore, 8‐14 June 1991)
18
Ibid.
19
See Azmat Abbas, Sectarianism: The Players and the Game (Lahore: South
Asia Partnership,2002),p. 7. However Nasr gives the figure of 25,000 Shia
activists who gathered in Islamabad. Nasr, The Shia Revival, p.161.
20
A group of students from Lahore University of engineering and Technology
founded ISO on 22 May 1972, to provide an All‐Pakistan Shia platform. Dr.
Majid Noroze Abidi and Ali Reza Naqvi were among the founders of the
organization. The numerical strength and organizational capability of ISO
leaders became evident during the 1979‐80 agitation of Shias against Zia’ s
Zakat and Usher Ordinance. See Azmat Abbas, p.9.
21
Ibid.
22
Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, “Islam, the State, and the Rise of Sectarian Militancy
in Pakistan”, in Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.), Pakistan: Nationalism Without a
Nation (London: Zed Books,2001), pp.87‐90.
23
The TNFJ was renamed as Tehrik‐e‐Jafria Pakistan in a convention held in
March 1993 at Faisalabad. See Abbas, Sectarianism, p.8.
24
Jafar Hussain (1916‐83) was born in Gujranwala, educated from Lucknow
and Najaf, in Southern Iraq, he then taught at a Shia seminary in his native
city. He served at various government committees including Council of Islamic
Ideology. Zaman, “Sectarianism in Pakistan”, pp.694‐95.
25
Allama Arif Hussain Al Hussaini was a Turi Pushtun from Shia stronghold of
Parachinar in northern Pakistan. He had received instruction from Najaf and
Qum and sent to Pakistan by the Iranian Government in 1978. According to his
20
official biography he was expelled from Iran before the revolution. Abbas,
Sectarianism, p.8.
26
Siddiq Sadiq, Jhang: The Land of Two Rivers (Jhang,2002), p.40.
27
Gazetteer of the Jhang District 1883‐84 (Lahore: Sang‐e‐Meel Publications,
2000), p.23. Some old material collected from Shorkot mound in Jhang district,
i.e. an agate seal in pictographic language is supposed to be 10,000 to 15,000
years old. See for reference, Sadiq, Jhang, p. 67.
28
Gazetteer of the Jhang District 1883‐84, p. 27.
29
Bilal Zubairi, Tazkira i Auliyia i Jhang (Jhang: Jhang Adabi Academy, 2000),
p.213.
30
Abid Hussain came to the political limelight in 1936 when as a student
leader he presented a welcome address to Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Lahore
who was there to preside over a meeting of Muslim Students Federation.
Later on he was elected Chairman District Board Jhang (1937‐54). He became
MLA in 1946 and member of Punjab Assembly in 1951. In 1954 he joined the
cabinet of Muhammad Ali Bogra as Minister of Agriculture. Later on he joined
the Republican Party and became its secretary general. Ayub Khan disqualified
him under EBDO. Therefore he could not contest 1962 and 1965 elections.
The last election he contested was in 1970 which he lost against Jamiat ul
Ulama‐i‐Islam candidate Ghulam Haider Bharwana. He died in 1971. Sadiq,
Jhang, pp. 217‐18.
31
Naseer Ahmed Saleemi, “Jhang Mein Shia Sunni Tanaziah: Aghaz Sey Anjam
Tek”. Zindagi (Lahore:14‐20 December 1991),pp.19‐21.
32
International Crisis Group ‘The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan’,p.15
33
Owais Tohid, ‘An Eye for an Eye, In Death, as in Life Interview‐Qari Shafiqur
Rehman’, October 2003
http://www.newsline.com.pk/newsoct2003/stopoct1.htm accessed on 17 Oct
2007.
34
Animosh Roul, Sipah‐e‐Sahaba: Fomenting Sectarian Violence in Pakistan
‘Terrorism Monitor’ vol.3(2) (January 27,2005)
35
Paul R. Brass, The Production of Hindu‐Muslim Violence in Contemporary
India. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), p. 377.
36
Maulana Zia ur Rehman Faruqi became the Chief Patron of SSP after Haq
Nawaz Jhangvi’s assassination. Before that he was Imam and Khateeb of a
Mosque run by Auqaf Deptt at Sumundri, District Faisalabad. Zindagi
(Lahore,14‐20 March 1991)
37
Along with Malik Saleem Iqbal, Arshad Lodhi, Deputy Commissioner,
Superintendent of Police, persons who took part in the negotiations were:
Maulana Rashid Ahmad Madni, Mohalla Chandanwalla, Dildar Ali(Secretary
Anjuman‐i‐Tajran), Haji Muhammad Ali (President,Anjuman‐i‐Tajran), Mian
Iqbal Hussain, Muhammad Zahur Chuhan Advocate, Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal
(Chairman Municipal Committee,Jhang), Muhammad Farooq(President
Anjuman‐i‐Tajran, Jhang City),Muhammad Rafique Saqi(General Secretary
Anjuman‐i‐Tajran Jhang city), Muhammad Aslam(Joint Secretary Anjuman‐i‐
Tajran, Jhang City) and Maulana Esar ul Qasimi. See, Aman Muahida (Manzur
21
Shuda) Zilai Intizamia wa membraan e Committee Anjuman‐i‐Sipah‐i‐Sihaba
wa Muazizeen‐i‐Jhang (Jhang: 1990).
38
Ibid. Also see Sipah‐e‐Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group of Pakistan, South
Asia Terrorism Portal, June 21,2004,
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp?countries/Pakistan/terroristoutfits/ssp.htm
accessed 23 February 2007.
39
Sipah‐e‐Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group of Pakistan,
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/Pakistan/terroristoutfits/Ssp.htm
accessed 3 March 2007.
40
In the Spotlight: Sipah‐i‐Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) (July 9,2004),
http://www.cdi.org/…/friendly version/printversion.cfm, accessed on 3 March
2007.
41
Sipah‐e‐Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group of Pakistan,
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/Pakistan/terroristoutfits/Ssp.htm
accessed on 3 March 2007.
42
Zindagi,(Lahore,14‐20 December 1991), Sheikh Haq Nawaz was later on
hanged in Mianwali jail on 28th February 2001.Kaka Balli, kin of Amanullah Sial
was convicted to life imprisonment for the assassination of Haq Nawaz
Jhangvi. Sipah‐e‐Sahaba Pakistan, Terrorist Group also see Abbas, p.13.
43
Tohid, “An Eye for an Eye, In Death, as in Life Interview‐Qari Shafiqur
Rehman”.
44
General Elections Report, p.243. He contested that election from JUI (Sami
ul Haq Group) quota. See Zindagi (Lahore,14‐20 March 1991)
45
See for further detail Ch Akhter Ali, “Reference under 6(2) of the Political
Parties Act (as amended)”, Supreme Court of Pakistan, Islamabad, 29 January
2002.
46
See the complete text of Haq Nawaz’s speech on http://www.kr‐
hcy.com/wasiyat/index.shtml, accessed on 05 December 2008.
22
Irfan Waheed Usmani: A Litany of Errors
A LITANY OF ERRORS: PAKISTAN’S KASHMIR

POLICY (1996-99)
IRFAN WAHEED USMANI

PAKISTAN
ABSTRACT
Pakistan’s Kashmir policy became more and more

inconsistent as was evident by the fact that instead
of following one clear‐cut agenda Pakistani policy‐
makers seem to follow three parallel agendas, i.e.,
traditional rhetorical emphasis on Kashmir cause for
public consumption, Nawaz Sharis’s twin track
approach, and the use of jehadi organizations, thus
exposing glaring inconsistencies in our policy‐making
and policy execution. These inconsistencies became
more pronounced with the outbreak of Kargil
conflict, which represented the height of inconsistent
policy making.

KEY WORDS: Kargil operation, India, Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, Chanab
Line Formula, Back Channel Diplomacy, Pervaiz Musharraf.

This article explores the inconsistencies in Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy
from 1996 to 1999. It also examines the changes in Kashmir policy by
bringing to fore at least three parallel agendas followed by Pakistan’s
policy makers during this period: (i) Perusal of traditional Kashmir
Policy. (ii) Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s twin track approach towards
Kashmir leading to back‐channel diplomacy, peace initiative and secret
negotiations on Chenab line formula. (iii) Military agenda pursued by
military and other hawkish elements (like ISI and its sponsored
militant outfits).
The implementation of these agendas caused confusion and
kept Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy quite ambivalent. The
operationalization of this policy further exposed the vulnerabilities of
Pakistan’s policy. The manner in which these agendas were pursued by
the civilian governments and military authorities amply demonstrated
the lack of coordination among the Pakistan’s policy‐makers as well as
the tussle between the forces of change (extraneous and internal
pressures) and the forces of status quo (jingoistic press, military
23
establishment, right‐wing political parties) which eventually compelled
Pakistan’s policy‐makers to look for other options. This article is
divided into three parts: first part deals with the Kashmir policy of
civilian government. The second portion highlights the two parallel
agendas within the Pakistani official circles, one was pursuing peaceful
means with the Indian government through secret or back‐channel
diplomacy while the other parallel streak was military strategy
designed by the military elite aimed at internationalizing Kashmir by
increasing India’s occupation cost. This military strategy culminated
into the Kargil crisis in 1999. The third part of this article explores the
contradictions of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy as manifested during the
Kargil fiasco. It also highlights Kargil operation as a tragedy of errors as
case in point to unpack the inconsistencies in Pakistan’s Kashmir
policy.

(I)

This part of the paper deals with the Kashmir policy of Nawaz Sharif’s
second government. It highlights its salient features like (i) reiteration
of traditional stance (ii) its comparison with Benazir’s Kashmir policy
(iii) dialogue process and its concomitant effects (iv) impact of
deterioration of Indo‐Pak relations because of Bhartia Janta Party’s
(BJP) aggressive policy leading to the nuclear detonations. It also
examines the reconciliatory efforts of the two governments resulted in
Lahore Declaration (February, 1999) and progress on Chenab Line
formula.
The first discernable feature of Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy was,
what Victoria Schofield calls, “traditional rhetoric” about the
Kashmiri’s right of self‐determination. 1 This traditional policy was
manifested in the plethora of policy statements by various civil and
military circles, their public posturing. Pakistani leadership appeared
to place rhetorical emphasis on Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy to
demonstrate its commitment to the Kashmir resistance movement
along with highlighting the atrocities perpetrated by Indian troops.
These rhetorical policy statements remained a dominant feature of
official propaganda in print and electronic media. Perhaps these were
used, at least, for public consumption to highlight government’s role in
keeping the Kashmir issue alive. Mostly these statements made by
th
Pakistan authorities on the occasion of Kashmir day, 5 February,
th
Kashmir accession day 14 July, Jammu martyr’s day 6 November.
Moreover, statements in reaction to the day to day developments in
Kashmir reflected the same thrust. The perusal of this strategy even
surprised many as Victoria Schofield puts it:
24
Privately some Pakistani expressed the wish that, from his

position of strength in the National Assembly, Nawaz Sharif would
officially sanction the status quo in Jammu and Kashmir on the
understanding that Pakistan would be better off without the Kashmir
issue continuing to burden both its economy and its economic
development. 2
Without taking any further initiative 3 Nawaz Sharif soon
restored to the traditional posturing. As a logical corollary, Pakistan’s
government refused to consider the third option of independence. 4
Nawaz Sharif’s government during this period imposed Kashmir tax
and also established a Kashmir fund for supporting Kashmir cause. To
official circles, Kashmir remained the major stumbling block in the
smooth sailing of Indo‐Pakistan relations. The resumption of bilateral
dialogue in 1997 could not bring any diplomatic gain because of
divergent approaches. 5 Indians were insisting on managing the
Kashmir conflict within the ambit of Shimla accord (1972) whereas
Pakistan’s government was persisting long‐term solution of Kashmir
dispute either through its internationalization or through meaningful
dialogue on Kashmir enshrined in the principle of reciprocity. In other
words, India emphasized on moving from peripheral (like economy,
confidence building measures to de‐escalate the tensions) to core
issues (like Kashmir and other long standing territorial disputes) quite
contrary to Pakistan’s approach. Muhamad Akram Zaki, then the
chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, out rightly
rejected the Indian proposal for trade without settling the issue of
6
Jammu and Kashmir.
Nawaz Sharif government’s twin approach towards Kashmir
dispute was qualitatively different from Benazir’s policy, as Mincheal
Krepon observes that, “Nawaz Sharif was pursuing a two‐track
approach he was prepared to negotiate confidence building measures
with India. And he was still trying to get the issue of Kashmir on the
table to discuss with India”. 7 He argues that Benazir government
closed down both tracks because for her, “new confidence building
measures are not possible as long as the Kashmir problem remains in
such an unsatisfactory state”. 8 It is corroborated by Kashmir Study
Group (KSG) Report which was published in 1997. 9 This report speaks
pointedly of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif moderation and pragmatism
above all his “suitability for dialogue” and his “earnestness and
determination to success at it”. Nawaz Sharif without any doubt was
“very keen” to move ahead on Kashmir and “normalisation”. 10 This
approach was more pragmatic than the one adopted by previous
regimes. 11 While commenting on this report, AR Siddique, a veteran
defence analyst, describes Nawaz Sharif’s personal view about Indo
25
12
Pakistan relation as “positive”. Stephen P. Cohan also believes that
“Nawaz Sharif saw India quite differently from the ‘army’s’ more hard‐
line element”. 13 Indian government also began to realize this shift.
India’s top policy‐makers like J.N. Dixit and N.N. Wohra commented,
“India would offer Nawaz Sharif anything in the world to keep him in
power as the alternative could be a fundamentalist Taliban regime
which would be more difficult to deal with”. 14
Two factors may be attributed to this “pragmatic” shift in
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif government’s policy towards Kashmir: (i)
During his election campaign he had expressed an interest in
improving relations with India and his re‐election to the office of Prime
Minister opened the space for the implementation of a moderate
agenda. After assuming power he slowly moved in that direction. 15 (ii)
More importantly, Nawaz Sharif took this step after he had sufficiently
concentrated powers in his office. Apart from appointing a plaint
president with substantially reduced power, he had secured the
resignation of the chief of army staff, Jehangir Karamat. These
successes probably gave him the feeling that he could embark upon a
different policy towards India. 16
This flexible attitude repeatedly found expression in the
Prime Minister’s policy statements. He maintained that his
government was committed to resolve all outstanding issues with
India through negotiations. 17 During SAARC summit in Maldives, Sharif
met his Indian counterpart I.K. Gujral. At their meeting in Maldives,
Gujral and Sharif announced a plan to constitute joint “working
groups” to consider all outstanding issues. After the foreign
secretaries met in June in Islamabad, they agreed to form eight
working groups to consider all the major issues including Kashmir. 18
Nawaz Sharif also emphasized on the meaningful dialogue within a
definite timeframe for resolving the Kashmir dispute. 19
India and Pakistan also pursued the policy of back channel
diplomacy 20 as manifested in form of Track II Dialogue. In late 1980’s
and early 1990s, both countries had also initiated such dialogues but
Nawaz Sharif’s second stint as Prime Minister added a new
momentum to this process. An important round of these Track II talks
was held in Islamabad in November 1997 on nuclear non‐proliferation,
establishment of nuclear free zone in South Asia and the resolution of
Kashmir dispute. During these talks various modalities concerning the
Kashmir dispute also came up under discussion. The whole process of
dialogue is shrouded in mystery as various circles interpreted it
differently. For instance, Pakistani authorities maintained that these
were merely pertained to “education”, whereas, the diplomatic circles
contexualized it by linking it to the American interests. Nevertheless,
26
this Track II diplomacy played a key role in bringing Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Atal Behari Vajpayee close to
the resolution of lingering Kashmir dispute. 21

(II)

The dialogue process also led to the two major developments
concerning Kashmir and Indo‐Pakistan relations i.e. (i) Lahore
Declaration, (ii)Progress over Chenab Line Formula. Before going in to
the details, it would be pertinent to mention other developments
which led to the estrangement to an alarming proportion in the Indo‐
Pakistan relations. These include coming of the BJP to power, the role
of Pakistan backed Jehadi outfits in Kashmir, Pakistan’s growing nexus
with Taliban and Indian threat perceptions regarding the upsurge of
extremism. These relations touched their nadir in the wake of Indian
nuclear test (on 11 May 1998) which further emboldened India’s
aggressive stance towards Kashmir. Pakistan decided to give a tit‐for‐
tat response by detonating its nuclear device (on 28 May 1998). All
these developments apparently nullified the reconciliatory gestures
shown by the two sides.
The first development which caused deterioration in Indo‐
Pakistan relations was coming of the BJP government in power. Upon
assuming the office of Prime Minister, Vajpayee’s government
adopted a very belligerent policy towards Pakistan leading to the
further deterioration between the two countries in 1998. This period
also witnessed the escalation of violence in Kashmir. The Indian
government blamed the Jehadi outfits supported by Pakistan’s military
establishment. In the late 1990s, the Lashkar‐e‐Tayaba (the army of
the pure), Harkat‐ul‐Ansar and Hizb‐ul Mujaheddin were the most
dominant groups among the jehadi organizations operating in the
22
Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan’s support to Taliban also proved to be a major
irritant in Indo‐Pakistan relations. India blamed Taliban of igniting
insurgency in the Indian held Kashmir. India also alleged that
organizations involved in Kashmir resistance movement like Hizbul
Mujahideen, Jash‐e‐Muhammad and Lashkar‐e‐Tayaba were in league
with the Taliban and received training in Afghanistan. 23 In November
1997 Harkat‐ul‐Ansar was declared terrorist organization by the US on
the grounds that it had links with Al Faran (many Al Faran members
including Hamid al Turki, were ex‐Harkat members). In order to avoid
US restrictions on travel and funding it immediately renamed itself
Harkat‐ul‐Mujahideen. 24 Later on, a splinter faction, Jaish‐e‐
Muhammad, emerged from the same organization which had direct
27
links with the Taliban in Afghanistan. They high‐jacked a plane of the
Indian Air Lines and asked for the release of Maulana Masood Azhar
who was then brought to Afghanistan.
The Indo‐Pakistan relations plummeted to their lowest ebb
when India after exploding the nuclear devise asked Pakistan to
change its policy over Kashmir. The Indian establishment in alliance
with the state government of Farooq Abdullah threatened Pakistan
with dire consequences if it did not reverse its policy on Kashmir. For
instance, the State Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah advised the
government of India to launch a very strong and decisive battle against
Pakistan and “taunted Pakistan to detonate its nuclear devise if it had
25
one”. The Indian Foreign Minister said, “Pakistan should re‐consider
its position in South Asia because the strategic equation has
changed”. 26 L.K. Advani the Home Minister stated that, “we are going
into Pakistan and takeover those parts of Kashmir which are in
Pakistani hands”. 27 Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said
that: “The strategic equation has changed, the Pakistan’s should
understand it”. 28 These provocative statements of Indian leadership
made the situation very volatile and the intensity of the crisis further
augmented when India resorted to frequent shelling across the line of
control which led to the low intensity conflict.
The provocative statements made Pakistani government
believe that India’s nuclear policy was firmly attached to the Kashmir
issue and its resolve to retake Kashmir could not be ignored. Sardar
Abdul Qayyum Khan echoing Pakistan’s concern told Victoria Schofield
that:

Two things aggravated the situation following
India’s recent test…Firstly, Pakistan’s
information sources told us that the Indian
Army had brought its attacking forces
paratroopers, helicopter gun‐ships and
artillery—up to the cease‐fire line in Jammu
and Kashmir. Their purpose was to try and over
run Azad Kashmir which could then have been
used as a bargaining chip in return for
Pakistan’s agreement to some accommodation
29
over the valley of Kashmir.

All these factors prompted Pakistan to detonate its nuclear devise.
One of the underlying assumptions behind these nuclear tests was to
thwart Indian designs to invade Azad Kashmir. After the nuclear tests
Pakistan projected the Kashmir dispute as a nuclear flash point to
28
attract the attention of the world and to stress the need for involving
international community to resolve the Kashmir problem. 30
This crisis gradually de‐escalated on account of three factors:
(i) India realized that Pakistan had become a nuclear power and in
view of the dominance of hawkish elements it might not behave like a
responsible nuclear state. For instance, Foreign Minster Gowher
Ayub’s statement also pointed out Kashmir as a nuclear flash point:
“These weapons have been made by both countries and are not
meant to display in parades, oil and clean them and apply polish on
them…There is a possibility of war. These is a flash point, the world
leadership must come as a third party and encourage to resolve
31
Kashmir dispute”. (ii) On account of world pressure as evident from
imposition of sanctions on both countries (iii) At the same time, both
states also realized the resumption of dialogue to ease tensions. When
the both prime ministers met at SAARC in Sri Lanka in July, they
agreed to resume formal talks.
On 23 September 1998, the two Prime Ministers agreed that
“an environment of peace and security is in the supreme national
interest of both sides and that resolution of all outstanding issues,
including Jammu and Kashmir is essential for this purpose”. 32 In
October 1998 Indian Foreign Secretary K. Ragunath met his Pakistani
counterpart Sahmshad Ahmed in Islamabad. Keeping in view with the
mood of reconciliation, the Pakistani Foreign Secretary again referred
to Kashmir in the light of their changed nuclear status. 33 The both
sides hoped that, “in this drastically changed environment it is
important that we join together for durable peace and durable
solution”. 34 The culmination of these discussions was Atal Behari
Vajpayee’s historic visit at the inauguration Delhi‐Lahore bus service
on 20 February, 1999. Vajpayee attended a banquet at the Lahore Fort
which is described as one of the most symbolic meetings between the
two prime ministers. Vajpayee also visited the Minar‐e‐Pakistan,
where M.A. Jinnah announced the League’s scheme for an
independent Muslim state in South Asia. The foreign secretaries
signed an eight‐point memorandum of understanding which pledged
to “engage in bilateral consultations on security concepts and nuclear
doctrines as well as renewing their communication links, confidence
building measures, consultation of security troops disarmament’s and
35
non‐proliferation issues”. In the Lahore declaration Nawaz Sharif and
Atal Behari Vajpayee agreed to “intensify their efforts to resolve all
the issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and Kashmir”, 36
and to “refrain from intervention and interference in each other
international affairs”. 37 As regards Kashmir issue the Lahore
declaration made no mention of the UN resolutions on Kashmir, thus
29
repudiating Pakistan’s claim that the dispute should be resolved in
accordance with these resolutions. 38
The second major development indicating Pakistani civil
government’s flexible policy towards Kashmir was the progress over
Chenab Line Formula. 39 Niaz A. Naik, who played a key role in this
secret deal between the two counteries, revealed that “back channel
diplomacy had achieved a breakthrough on Kashmir and would have
led to an accord by September October had Kargil not happened”. 40
In one of his disclosures made before Lahore Bus Yatra of
Vajpayee the Indian Prime Minister. Naik had stated that he had held
discussion in New Delhi with Birjish Misra the political advisor of
Vajpayee. To pursue the talks further Misra had secretly traveled to
Lahore to discuss the formula of Chenab Line. Naik disclosed that
Misra asked him to provide a copy of the map of state of Jammu and
Kashmir to enable him to undertake the geographical locations along
41
the river Chenab. According to the same version Indian Prime
Minister did not oppose the idea when he was briefed. 42
The underlying assumption of Chenab Line formula was to
arrive at a compromise solution on Kashmir dispute keeping in view
the sensitivities of the both sides. It was devised to seek a resolution
of Kashmir dispute so that it may not look like a political defeat of
either side. 43 Under this formula, the Kashmir was to be divided on
communal lines between the two countries. According to the proposal
Muslim majority areas on the right side of the Chenab river would be
given to Pakistan and the rest to India. The whole city of Jammu and
many districts of Jammu province were to be retained by India as
these areas were largely Hindu dominated. Muslim majority areas
such as Srinagar were to be given to Pakistan. 44 On the right bank of
river Chenab, Pakistan was further to get the area stretching towards
the right bank of river Chenab which included: half of mountainous
Doda district, the entire Gulab Garh Teshil of Udhampur District, the
entire districts of Rajouri and Poonch which were contiguously linked
with Kashmir. Thus Pakistan was to get six districts having 98 per cent
Muslim population. 45 India was to get areas located towards the left
bank of the Chenab. These included the Hindu majority districts of
Jammu province i.e. Udhampur (excluding Gool Gulab Garh tehsil),
Jammu and Kathua. 46 Ladakh would have fallen with in Pakistan which
reportedly Pakistan was willing to give up in India’s favour if the plan
was accepted. 47

30
(III)

All these initiatives were sabotaged by a parallel agenda pursued by
Pakistan’s military establishment. To keep this issue alive, it
systematically pursued this agenda by devising a strategy which
involved: covert planning of Kargil operation, increasing reliance on
Jehadi outfits.
There is enough circumstantial evidence to corroborate this
contention that Pakistan’s military often sought a military solution of
Kashmir from 1996 to 1999. For example former Prime Minister,
Benazir Bhutto revealed that the military authorities presented to her
alternate military solution thrice, 48 but she vetoed it as it might
turnout to be a great conflict. 49 Former President Farooq Leghari also
conceded that military tried to seek his approval for this operation
during his presidentship in 1997. 50 This point is further substantiated
by the ISI former chief, Lt. General (Retd.) Javed Nasir’s assertions,
who revealed that:

In 1996, the UN proposed to shelve all those fifty
years old disputes which were pending without any
progress. These also included the resolutions passed
by the UN in favour of Kashmiri’s right of self‐
determination. As Pakistan was party to these
resolutions, therefore, this plan was totally
unacceptable for Pakistan. For Pakistanis the issue of
Kashmir was a matter of life and death. Therefore, in
order to make this issue effective before the UN
such a move (Kargil operation) was imperative. It
was intended to make Kashmir a “hot‐issue”
between India and Pakistan as well as to draw the
51
international attention towards it.

These maneuvers later culminated in form of operation Kargil. Even
India believed that Pakistan’s military was involved in derailing the
peace process and all this operation was initiated to “scuttle Lahore
process”. 52
The second tactic used by military was increasing reliance on
Jehadi organizations. Pakistan’s policy makers believed that militancy
could be used as a tool to achieve political objectives in Kashmir. They
believed that conflict could be kept alive by promoting these Jehadi
elements. They could be used to pressurize India to negotiate with
Pakistan. They could also be used to make Kashmiris believe that
“Pakistan has not given up their cause”. Therefore, militancy through
31
Jehadi outfits conveniently fitted as a tool to answer these questions.
This contention that form the mid 1990 the Jehadi outfit backed by
Pakistan assumed a pre‐dominant role in Kashmiri resistance
movement could be further substantiated by the following arguments:
In 1995, two more Jehadi outfits the Lashkare Tayeba and
Harkat ul Ansar joined the resistance movement. 53 In mid 1990s
Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front denounced militancy and vowed
to continue political struggle. 54 The most plausible reasons behind this
change could be that it had little militancy capacity, 55 as compared to
the Pakistani backed militant groups. Moreover, it represented the
“Azadi element” therefore, its struggle right from the very beginning
of the Kashmiri resistance movement was not backed by Pakistan.
Rather Pakistani agencies tried to discourage its role by introducing
their own actors represented by Jehadi element and assigned them
the agenda “Kashmir benay ga Pakistan” (Kashmir will be the part of
Pakistan).
Till mid 1990s there appeared visible dissension or split with
in the ranks of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). The Indian
government noticed a split in Kashmiri resistance movement. APHC
was broadly divided into two factions. One faction comprised Abdul
Gani Lone and Syed Ali Shah Gilani and the other Omar Farooq, Abdul
Ghani Bhatt, Maulvi Abbas Ansari with tacit support of Shabir Shah. 56
The former represented the Jehadi streak.
The rise of Taliban in Afghanistan proved to be a further
incentive in pursuing this strategy. A perceptive analyst on Kashmir
Samina Yasmeen is of the view that: “Pakistan’s emphasis on low‐level
insurgency in the Indian part of Kashmir entered a new phase in 1996
with the emergence of Taliban in Afghanistan”. 57
The role played by the ISI in their rise to power created a
space for a triangular alliance (training camps, madaris, and jihadi
organizations) which proved instrumental in executing this Jihad
policy. Training camps were established in Afghanistan that were used,
among others, to train Jihadis for engaging Indian forces in Jammu and
Kashmir. A number of madaris (religious schools) in Pakistan with close
links to the Taliban became the supplier of these Jihadis. Some Arabs
based in Afghanistan also joined these groups particularly in the
58
second half of 1990. According to one estimate, approximately
80,000 Pakistani militants had received training and fought with the
Taliban till December 1999. 59
This strategy of jihad policy culminated into Kargil
operation. 60 This operation in one way or the other exposed the
inconsistencies in the Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. Right from its
inception till its dramatic end everything is shrouded in mystery. For
32
instance, all the major aspects of the operation like its authorship,
statements of those who were at the helm of affairs (as briefly
discussed above) concerning the existence of Kargil operation, denial
of these claims by top military brass and subsequent vindication of the
stance of civilian leaders by Javed Nasir (former ISI chief) and Lt‐Gen.
Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani (who briefed prime minister Nawaz Sharif at
the General Head Quarter‐GHQ). The litany of errors associated with
the operation did not end here rather the blame game between the
civilian prime minister and the military chief regarding the question of
ownership further mystified this incident. In the nutshell what was
witnessed was “unending series of secret deals, behind the scene
negotiations and compromises……The manner in which this area was
vacated it further led rise to various untold stories, speculations as
well as provided an opportunity to conspiracy theorists and spin
61
doctors to weave and aura of mystery around all this episode”. What
made the situation worse was that tarnished Pakistan’s image as it
exposed the visible contradictions in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. For
instance, Pakistan’s government projected Kargil as a product of
indigenous and spontaneous uprising whereas what it actually turned
out to be a smoke screen. This operation is also described by its critics
as an attempt to derail of peace initiative. And last but not least of
Pakistani policy makers seemed to pursue two parallel agendas. On
the one hand, very aggressive military policy was pursued on the
other, “hawkish policy makers” did not leave the door of secret
negations close by tacitly backing the civilian government’s
endeavours to diffuse the tension and bail the military out of this
crisis. Ironically soon after the withdrawal the later placed the onus on
the shoulders of civilian government by accusing it of betraying
Kashmiris.
The shifts in Islamabad policy over the Kargil crisis, made
things further complicated. The diplomats and civilian leadership
appeared confused, first they denied the presence of Pakistan backed
Mujahideen in Kargil, later on they admitted it. Such denials and
affirmative statements posed serious questions about the creditability
of Pakistan’s stance on Kargil. 62 Mujahideen’s sudden withdrawal from
Kargil soon after the Washington Agreement further lent credence to
accusations of Pakistan’s direct involvement in this operation. It is also
highlighted by Victoria Schofield as she maintains that: “Numerous
commentators point out, how could the Pakistani Prime Minister
honour his pledge to Clinton to put pressure on the infiltrators to
withdraw; if as he had already maintained he did not control them”. 63
In India the ruling BJP leaders perceived Kargil as an attempt
to “sabotage” the Lahore peace process by Pakistan’s military. L.K.
33
Advani believed that the Kargil infiltration must have been underway
when “Pakistan” was engaging India in Lahore peace process. 64
George Fernandes blamed the Pakistan Army for planning the Kargil
operation without the government’s approval. 65 Indians contended
that “if it was not meant to scuttle the Lahore process what was the
idea behind occupying the Kargil peaks? To cut off the Srinagar Leh
road was not a big deal. The Indian troops on Siachen largely
depended on air supplies and a new road link via Himachal Pradesh
had also been established”. 66 It is further substantiated by Niaz
A.Naik’s statement who played a key role in “back channel
Diplomacy”. He claimed that: ‘Back channel Diplomacy achieved a
breakthrough on Kashmir and would have led to an accord by
September October had Kargil not happened.’ 67 Not only Indians, the
US officials also perceived that it was Pakistan Army Chief, General
Pervaiz Musharraf, who “was determined to humble India once and
for all”. 68 They also believed that the Pakistani civilian leadership was
genuinely serious in a peace‐deal with the Indian government.
The secret backchannel diplomacy which was pursued as a
parallel agenda during this crisis also further exposed the
inconsistencies of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy regarding Kargil. During
Kargil conflict Niaz A. Naik paid three visits to New Delhi as a special
emissary of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. 69 In New Delhi, he met
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and other Indian officials.
As part of backchannel diplomacy and Indian journalist R.K. Mishra
also paid five visits to Pakistan as a special emissary of Indian Prime
Minister. 70 The foreign office initially disassociated itself with Naik’s
Indian visits, but later confirmed that he went there as Mr. Sharif’s
special emissary. 71 Two Pakistani federal ministers (Foreign &
information minister) 72 also conceded the backchannel diplomacy
during the Kargil conflict. 73 Initially everything appeared smooth as
“Nawaz Sharif agreed to an Indian offer of a phased withdrawal of the
‘infiltrators’ three weeks before the withdrawal actually took place”. 74
Later, this process was certainly suddenly stalled in the middle which
led Indians to believe that “Nawaz Sharif failed to follow through an
unofficial peace initiative” as “he was playing at both sides of the
fence”. 75 139 The Indian believed that it caused delay in withdrawal
and resulted in the further loss of lives. 76 140 The main reason was
that “it was not until the infiltrators started to encounter military
reversals that he made his visit to Clinton in the US”. 77
After holding talks with the Indian Prime Minister on 28 June,
Naik revealed that the Director‐Generals of Military Operations
(DGMOs) would prepare a schedule of withdrawal explicating its
timings and modalities. 78 The foreign office spokesman denied having
34
anything to do with Mr. Niaz A. Naik’s India visit. 79 Against this
confusing backdrop, the reports that the DGMO’S of the two countries
did meet on 1st July which was described to be a “a routine flag‐
meeting” but it could also be seen in the context of Naik’s visit to
India. 80 This mysterious diplomacy also invited the criticism in the
press. In its editorial, The Nation commented that: “transparency is
laudable in governance but seems misplaced in delicate and sensitive
negotiations…The virtual open debate means either that our
government is once again tripping over its on feet or else that the
exchange has failed totally”. 81
It would not be out of place to mention here that on one
hand the civilian government was pursuing its backchannel policy
through Niaz A. Naik but on the military establishment was viewing
these developments with suspicion. It distanced itself with these
developments. When ISI former Chief Javed Nasir was asked why Niaz
A. Naik was sent to India? He replied: “Niaz A. Naik is not Pakistan’s
but America’s man. America had floated the idea of 3rd option and for
this purpose it had sponsored a so‐called study group Niaz A. Naik is a
member of that group. It comprises many other American stooges and
Niaz A. Naik is one of them. If he had visited India he would have gone
at the behest of America not on Pakistan’s desire”. 82 On 30 September
1999, General Pervaiz Musharraf, informally talking to the journalists
at the reception hosted by Chinese Ambassador, Lu Shulin at the
Chinese Embassy projected Kargil “as a great military success”. 83 But
the information gleaned from General Zinni’s account suggests that
the decision of withdrawal was taken by the military. It also reveals
that the army pulled out of Kargil willingly and not because of Nawaz
Sharif. 84 150 As Khalid Hasan contends that: “In fact, if there was any
resistance to pull back, it was on the part of the Prime Minister not the
Army chief who later made many heroic claims about Kargil, accusing
Sharif of “surrender”. 85 151 Controversy also surrounds the mysterious
role played the US during Kargil crisis. Shireen Mazari contends that:
“it is equally clear the real US intent was not to play a neutral
mediator in the conflict”. 86 152 She asserts that: “Many military
commanders in interviews, insisted that it was the US that prevented
India from coming to the negotiating table with Pakistan at the time of
Sharif’s visit to China. Even earlier around June 9, 1999, Kissinger
visited India apparently carrying a message from the US government
not to negotiate with Pakistan”. 87 153 This contention is further
corroborated by various reports published in the Pakistani press
during the June‐September 1999. 88
The Kargil conflict reveals that gradually the things got out of
hands of the government. From Pakistan’s side there were three
35
parties to the Kargil conflict which were pursuing their separate
agendas the government was just one of three elements in the entire
conflict—the two others were army and the militants and their parent
political parties. 89 As the operation intensified Pakistan’s Kashmir
policy betrayed the signs of confusion and dysfunction, “these short
comings of the Pakistan’s national security decision making that were
revealed by Kargil conflict were not episodic but systemic”. 90

CONCLUSION
A cursory look of the main strands of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy
between 1996‐99 suggests that amid the contrasting pulls and strains
this policy was caught up in a mess. It appeared that Pakistani policy‐
makers were working on at least three parallel agendas i.e., for public
consumption the traditional policy was being pursued. Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif was following a two pronged strategy vis‐à‐vis Kashmir
i.e. negotiations of confidence building measures as well as
internationalization of Kashmir issue.
The military with the help of Jehadi organizations was pursing
its own goal of transforming Kashmir into a bleeding ulcer for India in
order to internationalize the issue. The use of Jehadi outfits for the
perusal of this policy further added to confusion. For instance, the use
of insurgency as a mean of changing the status quo came under
gradual scrutiny by the international community in the second half of
1990s. “To some extent this was prompted by the Indian
government’s ability to explore different options in Kashmir while
91
learning to manage the problem”. At the same, India’s emergence as
an aspiring global power and the international reluctance to get
involved in intractable problem of Kashmir resulted in Pakistan finding
few supporters of its Kashmir policy. Neither China nor the Muslim
countries were prepared to risk their relations with New Delhi by
supporting Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. 92 The fear of turning into an
international pariah state, might have forced the Pakistani officials to
roll back their military strategy and resort to the back‐channel
diplomacy. It became more explicit with the emergence of the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan.
We may conclude that neither the civilian government nor
the military establishment could materialize their agendas. If agenda
pursued by hawkish elements within the Pakistan’s military led to the
derailment of peace process, the objective envisioned by military in
Kargil also remained unaccomplished.

36

END-NOTES
1
Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict: Pakistan and Unfinished War (London:
I.B. Tauris, 2000), p.195.
2
Ibid., p.191.
3
Ibid.,p.195.
4
Ibid.,p.195.
5
Smruti S. Patanaik, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy: Objectives and Approaches”,
Strategic Analysis, vol. 26 (11) (April‐June 2002), p.204.
6
Akram Zaki’s statement on 27 January, 1998 cited in Monis Ahmer, Middle
East and South Asia (Karachi: Pakistan Study Centre, Karachi University, 2000),
p.78.
7
Michael Krepon, “CBMs and Resolution of the Kashmir Dispute: Is a Two
Track Strategy Possible”, Pakistan Horizon, Vol. 47(3) (July 1994), p.19.
8
Ibid.
9
The report was prepared by a study team KSG it was entitled “The Kashmir
Dispute at Fifty” The study group comprised the following members: (i) Prof.
Ainslie Embree (Columbia University). (ii) Former Ambassador Howard Shafter
(iii) Prof. Joseph E. Schwatzberg (University of Minnesota) (iv) Prof. Robert G.
Wirsing (University of South Carolina) (v) Prof. Charles H. Kennedy (Lake Forest
University)
The members of this team visited India (March April 1997) and Pakistan (May
1997) and held 78 meeting in India and 40 meetings in Pakistan, involving 182
persons in order to obtain the opinions and attitudes. This report got a write
up in New York Times on October, 12, 1997 and was discussed at the Madison
South Asia Conference and the Asia Society. US Kashmir Study Group Report:
Pakistan Press Comments (Islamabad: Institute of Regional Studies, 1998).
10
A.R. Siddiqi, “US Kashmir Report: A Tribute to Nawaz Sharif”, The Pakistan
Observer (Islamabad, 16 December, 1997).
11
12
13
Stephen P. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Lahore: Vanguard Books, 2005), p.
151.
14
This was revealed by J.N. Dixit, a former ambassador in Islamabad and N.N.
Wohra a former National Security advisor at Stimson Center on 5 August,
1999. J. N. Dixit and N.N. Wohra’s statement cited in Ahmer, Middle East and
South Asia, p.90.
15
R. Rahman, “Kashmir Prospects and Obstacles”, The Nation (19 January,
2001)
16
Samina Yasmeen, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy: The voices of Moderation”,
Contemporary South Asia, vol.12(2) (June 2003), p.18.
17
Jang (Lahore, 18 March, 1998)
18
Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p.195. I.K. Gujral as Prime Minister evolved
“Gujral doctrine” a friendlier approach to India’s neighbours, easing tensions
37
in South Asia and improving relations with Pakistan. India Pakistan Joint
Secretary level talks, Joint Statement (23 June 1997)
19
Nawaz Sharif’s statement on 13 August, 1999 cited in Ahmer, Middle East
and South Asia, p. 90.
20
Back channel (a team borrowed from the American CIA lexicon) It is meant
to be secret, so where public positions have hardened, deviating proposals can
be conveyed without any commitment or perhaps more importantly without
exposure to criticism by domestic oppositions. The main rationale behind this
strategy was to maintain contacts through diplomacy resolve a tricky matter.
This strategy is a part of confidence building measure. Some people call them
“conflict‐avoidance measure” The back door diplomacy has a long history in
context of Indo‐Pakistan relations. But this strategy was frequently resorted to
during 1990s particularly in Nawaz Sharif’s second stint it almost lead to a
break through over Kashmir dispute. The CIA director used to fly to Pakistan
unannounced during Afghan war and meet President Zia‐ul‐Haq in his plane so
that their conversation was not monitored by any devise. In context of Indo‐
Pakistan relations the idea of a more expanded CBM regime had been
proposed in 1985 by the state department and belatedly agreed to by Rajiv
Gandhi and Zia‐ul‐Haq after the near‐war‐crisis of 1987. The possibility of
sharing American intelligence information with one or both of sides was raised
in these meetings, but no conclusion was apparently reached on this issue.
Subsequently, when talks with India and Pakistan took place, American
officials adhered to the policy of avoiding the modality of providing
information to one side but not the other.
During this first stint as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, had sent top bureaucrat
Mukhtar Masood to India as part of back channel diplomacy after their Indian
Premier, P.V. Narasimha Roa had told his Pakistani counterpart that his
country wants to resolve the long‐standing Kashmir issue and is ready to talk
about it short of independence. In this back drop Pakistan and India resorted
to Track II Dialogue. Between 1992 to 1997 seven rounds of dialogue were
nd
held. The first was held in Colombo (1994), 2 Karachi (1993), Madras (1994),
th th
4 Calcutta (1995), 7 Islamabad (1997), Apart from these meeting the other
meetings were also occasionally held between the two countries in this
regard. On 18th January 1994, Islamabad presented the Government of India
with an unofficial non paper expressing Pakistan’s willingness to consider new
and innovative methods to ascertain the will of Kashmirirs. Another India
Pakistan Track II dialogue meeting was held in Bellagio (Italy) in September
1994 where knowledgeable participants from India Pakistan and US took
retrospective look on the Brass Tracks Crisis of 1986.
Earlier in 1994, in the month of February, Shanghai Dialogue took place. These
three day discussions were held between 24 February to 26 February; Four
countries US, China, Pakistan and India participated in these discussions. Each
side was represented by its five non‐serving officials. These talks were
sponsored Alton Jones Foundation and were part of US policy of non‐
proliferation in South Asia.
In 1995 and 1996 two meeting on Kashmir were held in Washington and
London. These were followed by talks on Pakistan India security, political
38
issues and talks over South Asia Economic Cooperation. The former were held
in Slazburg and Shanhasi and the later in Kathmandu.
For details see, P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Stephen P. Cohn,
Perceptions, Politics and Security in South Asia (London: Routledge,
2003),p.99; Michael Krepon, “CBMs and Resolution of the Kashmir Dispute”,
19; Shakil Shaikh, “Track II Talks resume to Promote under Standing”, The
News (23 February, 1997), Pakistan (23 February 1997), Tariq Butt, “Pakistan‐
India Secret ‘back channel Exchanges”, The Nation (30 June 1999).
21
Javed Rana, “Trak II Diplomacy Back on Track”, The Nation (20 January,
2004).
22
Schofiled, Kashmir in Conflict, p.200. The United Jihad Council led by Syed
Salauddin, was an umbrella of organizations of fourteen smaller groups
operating out of Muzaffargarh which included Al Badar and Tehrik‐i‐Jihad.
23
Imran Bashir, “The Rise and Fall of Taliban” The Historian, Vol.1(1) (July
December 2002), pp. 100‐101.
24
Schofiled, Kashmir in Conflict, p. 200. According to an unpublished research
thesis of Alexander Evans, 1999, cited in Schofiled, Kashmir in Conflict, p.47.
Harkat ul Mujahideen was based in Muzaffargarh, it was believed to have a
core group of about 300 militant operating in 1999, who were Pakistanis,
Kashmiris as well as Afghans and Arabsj who had fought in Afghan war.
25
Kamal Matin ud din, “Nuclearization of South Asia” in Spotlight on Regional
Affairs Vol. XVII, No.7 and 8 (July‐August 1998), p.33.
26
Iqbal Ahmed’s Interview by David Barsaman in Himal South Asia, Vol.12(3)
(March 1999), p.19.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
Victoria Schofield’s Interview with Sardar Qayyum Khan, on 4 July, 1998
cited in Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p. 206.
30
Partanaik, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy”, p. 207.
31
The Nation (31 July, 1998)
32
Partanaik, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy”.
33
Ibid.
34
The Nation (18 October, 1998)
35
MoU signed by Indian Foreign Secretary, Mr. K. Raghunath and the Pakistani
Foreign Secretary Mr. Shamshad Ahmed, Lahore 21, February 1999.
36
Lahore Declaration signed by Prime Minister of India and Pakistan on 21
February 1999
37
Ibid.
38
Farzana Shakoor, “Pakistan‐US Relations: An Interpretation”, Pakistan
Horizon, vol. 47(3), (July 1999), pp. 29‐30. The critics of Lahore Declaration
believed that despite the enthusiasm over Vajpayee’s visit to Pakistan it was
clear that the Lahore Declaration would have no significance if in reality,
neither side could move ahead on Kashmir issue. Even some Kashmiri leader
doubled its utility. Prominent Kashmiri leader Ali Shah Gilani was of view that
‘Relations between India and Pakistan could not be improved with out of a
lasting solution of Jammu and Kashmir being the core issue.’ These sentiments
were also echoed by AJK Prime Minister, Sultan Mehmood: ‘We demand that
39
dialogue for solving Kashmir issue should not be on a bilateral basis between
Pakistan and India. But trilateral as Kashmiris are also a party who should
decide about their future.’
Some critics raised their objection concerning the very spirit of the Lahore
Declaration which was drafted in consonance with the spirit of Simla
Agreement. In this declaration India and Pakistan had reiterated
‘determination to implement the Simla Agreement in ‘letter and spirit’ since in
the opinion of Kashmiri activists, Simla had already failed, there was every
expectation that, yet again the Lahore Declaration would not achieve the
desired results for Kashmiris. Soon after his visit to Lahore the Indian Prime
Minster Mr. Vajpayee soon assumed belligerent posture. Thus the euphoria
associated with Lahore Declaration soon evaporated. For details see: The
Nation (5 March, 1999), The Nation (25 March, 1999), Schofield, Kashmir in
Conflict, p.208.
39
According to this formula River Chenab provided a natural partition of
Kashmir into Muslim and Non‐Muslim zones. The “Chenab Formula” was for
the first time discussed between India and Pakistan in 1962‐63, but the
negotiations could not make any headway. The river Chenab comes out from
Himalyan range of Kullus in the extreme north of Kishtwar in Doda district
(Jammu province) with high mountain range of Himachal (India) adjoining in
the background. It flows through the mountainous areas of Doda, Ramban,
Surukot, Salat, Reasi, Akhnar and enters Punjab (Pakistan) at Head Marala
where a big headwork has been built facilitating construction of two big
channels. India has built salaldam down on it under Indus water treaty. Abdur
Rashid Malik, “The Chenab Line Formula”, The Nation (3 June, 2003).
According to Niaz A. Naik, the Chenab line formula was also presented by late
Bhutto during Bhutto Swarn Singh talks in 1962 and was rejected by India.
40
Khalid Mahmood, “Back Channel Diplomacy”, The News (29 September,
1999)
41
Abdur Rashid Malik, “The Chenab Line Formula”, The Nation (3 June, 2003)
42
Zia Iqbal Shahid, “News Report: Exchange of Non‐Papers on Kashmir
Division soon.” The News (25 July, 2003)
Naiz A. Naik was also quoted telling before the Kargil conflict that the military
leadership might abandon Pakistan’s long standing insistence on UN
sponsored plebiscite for Kashmiri accession to either India or Pakistan and
agree on a compromise solution if India were offer reciprocal concessions’.
43
Javed Rana, “Track II Diplomacy back on Track”, The Nation (20 January,
2004)
44
Ibid.
45
Malik, “The Chenab Line Formula”.
46
Ibid.
47
Moeed Yusuf and Adil Najm, “Kashmir: Identifying the components of a
sustainable solution” in The Troubled Times (Islamabad: SDPI, 2005), p.423.
48
Irfan Waheed Usmani, “Kargil Ki Indrooni Khani” (The inside of Kargil),
Weekly Taquazey, Vol.4(34) (15 September, 1999), p.16.
49
The verbatum of this interview was published in Daily Khabrain, see
“Benazir’s Interview”, Khabrain (10 February, 2005).
40
50
Leghari’s interview cited in Irfan Waheed Usmani, “Kargil Ki Indrooni Khani”
(The inside of Kargil), Weekly Taquazey (September, 1999), p.16.
51
“Javed Nasir’s Interview”, in Weekly Zindagi, Vol.19(6), p.11.
52
Khalid Mehmood, “Back channel Diplomacy”, The News (29 September,
1999)
53
Muntzra Nazir, “The Political and Strategic dimension in Indo‐Pakistan
Relations (1999‐2004)” in Pakistan Vision, Vol.5(2 ), (December 2004), p.38.
54
It indicated that the dissension or fissures had appeared within the ranks of
Kashmiri resistance leaders in June 1994, the JKLF admitted that atrocities
committed by the militants had alienated the people and stated that strict
action would be taken against ‘earring elements’ in the movement. Schofield,
Kashmir in Conflict, p.175; Amnesty International, Torture and Deaths in
Custody (January, 1994), p.59.
55
Muntzra Nazir, “The Political and Strategic dimension in Indo‐Pakistan
Relations (1999‐2004)”, p.38.
56
Indian High Commission Landon’s Report February, 1996, cited in Schofield,
Kashmir in Conflict, p.175.
57
Yasmeen, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy”, p.192.
58
Ibid., p.93.
59
Ahmed Rasidhi’s Article cited in Sumita Kumar, “Pakistan’s Jehadi
operations: Goals and Methods”, Strategic Analysis, Vol.XXIV(12), (March
2001), p.2181.
60
See for details, Irfan Waheed Usmani, “Inglorious end to a Glorious
Adventure: Conceiving and Executing the Kargil Operation (1999)”, The
Historian, vol.6 (2), (July‐December, 2008)
61
Ibid., p.108.
62
Shakoor, “The Kargil Crisis”.
63
Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p. 216.
64
The Nation (London, 9‐15 July, 1999) cited in ibid.
65
Mahmood, “Back Channel Diplomacy”.
66
Ibid.
67
The News (29 September 1999)
68
Bruce Ridel, American Diplomacy and 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House,
Policy Paper Series, 2002 (Pennsylvania, USA: Centre for Advanced Study of
India, University of Pennsylvania) quoted in Hassan Ali, “India’s Diplomatic
Assault”, Pakistan Observer (Islamabad, 23 May 2003) also see Mantazra
Nazir, “India Pakistan Relations”, p.32.
69
The Nation (30 September 1999)
70
The initiative came from Indian government, Indian Prime Minister’s
Embassy Birjesh Misra visited “Pakistan five times during the month of June
and met with Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. Main reason behind
such initiative was Indian compulsions as Indian government had become
greatly perturbed by the Kargil situation and earnestly wanted to resolve this
issue amicably through a “back channel diplomacy”. See Usmani, “Kargil ki
indroni kahani”.

41
71
Raja Zulfiqar, “Naik’s visit nothing to do with government’s foreign office”,
72
These included Pakistan’s foreign minister Sartaj Aziz, and information
minister Mushahid Hussain.
73
Mahmmud, “Back Channel Diplomacy”.
74
75
The Guardian (22 July 1999) cited in Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, p. 218.
76
Ibid.
77
Ibid.
78
The News (01 July 1999)
79
Editorial, “Mystery Diplomacy”, The News (02 July 1999)
80
Ibid.
81
Editorial, “Backchannel Blue” (01 July 1999)
82
Nasir’s interview, Weekly Zindagi, p.11.
83
Ahmer, Middle East and South Asia, p.91.
84
General Zinni quoted in Khalid Hassan, “Postcard USA: General Zinni on
Pakistan”, Daily Times (6 June 2004)
85
Ibid.
86
Mazari, The Kargil Conflict 1999, p. 61.
87
Ibid.
88
The journalists such as Naseem Zahra, Ata‐ur‐Rehman, Abu Sheraz and Zia‐
ud‐Din wrote various article and reports in this context. For details see
Usmani, “Kargil ki indroni kahani”.
89
Zafar Abbass, “War Cover Story”, The Herald, (July 1999), p.33.
90
Mazari, The Kargil Conflict 1999, p.61.
91
Yasmeen, “Pakistan’s Kashmir Policy”, p.193.
92
Ibid., pp.193‐94.
42
THE HISTORY OF HADĪTH LITERATURE: A
REVIEW OF MUSLIM AND WESTERN
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
ALI USMAN QASMI

UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG
GERMANY
ABSTRACT
The predominant view among scholars of Islam has

been to regard Hadīth and Sunnat as the second
most important sources, after Quran, of guidance for
Muslims in their beliefs and practices. But in recent
times there has been an increasing trend among
some Muslim and European scholars of critiquing the
Hadīth literature and adopting varying degrees of
skepticism about it. The present article offers a
comprehensive overview of such debates about the
historicity of Hadith literature. It starts off with a
brief introduction to the concept of Haidth and
Sunnat followed by their history as compiled by such
Muslim scholars as Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah,
Mustafa al‐Azami and Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi.
The other half of the article details new trends in the
European literature on Hadith studies starting from
th
the contributions made by late 19 century
Orientalists like Alois Sprenger, William Muir and
Ignaz Goldziher to the writings of such recent
scholars as Herald Motzki. In the last section of the
article, the works of Fazlur Rahman have been
discussed as the most important example of a
‘Muslim modernist scholar’ to retain the important
link – which exists in the form of Hadīth with an
admittedly varying degree of credibility – to the
Muslim past dating back to the days of the Prophet
while, at the same time, adopting an objective
attitude towards it, so as to establish the centrality
43
of the principle of dynamism and change to the
process of deriving Islamic injunctions.
KEY WORDS:
DEFINING HADĪTH AND SUNNAT
The knowledge of Hadīth (pl.: Ahadīth), acquired through a scholarly

command of its various related fields of learning is vital for an
understanding of the different aspects of Muslim faith and its history.
The vast corpus of Hadīth literature does not only record in minute
detail each and every aspect of Prophet Muhammad's public and
private life or the moral exhortations he made to his followers and
adversaries alike, but is also considerably relevant for an
interpretation of the Quran and information regarding the principles
of Islamic law and polity.
The word Hadīth, when employed as a jargon in Islamic
sciences of jurisprudence, has a technical meaning as well. In its
Islamic connotation Hadīth refers to the words and deeds transmitted
on the authority of the Prophet which convey details about the actions
he performed, approved, disapproved or condoned, along with his
statements and sayings on various occasions in response to different
situations. A complete Hadīth consists of a text (matn) and
information about its chain of transmitters (Isnād). In more precise
terms, Isnād is the list of names of those who one after the other
transmitted the information until it reached him who currently reports
1
it.
Another key term in Hadīth studies, which is mostly taken to
be synonymous with Hadīth in its meaning and scope, is that of
Sunnat. In accordance with Arabic lexicography, Sunnat is a behavioral
concept which means a normative way of acting, practice, usage,
mode, rule, course, or a path already trodden. While Hadīth is the
narration of the behavior of the Prophet, Sunnat is the law or practice
deduced from this narration. In other words, Hadīth is the 'carrier' and
2
'vehicle' of the Sunnat.
The traditional Muslim account of the history of Hadīth
compilation is based on the presumption that the members of the
nascent Muslim community – and especially the Sahāba or
Companions (sing.: Sahābī) 3 from the very beginning realized the
importance of recording the words of their Prophet and emulating his
actions. The primary reason for this was the status accorded to him by
the Quran itself. The Quran talks of the Prophet's noble character as
an exemplary model for the believers and asks for a complete
44
adherence to it. 4 The authority of the Prophet has been established by
Quran in unequivocal terms in Q 59:7 which says that “whatsoever the
messenger giveth you, take it. And whatsoever he forbiddeth, abstain
(from it).” As a recipient of Divine revelation, Prophet alone is in the
position to “explain to mankind that which hath been revealed for
them.” 5 Also, it was only natural for Prophet's followers to be
cognizant of the importance of following the last Prophet of God in
every minute detail. 6 Every action he performed would have been
considered as a precedent set by him 7 and hence liable to obedience.
The Prophet was not simply regarded as a figure of authority but also,
for his Companions, he was a person worthy of utmost reverence and
love. He himself said that no one can be a true believer until and
unless he loves him more than his family. Muslim sources are replete
with innumerable instances of outpourings of intense feelings for, and
emotional attachment to, the person of the Prophet.
For these reasons Muslim scholars, in their traditional
accounts of the history of Hadīth compilation, have found it perfectly
in consonance with the teachings of the Quran – as well as natural in
the view of the general behavior of the Companions towards their
Prophet – that the Hadīth must have remained in circulation, whether
orally or in written form, from the very beginning and must have been
considered a source of authority.
TRADITIONAL MUSLIM ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY OF HADĪTH

COMPILATION
Since modern critics of Hadīth – Muslim and Western academics alike
– have focused on the oral character of Hadīth transmission and it was
after a lapse of considerable time that the first written collections of
H adīth appeared, some Muslim scholars have tried to put forth the
counter claim that written H adīth records were to be found even
during the life time of the Prophet. 8 The Prophet had at his disposal a
number of scribes who not only recorded the Quranic verses that
were periodically dictated to them by the Prophet but also wrote
down some Ah ādīth as well. There is some evidence which suggests
that the Prophet's correspondence with the tribes and some
administrative rulings were written down and preserved. Dr.
Hamidullah has carried out extensive research in this field and claims
to have unearthed long lost copies of Prophet's letters written to
different rulers and tribal leaders. But of foremost importance is the
terms of agreement concluded between the Prophet and the
Medinese inhabitants and minorities. Hamidullah calls it the first
9
written constitution of any state in the history of the world. Similarly,
45
Prophet's treaty with the Meccans at H udaibīya was in a written form
as well. It is reported that when the treaty was to be signed, the
Meccans objected at the appellation Muhammad Rusūl Allah, to which
the Prophet responded by removing the title Rusūl Allah from his
name despite the reservations of some eminent Companions like ‘Alī.
Bukhārī and Muslim suggest a 'census' being carried out in Medina to
note down the names of all the faithful residing in the city. Also, a
proper record was maintained regarding those soldiers who were sent
10
out to different expeditions. An official compendium comprising of
Prophet's instructions in response to the queries and problems of
administration sent by governors, tax collectors and qāżīs, from
various regions – especially regarding Zakat – were collected by Ibn
H azm from different sources. These were later transmitted by his
successive generations. The present surviving version is that a of third
century scribe of Dēbal (Sind), ‘Abul Ja‘far al‐Debalī. 11
Other than strictly administrative documents, there are also
instances when Prophet's words relating to his ideas and mission as a
Prophet were written down for wider dissemination in accordance
with his own rubrics. After the conquest of Mecca, Prophet's sermon
guaranteeing certain rights was written down for Abū Shāh of Yemen
who was present at that occasion. 12 When the Prophet delivered his
famous speech during his last pilgrimage, he asked his listeners to
carry the message to those who were not present there. In order to
acquaint his followers with a better knowledge of the new faith and its
tenets, Prophet Muhammad kept close to his company a group of
people who could be instructed in the Quran and Sunnat and then
transmit it to others. The Ashāb al‐Suffa, or the People of the Porch as
they are known, served as reliable repository of knowledge about
Prophet Muhammad and his ideas not just for his other Companions
13
but also for people in distant areas. Those who could not avail
themselves of the opportunity of staying in close contact with the
Prophet on a regular basis made arrangements with their fellow
Companions. According to Abū Huraira, he was approached by notable
Companions like ‘Umar, ‘Uthmān, ‘Alī, Talha and Zubayr because he
was frequently in the company with the Prophet, more so than them.
14
Those who were more regularly present and close to the Prophet
had the chance as well as the permission to note down his sayings.
‘Abdullāh b. Amr b. al‐‘Ās used to take note of Prophet's words. He
was advised by the people not to do so because they felt that the
Prophet too, being a human, was prone to err and mood swings. He
went to ask the Prophet for his permission to which he readily agreed,
saying that whatever issues from him is verily right and truth.
‘Abdullāh b. Amr went on to make a compilation of Prophet's words
46
and titled it as Sahīfa al‐Sādiqa. It was preserved in his family for a
long time but can no longer be traced. 15 Abū Huraira attributes
‘Abdullāh b. Amr's expertise in H adīth to the fact that he used to
write them down. More important is the example of Anas b. Mālik. He
was one of the few people from that period who could read and write
and was with the Prophet since his childhood. This provided him with
ample opportunities of recording Prophet's words and observing his
behavior. He had made a written collection of Prophet's words which
16
is reported to have been checked by the Prophet himself.
Occasionally he used to show his notebooks to his students and other
scholars. Another notable Companion, ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Umar, was
granted permission by the Prophet to preach his sayings. The Prophet
advised him to write down the sayings in addition to committing them
to memory. 17 ‘Alī b. Abī Tālib, the fourth Caliph, also possessed certain
written documents which he kept rolled up in his sword. 18 This sahīfa
contained rules about blood money, the liberating of prisoners, and
other related themes. These are only a few examples from at least
fifty Companions 19 who compiled their collections of Hadīth or
reported the traditions in any written form during the first half of the
first century of Islam Beside them there were hundreds of others who
had memorized many of Prophet's sayings. The tradition of Hadīth
studies, its compilation and further dissemination, was carried forward
mostly by the progeny of prominent Companions. They included sons
of Muhaddithūn (scholars of Hadīth) like ‘Abul Rahmān b. ‘Abdullāh b.
Mas‘ūd or of Companions like ‘Urwa b. Zubayr. They made use of their
family links with the surviving members of Prophet's close circle of
friends and relatives to record the Hadīth in written form. At least
forty‐nine such Companions and other scholars recorded H adīth in
20
written form in the later half of the first century of Islam.
Not only were the Companions proficient at collecting the
words of the Prophet, they were also conscious of the need for a
careful and scrupulous approach to be adopted in this regard.
Although the development of the science of H adīth criticism,
whether based on its text or chain, took place mainly in the third and
fourth centuries of Islam – Muslim scholars believe that such criticism
was practiced in a rudimentary form even during the days of the
Prophet and his Companions. It is reported of the pious caliphs that
they usually summoned witnesses in support of a particular saying
before accepting it as valid for a judicial ruling or a religious principle.
Companions and the Muh addithūn became even more cautious in
their approach with the outbreak of civil war during the reign of
‘Uthmān and ‘Alī. According to Ibn Sirīn, when the civil war started,
people stopped accepting traditions without proper Isnād. This
47
marked the formal beginnings of a trend in which a saying of the
Prophet had to be relayed in a continuous manner with credible
narrators relaying the words of the Prophet at each successive level of
transmission. Related to the study of Hadīth in terms of the reliability
of its narrators and attributed chains of transmission is the science of
analysis of text so as to ascertain its genuineness. In case of Darāyat 21
(content analysis) as well, it is believed that the Companions were
familiar with its technique and often employed it as a way of
argumentation. For example a Hadīth about the punishment that a
man suffers in the grave when his family mourns his death, was
rejected by ‘Ā’isha on account of its incongruity with the Quran. 22
Similarly she did not accept any Hadīth that reported the Prophet had
been endowed with a vision of God during Mī‘rāj (ascension to
Heaven) because it contradicted Quran's statement of “vision
comprehendeth Him not”. 23 This use of reasoning in accepting the
reports attributed to the Prophet helped to lay down the principle
from the very beginning that the text of a Hadīth should be analyzed
even if its Isnād is flawless. 24
While Hadīth compilation had been in progress at an
individual level from the very beginning, an impetus was given to its
momentum during the reign of the Umayyad caliph ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul
‘Azīz (717‐720 AD). By that time the Muslim empire had been
stretched to encompass vast areas. During this period of expansion
there had been considerable increases in resources that engendered a
rise in literary activities in major cities of the Muslim empire. All of the
early Companions were dead and prominent among the Tābi‘yīn or
25
the Followers (sing.: Tābī‘) were of ripe age and scattered in
different corners of the empire. Internal dissensions plaguing the
Islamic body politic since the assassination of ‘Uthmān, the third
Caliph, had given rise to fabrication of H adīth collections on a large
scale. Noting the situation, ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz, a ruler remembered
for his pious disposition, instructed Ibn H azm to write down all
Ah adīth that could possibly be found, particularly those from Amr b.
26
‘Abd al‐Rah mān and Qāsim b. Muh ammad b. Abī Bakr as they
were regarded as the most respected custodians of Ah ādīth narrated
by ‘Ā’isha. The result was an increased interest in H adīth studies. No
less than eighty‐ seven scholars of H adīth appear to have transmitted
H adīth in written form in the age of Followers. 27 They include
important traditionists like H asan al‐Bas rī, Ibn Sirīn and Shahāb al‐
Zuhrī. Zuhrī was among those traditionists who were entrusted with
the task of H adīth compilation during ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz’s reign.
He is said to have been a keen scholar of H adīth and profited from
the knowledge of the last surviving Companions of his time. His own
48
compiled works ran into so many volumes that after his death his
manuscripts were reportedly carried by several beasts of burden. 28
But most works of his own and those of his contemporaries works
have been lost. The only surviving work is that of sahīfa of Hammām b.
Munnabih, a Yemenite follower and disciple of Abū Hurairah from
whom he wrote down Ahādīth around the mid first/seventh century. 29
The contents of the rest of the works can summarily be known
through the fehrist (catalog) compiled by the Baghdad book dealer Ibn
Nadīm. 30
These emerging classes of Hadīth specialists were spread
across different provinces of the Muslim empire. Ibn Jurayj worked at
Mecca, Sa‘īd b. ‘Arūba in Mesopotamia, Al‐Awzā‘ī in Syria,
Muh ammad b. ‘Abdul Rah mān in Medina, Sufiyān Thawrī and Zaid
b. Qadama in Kufa, and H ammād b. Salama in Basra. 31 In this period
Medina and Kufa emerged as two important centers for H adīth
studies, surpassing others in importance. Given the fact that the
Prophet himself had spent a major portion of his life in Medina along
with his family and Companions, it was only natural that the city
gained a reputation for Hadīth studies. Important Hadīth scholars like
Sa‘īd b. al‐Musayb, ‘Urwa b. Zubayr, Shahāb Zuhrī, Salām b. ‘Abdullāh
32
b. ‘Umar and Qāsim b. Muhammad b. Abī Bakr resided there. Imam
Mālik's presence added further to the growing reputation of Medina.
It was in Medina that Ibn Juraij, Sufīyān Thawrī, Awzā’ī, Yahyā b. Yahyā
Andulūsī and Imam Shāf‘ī received instruction from Imam Mālik. 33 On
the other hand, Kufa benefited from the fact that ‘Ali b. Abī Tālib, best
known among Companions in knowledge of Quran and Sunnat, made
it the capital of the Muslim empire during his rule. He was
accompanied to Kufa by no less than twenty‐four Companions who
fought the first battle against the Meccans at Badr along with the
Prophet. The extent of Kufa's significance for Hadīth studies can be
estimated from the fact that it is the only city for which one whole
volume of Tabqāt, the well known and most comprehensive
biographical dictionary of Muslim scholars and distinguished figures,
34
is dedicated. This is why Bukhārī, while compiling his Sahīh, made
many visits to Iraq in search of Ahādīth. 35
The popular 'form' of recording Ahādīth during this period
was to group them under titles indicating their subject matter. These
compilations were called Musannaf. Ibn Jurayj and Ma‘mr b. Rashīd
are among the first known compilers of Musannaf, 36 yet the best
known work of this type is Muwatta’ by Imam Mālik. The compilation
and later revision of its text was completed in a period spanning over
almost forty years. On the account of his efforts in ascertaining the
authenticity of Ahādīth, many scholars count Muwatta’ as equal in
49
ranks with Bukhārī and Muslim – the top two of the six authentic
collection of Ahādīth (Sahāh Satta). In the strict sense of the term,
Muwatta’ is not a book of sayings alone but has a juristic and legal
import as well. But then it is not a legal compendium either. Its
chapters are arranged under the categories of religious laws
pertaining to prayers, fasting or Zakat. A chapter may begin with a
relevant Hadīth followed by comments, or with a question addressed
to Mālik followed by his answer utilising the support of an Hadīth,
Quranic verse, opinion of the Companion or the Follower, or on the
37
basis of a custom prevailing among the people of Medina.
th
From the late 2nd/8 century onwards till the time of the
appearance of Sahāh Satta, almost two hundred and fifty one scholars
produced written works of Hadīth. 38 The emphasis shifted towards
compiling Ahādīth in groups under the name of the transmitting
Companions with their names arranged in accordance with their
seniority and status in Muslim history. Forty‐four Musnads appeared
within the 3rd/9th century and about twenty more in the succeeding
centuries. The Musnad of Sulaymān b. Dā’ūd is considered to be the
first work in this type. 39 The best known, however, is Musnad of
Ahmad b. Hanbal. For this work Hanbal sifted 30,000 traditions out of
some 7,50,000, narrated by 904 Companions. 40
In Musnads, the Hadīth material relating to a common theme
is scattered. Attention was now given to the compilation of Hadīth
collections which were catalogued and thoroughly scrutinized. The
highest mark was reached during the 3rd/9th century as the Sahāh
Satta were produced in this period. Not only was the Hadīth material
was placed in a more systematic way but the rules for Hadīth scrutiny
were also perfected. The analysis of tradition covered the narrator's
date of birth, family, schooling, journeys in search of knowledge,
mental and physical health, religious behavior, beliefs, personal
character, literary output and other features. This gave rise to a critical
study of Hadīth and its transmission in accordance with ‘Ilm al‐Jarh
wa‐'l Ta‘dīl (the science of impugning or confirming [the credibility of
Muhaddithūn]). It became common for the Muhaddithūn of the day to
comment on the veracity of the traditions in their works, either in an
introduction or along with the traditions themselves, or in a separate
book. An important aspect of Jarh wa‐'l Ta‘dīl was the Ismā’ al‐Rijāl
(biographical information on narrators) which provided biographical
details of the narrators. The same period witnessed the publication of
the benchmark work in the field by Muhammad b. Sa‘ad whose multi‐
volume comprehensive biographical dictionary of narrators is titled
Kitāb al‐Tabqāt al‐Kabīr. Bukhārī's Kitāb al‐Rijāl al‐Kabīr is famous in
this field as well.
50
From 4th/10th century onward, few original or new
collections of Hadīth works emerged. Still this period is of immense
importance as a number of commentaries, summaries, anthologies
and indexes appeared on different aspects of Hadīth sciences. In fact
the best known scholars who practiced and perfected the techniques
of Hadīth criticism are traced to this period. They include Ibn Abī
Hātim who for the first time divided the Muhaddithūn into eight
categories in accordance with their respective grades of
41
authenticity. This served as the basis for later developments in
classification and critical terminology relating to Hadīth sciences. Qāzī
Abū Muhammad al‐Ramhurmuzī is said to be the real founder of Ilm
Mustalah al‐Hadīth (science of Hadīth technical terms). 42 Others who
followed him in this field were Abū ‘Abdullāh al‐Hākim Nīshāpūrī, Al‐
Khatīb al‐Baghdādī, Ibn Jawzī, Ibn Salāh, Al‐Dhahabī and, most
importantly, Ibn Hajar al‐‘Asqalānī whose work is said to be the final
summation of Hadīth sciences.
WESTERN CRITIQUE OF HADĪTH LITERATURE
Western critics differ from traditional Muslim scholars in their views
on the historicity of Hadīth literature. They do not subscribe to the
idea of Prophet's Sunnat overriding all other established practices and
achieving recognition as the sole authority for the Muslim community
from the very beginning. It appears from the alternative account put
forward by Western critics that it was over a period of time that a few
dogmatic aspects were singled out as binding and elaborate theories
developed about their relevance to the overall structure of the faith,
its various aspects and postulates. Sunnat of the Prophet can, at best,
be regarded as playing a role in this dogmatic development although
evidence from Quran is equally credible in supporting the view that
the Prophet was excluded from such an undertaking. This hypothesis
of gradual development of tenets of faith and emphasis on revealed
sources for shaping Muslim responses in their individual lives and
collective efforts – is based upon the non‐availability of written texts
dating from the first century of Islam. Even if Quran is considered as a
work which originated in the lifetime of the Prophet and put down in
writing in the course of about two decades after his death, a gap of
almost 150 years yawns between it and the first collection of legally
relevant texts which are recognized as authentic insofar as they really
go back to the person purportedly responsible for their compilation or
43
authorship.
Western criticism of Hadīth literature began to appear
towards the middle of the nineteenth century. The earliest of the
51
critics like Gustav Weil, Alois Sprenger, William Muir and Dozy – while
restricting their view purely to the historical origins of Hadīth without
questioning its theological considerations – arrived at the conclusion
that Hadīth remained in oral circulation for more than a couple of
centuries following Prophet Muhammad's death before being finally
recorded in a written format. Goldziher gave further developed this
idea by arguing that the bulk of Hadīth literature is the result of
various social and political developments and conscious efforts of the
community to respond to these developments in the mature stages of
44
the Islamic community. His approach elicited immediate and
enthusiastic approval in European scholarly circles.
The most significant contribution to Western criticism of the
historicity of Hadīth literature was made by Joseph Schacht in the
middle of the twentieth century. 45 Schacht's main concern dealt with
the origin and development of law in Muslim areas in the early phase
of Muslim history and the tracking of the gradual processes involved
therein which lead towards the evolution of a system of law that could
be termed as Islamic insofar it was based on Quran and Sunnat. It
implies, contrary to the commonly held view among Muslim scholars,
that the system of law prevailing in the Muslim world for a period
spanning well over a century after the coming of Islam was not based
on revealed sources. In his view, law as such was considered to be
outside the purview of religion and the Prophet derived his authority
not on the basis of his status as a law giver or founder of a system of
jurisprudence, but from the truth of his religious message. But
Schacht's concern is not to discuss whether or not Muhammad had
the intention or the idea of creating a completely new, comprehensive
system of law, but whether he in fact did and, if so, with what sources
46
this can be proven. He is concerned with establishing the hypothesis
that neither Quran nor Sunnat had primacy in dictating the terms of
law during the initial period of Islam although he does acknowledge
that many rules of Islamic law – particularly in the law of family and
inheritance and details of worship and ritual – were based on the
Quran from the very beginning. But for the most part of Islamic law he
holds the view that:

[It] did not derive directly from the Koran but
developed ... out of popular and administrative
practice under the Umaiyads, and this practice often
diverged from the intentions and even the explicit
wording of the Koran. It is true that a number of
legal rules, particularly in family law and inheritance,
not to mention cult and ritual, were based on the
52
Koran from very beginning. But [we] will show that
apart from the most elementary rules, norms derived
from the Koran were introduced into Muhammadan
law almost invariably at a secondary stage. This
applies not only to those branches of law which are
not covered in detail by the Koranic legislation – if
we may use this term of essentially ethical and only
incidentally legal body of maxims contained in the
Koran – but to family law, the law of inheritance, and
47
even cult and ritual.

With Quran being adduced as evidence only secondarily and sparingly,
it can be concluded that Law, as it was enforced in the Muslim empire
in the initial period, was a continuation of customary law prevailing
among the peninsular Arabs. The political order that came to establish
its authority in the wake of Islam did modify this customary law but
even for this political order pre‐Islamic customs and laws were the
only known and available 'system of law'. 48
The early Muslim practitioners of law and their schools of
jurisprudence, which Schacht calls as 'ancient schools' 49 of law in
Islam, evolved around different Companions of the Prophet in
different cities and were reflective of the variety of opinions exercised
by them in accordance with the local traditions, customs and law of
that region. This determined the customary or generally agreed
practice of the community in that region, the so called 'living
tradition', 50 which was an incorporation of pre‐Islamic customs within
local normative practices on the basis of their being continuous from
the days of Prophet, and not derived solely from a body of traditions
handed down from the Prophet or even his Companions. These
ancient schools were geographically determined and as they were
gradually transformed into 'personal schools', they became
increasingly centered on some prominent companion settled in that
area and dependent upon that Companion for putting their doctrines
as a whole under his aegis and referring to him as their authority in
general terms.
That the 'living practice' of these schools was largely
unrelated with the normative behavior and idealized practice of the
Prophet, i.e. Sunnat al‐Nabī, and that precedence was given to the
practices extant among the adherents of the school or that of its
patron saint, is clearly seen in the Muwatta’ of Mālik. Many of its
Ahadīth are Mursal. The edition of Muwatta’, according to one of the
lists quoted by Zurqānī, contains 822 traditions from the Prophet as
compared to 898 from others: 613 from Companions and 285 from
53
Successors. 51 On a number of occasions Mālik prefers to adopt a
practice prevalent among the inhabitants of Medina even when
presented with a valid Hadīth. Such an anomaly can only be accounted
for if it is accepted that even for Mālik the concept of Sunnat did not
rest squarely and exclusively with Prophet but was sometimes based
on the behavior of the Companions and Successors, and occasionally
on the practice prevalent among the inhabitants of Medina. It means
that the idea of the Sunnat as a normative model of Prophet's
practices and exemplary mode of conduct associated exclusively with
his personage did not emerge until much later in Islamic history. In the
decades following his death, Prophet Muhammad's Sunnat was one
among many precedents of righteous and judicious conduct in legal as
well as religious and political matters. It is just that even in its religio‐
legal usage, no distinction was made between the Sunnat of the
Prophet and that of others. In this sense it was used by the 'proto‐
Qāżīs' of Umayyad rule. They invoked the Sunnat of the Prophet along
with that of Abū Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthmān, ‘Alī and other prominent
Companions. Even the Sunnat of ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz remained a
52
valid point of reference for more than a century after his death.
In a political connotation too, the collocation 'Sunnat of the
Prophet' was used from the earliest times but only served to convey a
vague and general sense of what was considered as right and just by a
particular group using the term. 53 This can be seen on the occasions of
the appointment of a new Caliph in the earlier period of Islam. When
‘Alī was asked to give an assurance to adhere to the Sunnat of Abū
Bakr and ‘Umar in the event of his appointment as Caliph following the
death of the latter, the term Sunnat was not meant to indicate any set
of positive rules but served as a doctrinal link between the Sunnat of
Abū Bakr and ‘Umar and the Quran. 54 In all the major revolts and
uprisings against the Umayyad dynasty in which the authority of
Sunnat was invoked, the purpose was to use it more as an
oppositional slogan on par with al‐amr bil ma‘rūf wal nahī an al‐
munkar (enjoin the right and forbid wrong) suggesting the rebel's
claim of better embodiment of right and just practice in disagreement
to what was being practiced by the ruling authorities. 55 Yazīd b. al‐
Muhallab – one time governor and later a rebel against the Umayyad
rule in the early eighth century – called upon not only the Quran and
Sunnat of the Prophet but also the Sunnat of the two ‘Umars, i.e.
‘Umar b. Khattāb and ‘Umar b. ‘Abdul ‘Azīz. The Sunnat by which
Marwān tried to justify Mu‘āvīya's designation of Yazīd as his
successor was the precedent set by Abū Bakr. In all these examples
“the reference is to the past as generally remembered and approved,
not to a special record of Prophetic (or for that matter other)
54
precedent transmitted with particular care on account of its particular
authority.” 56
Such a vague and undifferentiated concept of Sunnat
remained in existence till the time of Shāf‘ī who is generally regarded
as the architect of Muslim jurisprudence. 57 Shāf‘ī could not have made
changes to the broad outlines of law, whether religious or secular in
content, as much of it had already been derived and accorded
widespread recognition. But he could challenge many of the rulings as
being insufficiently based on scriptural authority by outlining clear
rules for jurisprudential preferences and interpreting the concept of
Sunnat in a way that would force others to accept his argument in
according a distinct stature to the Sunnat of the Prophet. By doing so
Shāf‘ī aspired to instill a uniformity in doctrine by eradicating the
diversity ensuing from the multiplicity of regional schools with their
respective authoritative sources for dogma and practice.
Shāf‘ī's main work on jurisprudence, the Kitāb al‐Risāla fī Usūl
al‐Fiqh, often referred to simply as al‐Risāla, was written as an epistle
to ‘Abd al‐Rah mān b. Mahdī who had asked Shāf‘ī to write a treatise
on the authoritative sources of the Sharī‘at. 58 In Risāla and other
writings on jurisprudence, Shāf‘ī made a systematic attempt at
determining the relative importance of different sources of Sharī‘at by
questioning the views held by his opponents. He mentions the views
held by different groups at different places in his writings. They
included Ahl al‐Hadīth or Ashāb al‐Hadīth, Ahl al‐Kalām 59 and Ahl al‐
Qiyās. But such a categorization is more or less arbitrary, perhaps
fluid, and what has come down to us about these groups and their
ideas is mostly through the writings of Shāf‘ī as not all of them have
left many traces about their views and reasoning. In a way Shāf‘ī's
work is greatly important and useful as a source of divergent views
prevalent in Muslim scholarly circles regarding the relative status of
revealed sources and independent reasoning in the formulation of
law. Also, a rigid demarcation on doctrinal basis cannot possibly hold
true for the period under consideration. At most these groups could
be differentiated on the basis of their relative emphasis of one source
over the other instead of counting them as relying upon one at the
expense of the other. For example, Shahāb Zuhrī and Sufīyān al‐Thawrī
were Traditionists par excellence but they did not banish reason
60
altogether. In fact the trend of emphasizing Hadīth and rejecting
reason absolutely is seen in the post‐Shāf‘ī period in the form of a
literalist acceptance of Hadīth with utter disregard for Rā’y in the
Hanbalī and Zāhirī schools of jurisprudence. Similarly, if Ahl al‐Kalām
are to be equated with Mutazilites, then it should be noted that they
did not reject Hadīth altogether but were rather selective in their
55
approach. 61 They mostly had reservations about those Ahādīth which
were contradictory to the content and teachings of Quran, singularly
reported, and spoke of God in anthropomorphic terms. The Hanafīs or
Iraqis such as Ashāb al‐Rā’y or Ahl al‐Qiyās also used Hadīth. Their
difference from the rest was that they resorted to Hadīth when in
controversy with their opponents and so in didactic works for internal
consumption Hadīth hardly appear. Even for the Hadīth reported by
them, they seldom provided complete and elaborate Isnāds.
Moreover, they did not practice Hadīth criticism in a formal way like
traditionist jurisprudents did. 62 This shows that Shāf‘ī's predecessors
and contemporaries had already started adducing traditions from the
Prophet but it was just that they interpreted these in the light of their
own living traditions and allowed the Hadīth to be superseded by
those deductions.
In their efforts to adhere to their stated stance on the sources
for formulation of Law and their respective established doctrines of
Law, the groups 'opposed' to Hadīth could only play down the
authority of Sunnat by arguing in favor of Quran's superiority as a
revealed scripture and hence more worthy of attention. To this effect
an Hadīth is to be found as well which reports the Prophet as saying
that if any of his words are in contradiction to Quran than they must
be ignored. This allowed some leverage to Shāf‘ī's opponents who
could state the reason of their denial of a known, authenticated
Hadīth on the basis of it being contradictory to Quran and hence not
worthy of obedience. In doing so they could claim to be following the
Prophet himself. What strengthened the stance of Shāf‘ī's opponents
even further was that the superiority of Quran as a Divine text could
not be denied as doing so would expose an obvious weakness in
argument.
To establish Sunnat as an overriding authority over all other
sources excluding Quran, it had to be invested with a Divine status as
well. There had existed in Islamic thought a distinction between two
different modes of revelation. One is referred to as wahī matlū which
is Quran and the other is wahī ghayr matlū which comprises of
Prophet's practices and actions taught to him by Gabriel as part and
parcel of the duties of a Prophet. 63 Shāf‘ī cited an āyat from Quran to
prove his point. The verse says: “Allah revealeth unto thee the
Scripture and Wisdom, and teacheth thee that which thou knewest
not.” 64 The word 'Wisdom' in Shāf‘ī's interpretation was meant to
imply the Sunnat of the Apostle of God. 65 In this way both the Quran
and the Sunnat were declared by him to be revealed sources. A
recognition of this distinction between two kinds of revelation was
required by Shāf‘ī to foil his opponents from establishing the authority
56
of Quran over Sunnat on the basis of latter being not a revealed
source of guidance. More importantly, Shāf‘ī could now argue that no
abrogation 66 of Sunnat by Quran was possible and vice versa. Only
Quran could abrogate Quran and Sunnat could abrogate Sunnat. Shāf‘ī
said: “If a Sunnat were abrogated by the Quran, another Sunnat must
have been laid down by the Prophet making clear that this earlier
Sunnat was abrogated so as to demonstrate to men that an act can be
abrogated only by something of equal status.” 67
He furnishes evidence from Quran in order to prove his point.
Quran says, “Say (O Muhammad): It is not for me to change it of my
accord. I only follow that which is inspired in me. Lo! If I disobey my
Lord I fear the retribution of an awful Day.” 68 After establishing the
credentials of Sunnat as Divinely guided, Shāf‘ī was left with the task
of accounting for apparent contradiction between Quran and Sunnat
which were suggestive of one abrogating the other. In case of Sunnat
abrogating the Quran, reference is always made to Quran's
punishment for adultery which is clearly prescribed as flogging in verse
24:2. But Sunnat provides for the punishment of death by stoning.
Shāf‘ī tried to do away with this anomaly by insisting that the death
penalty in Sunnat had superseded a corporal punishment previously
introduced in the Sunnat and hence it is not an instance of abrogation
of Quran by Sunnat. But this argument could hardly be convincing to
account for such an apparent contradiction. Similarly Shāf‘ī tried to
disprove the theory of abrogation of Sunnat by Quran. The proponents
of this view mostly alluded to the cancellation of the practice of early
Muslims offering prayers in the direction of Jerusalem – a practice
established by the Prophet as no command for that was given in
Quran – by a verse in Quran which made it obligatory for the Muslim
to face the Ka‘ba. But according to Shāf‘ī, “each [direction] was valid in
its time: the turning toward Jerusalem – when God ordered his
Prophet to turn to it – was obligatory; but after it was abrogated it
became obligatory to turn only toward the Sacred House, and no
other direction is permitted by law, except in the event of fear [of
danger] or in a supererogatory prayer in travel as indicated in the
69
Book and the Sunnat.”
The concept of a Divine Sunnat was required not just to lend
strength to arguments against its abrogation by Quran but also to
show it as a supplement to Quranic teachings and hence a necessary
source of guidance. According to Shāf‘ī, Sunnat specifies actions and
practices on matters for which there is no reference in the Book of
God as well as for those where there is specific indication. Accordingly,
he divides the Sunnat into three categories:

57
First, for whatever acts there is textual [legislation]
provided by God in the Book, the Apostle [merely]
specified clearly what is in the text of the Book.
Second, as to any [ambiguous] communication in the
Book laid down by God, [the Prophet] specified the
meaning implied by Him. These are the two
categories on which scholars do not disagree. The
third category consists of what the Apostle has laid
down in the Sunnat and concerning which there is
70
no text in the Book.

This aspect of Sunnat is accepted by some unconditionally while
others argue that no Sunnat was ever laid down by the Prophet
without a basis for it in the Book of God. For example, Quran asks the
Muslims to be observant in their prayers but the information
regarding the number of prayers and mode of their performance is
provided in Sunnat. Even with this disagreement, the scope of Sunnat
was considerably enlarged and it did not require any effort on Shāf‘ī's
part to prove to his opponents that it was incumbent upon Muslims to
follow the Apostle of God.
The only way Shāf‘ī's opponents could hold on to their views
and doctrine that conflicted with the words and practices of the
Prophet was by arguing that the reported action had later been
abrogated or that the saying had not convincingly been reported.
Since the ancient schools were supposedly an extension of the
tradition of the Prophet on the basis of some prominent Companion's
authority, it could be argued that the apparent contradiction between
that school's living tradition and Sunnat was because the Companion –
who possibly had close proximity with Prophet – was better placed
with regard to information about what Prophet had said or done and
which of his actions he had changed or modified at a later stage. Shāf‘ī
rejected this claim by establishing the principle that the Sunnat of the
Prophet is credible when attested by a corresponding Hadīth. In this
regard too, traditions from other persons could not compete with a
71
tradition from the Prophet. Even if this tradition is singularly
reported by a trustworthy transmitter, it is sufficient to establish the
Sunnat of the Prophet and cannot be refuted on the basis of
conclusions drawn from Quran or any tradition that is open to several
interpretations. 72 Given the fact that most of the H adīth are
singularly reported and hence provide the adherents of ancient law
schools an excuse for relying upon more credible sayings and actions
of the Prophet relayed by their 'patron‐saint', Shāf‘ī was stringent in
disallowing any concession that might undermine the validity of single
58
reports. At most he allowed for a unanimously recognized Sunnat to
be considered as stronger than a weak single report, though the latter
would still serve as a basis for action. 73 What helped Shāf‘ī in his
‘revisionist approach’ was the fact that the ancient schools were
already on the defensive due to the rise in the number of “traditions”
regardless of how accurately they were being reported. Sunnat
increasingly came to be identified with the practice of the Prophet in
Iraq though it was still not exclusively embedded in traditions from the
Prophet. Due to these factors doctrinal development in the ancient
schools was outpaced by the development of traditions, particularly
those supposed to be originating from the Prophet, in the period even
before Shāf‘ī. 74 It was this yawning gulf between the tradition and the
doctrines that gave Shāf‘ī his claim for identifying Sunnat with the
practice of the Prophet as reported by traditions even if the proofs
accruing towards the verification of its validity were weak.
After Shāf‘ī had been able to prove convincingly that Sunnat
occupies a Divine status and that it has to be verified by a
corresponding Hadīth – even if singularly reported – to be considered
as valid and liable for acceptance, it was no longer possible for the
adherents of ancient law schools to base their doctrines of law on the
authority of the rulings and actions of the Companions and prominent
scholars among them. Sunnat could no longer said to be best reflected
in the practice of the Community but was required to give up its broad
meaning of any precedent in the favor of Prophet's normative
behavior and idealized practice as validated by a written account and
furnished with strong Isnād basis. This development in Muslim
jurisprudence brought about by Shāf‘ī, forced the ancient law schools
to invest their doctrines with the authority of the Prophet and to give
up the use of Companion reports in the making of law. Hence the
rulings and sayings of the 'patron‐saint' Companion and successive
scholars identified with the ancient school, according to Schacht, had
to be fabricated with fake Isnāds. This process of projecting the legal
doctrines backward from the Successors to the Companions and
ultimately to the Prophet began during the first half of the second
century of Islam and continued well into the third. In Schacht's words:

A great many traditions in the classical and other
collections were put into circulation only after
Shāf‘ī's time; the first considerable body of legal
traditions from the Prophet originated towards the
middle of the second century, in opposition to
slightly earlier traditions from Companions and other
authorities, and to the 'living tradition' of the ancient
59
schools of law; … the isnads show a tendency to
grow backwards and to claim higher and higher
authority until they arrive at the Prophet. 75

This linking of a doctrine with a saying of the Prophet had to be done
in order to guarantee the prevalence of one's doctrines over and
against the competing ones while giving it a distinct and exclusive
outlook in this process. Makdisi has pointed out three stages in this
regard. First is the origin of 'regional schools' as the jurists consciously
identified their practice with that of some city or province. In the
second stage these 'regional schools' give way to personal schools.
This leads to the third stage where the schools are still personal but
now have recognized local chiefs and claim exclusive authority as guild
76
schools to regulate the teaching and practice of law. When applied
to the origins of the Hanafī school of jurisprudence, this rather
simplistic description tallies well with Schacht's view about the origins
of Islamic law and that of Hanafī school. What came to be formally
known as Hanafīism was attributed to early authorities like ‘Abdullāh
b. Mas‘ūd and other prominent figures like Hasan al‐Basarī, Sha‘bī and
Ibrāhīm al‐Nakhā’ī,. These Companions of Ibn Mas‘ūd, most notably al‐
Nakhā’ī, served as a formal and explicit reference to Ibn Mas‘ūd
himself and a considerable body of early Kufian doctrine was
attributed to him with al‐Nakhā’ī appearing as the main transmitter.
This body of elementary legal doctrine had very little to do with the
77
few authentic opinions of the historical Ibrāhīm. The first 'truly
historical' figure in Hanafī doctrine is that of Hammād b. Abī Sulaymān
(d. 128/738), the teacher of Abū Hanīfa in whose name the Kufian
doctrine was transformed into a personal school at a secondary stage.
But it was only after the work of Abū Yūsuf and Shaybānī that a guild
school with connections attributable to worthy Companions and
Followers – and hence to the Prophet – and recognizable features
such as consensus on points of law, came into existence. Abū Yusūf
and Shaybānī are generally credited for systematizing the Kufian
Iraqian doctrine under the aegis of Abū Hanīfa. It is from this time, i.e.
150/767, onwards that the development of Islamic law can be
followed step‐by‐step on the basis of available, credible sources.
Schacht's radically revisionist thesis regarding the origins of
Hadīth‐based Islamic law has lately been challenged by many among
the western scholars of Hadīth in the light of some newly available
manuscripts and similar such sources. Motzki differs with Schacht in
his estimate of the time when law acquired a distinct Islamic content.
In his opinion

60
the beginnings of a law that was Islamic in the true
sense of the word and of theoretical occupation with
it are placed too late by a good half to three quarters
of a century. Regional schools of legal and religious
scholarship can be already discerned in the last three
decades of the first/seventh century, even if their
differences probably were consciously recognized as
dependent on 'schools' only at the beginning of the
78
second/eighth century.

Whereas Juynboll concedes that the Hadīth may have surfaced a
quarter of a century earlier in the last two decades of the first/seventh
century, Joseph Von Ess, through a tradition‐historical analysis, shows
that there are theological traditions ascribed to the Prophet and
Companions that have a very early kernel, traceable, in some cases, as
far as the middle of the first/seventh century. 79 Wallaq comes close to
Ess's timeline as suggested by his own findings in which he locates the
beginnings of the trend of giving special attention to the Sunnat of the
Prophet – as distinguished and certainly more prestigious than the
Sunnat of others – in the transmission of Prophetic material by a
number of Qāżīs around 60/680s.
In case Schacht's view – or even that of those who have lately
revised his thesis – on the origins of Islamic Law and a concomitant
increase in the number of Hadīth reports is not accepted, it becomes
problematic to account for the purported lack of Sunnat (and more
importantly, Quranic) content in the formulation of Islamic law and
jurisprudence. The revisionist approach towards the history of Quran
and life of Prophet Muhammad put forward by John Wohnsbrough,
Patricia Crone, Michael Cook and Martin Hinds offers a plausible
explanation. On the account of Quran's apparently incoherent
structure, obscure content, unremarkable use of language, its
perfunctory linkage of disparate materials and repetitive passages
with variant versions, Wansbrough thinks of Quran as a “product of
the belated and imperfect editing of materials from a plurality of
80
traditions.” He starts from the presumption that these disparate
texts originate from different communities located in and outside
Arabia. According to him, it was not till the second/eighth century that
the Quranic texts were coalesced together as a product of 'sectarian
milieu' of inter‐confessional and political polemics. 81 As for Crone and
Cook, they do not find any hard evidence for the existence of Quran in
any form before the last decade of the seventh century. This is one
way of accounting for the conspicuous lack of 'Islamic' element in the
61
content of law at the time about which documented records are
available.
Or, alternatively, one has to accept the 'conspiratorial' view
that the leadership of the Islamic state realized the importance of
religious indoctrination as essential to achieving unity among the
unruly Arab tribes engaged in wars of conquest. They could not be
appeased by booty for long. Hence the need was felt for implanting a
religious ethic that could rally them around the cause of Islam which
served as an ideological tool for the new military and religious state. 82
Some pious religious scholars looked down upon the irreligious
practices of a godless state in which widely divergent religious views,
advocated by numerous local schools, prevailed. This prompted these
scholars to allegedly embark upon a large scale fabrication of Hadīth
to impose some semblance of unity and overall authority by
developing the idea of a Sunnat of the Prophet to serve as a rallying
83
point for all.
Another set of problems arising from an outright rejection of
Schahct's thesis is that one has to accept that certain portions of
Quran have been abrogated and parts of it irretrievably lost. This is
because, if Muslim jurisprudence had recognized the centrality of
Quranic text in the formulation of law from the very beginning, there
could not possibly have been postulates of law so evidently in conflict
with the Quran's legal advice. It was to remove this discrepancy
between revelation and the existing law that ingenious theories of
84
abrogation had to be constructed. It is then no coincidence that
when the role of Sunnat was being accorded primary importance and
the first generation of Muslim legalists like Ibrāhīm al‐Nikhā’ī were
actively elaborating the core of a positive legal doctrine, that the
theory of abrogation was beginning to take shape. In addition to that
the possibility of compilation of Quran during Prophet Muhammad's
lifetime had to be denied so as to make room for unwarranted
interpolations in the Quranic text, interpolations designed to support
85
local opinion on certain debated topics. With the Prophet excluded
from the task of Quran's compilation the dilemma of abrogated verses
remaining in the text of Quran was automatically resolved. 86 Had
Quran been compiled during the lifetime of the Prophet, he would
have had the abrogated verses expunged from its text. As for those
aspects of law for which no provision was to be found in Quran,
another mode of naskh was laid down according to which the
wordings of the verse had been removed from the text altogether
while the ruling remained valid. 87 The third mode of naskh, however,
raises most embarrassing questions about Quran as a Divine text.
naksh al‐hukm wal tilāwa stipulates that both the verse and the ruling
62
had been suppressed. As a proof of that there are to be found
incidents in authentic Hadīth collections which report of Prophet and
Companions forgetting parts of revelation. 88
Fazlur Rahman has offered an alternative version of Schacht's
theory which serves to 'Islamize' its contents and resolves some of its
ambiguities. He does agree with Schacht in disregarding the Prophet
as a Pan‐legist and finding in his personage more of a social reformer
who seldom resorted to general legislation as a means of furthering
the cause of the religion he espoused. But he differs from Schacht on
the latter's opinion about the living tradition of the ancient schools of
law. Rahman does not regard these law schools as totally oblivious of
Prophetic Sunnat. At the most, in his opinion, it can be said that in the
earlier phase the living tradition was not confined to Prophet alone
89
but to the community as a whole. With this presumption, Rahman
coins the appellation 'living Sunnat' 90 . According to Rahman, living
Sunnat was a product of meditation upon Prophet's behavior and
precedents set by him and other prominent men in the community,
with the exercise of free judgment and reasoning in consonance with
the letter and spirit of Quran so as to elaborate the law further and
validate it for the community as a whole through the agency of Ijmā‘.
In the final analysis both Quran and Sunnat had to be authenticated
91
through Ijmā‘. Once shorn of its vitalizing role, the concept of Ijmā‘,
in the post‐Shāf‘īte period, lost its significance.
In this way the very Schachtian view of the origins of Islamic
law and Hadīth literature, is Islamized by emphasizing the organic
unity between Quran, Sunnat, Ijmā‘ and Ijtihād. It also becomes
possible to conclude that Hadīth cannot be outrightly dismissed as a
forgery as it is reflective of living Sunnat which is a progressive
interpretation and formulation of Prophetic Sunnat. 92 With regard to
delays in the recording of Hadīth material, Rahman argues that it may
have been because those in the earlier period, nearer to Prophet and
his Companions, had little motive for recording his words and
considered it more important to continue following the spirit of his
deeds and actions. On the other hand, later day Muslim legalists had
to refer to Hadīth in response to those who demanded a more clear
and concise proof of their practices being based on authentic sources
of guidance. In making such a demand the so‐called Ashāb al‐Hadīth
were not defining or setting rules for a new source of guidance to
support existing opinion. They were only resorting to a change in
methodology whereby a certain practice attributed to the Prophet
could not be accepted by the virtue of it being the default practice of
the community, but could only be accepted as credible when validated
by reports with irrefutable Isnād evidence about what Prophet had
63
said or what he approved, disapproved or condoned in a given
situation. Rahman summarizes this argument by saying that:

The main relevant difference between the living
Sunnat of the early generation and Hadīth
formulation is that whereas the former was a living
and ongoing process, the latter is formal and has
sought to confer absolute permanence on the living
Sunnat synthesis of roughly the first three
centuries. 93

In a nutshell, while the ancient schools found living Sunnat proof
enough of their practices as continuous from the days of the Prophet,
their opponents in the post‐Shāf‘ī period made it compulsory for a
Sunnat to be evidenced by Hadīth in order to have a binding authority
for the Muslims. It was only by establishing a hierarchy of revealed
sources and setting of rules for its usage whereby the evidence liked
by one could be justified and that of the opponents discredited in the
face of increasing political and dogmatic complexities besetting
Muslim politics and religious polemics at that time.
Rahman has not only tried to prove that the practice among the
community was religious in tone and character, but also salvages
some scope for the authenticity of a portion of Hadīth literature. He
finds it 'natural' for the Companions to have talked about the Prophet
often as men not only act and follow but also talk and report. 94 These
conversations about him and his views must have come into
circulation in oral or written form. Another point on which Rahman
has argued against modern theories on Islamic law is Schacht's view
that Quran was introduced only at a secondary stage in the
formulation of law. Rahman does not accept the hypothesis that
Quran only gradually and progressively came to acquire a central role.
In his assessment, it was just that the “derivation of law from it or
integration with it of already existing legal material became more and
more extensive as legal implications of more and more verses were
95
perceived either out of need or pure speculation.” This allows
Rahman to 're‐anchor' the 'spirit' of Islamic law in its historical past – a
connection severed in the fantastical theories about the origins of
Islam by the likes of Wansbrough and Crone. But he is rather more
concerned about revitalizing the 'original' nexus between Sunnat,
Ijmā‘ and Ijtihād than about arguing uncritically in favor of the
historicity of Hadīth literature. It is in this context that his original
critique of ongoing Hadīth studies in the Western academia needs to
be read, understood and enlarged upon.
64
END NOTES
1 John Burton, An Introduction to the Hadith (Edinburgh, 1994), p.29. An
alternative form of Isnād system was prevalent in India as well. In the great
epic Mahabharata, it says: “Vysda composed it, Ganesa served as a scribe, and
the work was handed down by Vaisampayana, who communicated it to the
assembly of sages.” Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi, Hadith Literature: its Origin,
Development and Special Features (Lahore, 2001),p.78.
2 Ahmad Hasan, The Early Development of Islamic Jurisprudence (Islamabad,
2001),p.86.
3 There is no precise or agreed upon definition of the term Sahābī. Simply
stated, a Sahābī is a person who had the privilege of living in Prophet's
company. There is considerable disagreement about the exact qualifications
expected of a person to be termed as a Companion. For some it is sufficient
that a person had seen the Prophet. Others have a more rigorous criterion
which requires that a person should have had a long association with the
Prophet. The majority, however, holds the view that any adult Muslim can be
called as a Companion of the Prophet if he can satisfactorily be proved to have
been associated with the Prophet for any period of time. However, the status
of the Companions is relative to their services for Islam. Among those who are
held in greater esteem are the earliest converts, migrants to Abyssinia or
Medina and 313 fighters who participated in the battle at Badr. The exact
number of Companions is not known. A 'census' undertaken during the initial
years of Islam revealed 1,525 Muslims. Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, 14. The
number of those who were present at the last sermon of the Prophet range
from 40,000 to 100,000.
4 Q 33:21, 4:64.
5 Q 16:44.
6 Even if the Muslim's attitude of utmost reverence for the words and deeds
of the Prophet emerged gradually – as hypothesized by Western critics – it is
expected of the members of pre‐Islamic Arab tribal society, known for their
excellent memories and given to keeping oral genealogical records, to
preserve at least some information about the Prophet. This much has been
recognized even by the most radical Western revisionists of Muslim history
like Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds. They acknowledge that in pre‐Islamic
Arabia, “every person endowed with a modicum of authority was a potential
source of normative practice within his own family, tribe or wider circle of
contents” and so Prophet Muhammad should have been no exception.
Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First
Centuries of Islam (Cambridge, 1986),p.59.
7 An interesting example of performing some act just because the Prophet did
the same, is to be found in the incident attributed to Ashraf ‘Alī Thānavī – one
of the best known saint‐scholars from Deoband in the twentieth century.
Once he was traveling with his wife to attend a function in the nearby village.
As the couple passed through the jungle, it came to Thanavī's mind that there
was an opportunity for performing the Sunnat of racing with his wife. He did
race with his wife just out of his love for the Prophet and to copy the action
65
that he had once performed with ‘Ā’isha. Abū T alh a Muh ammad Iz hār
ul‐H asan Meh mūd, Ishq‐i Rusūl aur ‘Ulāmā‐yi Deoband (Lahore, 2005),
p.137.
8 Muslim scholars have an equally strong emphasis on the possibility of an
efficient oral transmission of Prophet's sayings. Able students with strong
memories were selected for this task and with variety of teaching methods
ingeniously developed by the teachers of H adīth, these students were taught
about the principles of H adīth studies and made to learn vast numbers of
Ah ādīth. For details about the methodology of teaching Ah ādīth, cf. Azami,
Hadith Methodology, 19‐28. For details about the etiquettes to be observed
by a student of Hadith, cf. Z afar, ‘Ulūm ul‐H adīth, pp. 141‐67.
9 Muhammad Hamidullah, ed. Sah ifa Hammam ibn Munnabih: The Earliest
Extant Work on the Hadith (Paris, 1979), trans. Muhammad Rahimuddin, p.25.
10 Z afar, Ulūm ul‐H adīth, pp. 66‐67.
11 Hamidullah, Sahifa, p.40.
12 Ibid., p.32.
13 Farwā, who was part of the group 'trained' by the Prophet, was later
appointed as an 'instructor' for Yemeni tribes. Muh ammad ‘Abdul Qayyūm
Nadavī, Feham‐i H adīth (Karachi, n.d.),p.17.
14 Abū Huraira had joined the Prophet after the battle of Khyber. He had no
particular occupation and so in his brief stay of three to four years with the
Prophet, he has reported more traditions than any other Companion.
According to Jawzī, there are 5,374 Ah ādīth transmitted by him in Musnad
Baqi and 3,848 in Musnad of Ah mad Ibn H anbal. Other Companions who
have reported more than 1,000 traditions are ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Umar, Anas b.
Mālik, ‘Ā’isha, ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Abbās, Abū Sa‘īd al‐Khuzrī and Jābir b. ‘Abdullāh.
For details, cf. Muhammad Musrafa al‐Azami, Studies in Early Hadith
Literature (Lahore, 2001),pp.36‐37.
15 Hamidullah, Sahifa,p.35.
16 Ibid., p.39.
17 Z afar, ‘Ulūm ul‐H adīth, p.70.
18 Hamidullah, Sahifa, p.46.
19 For the names of the Companions and the number of Ah ādīth transmitted
by them in written form, cf. Azami, Early Hadith Literature, 34‐60.
20 Ibid., pp.60‐74.
21 The methodology for content analysis is considered by critics of H adīth in
modern period to be less developed or sophisticated in comparison to Isnād‐
based critiques of H adīth literature. Of the 65 disciplines dealing with
H adīth studies enumerated by Ibn al‐S alāh, only 25 percent touch upon
the matn and the rest deal exclusively with Isnād. Harald Motzki, ed.
“Introduction”, in Hadith: Origins and Developments (Aldershot, 2004), lii, fn.
182.
22 Muh ammad Sa‘īd Ah mad, Feham‐i Qur’ān (Delhi, 1945), p.172.
23 Q 6:103.
24 Principles of Darāyat are succinctly laid out in Abū Bakr b. al‐T ayyib's
statement. He stated that a tradition against reason or common experience,
66
or in conflict with the explicit text of Quran or mutwātir tradition, or
containing a single report of an important even taking place possibly
witnessed by a large number of people, or laying down high rewards or
punishments for minor virtues or faults respectively – is to be regarded as
forged. These, along with other, principles have served as basis for analyzing
the contents of even the most authentic collections of Ah ādīth. Siddiqi,
Hadith Literature, p.113.
25 A Tābī‘ is a believer who has met or spent time in the company of a
Companion. They are divided into at least three classes in accordance with the
ranking of the Companions from whom they learnt and related traditions: “(a)
the students of the Companions who accepted Islam before the conquest of
Mecca. (b) the students of the Companions who embraced Islam after the
conquest of Mecca. (c) the students of such Companions as were not yet
adults at the time of the Prophet's death.” Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, p.29. The
pupils of the Followers are referred to as Tabā Tābi‘yīn or 'Successors of the
Successors'.
26 Shaykh Mus t afā al‐S abā’ī, Sunnat‐i Rusūl (Lahore, ca. 1973), trans. Malīk
Ghulam ‘Alī, p.145.
27 Azami, Early Hadith Literature, pp.74‐106.
28 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, 7. Zuhrī’s credibility as a honest H adīth scholar
has been challenged in recent times not only by the ‘deniers of H adīth’ but
also by some prominent scholars of reified Islamic traditions. For details, cf.
chapter 6 and the concluding remarks.
29 That too has been discovered by Muhammad Hamidullah in the recent past
and its validity is held to be in doubt by Western scholars because it is not
based on an 'autographed' manuscript of the compiler.
30 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, 7. Kitāb al‐Fehrist of Ibn Nadīm dates back to
377/987‐8. Azami believes that the works lost were not destroyed nor did they
perish but were absorbed into the works of later authors. It is because “when
encyclopedia‐type books were produced, scholars did not feel the necessity to
keep the early books or booklets, and so, slowly, they disappeared. Azami,
Hadith Methodology, p.85.
31 Sabā’ī, Sunnat‐i Rusūl, p.147.
32 Z afar, ‘Ulūm ul‐H adīth, p.621.
33 Muh ammad Karam Shāh al‐Az harī, Sunnat‐i Khayr ul‐Anām (Bhēra,
1955), p.144.
34 A statistical survey of early sources made by Wael B. Hallaq, reveals that
Kufa claimed 28 percent of H adīth transmitters; Basra 27 percent; Medina 24
percent; Syria 12 percent; Mecca 5 percent; Egypt 3 percent; and Khurasan
and other locales less than 1 percent. Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and
Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge, 2006), p.72.
35 Z afar, ‘Ulūm ul‐H adīth, 629‐31. It is remarkable that emphasis on
retaining the H adīth in oral form was far greater in Iraqi circles of H adīth
like Kufa and Basra, than in Umayyad stronghold of Damascus. It may be
because outside Syria, people were not prepared to accept H adīth that had
been codified and circulated under the aegis of the Umayyad rulers. Gregor
67
Schoeler, “Oral Torah and Hadith: Transmission, Prohibition of Writing,
Redaction” in Motzki, ed. Hadith: Origins and Developments, p.89.
36 Muhammad Abdul Rauf, “Hadith Literature‐I: The Development of the
Science of Hadith” in A.F.L. Beeston, T.M. Johnstone, R.B. Serjeant and G.R.
Smith, eds. Arabic Literature to the End of the Ummayyad Period (Cambridge,
1983), p.272.
37 Ibid., p.273.
38 Azami, Early Hadith Literature, pp.106‐82.
39 Rauf, “Hadith Literature‐I”, p.273.
40 Siddiqi, Hadith Literature, p.94.
41 Rauf, “Hadith Literature‐I”, p.284. Much of the information in this section
has been taken from Rauf’s article on the history of H adīth.
42 Dr. Suhēl H asan, Mu‘jam Is t alāh āt‐i H adīth (Islamabad, 2003), p.37.
43 Harald Motzki, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh Before the
Classical Schools (Leiden, 2002), trans. Marion H. Katz, xi.
44 Harald Motzki, “Dating Muslim Traditions: A Survey”, Arabica 52, 2(2005)p.
206.
45 Since the publication of Schacht's work in 1950, the trend has been either
to support or reject his thesis, or at the most make slight adjustments to it in
the wake of additional research material as it becomes available while
accepting as valid bulk of the arguments put forward by him. Among most
avowed supporters of Schacht's theory are John Wansbrough, Martind Hinds,
Michael Cook and Patricia Crone who have carried his argument to the radical
extreme of questioning the historical origins of Muhammad as a Prophet and
the possibility of Quran being 'authored' at a later period than being generally
claimed and believed. Some Muslim and Western scholars alike have refuted
Schacht's thesis. They include Mustafa al‐Azami, M.Z. Siddiqi, Fuat Sezgin and
Nabia Abbott. The third group of scholars can be further divided into two
categories. The first among them agree with Schacht in regarding as spurious
the traditions as they are found in the present day written collections. But
they do not accept the claim that there were no traditions in circulation during
th
the 1st/7 century. Scholars like these include Noel Coulson, John Burton,
David S. Powers and G.H.A. Juynboll. The other sub‐category of these scholars
have their differences with regard to methodology of dating the traditions to
determine the extent and possibility of its fabrication. They include Harold
Motzki, Joseph van Ess and Gregor Schoeler. For details regarding the
respective stances of individual scholars on Hadith, cf. Mozki, “Introduction” in
Hadith: Origins and Developments, p.xxvi.
46 Motzki, Islamic Jurisprudence, p.41. In Schacht's own words: “…
Muhammad had little reason to change the existing customary law. His aim as
a Prophet was not to create a new system of law: it was to teach them how to
act, what to do, and what to avoid in order to pass the reckoning on the Day
of Judgment and to enter paradise.” Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to
Islamic Law (Oxford, 1966), p.11.
47 Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1967),
pp.224‐225; emphasis added. This essentially ethical character of Quran is
68
corroborated by the fact that out of a total of 6,236 verses, only some 600
verses deal with legal issues. Even these 'legal verses' deal mostly with
religious duties and ritual and no more than 80 verses deal strictly with legal
topics. But this description overlooks the other fact, as Goitein has pointed
out, that legal verses are often longer than other types of verses and unlike
other verses the ones dealing with legal issues are seldom repeated. Viewed in
this context, it can be safely assumed that Quran does not contain less legal
content than the Pentateuch, the Torah, which is known in world literature as
'The Law'. Yasin Dutton, The Origins of Islamic Law: The Quran, the Muwatta
and Madinan Amal (Richmond, 1999), p.160.
48 Hallaq, Evolution of Islamic Law, p.32.
49 This term does not imply any definite organization or strict uniformity to
some specified dogma. The 'members' of the school continued to be private
individuals singled out from the great mass of Muslims with commonality of
interests and a recognizable kindred spirits among themselves. Schacht,
Introduction, p.28.
50 Ibid., p.58.
51 Schacht, Origins, p.22.
53 Dutton, Origins of Islamic Law, p.2.
54 Hallaq, Evolution of Islamic Law, p.12
55 Crone and Hinds, God's Caliph, pp.59‐60.
56 Ibid., p.66. Crone and Hinds further add that the Umayyad Caliphs styled
themselves as Caliph of Allah on earth and not that of his Messenger. It was
not till 66/685 that a coin bearing the imprint Muhammad Rusūl Allah is to be
found. Ibid., p.11 and p.25.
57 Hallaq has a different approach in this regard. He believes that as late as
the end of the 3rd/9th century, legal theory as we know it today, had not yet
come into existence. Shāf‘ī is rarely mentioned in other writings on legal issues
in that century and not many commentaries are written about it. “It is also no
coincidence that with the appearance of Commentaries on, and refutations of,
the Risāla, there emerges for the first time a sizeable number of complete
works of usul al‐fiqh, works that treat of this discipline as an organically
structured and comprehensive methodology.” Wael B. Hallaq, A History of
Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni Usul al‐Fiqh (Cambridge,
1997), p.20. Even if Shāf‘ī is to be accepted as the real founder of Muslim
science of jurisprudence, it should be borne in mind that the works of Malik,
Abū Yūsuf and al‐Shaybānī indicate that there had been some theory and
system of reasoning in law before Shāf‘ī made his concepts clear in a more
elaborate way. Hasan, Early Development, p.179.
58 Muh ammad Ibn Idrīs al‐Shāf‘ī, Kitāb al‐Risāla fī Us ūl al‐Fiqh, trans. and
ed. Magid Hadduri, Islamic Jurisprudence: Shafi's Risala (Baltimore, 1961), 21.
59 Schacht has described Ahl al‐Kalām as Shaf‘ī's term for extreme wing of
anti‐traditionists with a Mutazilite background. They pointed out that many
traditions are contrary to reason and observation and hence absurd and
ridiculous. For this reason they professed to make Quran, interpreted
69
rationally, as the only foundation of their doctrine. Schacht, Oigins, pp.41‐4.
But Burton has used the term Ahl al‐Qur’ān for a group with similar ideas.
John Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation
(Edinburgh, 1990), pp.22‐3. Regardless of the appellation, this group comes
closest to be regarded as the prototype of present day Ahl al‐Qur’ān groups.
60 It should be noted that in its original sense rā’y or Reason did not mean a
'considered opinion' and ‘ilm only suggested 'knowledge of the past'. It was
only with the sharpening of debate on the relative weightage of independent
reasoning's application on scriptural sources that rā’y in the sense of 'arbitrary
reasoning' or 'fallible human thought' came to discredited and completely
divorced and independent of ‘Ilm, which was reduced to the knowledge of
Quran and Sunnat. The acceptability of rā’y as a credible source for the earlier
authorities can be judged by the fact that two‐thirds of Shahāb Zuhrī's
transmitted doctrine was based on rā’y and only one‐third consisted of
reports from earlier authorities. Hallaq, Evolution of Islamic Law, pp.75‐76.
61 The notion of partial rejection of H adīth started with the Khārjīs and
Shī‘as. Khārjī literally means 'those who went out'. They emerged as a splinter
group during the civil war between Mu‘āwīya and ‘Alī. They found it
impermissible for rightly appointed Caliph ‘Alī to appoint an arbitrary
commission in order to reach at a negotiated settlement with Mu‘āwīya. They
raised their famous slogan of 'judgment belongs to Allah alone' and thereafter
denounced ‘Alī as apostate and did not accept traditions from his authority or
in his praise. Shī‘as, on the other hand, emerged as supporters of ‘Alī and his
successive generations, whom they regarded as divinely appointed and guided
to serve as religious and political figure‐heads of the Muslim community. They
accepted traditions mostly from ‘Alī and his supporters and did not recognize
the authority of his opponents or of those who had deprived ‘Alī from his
rightful position of Caliphate (that is, the first three Caliphs) which was
divinely ordained. They do not accept as genuine those traditions which speak
in favorable terms about those Companions which were opposed to ‘Alī and,
by extension, to his family.
62 Christopher Melchert, “Traditionist‐Jurisprudents and the Framing of
Islamic Law”, Islamic Law and Society 8, 3(2001), pp.390‐392.
63 Daniel W Brown, Rethinking Tradition, 16. A similar duality of revelation is
central to Rabbinic Judaism as well, and the concept in both Judaism and Islam
shares many of the same aspects. “In Judaism, God is said to have revealed a
both “written” and an “oral” law, both of which were given to Moses at Sinai.
The Written Law is contained in the Torah scrolls. The Oral Law was recorded
in the Mishnah and the Gemara, which together make up the Talmud. The
Talmud and various other works known as Midrash serve much the same
function that the Ahadith have come to serve in Islam.” Aisha Y. Musa, “Al‐
Shafi, the Hadith and the Concept of Duality of Revelation”, Islamic Studies 46,
2 (2007),p.165. As in Islam during the same period, there emerged among
Jews a sect known as Karaites who opposed the Oral Law contained in the
Mishna and the Talmud. These parallels have led Michael Cook to posit an
Islamic origin for Karaite scripturalism. Cited in Aisha Y. Musa, H adīth as
70
Scripture: Discussions on the Authority of Prophetic Traditions in Islam (New
York, 2008), p.3.
64 Q 4:113.
65 Shāf‘ī, Risāla, p.111.
66 Abrogation or Naskh can be defined as “a revelatory process by which
certain divine decisions, enacted at a given date, had been overtaken and
superseded by other divine decisions enacted at a later date.” Burton,
Sources, p.18.
68 Q 10:15.
70 Ibid., p.120.
71 This does not mean that Shāf‘ī is averse to quoting traditions from the
Companions. He does quote traditions on their authority but only to adduce
further evidence. Schacht, Origins, p.18.
72 Ibid., p.52.
73 Ibid. In order to prove his point on single reports, Shāf‘ī cites instances
from ‘Umar's rule when the Caliph changed his previous opinion or decision in
the light of a single report. This allows Shaf‘ī to draw conclusions favoring the
authenticity of single report – whether or not accompanied by practice – and
renunciation of an earlier practice on its basis. Hasan, Early Development,
p.183.
74 Schacht, Origins, p.80.
75 Ibid., pp.4‐5. In the light of this statement it can be inferred that the
practice existed first and traditions from the Prophet and from the
Companions appeared later. Schacht's thesis is methodologically grounded on
argument e silentio. Schacht states it as: “The best way of proving that a
tradition did not exist at a certain time is to show that it was not used as a
legal argument in a discussion which would have made reference to it
imperative, if it had existed.” Ibid., p.140.
76 Christopher Melchert, “How Hanafism Came to Originate in Kufa and
Traditionalism in Medina”, Islamic Law and Society 6, 3(1999): 319.
77 Schacht, Introduction, pp.31‐2.
78 Motzki, Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence, p.297.
79 Motzki, Hadith: Origins and Developments, p.xxvii.
80 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic
World (Cambridge, 1977), pp.18 and 167. Gerd R. Puin, a German specialist in
Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography, has been working on the
fragments of Quran discovered in Yemen during 1970s. His detailed study has
not come out as yet. His preliminary findings suggest Quran as a 'cocktail of
texts' many of which may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Puin
has yet to come up with a detailed study of these manuscripts. For more
details, cf. Gerd R. Puin, “Observations on Early Quran Manuscripts in Sanai” in
Stefan Wild, ed. The Quran as Text (Leiden, 1996),pp.107‐111. More recently,
Christoph Luxenberg has argued that Arabic as a language matured at least
two centuries after the death of Prophet Muhammad and so did the
71
grammatical‐lexicographical works attending to the needs of this newly
formed language. A better understanding of Quran, therefore, demands that
the Syro‐Aramaic content of Quran – which comprises of at least 30 percent of
the whole text of Quran – should be taken into consideration. Such a reading
of Quran reveals strikingly different meaning and interpretation of words and
rulings than what the Muslim commentators of Quran have been giving for
centuries. Christoph Luxenberg, Die Syro‐Aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein
Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache (Berlin, 2000). The English
version of the book has recently been published under the title The Syro‐
Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Koran
(Berlin, 2007).
81 Fred M Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic
Historical Writing (Princeton, 1998), pp.35‐36.
83 Dutton, Origins of Islamic Law, p.2.
84 Burton, Sources, p.208.
85 John Burton, The Collection of the Quran (Cambridge, 1977), p.239.
86 This mode of naskh is known as naskh al‐h ukm duna al‐tilāwa in which an
earlier ruling of the Quran is replaced by a later one. This mode is best
exemplified in the case of bequest verses. According to David S. Powers, the
reference in Q 4:12 for designating an heir had to be declared as abrogated for
political considerations because it would have proved to be an embarrassment
for Abū Bakr who had not received a document of appointment from Prophet
Muhammad. The same holds true for all his successors who played a role in
the collection of Quran and manipulated the interpretation of Q 4:12 to
remove the reference to the possibility of designating an heir. David S Powers,
Studies in Quran and Hadith: The Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance
(Berkeley, 1986), pp.212‐213.
87 naskh al‐tilāwa duna al‐h ukm
88 Burton, Sources, p.45. One H adīth reported by ‘Ā’isha, says: “We were too
occupied with the preparations in the Prophet's sick‐room to give any thought
to the safe‐keeping of the sheets on which the revelations had been written
out, and while were tending our patient, a household animal got in from the
yard and gobbled up some of the sheets which were kept below the bedding.”
Ibid., p.53.
89 Graham's ideas, too, are indirectly supportive of Rahman's thesis. The early
Muslims did not recognize sharp divisional marks between Quran and Sunnat.
It may well be because who had lived and experienced the time of the Prophet
had lived in a wholly different mode of time: a time made holy by Divine
activity. The Muslims could not distinguish the post prophetic‐revelatory
phase from the one preceding it in which the Divine activity was in progress
and the revelation was still unfolding. “It appears that for the Companions and
the early followers of the Prophet, the divine activity manifested in the
mission of Muhammad was a unitary reality in which the divine word, the
Prophetic guidance, and even the example and witness of all who participated
in the sacred history of Prophet's time, were all perceived as complementary,
72
integral aspects of a single phenomena.” This gave rise to Sunnat – as a
principle of authority – not dissimilar in character from the Sunnat of
Companions and early Caliphs and bound together in a largely
undifferentiated mass of tradition marked with an aura of revelation. William
A. Graham, Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam: A Reconsideration
of the Sources, with Special Reference to the Divine Saying of Hadith Qudsi
(The Hague, 1977), pp.9 and 15.
90 This term allows Rahman to strike a balance between the two extremes of
traditional Muslim account of the history of Islamic law and Hadith and the
Western criticism of this account. 'Living Sunnat' has as its starting point the
ideal practice of the Prophet progressively interpreted to give form to its
regional variants. As such it takes into account the regional influences and the
role played by local legal traditions and religious polemics, as well as those
aspects of pre‐Islamic customs and legal canons that were allowed to continue
and become a component of 'Islamic' law during successive stages of its
formulation.
91 Fazlur Rahman, Islam (London, 1966), p.74.
92 Ibid., p.80. Yasin Ditton has provided an additional line of argument. With
his emphasis on Muwat ta’ and Mālik's school of jurisprudence, he has
identified a new category of ‘amal – a concept intimately linked with Sunnat
but by no means synonymous with it – in addition to living Sunnat. ‘Amal is a
broader concept encompassing not only Sunnat of the Prophet but also the
Ijtihād of later authorities. Thus all Sunnat is ‘amal but not all ‘amal is Sunnat.
Dutton, Origins of Islamic Law, 3. ‘Amal may or may not be recorded by
H adīth and H adīth may or may not record ‘amal. So in case of any
contradiction, ‘amal is preferred to H adīth by Mālik and other Medinese
scholars even if the sources of H adīth are completely trustworthy. It is
because of Mālik's belief in the superiority of Medinian's knowledge of religion
and greater direct experience of Prophet's practices. He even goes to the
extent of upholding Medinian ‘amal at the expense of an authentic Hadith.
Rafa‘ Yadain is one such example in which ‘amal and not H adīth serves as the
primary source of normative Sunnat for Mālik. Dutton, Origns of Islamic Law,
p.46.
93 Fazlur Rahman, Islamic Methodology in History (New Delhi, 1994), pp.74‐5.
Rahman’s ideas bear remarkable resemblance with that of Ghulām Ah mad
Parvēz. Both were contemporaries and had unanimity of views on various
aspects of Islam but, in all probability, it can still be said that they arrived at
such a concept of Sunnat independent of each other. For the ideas of Parvēz,
cf. Chapter 7.
94 Rahman, Islam , p.55.
95 Fazlur Rahman, “Islamic Studies and the Future of Islam” in Malcolm Kerr,
ed. Islamic Studies: Tradition and its Problems (Malibu, 1980), p.128.
73
Umber Bin Ibad, The End of History
THE END OF HISTORY: INTERPRETING HEGELIAN

AND HEIDEGGERIAN GROUND AND BEING
TOWARDS THEIR WAY TO TRUTH
UMBER BIN IBAD

PAKISTAN
ABSTRACT
History is the realization of the self‐consciousness of
World‐Spirit. The understanding of History achieves
through the Rationality prevails and reflects in the
Philosophical world of ideas. Each step of self‐
consciousness is also a step for the Spirit’s knowing
itself completely, therefore, a step for The End of
History. For the Hegelian understanding of The End
of History one needs not to accept the difference
either between Hegel’s understanding moving
anthropologically or only in the realm of ideas. His
descriptive history makes it clear that the modern
Europe is the only way open for the rest of the world
to participate within. The history of the rest of the
world, especially India has been ended through the
descriptive details of Hegelian history. Hegelian
conception of history is based upon his
understanding of Being and Ground. Heidegger
criticizes Hegelian conception of Being and Ground
and highlights their limitations. Heidegger’s criticism
opens up the ways to Being and brings forth the
nature of relation between holding certain method,
or the ways to Being, and the conception of Truth. To
reach The End of History is not the inherent
possibility of the movement of the world‐history. To
conceive The End of History, either in the realm of
Idea or in the realm of history, depends upon the
mode of engagement with beings. The critical
engagement with beings, following Heidegger, the
historical understanding keeps the horizon of
thinking open for the expression of Being.

75
KEY WORDS: Hegel, Heidegger, Being, Ground, thinking history, Spirit,
self‐consciousness, Method, The End of history

For Hegel, History comes out as the mode of ‘understanding,’ the
highest mode of rationality and the moment of self‐consciousness of
the Spirit. It is the understanding — the power of looking at an object
in an independent objective light, and comprehending it in its rational
connection with other objects — that makes History possible. Only
those peoples, for Hegel, therefore are alone capable of History, “who
have arrived at that period of development (and can make that their
starting point) at which individuals comprehend their own existence as
1
independent, i.e., possess self‐consciousness”.
To write history, for Hegel, is to understand human actions
within already organized political whole synthesizing its discrete
elements into universal reality of law, as an external objectifying
reality, and Morality as a subjective obeying. It is, therefore, the
phenomenon of the state in the history of human being that gives
Hegel his starting point. For Hegel, therefore, the beginning of history
emerges with the emergence of first traces of the Oriental world, only
when this world found organized within States. The understanding of
history, however, for him, must remain within the presupposed
understanding of World‐history, or the journey of Spirit’s self‐
consciousness. It is only participating within such world‐historical
consciousness that any historical incident takes its meaning. The
world‐history, however, must be a history of states remained existed
within the history of human being.
For Hegel, History is a serious business because History
displays the rationality realized in Time. In fact such a serious business
that the societies, like that of India that could not bring forth the
understanding of history in its past, can not be given a significant place
within the history of the world. 2
For him, History is prose, and myths fall short of History. The
consciousness of external definite existence only arises in connection
with the power to form abstract distinctions and assign abstract
predicates; and in proportion as a capacity for expressing Laws (of
natural or social life) is acquired, in the same proportion does the
ability manifest itself to comprehend objects in an un‐poetical form. 3
The prose of history, when understands Laws, in fact, also understands
the rationality realized in Time.
It is in the realm of philosophy where essence of rationality
finds its coherent existence. Each philosophical activity for him is also
a reflection of certain time that can also be understood as the
moment of self‐consciousness of World‐Spirit. It is this realm that
76
reflects the Truth, not only in its universal, and therefore in the eternal
mode, but also in the realized essentiality of Time. For Hegel, the
reflection of eternal Truth appears in and through Logic, the heart of
philosophy and the abode of the essential nature of Spirit.
The self‐realization of Spirit at certain moment is also the
realization of Absolute. Each rational activity as a Spirit’s self‐
conscious moment, therefore, is moving towards the End of its
completion and also the realization of its End. The historical moment,
that is also a realized expression of World‐Spirit and, in other words,
the certain moment of Absolute moves towards its completion, and
therefore towards it’s End. The End of History would arrive with the
completion of Reason when the difference between Reality and
4
Rationality would disappear.
The realization of the Rationality of Absolute World‐Spirit,
that is, the possibility of The End of History, is an expression of
correspondence between the Essence of Being and Being. This
correspondence, however, could only take place when both are
grounded in the grounding of Truth as ‘grounded Truth’. Whether it
takes place in a contemporaneous Time is a question to be understood
only through exploring the concepts of Ground, Being and History. The
understanding of these concepts can provide the vindication of
Hegelian understanding regarding The End of History.
There are two well‐known approaches towards
understanding Hegelian conception of The End of History: one mode
of thinking takes anthropological understanding of Hegel and
considers Hegel’s philosophical exposition as oriented towards “The
End of history”. In twentieth century, Kojeve (1902‐1968) 5 and
Fukuyama (1952) 6 can be considered two significant figures for
maintaining such orientation and holding of “The End of history”
thesis as an eschatological or contemporaneous possibility. This
position gives significant importance to one of the Hegel’s work, “The
Phenomenology of Spirit”. 7 The second mode of thinking follows such
figures as Jean Hippolite (1907‐1968) and Althusser (1918‐1990). This
mode of thinking considers Hegelian approach as oriented, though
towards Absolute Knowledge, yet this orientation attains, if at all, self‐
reflective absoluteness in the world of Ideas. This mode of thinking
refuses to accept the anthropological understanding of Hegel and
terms it as anti‐liberal because of its culmination in The End of History.
This article, however, intends to take an alternative position
for understanding Hegel’s position of The End of History. Instead of
following any of the either it intends to see Hegel as he appears
through his descriptive history. To consider his own time, the best of
the time, not only with reference to his tradition’s own past but also
77
against all societies and states staying away from modern European
position, stations him accepting the certain mode of The End of
History, even if it remains concealed. The whole of the world‐history
stands for Hegel as justifying his specific European Time. All the other
part of the world would keep on enjoying their wretched existence
until and unless they accept and own the modern world of Hegel.
Whether Hegel’s modern world would take another leap in the
dialectics of Time, is a question animating his own world, but for the
rest of the world, especially India, their history has been ended.
This study, initiated from the world for which the history has
been ended, intends to explore further the very concepts, Ground,
Being and Truth on which Hegel’s descriptive understanding is placed.
This study finds that Hegel, despite his self‐reflective consciousness,
stood upon his own very ‘modern’ tradition compelling him to own
certain methodology and follows it through. His acceptance of the
decision of his Time, especially regarding low the Oriental World, sets
his own conception of History. To find an alternative position this
article places Heidegger against Hegel. While placing Heideggerian
critique on its side, this article sees the Ground of Hegelian
understanding in its relationship with Being only standing upon which
Hegel’s own understanding of “realized history” arises. The
Heideggerian understanding questions the very question of Being that
normally sets the direction for the articulation of Truth.
This article divides itself into three portions: first portion
brings forward the Hegel’s descriptive world‐history, with its emphasis
upon Indian history. It is to show the determined direction of Hegelian
understanding of World‐history.; the second part shows the
understanding of Being in both Hegelian and Heideggerian
understanding and also the relational understanding of both regarding
Ground while letting Heidegger criticize the Hegelian position; third
part relates Being through Ground to show the form of Truth coming
out of this relation. This position soon shows the mode of Truth as the
way of Truth. The relation between the way or Method and Truth
highlights the framing of Truth through the relation of Method and
Truth. Finally the discussion of The End of History concludes the article
with the emphasis upon the possibilities of opening up the ways for
Truth.
(I)
HEGEL’S DESCRIPTIVE WORLD-HISTORY

For Hegel, the origin of the world history starts from the Oriental
world, and interestingly, it occurs to him as compulsion. The origin of
78
world history, where appears for him simple, there, at the same time
gives him so much trouble that he brushes aside the original moments
of history as “delirium” and “madness.” 8 His conception of rationality,
intelligence, morality, freedom, subjectivity, oppositionality, etc., finds
a shock while encountering the Oriental World. 9 His logic makes him
understand the origin compulsively as “simple,” yet unstable. The very
simplicity of origin should find the simple oppositionality to get itself
transformed into simple but compulsive dynamism, as ‘becoming.’ Yet
his encountering with the Oriental world places him against the
multiplicity of Chinese, and especially, Indian consciousness. His
developmental mode of rationality, however, helps him degrading the
multiplicity and constructing the oppositionality within the dynamism
of the Oriental World. Categories of modernity are sufficient enough
10
for bringing out reality as the “Enframed” picture. If, historical facts
are problematic then they can be categorized within frameworks
developed through the dynamism of modernity. And the luggage that
is not befitting can be thrown away, into the category of “Other,” not
required for the truth. And Hegel, like any intelligent active person of
the “modern times” threw them away with the “deserving” insulting
remarks. How can the madness be tolerated within the absolute
Reason?
With China and the Mongols, for Hegel, as the realm of
despotism, History begins. 11 As soon as he enters into the Chinese
World, he places it within the category of Patriarchy, as the
constitutive principle of Chinese life. The subjectivity, under
patriarchal principle, can not find its free moving space. The human
action, therefore, can only be understood as ‘Natural’ and not a free
act. “The sphere of subjectivity does not then attain to maturity here,
since moral laws are treated as legislative enactments, and law on its
part has an ethical aspect. All that we call subjectivity is concentrated
in the supreme head of the state, who, in all his legislation has an eye
to the health, wealth and benefit of the whole.” 12
India comes, for Hegel, next in the description of the Oriental
world. Its diversity, lack of civil machinery and political organizations
coupled with the diverse conscious expressions through multiple
spiritual writings gives Hegel the bad taste for India from the very
start. He though finds categorical imperatives through the
classification of Castes, but these imperatives appear for him Natural.
He thinks that giving rules by a person does not necessitate them to
be considered as ‘Morals.’ He, however, ignores this point that it is
their (Indian’s) historical owning of those Morals that turns them into
social reality. Can this historical owning of Morals appear as an
79
‘immediate’ historical moment? For Hegel, this question is not worth
considering. 13
A state, for Hegel, is a realization of Spirit such that in it the
self‐conscious being of Spirit‐the freedom of the Will‐is realized as
Law. Such an institution then, necessarily, presupposes the
consciousness of Free Will. 14 Once Hegel decides that a state can only
be like it, he never refrains from seeing Indian political organization
but from the stated definition. He, however, can not find anything in
Indian history resembling his definition of state. In India, therefore,
the proper basis of the state, for him is absent. Only tyrannical
despotism ruled its history. And, this tyranny always appears to the
people as normality, to be more precise, Natural. To others (other
states) despotic tyranny is an exception but in India, “there is no sense
of personal independence with which a state of despotism could be
compared, and which would raise revolt in the soul; nothing
approaching even a resentful protest against it, is left, except the
corporeal smart, and the pain of being deprived of absolute
15
necessaries and of pleasure.”
For Hegel, in India, it is futile to search for history, in both the
senses, that is to search for ‘annals’ and to search for his dynamic,
developmental and dialectical processes that may take it to modern
times. Even the finding of Indian brilliances in Astronomy and Algebra,
and even in philosophy can not reduce Hegel’s anger against Indian
multiplicity and India’s strong and resilient ‘inability’ to resolve
oppositions into synthetic Unity. Even in the presence of marvelous
literary activities, as “the recent discoveries of the treasures of Indian
Literature have shown us what a reputation the Hindoos have
acquired in Geometry, Astronomy, and Algebra — that they have
made great advances in Philosophy, and that among them, Grammar
has been so far cultivated that no language can be regarded as more
16
fully developed than the Sanscrit”, Indians can not be considered
rational because they don’t have History and therefore do not have
the ability to see reality in an objective manner. 17
For Hegel, the present of India remains historical, that is,
India’s present is its history and even that history is its history of
origin. To see India, as it is through Hegel’s eyes, as a whole, is to see
India from those categories developed in ‘Modern Times’. Englishmen
have given India its wholeness. “India is composed of hindoos… India
Proper is the country which the English divide into two large sections:
the Deccan — the great peninsula which has the Bay of Bengal on the
east, and the Indian Sea on the west — and Hindostan, formed by the
valley of the Ganges, and extending in the direction of Persia… We call
the inhabitants of the great country which we have now to consider
80
Indians, from the river Indus (the English call them Hindoos)… They
themselves have never given a name to the whole, for it has never
become one Empire, and [yet we consider it as such.]” 18
For Hegel, the character of Indian spirit is that of living in a
state of dream. For him the dream condition entails the absence of
consciousness of objective existence:

“When awake, I exist for myself, and the rest of
creation is an external, fixed objectivity, as I myself
am for it. As external, the rest of existence expands
itself to a rationally connected whole; a system of
relations, in which my individual being is itself a
member — an individual being united with that
totality. This is the sphere of Understanding. In the
state of dreaming, on the contrary, this separation is
suspended. Spirit has ceased to exist for itself in
contrast with alien existence, and thus the
separation of the external and individual dissolves
before its universality — its essence. The dreaming
Indian is therefore all that we call finite and
individual; and, at the same time — as infinitely
universal and unlimited — a something intrinsically
19
divine.”

The history of India is rooted into the dichotomy of sensuous pleasure
and Natural compulsion. No effort, in Indian history, ever made to
bring closer the inherent and prevailed oppositionality. The Universal
Pantheism co‐exists with the sensuous objectifications manifested
through rituals. Things are not things anymore and the Divine is not in
its ‘pure’ Divinity anymore. The general idea of Indian universe, for
Hegel, may be taken as, “Things are as much stripped of rationality, of
finite consistent stability of cause and effect, as man is of the
20
steadfastness of free individuality, of personality, and freedom.”
For Hegel, India remains open for invaders. In India states
come and go without giving centralized political unity. The valiant
Muslims are one of these rulers. Rulers come and go, whatever their
background may be, while despotism remains prevailed. Indian
people, that is, Hindoos, who can only be understood through their
ancient religious writings, largely remain indifferent and never show
any tinkling of resistance. After the acquaintance of Europeans with
India, the representation of strife and diversity remains a rule. “There
was an order of things very nearly approaching feudal organization;
and the Kingdoms in question were divided into districts, having as
81
governors Mahometans, or people of the Warrior Caste of

Hindoos…The whole state of things, therefore, is not that of repose,
but of continual struggle; while moreover nothing is developed or
furthered. It is the struggle of an energetic will on the part of this or
that prince against a feebler one; the history of reigning dynasties, but
not of peoples; a series of perpetually varying intrigues and revolts —
not indeed of subjects against their rulers, but of a prince’s son, for
instance, against his father; of brothers, uncles and nephews in
21
contest with each other; and of functionaries against their master.”
The Indian history remained vacuous of ideological
prevalence that might contribute as uniting factor. The Indian life, to
Hegel, seems to be united with naked force and as soon as the force
disappears the unity disperses too. The business of the ruling Indian
governors “consisted in collecting taxes and carrying on wars; and they
thus formed a kind of aristocracy, the Prince’s Council of State. But
only as far as their princes are feared and excite fear, have they any
power; and no obedience is rendered to them but by force. As long as
the prince does not want money, he has troops; and neighboring
princes, if they are inferior to him in force, are often obliged to pay
22
taxes, but which are yielded only on compulsion.”
Hegel is eager to see some instance like that of “French
Revolution within Indian history” 23 and remains frustrated after not
finding it. French Revolution is a world‐Historical event for Hegel in its
bearing upon history. It gives shape to the modern world and it must
become beacon that would enlighten the world‐history. 24 After not
finding a similar instance in Indian history his disdain for it increases.
He, however, ignores all efforts of Indian people to attain freedom
within their historical conditions. He fixes them up in his stable and
singular categories which are eager to move ahead through finding
opposite singular categories only to get prevailed as “Modern Spirit of
Time.” He looks at Muslims only as a ruler but never bothers to see
them as a common people. He, though, glimpses upon the multiplicity
of Indian population, as he mentions Sikhs in‐habiting the area of
25
Punjab, yet he excludes, under the compulsion of singular
categories, other population, like Muslims and Hindoos, coexisting
with each other at the same time. He is in such a hurry to move
forward on the path of dialectical dynamism that he can not see the
harmonized social networks and relations beneath the ‘confused’
political conditions. He even ignores with contempt the enduring
tendency of Indian social life that remains its harmony and composure
despite the diversity of religious and regional identities. His
26
enthusiasm for dialectical synthetic movements and the need to
explain everything from there let him ignore the force of those ideas
82
that does not move dialectically, that plays patiently but more
seriously than the Greek games, between oppositionalities without
compelling them to unite in a larger whole. The plurality can remain
syncretically, even in a larger whole, without disturbing a lot one’s
identity is almost unthinkable to Hegelian mindset. Without directed
towards progress human life is not worth living for him. And progress
can only take place when one of the oppositional identities prevails
upon other to assimilate its own‐ness within itself and brings forward
a larger synthetic unity. This movement is a movement towards
absolute idea, and a realization of absolute idea, where differences
27
prevail but grouped together within larger whole. His anxiety to
move ahead quickly makes him oblivious to acknowledge the
sameness prevailed in the multiplicity of Indian history. For his own
presence, that is, European presence, his emphasis remains upon the
assimilative tendencies correlating the colonizing European dialectical
experiences. For India, therefore, he can only find oppositionality,
standing against each other absolutely. India is destined to remain
what its origin is. But Europe is not its history but its future. For India,
however, there is no future because its history is bleak and illusory.
Therefore its present is bleak and illusory. India meets its End of
History through Hegelian self‐conscious activity of narrating India’s
history.
(II)
HEGELIAN UNDERSTANDING OF BEING

The totality of Hegelian understanding appears in the Hegelian
conception of history as “Time is a Concept itself, which is there.” 28
The realization of Concept into the moments of history gives Hegel
that sense of understanding with which he absolves Truth from
eternity and transforms it into the self‐conscious moments in time.
The logical plane of concepts resides within the plane of eternity,
within God. The moments of history becomes for Hegel the moment
of Spirit’s coming into itself, as God knowing itself in time. The logical
plane in which Hegel discusses the multiplicity of concepts manifests
Being in its interrelated manifoldness. The truth appears as Idea
appeared through gradual knowing of its contradictory multiplicity.
Hegel discusses this position in his Logic that appears in three different
books: a) The Science of Logic b) Encyclopedia c) The Shorter Logic.
What follows, we’ll take The Science of Logic to understand Hegel’s
concept of Being within Logical, and therefore, Eternal plane.
83
Though concepts are interrelated despite their division into

dichotomies, the contradiction between Nature and Spirit appears for
Hegel necessary to bring out the complete picture of manifold
understanding of Being‐for‐itself and Being‐in‐itself. The necessary
element for the existence of Being‐for‐itself is Freedom that can not
be seen in Nature. The objects in Nature are determined through its
fixed laws. But the sphere of Spirit requires freedom for its existence;
without freedom being‐for‐itself can not find its own being and thus
can not be what it is. The distinction between Nature and Spirit is,
therefore, necessary for understanding the history of being‐for‐itself
29
or being human.
To bring out the understanding of being‐for‐itself and the
process of its realization through its actions, Hegel devises two ways;
one is to narrate a story of consciousness towards its self‐
consciousness; the other is the story of realization of Spirit’s truths
through the moments in time. The earlier translates into “The
Phenomenology of Spirit” and the latter appears in “Lectures on
Philosophy of History.” In both of the works the concept of Being
appears in its manifold modes. In “The Phenomenology of Spirit,” its
“Being‐for‐itself,” that takes primacy upon being‐in‐itself. The
Phenomenology is the journey of Being for itself for itself, through
multiple stages, finding multiple moments of incompleteness, moving
ahead by assimilating and annulling the previous moments, and
remaining always in the presence of oppositionality. The journey of
self‐consciousness brings out the passage of certain being for its own
sake. In the following that certain sense of being will be brought out.
In the “Philosophy of History” Hegel traverses through the
world history in his effort to see the realization of Spirit in the moment
of time. The realization of Spirit he finds in the State understood as
the Universal inhering within it the particular interests through
objectification of Law. He finds the expression of State in the annals
and the preservation of the record of history becomes for him
synonym with the self‐consciousness of the state. The state, for him,
arises and passes away while letting itself transmitted into other part
of the world. From one state arises another state till the emergence of
modern times, that is, the time in which Hegel himself lives. The
modern time, for him, becomes the standard of looking back into the
world history to see everything culminating into the modern
existence. Reason that he sees everywhere prevailed in the history
becomes real with the each effort of universalizing identity, that is,
State. His own time, however, reaches the moment when Real also
becomes Rational. His staunch owning of this position, however,
though changes with time yet the disposition towards his own time
84
remains same. Being has to appear through its contingencies into the
mode of existence in which his time and reason fashions it to be.
Being appears in both “The Phenomenology of Spirit” and
“The Philosophy of World history” as moving in specific direction,
taking specific points, transforming into certain mode and showing
disposition to move towards a certain goal. The specific tendencies of
Being or, in other words, the determining of Being, animates both the
journeys of is works. The individual position in phenomenology
achieves sameness that is achieved in the World history. And both
achieve the sameness that is achieved in Logic, that is, in the eternal
abode of Concepts. The determination of Being appears differently, in
different modes and in different planes of life, yet they all, for him
fulfilling the sameness destined by the determination of Being. Being
has to appear in the way through which Hegel already conceives it
through his philosophy. His truth of both modes finds its ground in his
holding of certain conception of Being that was already achieved in his
philosophy. The truth of history is in the truth of his philosophy, that is
in “The Phenomenology of Spirit” and the truth of “The
Phenomenology of Spirit” can be attained while seeing its realization in
time. And truth of both can be seen in the logic, as the realization of
eternity. Living in the circularity with his Reason is what always
inspired Hegel.

HEIDEGGER’S CONCEPTION OF BEING

It will not be an exaggerated claim that the whole of the philosophical
activity of Heidegger remains around the concern of the question of
being. For him the greatest sin took place in the history of philosophy
is the oblivion of the question of Being. His position is to revive this
concern and bring out the engagement of Dasein with Being. His
extensive writings and lectures remained a struggle against the
positions making up themselves without invoking the concern of
being. He locates this lack of concern in the prevalence of certain sort
of metaphysical position deeply embedded in science and technology,
in modern epoch, as its establishing ground. Heidegger traces this
obliviousness to the metaphysical traditions of western world and
reached early Greek thinkers, through multiple epochs, where
belonging with Being appears in wholeness. Each epoch, for him, is a
belonging with Being through the prevalent metaphysical tradition
that opens up determinate mode of direction. This opening up of the
destiny, embedded in the certain metaphysical view, lies in the
incomplete view of Being, to have the view with Being’s certain
manifestation in the absence of other possibilities.
85
86
BEING APPEARS IN DIFFERENCE

Being, for Heidegger, is not that appear through the essents. Neither
does it appear through the general and universal position of Being. It is
the difference of one from the other, that is the difference of essents
from Being, that let Being and essent appears in beingness. For, “Being
as well as the essent, in their different ways, emerge from and through
the Difference. When we thus think of Being in terms of Difference, of
Being as Difference, Being shows itself in the character of going over
to the essent, as coming down to it and revealing it and the essent
appears as that which, through such descent of Being, comes into
unhiddenness and appears as if it were by itself unhidden. As against
the traditional conception of transcendence as the movement from
Dasein to Being, Heidegger thinks of the Difference now as the
interplay and resolution (Austrag) of being’s descent into beings and
the latter’s emergence into unconcealedness. Being is the revealing
descent and the essent is the coming into and enduring in the heaven
of unhiddenness, the arrival which hides its own self in this
unconcealedness. Both emerge, as thus differentiated, from the
Difference, their identical source. The Difference between Being and
essents is not just a static and formal relation between two terms but
the interplay, the working out or the process of resolution of the two
30
opposed movements of revealing (descent) and concealing (arrival).”

ORIGIN IS SIMPLE BUT WHOLE

Being appears to Hegel, in its origin, simple and unstable. However, for
Heidegger, each historical understanding of Being is simple because
there the divisions of disclosure are not fixed with the determined
direction of subjectivity already historically determined through the
essence of Being. There, in the origin of history, being appears in unity
of identity while identity is understood not the identity of two things
or essents but the identity of the totality as a whole. Contrasting his
position with Hegel, Heidegger points out his position in “Hegel and
the Greeks” as ; “yet if we now attend to the enigma of aletheia,
which holds sway over the beginning of Greek philosophy and over the
course of philosophy as a whole, then the philosophy of the Greeks
shows itself to our thinking too in a ‘not yet.’ But this is the ‘not yet’ of
the un‐thought – not a ‘not yet’ that does not satisfy us, but rather a
31
‘not yet’ to which we are not sufficient, and which we fail to satisfy.”

87
BEING AS POSSIBILITY [MOGLICHKEIT]

In a Letter on Humanism, Heidegger brings out his conception of being
as ‘enabling‐favoring.’ 32 Moving away from metaphysically burdened
language he opts for the words seldom found in the history of western
metaphysical literature. Heidegger, in this essay, is trying to bring out
the condition of Being as Being. He wants to differentiate the
dominating subjectivity and the possibility of appearing being. He also
intends to emphasize upon the belongingness in the working of logos
already understood as belonging‐togetherness.
In the history of western metaphysical tradition the
togetherness as logos found its due stress within the order of the
epoch already directed through the determination of Being. The effort
to bring out the thought‐ful withdraws what is there but what remains
‘not‐yet‐proper’ to be appeared as the togetherness of logos. The
stress of belongingness remains far away from thought itself. The
order of the togetherness even makes it essential to thrust aside
belongingness as far away as possible from the domain of truth.
Heidegger tries to throw light upon the un‐thought in the history of
metaphysical tradition. Instead following the subjective impulse to
grasp Being in its essentiality, Heidegger favors the activity of listening.

As the belonging to being that listens, thinking is
what it is according to its essential origin…To
embrace a thing or a person in their essence means
to love them, to favor them. Thought in a more
original way such favoring means the bestowal of
their essence as a gift. Such favoring [Mogen] is the
proper essence of enabling, which not only can
achieve this or that but also can let something
essentially unfold in its provenance, that is, let it be.
It is on the strength of such enabling by favoring that
something is properly able to be. This enabling is
what is properly possible [das Mogliche], whose
essence resides in favoring. From this favoring being
enables thinking...As the element, being is the quite
power of the favoring‐enabling, that is, of the
33
possible.
BEING AS UNHIDDENNESS (ALETHEIA)

For Heidegger, the Western Metaphysical tradition brings out the
conception of being as presence. This presence can be found from
88
Plato through medieval scholars to Descartes and modern philosophy.
Yet this presence is always considered through generalized and
universal conception of being. This being appears in each essent and
the being of essent appears through it. In Hegel the presence of being
appears as an indeterminate immediate that can only be grasped
through subjective activity of speculative and dialectical manner. This
for Heidegger can not be the case because Hegel here misses the point
that before bringing forward the trail of speculative dialectical
movement towards absolute subjectivity, he must have already
experienced the relation to the essence of history in terms of essence
of being that becomes the matter of his thought. “This essence,
however, is presencing, that is to say, an enduring coming forth from
concealment into unconcealment. In coming to presence, disclosure is
34
at play.”
BEING AS BELONGING-TOGETHERNESS

Identity remains a basic element of almost each metaphysical thought.
The diversity, when understood, reduces into the identity. Each
metaphysical conception of Identity appears as Being. Yet this
appearance, for Heidegger, remains within the determined direction
of Being. As Heidegger points out, “the earliest Greek utterance in
which this Being is expressly mentioned, viz. the saying of Parmenides
that Being and apprehension (Thought) are the same (to gar auto
noein estin te kai einai), expresses something entirely different. As
against the traditional doctrine of metaphysics, according to which
Identity belongs to Being, Parmenides suggests that being inheres in
an Identity, that thinking and Being belong in the Self‐same, that they
belong together through this self‐same. The sameness of to auto, the
Self‐same, lies, according to Heidegger, in a belonging‐together,
though a belonging‐together which must be interpreted otherwise
than in terms of the later metaphysical conception of identity as a
feature of Being, for here Being itself is regarded as a feature of this
35
Identity.”
Heidegger differentiates between mediated identity and the
identity as a ‘wholeness,’ as Being. Heidegger points out that in
belonging together, the mediated identity, as an element of traditional
metaphysical position, gives primacy to togetherness, instead of
belongingness. The latter, in fact, withdraws from that belonging in
the purity of adequate connection, as correspondence. “Here, to
‘belong’ means, Heidegger says, to be coordinated and incorporated
into the order of a ‘together,’ given its place in the unity of a manifold,
put together into the unity of a system mediated through the unifying
89
center of an effective synthesis. Philosophy conceives such belonging‐
together as nexus and connexio, as the necessary connection between
one thing and another. On the other hand, belonging‐together my also
be understood as belonging‐together, such that ‘together’ is
determined in terms of belonging. Belonging‐together can yield a
sense in which it is not the unity of togetherness that determines the
sense of ‘belonging’ but in which togetherness itself is understood in
the light of belonging. It is in this sense that thought and Being
36
belongs together in the Self‐same.”
BEING APPEARS IN MULTIPLE WAYS IN MULTIPLE EPOCHS

For Heidegger, Being appears to multiple epochs differently. Each
metaphysical position determines the unveiling of Being in certain way
and hides many other. The withdrawal of Being in its manifold
possibilities could enable that metaphysical position to reveal the
being of essents. For example, the stress on Logic of the Latin world
withdraws the possibilities of logos of early Greek experience. The
stress on Logic reduces the being of Reason into the rules, that is,
specified directions in which reason can and should move. The
distance of reason from initial experience of logos enables Reason to
correlate itself with statement and judgment. Where statement is an
expression of idea in logical form and judgment is the correspondence
of statement with the actualitas coming out in statement of idea.
Logos, however, initially appeared in a mode of aletheia, the
unhiddenness.

“The original essence of truth could not be retained
and preserved and there was a ‘collapse of
unhiddenness,’ of the area opened out for the
appearing of the essent; from the debris ‘idea’ and
‘statement,’ ‘ousia’ and ‘kategoria,’ were
salvaged…each existing as an objective entity,
disjoined from the other and connectable only by a
relation having itself the character of an objective
entity. Ever since, philosophy has labored to explain
and render plausible the relation between judgment
(thought) and Being by all sorts of ingenious
37
theories. ”

90
BEING APPEARS THROUGH APPREHENSION NOT GRASPING

In his effort to bring forward the conception of Being other than
metaphysically burdened language constructions, Heidegger moves
toward early Greeks. In that movement, and his re‐interpretation of
early Greek thinkers, Heidegger discovers the distorted meaning of
many concepts, and even that of ‘concept’ itself. He brings out the
initial meaning of knowing as apprehension as contrasting with
grasping entailed by concept itself. Through the famous saying of
Parmenides; (to gar auto noein estin te kai einai), that is commonly
understood as : “Being and thought are the same”. Heidegger brings
out the hidden meaning of noein (thought), while insisting to refrain
from projecting into noein the modern conception of thinking as the
activity of a subject, with Being as its correlate, and from interpreting
38
it in Kantian or Hegelian terms.” Heidegger insists that we must
understand thought in the sense of apprehension. This sense brings
out “the double signification of taking up, accepting, letting what
appears come up and of hearing a witness, questioning him and so
determining.” 39
Apprehension is neither a power of a subject for the grasping
nor the faculty of a human being. Considering human being a subject
is itself a determining of apprehension in certain sense. Apprehension
is not a faculty possessed by a human‐being; instead apprehension is
the mutual sharing of a human being with Being and in Being.
Apprehension is rather a “happening, sharing in which alone man
enters into history as an essent, appears, that is, in the literal sense,
40
comes into being.”
BEING IS THE SELF-SAME NOT MOVING FOR ABSOLUTE SELF-

REALIZATION

For Heidegger, it is Hegel who “determines truth to be the goal of
philosophy. This is achieved only at the stage of completion. The stage
of Greek philosophy remains in the not‐yet. As the stage of beauty, it
is not yet the stage of truth.” 41 The Greek’s stage of truth for Hegel is
still only a thesis or a moment of spirit’s realization of its self‐
consciousness that can be assimilated into other stages for achieving
the subjective certainty of the absolute. For Hegel, there is no denying
that in the Greek world the spirit indeed comes for the first time into
free and open opposition to being. But spirit does not yet properly
come to absolute certainty of itself as self‐knowing subject. It is with
Hegelian system of speculative – dialectical metaphysics, does
42
philosophy comes to be what it is.
91
Heidegger thinks Hegel grasps the understanding of spirit as

immersed in his own time. Hegel couldn’t critically engage with the
spirit of his own time. Instead, he owned and accepted the very
direction without opening up other possibilities for Being to get
emerge. However, Being for Heidegger is the self‐same. He does not
think the thought of each metaphysical epoch enables to bring forth
the being of essents. For Heidegger each time the effort is made to
apprehend Being through concepts, it also enables Being to withdraw.
This withdrawing enables being to appear as we desire it to get appear
through our immersion within essents.
HEGELIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN UNDERSTANDING OF GROUND 43

The ‘ground’ for Hegel appears to be, in and through his Logic, 44 the
systematic expansion of categories for bringing out the Matter of Fact.
This systematic expansion of categories is interlocked to produce
certain triadic dynamism in order to produce ground for the synthesis
of diverse and oppositional identities. The ground on which this
‘grounding’ takes place moves upon the principle of reason. This
principle of Reason lies in the roots of western metaphysical
45
tradition. The principle of Reason appeared as a ground of Reason
through Leibnizian position. 46 This ground came out, as it came out, in
Hegelian Logic, as grounding the assertive statements.
The movement of ground takes a certain direction and attains
a certain characteristic in order to synthesize the oppositionality. It is
for accomplishing this certain direction and characteristic that
movement first of all takes place. The movement takes place for taking
oppositional identities into their opposition and after going through
their incomplete appearance that turns each identity into
indeterminate mode, compelling them to resolve their opposition and
get resolved into synthetic unity. This movement accomplishes what it
intends to accomplish only through being certain speculation, that is,
only through determinate apprehension, comprehension or taking
sight of.
The movement, however, couldn’t take place without, first,
considering or taking identities as oppositions. The identities are
identities because they are immediate determinations and they are in
opposition. Why should they be in opposition? This is not clear
through Hegelian speculation. But their opposition, just like their
being as identities, appears to him as self‐evident as the ground of
grounding that provides him justification to move philosophically
through assertive position.
92
The relation between ground and being, however, appears

when being appears as grounded and ground appears in the reflection
of being, though as un‐reflected. Ground, one can understand in its
geographical imagery. In this situation it would appear almost in the
same fashion as it appeared to Hegel. 47 Ground as Land, however,
keeps individuals who are treading on it, and the Land itself, distinct
from each other. The change in Land may not create change in the
ground. The change may only take place when individuals are related
with Land in certain belonging. Only then, the change in Land may
bring some change in individuals. The imagery of Land, in this situation
is helpful though the effort to take it very far only makes matter
difficult to understand. The relationship between ground and being is
more intimate than the relationship between the imagery of Land and
individuals.
With the change in ground the determinate change in being
takes place. And with the change in being the correlative change in
ground may ensue. The change in ground may appear with the change
in the determinateness of being, that is, with the change in its ability
to ‘be’ in the determinate form what it is. If the ground does not
ground but loses its ground, then what is the sense to say it ground.
Yet, even, in the absence of its foundational condition, the ground
may appear as ground. This position can only appear with the relation
of time. It is only with the relation of time that ground, in its
grounding, may appear as ground, yet loses its position by bringing out
the concealed temporal position of being.

(III)
BEING APPEARS THROUGH GROUND

Being appears when Ground let it appear. It (letting) is the ‘shaping’ of
ground that shapes the being itself. The history of philosophy, for
Hegel, appears as the dialectical movement already divided into
thesis, antithesis and synthesis. For, Hegel understands the Cartesian
position as the antithesis of the previous philosophical position that
stretches back to the early Greek thinkers. The antithesis of Cartesian
position brings out the opposition between subject and object first
time in the history of philosophy. This position also prepares the
ground within the subjective situation for the synthetic unity. The
synthesis, however, has to wait for Hegel to bring out in the synthetic
unity of antihesis and thesis by calling back the unity of object‐thought
within the horizon of Being.
93
The thesis of the history of philosophy, for Hegel, initiates in
the Greek world within the writings of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato
and Aristotle. It was Parmenides from whom the ‘En’ or the wholeness
of Being enters into the world of philosophy. For Hegel, It is with
“Parmenides philosophizing proper began…This beginning is
admittedly still confused and indeterminate.” 48
With Heraclitus it was Logos that entered into the world of
philosophy. Logos lets everything that is as a whole lie before and
appears as beings. Logos, for Hegel, transforms into the ‘logic’ of its
dialectic. His speculative dialectic makes object appear in the
opposition of subject. This appearance takes place through the
mediation of reflection that places oppositional identities into self‐
reflective whole. 49
The abode of particulars into intrinsically determinate
Universal and interlocking of universals into another Universal makes
a case of Plato for Hegel. Philosophy for the first time appears for him
into the realm of indeterminate immediacy and this appearance
becomes itself the motivating factor to transform the illusory
existence into the eternal Universal. Within Universal, indeterminate
being finds its abode through its own reflected mediation. “Ideas are
not immediately in consciousness (namely, as an intuition), rather they
are (mediated in consciousness) in cognition. For this reason one does
not have them, but rather they are brought forth within spirit through
cognition.” Idea becomes the home for Hegel for which his stream of
categories moves to give particular instances the very safe heaven
they always longed for. Yet this home is more like a small production
unit. The cognitive activity is more like producing of absolute knowing,
i.e., science. “Therefore,” Hegel says: “With Plato begins philosophical
science as science…What is distinctive of Platonic philosophy is its
50
orientation toward the intellectual, the supersensible world.”
It is, however, Aristotle who becomes the driving force for
the driving force of Hegel’s philosophy. His concept Energeia
translates into that activity that shapes each phenomenon into
determinate being. This determinacy arises through the destiny
embedded within the Energeia itself, that is, as enetelechy. The
driving force becomes its own ground. Hegel took this ground as
grounding activity through its absolute subjective position and the
51
grounding activity turns into the speculative dialectics of Hegel.
For Hegel, “in philosophy as such, in its present and final
stage, is contained everything that the work of millennia has brought
forth; it is the result of everything that has gone before.” 52 The
experience of Hegel towards history of philosophy, as it explicates
itself through his employment of four major concepts, makes him
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understand the explicated categories within the horizon of being. It is
how for him being is to appear in its determinate form, and that is,
indeterminate immediacy. Being appears through the ground that is
already historically related with being.
The relationship between the ground and being brings out
the indeterminate immediacy of Hegel’s understanding of being that is
located in that historical experience that shows this indeterminate
immediacy in its determined being through the belonging of subjective
experience with the ground. The indeterminate immediacy of being
unfolds itself through cognitive meditating determined way. While the
subjective relation of being and the historicity of subjective experience
explicates itself through time.
The ground of indeterminate being appears as the
determined being showing itself without rooted into the historical
experience; the determinacy come out as methodology. Only within
and through this determined passage Being shows itself. The truth of
the content lies in the method. It is the interlocking of matter, and its
multiple positions within a method and the correspondence of
reflecting ideas with the already developed reality that gives truth.
Cartesian position insists upon the method for bringing out
matter of fact as achieving certainty. It is the “way of attaining clear
and distinct ideas” 53 in thinking that matters. Thinking may come out
in multiple possibilities yet the determined possibility that can bring
out ideas as distinct and clear can manifest itself only through the
determined way. The ground of accomplishing certainty appears as
the method of taking matter into schematic form from the foundation
of subjectivity already perceived as ‘I.’
Hegel accepts the subjective position of Descartes but refuse
to accept the primacy of method. He opts for the movement itself; the
movement that can move in a certain direction through the already
grounded mode of movement and the goal towards which it has to
move. The letting of content to move itself to engender its own
methodology is to give being its given‐ness from its on shining. This
shining forth of being is apprehended through the gathering of
subjectivity into the unfolding unity of subjectivity. In this way,
subjectivity grows together with gathering. Hegel’s dialectical
speculation finds its sense within this apprehension.
The growth of subjectivity with the gathering‐together
becomes for Hegel the ground of dialectical speculation that is the
reflection of what is already moving through its own self. “Considered
in this way, speculation is the positive whole of that which “dialectic”
is meant to signify here.” To understand Hegel’s dialectic in the form
of “transcendental, critically restrictive, or even polemical way of
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thinking” is to understand Hegel far short of its original spirit. Hegel’s
dialectic should be understood as “the mirroring and uniting of
opposites as the process of the production of spirit itself.” 54
Hegel considers his speculative dialectic as the only method
he employed. By considering it as Method, however, he neither
ascribed it the meaning of the “instrument of representing nor merely
a special way of proceeding in philosophy.” For him “Method” is the
innermost movement of subjectivity, “the soul of being, the
production process through which the web of the whole actuality of
the absolute is woven.” 55
It is not only speculative dialectic of Hegel that moves
through the innermost movement of subjectivity but all form of
determined reflectivity that, when come out, has to move within it. In
modern times when physics brings out its formula for the world, “then
it becomes apparent that the being of beings has dissolved itself in the
method of calculability.” 56
Whenever the determined position comes out in modern
time, following Hegel, it would appear within calculative environment.
For Heidegger, the Calculative thinking is a thinking “of a special kind.”
It deals, in fact, with circumstances that are already given, and which
we take into consideration, to carry out projects or to reach goals that
we want to achieve. Calculative thinking does not pause to consider
the meaning inherent in “everything that is”. It is always on the move,
57
is restless and it “never collects itself.”
The calculative thinking prevails for Heidegger through out
the modern times. The beginning of modern spirit, initiated from
Descartes, to whom Hegel ascribes the setting foot up on the secure
land, came up with the book titled, “Discourse de le methode (1637).”
Hegel’s speculative dialectic, as Method, becomes “the fundamental
trait of all actuality. For this reason, method determines all happening,
i.e., history, as movement.” 58

METHOD AND WAY

It was clear even through “Being and Time” (1928) that Heideggerian
approach towards “Method” is not embedded in the Hegelian spirit.
His initiation of the project of Fundamental Ontology, and his
phenomenological emphasis upon the “Things Themselves,” 59 though
still reminiscent of deterministic methodology, yet his stress upon
following these lines through phenomenological – hermeneutical
position was already distinguishing him from the entrapment of
Method. His stress upon subjective position and with the direction
towards authentic‐being, the meaning immersed in the jungle of
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interpretive situation found its reception in a concealed way. The

primacy of hermeneuticity, as interpretation of being as belonging‐
togetherness, had to wait for many decades to find its due position.
The Phenomenological position from that very beginning was
already embedded with Hermeneutical position, “as the possibility of
thinking being.” 60 Instead of taking Husserl’s mode of reflection, “a
reflection which takes place in reflective acts as intentional acts of
consciousness of a higher level,” 61 Heidegger takes logos as aletheuein
means: to take beings that are being talked about in legein as
apophainesthi out of their concealment; to let them be seen as
something unconcealed (alethes).” 62 Heidegger also brings out three
senses of Logos: a) as Reason, b) as Ground or Ratio, c) as
Relatedness. 63 Logos itself appears through Dasein’s projective
understanding. While Dasein is understood, not as having the faculty
of Dasein, but is constituted by understanding that is itself projective
in nature. Dasein comes out through understanding as existing
existentially. The projective understanding, however, comes out as
thrown understanding due to the thrownness of Dasein itself. 64
Hermeneutical‐phenomenological understanding thinking becomes for
Heidegger as disclosedness of projecting‐interpreting understanding in
being‐in‐the‐world. 65
The constitution of the structure of understanding appears
for Heidegger through the historicity of Dasein itself. This historicity of
understanding appears in threefold ways: fore‐having, fore‐thought
and fore‐grasping. Dasein finds itself as existing through its thrown
projective understanding. The projection shows itself through
projected being. What is projected in the projection may be
considered as fore‐having. The projection appears in regard of
something for Dasein. This “in regard of” can be understood as “fore‐
sight.” While the projective understanding moves with fore‐having
and fore‐sight through its already understanding character. The
understanding that already prevails through the projective
66
understanding may be understood as “fore‐grasping.”
The understanding appears for Heidegger through and within
the circularity. To understand being through its fore‐structures, Dasein
already understands through its non‐thematic structures of fore‐
understanding. 67 That is the reason the search for presupposition‐less
foundation, for bringing out the grasping of being, remains a futile
effort for Heidegger. This moving into the circle, however, does not
make understanding as moving nowhere. This very movement
nourishes both fore‐understanding and the manifest‐ness of being. “In
so far as interpretive understanding nourishes itself from the
projectible understanding, in a certain sense it moves in a circle,
97
though not an empty one. Rather this circle deepens and
differentiates understanding.” 68
This interpretive position, however, remains embedded
within the Method that, though position itself, as a liberating mode.
Hermeneutics was understood as “the methodology of the historical
humanistic disciplines.” The Phenomenology was considered as the
“science of the discipline means it grasps its objects in such a way that
everything about them to be discussed must be directly indicated and
directly demonstrated.” The demonstration of the interpretive
understanding was to be acquired through grasping
69
conceptualization).
This position, however, gradually transforms in the writings of
Heidegger and the emphasis shifted towards history of being, instead
of Dasein. The conceptions found their new meanings through the
apprehension of the history of being and its determining relation to
the fore‐structure of the interpretive understanding of Dasein. It is
Being, as destiny, gains primacy and the method finds its meaning as
“the way of understanding.” The epoch of modernity was considered
as the age of science and the concerning of technology. The increasing
determinacy, through the destined spirit of Hegelian dialectic, only
further increased the domination of one‐dimensional thought, that is,
positivism. Truth, even as aletheia, was considered to become
subservient to the prevalent being of time. The project of self‐
overcoming was considered as pursuing the will of power. The
authentic understanding, now, had to transform itself, into meditative
thinking, instead of staying as demonstrative. Even the question of
Being was considered as the product of metaphysical thinking. The
journey towards man found its new ‘path’ and so does the ‘way’ of
attaining it (Meth‐od).
The transformed understanding of Heidegger’s ermeneutical‐
phenomenological position appears as thinking in terms of the history
of being. Thinking becomes, for Heidegger, the engagement by and for
the truth of Being. “The history of Being is never past but stands ever
before…In order to learn how to experience the aforementioned
essence of thinking purely, and that means to carry it through, we
must free ourselves from the technical interpretation of thinking.” 70
Interpretation divides itself into, at‐least, two mode of appearance,
one is technical and the other is non‐technical. It is the latter
interpretation that becomes the dwelling center of Heidegger.
Hermeneutics, as the interpretive activity, now opts for
listening to show being instead of grasping being in its un‐
coveredness. “As the belonging to Being that listens thinking is what it
is according to its essential origin.” 71 The belonging to Being now
98
appears in the comportment of Love, as favoring. Thought, now arises,
as the favoring‐enabling, that is, the possibility of possible. 72 This
favoring‐enabling translates as thought that lets Being appear within
the comportment of Dasein that hears. The interpretive activity
becomes as the messenger to bring message and tidings to the
listening being. This hermeneutic relation engages with the history of
being‐“a thinking that thinks the relation of being to Dasein and the
comporting relationship of Dasein to Being, thinking the whole
73
relation as Ereignis”.
The relationship between thought and Being, now appears as
belonging‐ togetherness (Logos). In the technical interpretation, the
stress remained upon the togetherness (Logos) and with it the
relationship with Being appears as grasping and dominating. The
stress, now, on belonging gives primacy to Being and the need to turn
through comportment with Love to embrace Being. This
belongingness favors the enabling of Being appear in its manifold
possibilities. Thought and Being finds their identity in such a
relationship of belonging‐togetherness but not in Hegelian way in
which subject resolves the contradiction compulsively for moving
74
ahead in order to accomplish its dialectical pursuit of truth.
Being manifests itself through the belonging‐togetherness in
the very Difference between Being and essents. Either Being comes
out as being of beings or beings come out as beings of being. Both
movements for Heidegger are the expressions of metaphysical
thought. Both Being and essents emerge, in their different ways from
and through the Difference. The Difference between Being and
essents is not just a static and formal relation between two terms but
the interplay, the working out or the process of resolution of the two
75
opposed movements of revealing and concealing.
Being appears in the interactive play of Being and essents,
between revealing and concealing. Each time being appears the
withdrawal occurs too. This interactive play is a distanced activity from
the scientific activity of finding truth. The scientific activity is deeply
rooted in establishing itself upon methodology for expressing the
determined being (subject‐matter) in its truth. Their relationship, that
is, between subject‐matter and method is the relation of domination
of one (method) upon the other (subject‐matter). “All power of
knowing lies in the method. The subject‐matter is taken up and
absorbed by the method…Being themselves do not provide the
pattern for access to them…This domineering in which modern
method unfolds is an essential way for the modern subject to establish
76
its reign over beings.”
99
The thinking being, for Dasein, thinks not immersing in

methodology nor in the absence of it. He takes method through its
root meaning, that is, along the way. Instead of giving the primacy to
the Method, he recommends to move in a difference as an interactive
play between Method and subject‐matter. This interactive play of
thinking, with the projective understanding of thinking being who
thinks through comportment, takes a pathway for its expression
without giving primacy to either.

THE END OF HISTORY

History, as discipline, when appear as following the determined
standards and criteria of a methodology, as a primacy upon the
subject‐matter, it falls short of what it should be as an activity of a
thinking being. History is the history of being and to bring forth that
being through the dominated method is to give primacy to a single
mode of truth, projective understanding and certain absorption of
being‐in‐the world. For bringing out being‐itself, the historian as a
thinking being, and therefore the lover of truth, is to let the being
show itself in order to attain self‐joining.
History, moving with the primacy of method, is an activity
moving upon and through the spirit of time. The fore‐structures of the
understanding of the historian let the projection play its role and the
absorption in the world conceals itself while bringing forward the
determined expression of being. Such a history, as a Hegelian project,
moves upon the completed understanding of being and assimilates or
reject positions only to pursue the very movement that remains
prevail as a conscious moment of spirit. In such a history there is a
beginning and there is an end. Yet it remains away from the thinking
being engaged in self‐joining.
Historical thinking that dwells in the region and frees it up for
thinking what is to be thought, understands being in revealing‐
concealing. It is the interactive play of ‘way’ and ‘being’ that open up
the possibility of un‐concealment. “When thinking hears, understands
and unfolds what is freed up as what meets thinking, then thinking
sets upon a way that gets shown from the region.” 77
The Ground of history that gives rise to Historie, “the
ascertaining explaining of the past from within the horizon of the
calculative dealing of the present,” shelters the “Historie” through
concealing presence of its ab‐ground (abyss). It is this “not‐ground”
that becomes the shelter of enduring presence of Historie. “Beings are
hereby presupposed as what is orderable, producible, and
ascertainable.” 78 History, as discipline, appears to control the whole
100
past‐ness, to bring it back into the totality of knowledge. History
moves upon the ground that let facts appear as presenting for making
them orderable. History remains as an activity of mastering history. It
stays upon the ground, like standing upon the land after the voyage of
sea. The ground gives certainty as grounded. It appears as foundation,
as established and as having self‐evidence. The ground conceals
because of its linkage with the simile of “Land” what is there as “not‐
there.” The Ground conceals its presencing that stays till grounding
presences through its non‐grounding. This relationship between
Ground and Truth appears as non‐originary relation to the thinking
being.
For the originary relation between Ground and Being the
change in the simile of Land may help. Heidegger makes us
understand Ground through considering it as Region. Region is called
region because “region regions and makes free what is to be thought
by thinking.” “Region” brings forward that belonging that is missing in
concept of Ground as Land. Region is a meeting point, where thought
comes over against thinking. Region becomes a ground where the
possibility of thinking again and thinking against thought lies. When
thinking hears, understands and unfolds what is freed up as what
meets thinking, then thinking sets upon way that gets shown from the
79
region. In the thinking of being, the way belongs in the region.
The concept of Ground, instead of understanding through the
simile of Land, when considered in the simile of region, the meaning of
Ground itself changes. The relation between Ground and Being, that
was persistently concealing the sheltering non‐ground, now thinks
against thought persistently in order to join itself with itself through
understanding hearing. The Ground, in its relation with Being in
Historie, the
mode of Hegel’s historical understanding, appears as Dasein’s
steadfastness. It loses its “solidness” when it appears in originary
relationship with Being, as regioning. The Ground is ground because it
grounds, its grounding finds its space in the region as moving on the
way to understanding hearing. This grounding of Ground stays upon
the sheltering of being till the counter‐movement, that takes back
thinking to the root‐unfolding and thus toward the self‐joining.
The way to history finds its clearing through placing the light
of questioning. The questioning itself is a possibility of a way. It is the
expression of a distance from the immediate indeterminateness and a
hope for regaining belongingness. “Putting the question to something
and asking after something need here and everywhere first to be
addressed by that which touches them in questioning and which they
pursue in questioning. The starting point of any question always
101
already dwells within the appeal of that to which the question is
put.” 80 In order to initiate this questioning and inquiry, we must open
ourselves to a “regard” or “sight” which, as Heidegger emphasizes, is
not limited to the questions just touched upon. That to which we put
the question and ask after ‘must already have been addressed to us.’
History has no ground but grounding that appears through
each activity of making history. This thinking that makes history
possible upon grounding is the inter‐active play of occurrence
between immediate indeterminateness and the possibility of possible.
History, as a mode of being, comes out with the comportment of
Human Being that translates its thinking activity into the determinate
being. History, as a grounding belonging, let being appears as a
meaningful whole without fixing into The End of History. Each End
appears as a moment of regioning, instead a completed End.

102
END NOTES
1
G.W. Hegel, Philosophy of History (New York : Dover publications, 1996),
p.162.
2
In his history of the world, Hegel gives many reasons for considering Oriental
world, especially, India worthless. See Ibid., p.164.
3
Ibid., p.112.
4
In Hegel’s famous phrase, Real is Rational and Rational is Real, his many
interpreters understand The End of History a valid corollary. For many, his
contemporaneous state achieved the End that Spirit moves for realization.
5
Kojeve is famous for his interpretation of Hegel’s The Phenomenology of
Spirit. See Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on
The Phenomenology of Spirit (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980)
6
See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and The Last Man (New York: Free
Press, 1992)
7
Allex Callinicos, Theories and Narratives; Reflections on the Philosophy of
History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995)
8
Hegel, Philosophy of History, p.162.
9
Ibid., p.167.
10
Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”, in William Lovitt
trans., The Question Concerning Technology and other Essays (New York :
Harper colophon books, 1977), p.21.
11
Hegel, Philosophy of History, p.116.
12
Ibid., p.113.
13
Ibid., pp.113‐114.
14
Ibid., p.160.
15
Ibid., p.161.
16
Ibid., pp. 164.
17
Ibid., p.162.
18
Ibid., p143.
19
Ibid., p.140.
20
Ibid., p.141.
21
Ibid., p.165.
22
Ibid., p.165.
23
Ibid., p.161.
24
Ibid., p.446.
25
Ibid., p.143.
26
See G.W.F Hegel, The Science of Logic,
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm, accessed on 10
March 2009.
27
See G.W.F Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit (London: Dover publications,
1990)
28
Alexnder Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca : Cornell
University Press, 1980)
29
Frederick Coplestone, A History of Philosophy, Vol. VII, (New York:
Doubleday, 1994). pp.189‐195.
103
30
J.L. Mehta, The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger (New York : Harper
Torchbooks, 1971), p.206.
31
Martin Heidegger, “Hegel and Greeks”, in William McNeill (ed.), Pathmarks
(Melbourn : Cambridge University Press, 1998)
32
Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism” in David Farrell Krell (ed.), Martin
Heidegger: Basic Writings (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), p.218.
33
Heidegger, “Hegel and Greeks”, p.242.
34
Ibid., p.333.
35
Mehta, The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, p.208.
36
Ibid.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid., p.145.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
42
43
The exploration of Ground has already been discussed in detail in Umber Bin
Ibad “The Ground of History: A Relational Understanding of Hegel and
Hieidegger”,The Historian, Vol. 7(1), (January –June 2009), p.63. Here only
brief exposition would suffice.
44
Hegel’s thought upon logic appears under two different titles: in detailed
exposition it appears in The Science of Logic or Greater Logic and in
condensed form it appears in The Short Logic or Lesser Logic. Here, Logic
means The Science of Logic
45
Martin Heidegger, “On the Essence of Ground”, William McNeill (ed.),
Pathmarks (Melbourn: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p.101.
46
Lebnizian principle of Reason in his Primae Veritates (1686) presents this
point as: Thus a predicate, or consequent, is always present in a subject, or
antecedent: and in this fact consists the universal nature of truth, or the
connection between the terms of the assertion.
47
In his History of Philosophy (1805‐1806), in the section of Descartes, Hegel
gives analogy of founding Ground of Modern thought through landing on the
shore after spending long time in the sea. See
http://www.marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/descar.htm,
accessed on 14 May 2009
48
49
Ibid., p.330.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid., p.331.
52
Ibid., p.332.
53
See Hegel’s discussion on Descartes in G.W.F Hegel, History of Philosophy,
http://www.marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/descar.htm ,
accessed on 14 May 2009.
54
55
Ibid., p.326.
56
Ibid.
104
57
Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays”, p.44.
58
59
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. by Joan Staumbaugh, (New York :
SUNY press, 1996), p.24.
60
Friedrick Wilhem Von Hermann, “Way and Method”, in Christopher Mcann
(ed.), Critical Heidegger (London: Routledge, 1996), p.173.
61
Ibid., p.174.
62
Heidegger, Being and Time, p.29.
63
Ibid., p.30.
64
Ibid., p.136.
65
Ibid., p.137.
66
Ibid., p.142.
67
Ibid., p.143.
68
Hermann, “Way and Method”, p.178.
69
Heidegger, Being and Time, p.29.
70 Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism”, p.218.
71
Ibid., p.220.
72
Ibid.
73
Hermann, “Way and Method”, p.179.
74
Mehta, The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, p.209.
75
Ibid., p.206.
76
Hermann,“Way and Method”, p.184.
77
Ibid., p.185.
78
Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), trans. Prvis
Emmad and Kenneth Maly (Indianapolis: Indian press 1999) p.217.
79
Hermann,“Way and Method”, p.185.
80
Ibid., p.187.
105
Amir Khan Shahid, Syncretic Tradition
RELIGIOUS SYNCRETICISM IN
PRE-MODERN PUNJAB
AMIR KHAN SHAHID

GC UNIVERSITY, LAHORE,
PAKISTAN
ABSTRACT
The syncretic tradition1 may be described as a

defining feature of the sufi ethos in the Punjab
during the medieval period (11‐18th centuries). This
tradition left indelible imprints on the local culture,
particularly imparting values like tolerance,
humanism and social equality. The growth of
syncretic tradition in India was a reaction against the
social stratification solidified by the caste system
which became more rigid with the passage of time.
The origin of this tradition dates back to vedantic
tradition, however, its contours were further
sharpened when Ibn‐i‐Arabi’s (1165‐1240) wajudi
ideas permeated in the philosophical discourse of
Sufis in the subcontinent. In Punjab, Baba Farid Ganj
Shakar (1175‐1265) emerged as a main exponent of
2
this philosophy. To study the development of
syncretic tradition, this article is divided into three
parts: first part deals with the factors which led to
the dissemination of syncretic ideas which later on
defined a number of religious practices and
institutions in the Punjab like saintly intersession,
practice of piri‐muridi, Urs, and Khanqah to name a
few. These were not merely practices or institutions
but were means of creating a cosmology which
projected a completely different set of symbols for
their followers; the second part highlights the
features which made this tradition an integral part of
the Punjabi society while the third part studies the
reflection of this tradition in mystical poetry.

KEY WORDS: Syncretic Tradition, Punjab, Ulema, Sikhism, Hinduism,
Khanqah, Baa’it, Mystic Poetry.
105

(I)

GROWTH OF SYNCRETIC TRADITION IN PUNJAB

Besides tracing the development of syncretic tradition, this part of the
article specifically focuses on the four factors which contributed in its
development: vedantic teachings, wajudi ideas, role of sufis and Bhakti
movement. All these factors, in one way or the other, made the local
population receptive towards the syncretic tradition.
The origin of syncretic ethos of the Punjab may be traced in
the Vedantic teachings of Yogis.3 The land of Punjab was more
tolerant, liberal and open‐minded vis‐à‐vis the North Indian society
which had visible traces of caste hierarchy and rituals devoid of
humane dimension.4 Over a period of time, this caste system became
more rigid. According to Buddha Prakash:

“Punjab was characterized by an assimilative spirit,
resilient outlook, bellicose temperament, practical
standpoint, independent tendency and a liberal bent
of mind. People shun the conservative and caste‐
ridden culture of the sedate land of the Gangetic
citadel and reveal a broadness and elasticity in
morals and ideas which is an anathema to the
5
peoples of the east”.

The Hindu religious books contained the reference pointing towards
the liberal thought of the Punjab as well as its enmity against
fundamental beliefs. Therefore, Mahabharata described them as the
rebels of the goodness and instructed the pious Hindus of India (North
India) not to stay more than two days in Punjab.6
The territory of Punjab also came under the vedantic
influence of the Bhakti movement during its first phase which
preceded the conquest of Punjab by Mahmud of Ghazna. During this
period Bhakti movement emerged in Southern India under the
influence of the teachings of Alvars.7 The main essence of the Bhakti
teachings was the union of human beings with the universe,8 emphasis
on monotheism, emotional worship, self‐surrender, adoration of the
teacher, laxity in the rigours of the caste system and indifference
towards mere rituals.9 The influence of the prevalent Vedantic
tradition may be deciphered from the ideas of Nath Yogis.10 Qazi Javed
maintains that Baba Farid was deeply influenced by them. The impact
of local influences on the thought of Baba Farid may amply be gauged
106
by the fact that he adopted several Hindu ways of meditation, for
instance Chilla Maqus (reciprocal divine worship) can be advanced as
notable example.11
The doctrine of Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud (ontological monism) also
contributed towards the development and growth of the Sufi
tradition. This concept was imbued in monistic philosophy of Sufism
which signified the ‘Unity of Being’. According to this concept God
was the unity behind all plurality, reality and phenomenal
appearances.12 This theory was similar in many respects to the
Vedantic theory13 which claimed the union of three antecedents.
These include: action (karaman), knowledge (jinan) and devotion
(bhakti).14 Thus in this manner the doctrine of Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud
became an integral part of the syncretic tradition of Punjab as the
influence of Ibn‐ul‐Arabi and Rumi permeated in this region through
the proselytizing activities of Chishtiya and Qadriya Silsilas.15 These
sufi orders became the carrier of this ideology. By adopting Wahdat‐
ul‐Wajud of Ibn‐ul‐Arabi the saints of Chishtiya and later on Qadriya
orders tried to synthesize the Islamic Sufi tradition with Hindu
vedantic teachings.16 These Sufis treated Hindus and Muslims equally
as they considered them the creatures of God. Even before the
beginning of the proselytizing activities of these orders, the saints like
Hazrat Ali Hujvari (990‐1077) and Hazrat Sakhi Sarwar (d.1080) had
started a creative Sufi movement which orientated people towards
mysticism.17 The former is regarded as the most influential sufi in the
Punjab whereas the later was known as Lakh Data.18 Sakhi Sarwar’s
Hindu devotees were called Sultani.19 Ikram Ali Malik is of the view
that “Data Ganj Baksh and Sufis of later period transformed Hindu‐
Muslim animosity into love and toleration”.20 The people of Punjab
saw Hazrat Ali Hajvari a preeminent personality in whom the old
stream of mystic consciousness got synthesized with the newer sufi
episteme.21
Another factor which facilitated the rise of syncretic tradition
was the role of Sufis and Saints which provided the most effective
agency for the proliferation of syncretic ideas or influences. The Sufis
introduced such practices into the Indian Sufism which considerably
impacted the religious ethos of the region and caused a considerable
shift among the locals towards Islam.22 Among the factors which led
towards the tremendous success of Sufis proselytizing activities
included; their love for humanity, their accommodation and tolerant
vision, their adaptability, their emphasis on social justice and equality
and their noble and virtuous character.23 Their teachings were imbued
in great love for humanity. They provided solace to the helpless
people groaning under the yoke of a rigid caste system. According to
107
Richard M. Eaton, the Sufi doctrine of “Suleh Kul or universal
brotherhood had a great humanistic appeal behind which it crossed all
religious barriers and developed fellow‐feelings between the Hindus
and the Muslims.”24 Their philosophy was based on the principle of
“love” which was the essence of all the religious teachings and
scriptures. Another conspicuous feature of their practices was their
tolerant and accommodating outlook. Instead of brandishing those
who possessed conflicting religious beliefs, these Sufis tolerated
differences as they made no distinction between shaikh and Brahmin,
Dir and Haram.25 This atmosphere particularly prevailed in the areas of
rural Punjab. This accommodating attitude had great impact on non‐
Muslims. The large number of Punjabis became the disciples of the
saints such as Data Ganj Baksh, Sakhi Sarwar, Baba Farid, Bahauddin
Zakariya (b‐1170), Mian Mir, Shah Inayat Qadri, Noor Muhammad
Muharwi (1730‐91) and Shah Suliman Tunsawi (d‐1850) etc. Sufis
demonstrated extraordinary adaptability with local conditions as they
molded their teachings in accordance with the ethos of the society.26
They wore local dress and learnt local languages.27 While giving
example of the socio‐cultural adaptness, JL Mehta opines that “like
Hindu ascetics the sufis also shaved heads of the new entrants to their
orders and observed certain rituals which were totally unknown to
their counterparts in other Muslims countries”.28 In this manner the
sufism was thoroughly Indianised.29
Another significant factor which contributed towards their
success was their emphasis on social justice and equality.30 They made
themselves accessible to the common people and freely intermingled
with them.31 They developed the Khanqahi Nizam and through
Khanqahs they provided free food (langar) and accommodation to
those who were marginalized by the society. They also provided them
financial assistance from their futuhs (gifts).32 Islam, therefore, in
Punjab and Sind attracted a large number of the non‐Muslims
belonging to the lower stratum of the society. These Sufis led a very
noble and virtuous life and taught how to purify one’s batan (nafs),
improve one’s morals and build up one’s inner/outer spheres of life
for the attainment of eternal pleasure.33 By their untiring efforts these
Sufis became an institution aiming at providing solace and relief to the
suffering humanity. In this manner they became role model for the
people to be followed upon.34
The most significant role in promoting the syncretic tradition
in Punjab was that of Chishtiya Silsila. Chishtiya Sufis adapted
themselves according to the Indian conditions and adopted certain
traits of local Punjabi religious ethos which included music, sama,
108
poetic expression, politeness, oral tradition and extra ordinary

toleration with the people belonging to other religions and sects.35
Among Chishtiya sufis, Baba Farid is considered to be the
most influential personality. He emerged as the main exponent of this
order. The following example demonstrates Baba Farid’s belief in
syncretic tradition. Once a disciple offered him a scissor, he (Baba)
asked for a needle, saying “Give me a needle I want to unite not to
separate”.36 Syed Athar Abbas Rizvi while highlighting the
contributions of Baba Farid toward the growth of syncretic tradition
maintains that “the process of accepting the influences of local culture
were further expedited when Baba Farid emerged as a main exponent
of Chishtiya Silsila. The strong influence of local culture may be seen
in Baba Farid’s teachings. For instance his doors were opened for
visitors and the Hindi poetry was recited in sama ceremonies which
was not only imbued with Nath Yagic concepts but also was
impregnated with vaishnavite allegories and symbols about Rama and
37
Krishna”. Several prominent tribes embraced Islam as a result of his
preaching, 38 included Bhatti, Chinna, Dhadhi, Dogar, Gandal Juiya,
Siyal, Tiwarna, Watto and Arainn etc.39
Another Sufi order which played a major role towards the
development of syncretic tradition was Qadriya Silsila founded by
Abdul Qadir Jilani (1075‐1166)40 and spread through the teaching of
Syed Muhammad Ghaus in India.41 In Punjab, the regions of Multan,
Lahore, Kasur and Ucch came under the influence of Qadriya Sufis.
The famous among them were Syed Ali Lahori, Shaikh Ahmad Qadri,
Makhdoom Muhammad Ghauth, Musa Pak Multani, Shaikh
Muhammad Tahir Lahori (d‐1630), Shah Abul Muali, Mian Mir Qadri
(1631‐86) and Shah Inyat Kasuri. 42
Another contributing factor which further reinforced the
syncretic tradition in Punjab was the role of Bhakti movement. Bhakti
movement played a crucial role in the proliferation of universal
brotherhood and love.43 According to JL Mehta the rise of Bhakti
movement was outcome of interaction between mystics and Hindu
society.44 Tara Chand traces the origin of Bhakti movement in
Southern India before the advent of Islam in the subcontinent.45 He
also opines that during its second phase the Bhakti movement was
influenced by Islam in Northern India.46 In Northern India this cult was
popularized by Ramanad (1400‐1470) who emerged as the most
vigorous exponent of syncretic tradition. His famous disciple was Kabir
(1440‐1518).47 The Bhakti traditions received further boost from his
teachings. Kabir attempted to synthesis the logic of Islamic
monotheism with the Hindu belief of Karma (the transmigration of the
soul).48 He vehemently criticized both the worship of idols and the
109
49
authority of all Holy Scriptures. He spoke against the exclusive use of
any learned or sacred language. He described the world as maya and
warned against man’s inclination towards evil. Bhaktis laid much
stress on faith, devotion and love.50 This movement especially focused
the urban artisans, traders and weavers etc. It admitted all the
communities irrespective of their caste and creed.51 Qazi Javed has
attributed the widespread popularity of this movement to the tolerant
and plural attitude of the people in Punjab. 52

(II)

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE SYNCRETIC TRADITION OF PUNJAB

The syncretic tradition of the Punjab was characterized by many
features like pluralistic outlook, love for humanity, tolerance and
emphasis on social equality. The most conspicuous feature of the
syncretic tradition was that it was thoroughly imbued in the doctrine
of Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud.53 It made the Sufi thought distinctively different
from that of ulama or Muslim theologians who accorded primacy to
shariah.54 This doctrine also allowed for the greater accommodation of
the dissenting voices from other religions and sects within the
trajectory Sufi thought.55 The very doctrine created physically peaceful
and mutual cooperation among the religions as it negates the theory
that only one religion represents the truth and the other religions are
constitutionally incapable of approaching the reality.56 Thus it marked
a considerable departure from religious theologians who espoused
more puritanical concept of God. This doctrine constituted the
integrated part of the humanistic theory of sufis.57 It made their
message all embracing and universal. More significantly, it fostered a
tradition of co‐existence in the social setting of the Punjab.
Shrine‐centered Islam became the hallmark of syncretic
tradition. The concept of saintly intersession which is also considered
as a constituent of syncretic tradition also became an integral part of
shrine‐centered Islam. Especially Chishtiya Sufi shrines fostered the
syncretic tradition, for instance, the shrine of Baba Farid, Ajudhan
(Pakpatan) became the centre of syncretic tradition in the pre‐modern
Punjab.58 A very popular Khanqah, situated at Sial Sharif that is
offshoot of Chishtiya order gained popularity in the period of Chishtiya
revivalism. Several big and small Gadis were associated with Sial
Sharif.59 Within Punjab, especially in rural areas, there are millions of
its disciples even today, directly or through its offshoots such as Golra,
Marulianwala (Sargodha), Chachar Sharif, Bhera Sharif and Jalalpure.60
Richard M. Eaton’s book Essay on Islam and Indian History, also
110
subscribes to this perspective. He has mentioned the names of
following shrines which played pivotal role in solidifying the syncretic
tradition in Punjab: Shaikh Jamal al‐Din of Hansi (Hissar District),
Muhammad Shah in Basi Nau (Hoshirpur District), Nizam al‐Din Auliya
in Delhi, Piran Kaler (Saharanpur District), Golra Sharif (Ralwapindi
District), Tounsa Sharif (Dera Ghazi Khan District), Mukhan Sharif and
Basal Sharif (Campbellpure District), Uch Sharif (Bahawalpure State)
and the shrines of Kasur and Lakhneke (Lahore District), Kastiwala in
Gurdaspur District and Panipat in Karnal District. All these were
61
khalifas of Baba Farid’s shrine.
62
The Khanqahi Nizam constituted another significant trait of
this tradition which provided a langar (free kitchen), accommodation
and futuhs (gifts) to the poor and marginalized communities, thus this
institution provided solace to their sufferings.63 These Khanqahas
were generally adjacent to the mosque or dar‐ul‐uloom, which also
served as centre of disseminating syncretic discourse.64 With the
passage of time these Khanqahas were transformed into madaris
(religious schools),65 in which the pir assumed the role of a school
teacher. This teacher or pir used to take verbal oath (baa’it) from his
disciples.66
Pir‐i‐Muridi practice is also regarded as a constituent part of
syncretic tradition. The pir used to appoint khalifas among their
murids as a sign of acknowledging the services of any particular
disciple who were also meant to serve as a transmitter.67 A similar
kind of practice was dastar bandi which was particularly observed at
the shrine of Baba Farid. Dastar (turban) was awarded to the
appointed dewan (khalifa). Such ceremonies were mostly held on the
fortieth day (also called chehlum) of the death of the saint.68 In the pir‐
i‐muridi practices, the appointment of khalifas was usually associated
with all Sufi hospices. To certain extent the sphere of influence of a
khalifa was delineated by the master (murshid). This also signified the
baraka (the territorial distribution of the spiritual power) of a
particular disciple.69 Thus in this manner the spiritual expositions were
widely disseminated through the khalifas and disciples. According to
Richard M. Eaton, murids of the Sufis considered their pir as an
ultimate authority. He contends that “murids of Baba Farid’s shrine
probably saw themselves less in terms of adherents of ‘Book’ and
more in terms of clients and sponsors of a theatre–Shrine that
displayed the wondrous baraka of its saint through its pageantry,
festivals and ceremony……For it was through its rituals that a shrine
made Islam accessible to non‐lettered masses, providing them with
vivid and concrete manifestation of the divine order and integrating
70
them into its ritualized drama both as participants and as sponsors”.
111
A disciple had to participate in a ceremony during which he made a
solemn oath (bai’at), swearing spiritual allegiance to pir, and his
spiritual descendants. Baba Farid mostly gave ta’widh (charm or
amulets) to his followers,71 “who saw in these ta’widh a protection
against evil, a boon for good fortune, or against for the cure of an
illness”.72 Some practices were peculiar to certain pirs. For instance
the shrine of Baba Farid has its bahisti darwaz (a door of paradise):
“Numbers of pilgrims, both Hindus and Muslims came to visit the
shrine and all who pass through this doorway (Janati Darwaza) are
considered saved from the fires of perdition”.73
The reliance on oral discourse for disseminating the religious
teachings was another peculiar characteristic of the syncretic
tradition. At that time oral tradition and person to person contact was
considered necessary.74 The common people took bai’at to their pir
who gave them certain instructions about dhikr and meditation which
was considered sufficient for the eternal salvation as well as the
panacea for his sufferings and pains.75 Its incorporation of oral
tradition apart from a few other reasons, made it distinctively
different from the scriptural Islam believed and professed by orthodox
ulama.76

(III)

SYNCRETIC TRADITION OF PUNJAB THROUGH MYSTICAL POETRY

The interaction of Bhakti saints and Islamic Sufis produced a popular
treasure of regional poetry which was deeply enshrined in syncretic
tradition. A direct relationship between the individual and God came
to be substituted in the Indo‐mystical tradition by the devotees,
seeking intercession from a revered local Sufi master to reach the
Supreme Being.77 “The Bhakti reformers gave a helping hand to the
Sufis in bringing about Hindu Muslim unity….It fostered the feelings of
religious tolerance between the Hindus and Muslims and electrified
the process of synthesis between their socio‐cultural traits”. 78
Syncretic ideas found their most visible expression in the
mystical poetry. In the absence of written tradition, this tradition was
carried through oral medium which also helped in disseminating such
ideas to the common people. Poetry of Baba Farid, Shah Hussain
(1539‐93), Sultan Bahu (1628‐91), Waris Shah (1706‐1798) and Bulleh
Shah (1680‐1758) influenced the receptive minds of people in the
Punjab. Baba Farid Shakar Ganj was among those earliest exponents of
syncretic tradition who used poetry as a mean of professing his
teachings. The main themes in his poetry are respect for murshid,
112
humility, love for humanity, tolerance and a endorsement of common
cultural heritage among various religious communities.79 The following
couplets amply reflect his philosophy.

O Farid, God lives in His creatures.
Whom I term evil, there is nothing but God.80

O Farid, black my clothes, black my guise
Full of sins I walk about, people canonize.
In this verse Baba Farid expressed his humiliation.81

Every human heart is a pearl.
If you seek to the beloved do not break any one’s heart.82

Shah Hussain was another exponent of syncretic tradition. His poetry
reflects a strong influence of Chishtia saints and Bhakti cult.83 His
poetry centered on love for humanity and religious tolerance.84 His
poetry also criticized priests for holding fundamental beliefs and
dividing the society on religious lines.85

Travelers, I to have to go; I have to go to the solitary hut of Ranjha.
Is there anyone who will go with me?
I have accompany me and how I setout alone.
Travelers, Is there no one who could go with me?
The river is deep and the shaky bridge creaks as people step on it.
And the ferry is known haunt of tigers. Will now or lonely hut of
Ranjha. During long nights I have been tortured by my raw wounds. I
113
have heard he in his lonely hut knows the sure remedy with me,
travelers.86

Shah Hussain was a disciple of Shah Bahlol Qadri of Chiniot and he had
spent his early life in the attainment of knowledge and spiritual
meditation, Hindu influence was explicit in his thought.87 Shah Hussain
revived the tradition of Punjabi poetry that was initiated by Baba
Farid.
Another Sufi poet of pre‐modern Punjab was Sultan Bahu.
Like Shah Hussain Sultan, Bahu gained immense popularity in the
Punjab. He belonged to the Qadria order and remained against the
religious discrimination.

Some merge with the Beloved form in the idol‐shrine of their hearts,
While others pore over scriptures in mosques, gaining nothing.
Scholars renounce their, superior, learning. O’ Bahu, when they learn
the prayer of love.88
Bahu's mystical poetry was an expression of disillusionment
with formal, legalistic and institutionalized forms of religion.89 He
preached an absolute love and devotion to God. While expressing his
remarks about the mullah (Islamic theologian) Bahu says:

All night you spend in prayer and worship,
All day you indulge in slanderous talk.
The power and authority of the world is false, o Bahu!
True is the sovereignty of the faqr. 90

Having read a thousand books they feel they know.
But as they have not read the one essential word love,
They wander astray, and poor ones are lost.91

114
Through detachment from this world under the guidance of a sufi one
can successfully tame his soul. Sultan Bahu stressed the importance of
piri‐muridi relationship and argues that:

My Master has planted in my heart,
The jasmine of Allah’s name
Both my denial that the Creation is real
And my embracing of God, the only reality
has nourished the seedling down to its core.
When the buds of mystery unfolded
Into the blossoms of revelation,
My entire being was filled with God’s fragrance.
May the perfect master be ever blessed, O Bahu!
Who planted this jasmine in my heart.92

Syncretic tradition is fully expressed in Bahu’s following couplets:

I am neither a Sunni nor a Shia;
Both make me sick, both cause me heart burn
The arid part of my journey ended
When I turned away from both
And plunged into the ocean of oneness.93

Bahu opposed the differences between Shia and Sunnis and
highlighted the purification of soul by submitting oneself fully to the
spiritual tutelage of the murshid. The lover of God does not take into
account any specific version of humanism prescribed by a particular
creed or sect. He appeared to have submerged in the self of his
murshid. His poetry also underscores the importance of murshid and
his bai’at:

115

If you desire to attain the oneness of God,
the master with your heart and soul.
When the Master casts his merciful glance on you,
The buds of mystery will unfold
Into the blossoms of revelation.94

Baba Bulleh Shah, another prominent exponent of syncretic tradition
was the disciple of Shah Inayat Qadri (1648‐1728) who was well
initiated in Hindu philosophy.95 Baba Bulleh Shah vehemently criticized
orthodoxy in his poetry. “The sheer joy in the ordinary delights of life
and the familiarity with which Bulleh Shah addresses God is just one
example of the type of poetry which has over the centuries imbued
subjectively into the consciousness of the common folk of the
Punjab”.96 He indicated that the human archetype was conceived even
before the creation of universe. His poetry and particularly the genre
of kafis are profoundly steeped in wajudi essence: 97

Bullah Shah’s another couplet reflects his Wajudi belief.

Not a believer inside the mosque is I
Nor a pagan disciple of false rites
Not the pure amongst the impure
Neither Moses, nor the Pharoh98

In this kafi he questioned the religious beliefs and claims of emperors
and also argues the equality and love for humanity. The syncretic
tradition also finds reflection in the following couplet:

116

Reading the Vedas and Quran (they) are tired.
By bowing to the ground, the foreheads are worn out.
God is neither in the temple nor in Mecca.
One who has found love, his light is powerful99

Waris Shah is another representative of syncretic tradition who
inspired many through his forceful poetic messages. Many
commentaries were written on his famous folk love tale of Heer
Ranjha which enormously influenced the sensibility of locals in the
Punjab. He also highlights the necessity of bai’at of pir in the following
couplet:

No path can be found without a saint,
And milk pudding cannot be cooked without milk.100

Waris Shah disapproved religious orthodoxy:

Believing they are well read muftis feel they can give judgment.
But without love they have remained ignorant.
More studying gives no knowledge of God.
For that there is only one apt word: Love.101

This brief over‐view suggests that syncretic tradition was forcefully
expressed in the mystic poetry and effectively served as a medium of
professing Wajudi ideas. This poetry is not only the manifestation of
individual thinking but also reflects the pluralistic values among the
locals. Mian Muhammad Baksh (1830‐1907) sums up the essence of
syncretic tradition in his following couplet:

117

At first comes Shaikh Farid Gang Shakar, who is the man of sainthood,
Every word of his tongue is a leader towards right path.
Sultan Bahu comes who is a special righteous man
The Dohas by him are like a shining sun everywhere.
By listening Bulleh Shah’ kafis the infidelity of inside vanished
He had been swimming in the river of oneness.
Waris Shah is the master of talking, none can refute him. 102

CONCLUSION

By rejecting the orthodox beliefs professed by theologians, the
syncretic tradition reformulated or re‐defined the religious values of
Islam in this region and provided it a pluralistic outlook.103 Due to the
syncretic tradition, the heartland of Indian society (Gangetic belt) also
absorbed certain features of Muslim culture.104 The pluralistic values
contributed towards the enrichment of Punjabi society in cultural
terms. It made Indian Islam characteristically different from the other
Muslim societies such as in the Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and the
Middle East.105
Mystic poetry of all the above mentioned Sufis significantly
contributed in the growth and development of syncretic tradition
giving rise to the humanistic features of love to all, Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud,
freethinking, music, dance and saintly intercession.106 Syncretic
tradition is also reflected in the Punjabi folklore which was commonly
shared by people from various denominations, 107 which profoundly
influenced the local sensibility. The folklore comprises various forms of
poetry like duhas, tapas, mahiyas, romantic epics etc, which became
peculiar feature of popular culture of Punjab.108 Ayesha Jalal opines:
“The Sufi mystical and folk tradition in Punjabi poetry vibrates with
many of the same sentiments as can be found in its counterpart in
Sind. Equally influenced by the Islamic impact, in its Persian and Arabic
variants, the mainly oral literature of this region was disseminated by
itinerant local bards and subsequently recorded”.109
Syncretic tradition also facilitated the emergence of new
religious cults especially Sikhism which synthesized various features of
118
Islam and Hinduism. Its founder Baba Guru Nanak believed in the
Islamic concept of God and rejected polytheism in any form.110 “The
syncretic movement of Sikhism in the Punjab was intimately linked
with Kabir, some parts of his work it incorporated Adi Granth”,111 even
some portions of Baba Farid’s poetry are included in Sikh religious
text.112 Not only Sikhism but Pinadri band may also be seen as the
offshoot of syncretic tradition in the Punjab. They comprised both
Hindus and Muslims and had “developed a syncretic popular religion
in which the goddess Kali featured alongside Muslim saints as the
object of veneration”.113

119
END NOTES

1
According to the American Heritage Dictionary Syncretic Tradition means
‘reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or
religion, the merging of two or more originally different inflectional forms.
Religious syncretism exhibits the blending of two or more religious system into
a new tradition.’ According to Catholic Encyclopedia ‘syncretism’ means to
designate the fusion of pagan religions; it is the process by which elements of
one religion are assimilated into another religion resulting in a change in the
fundamental tenets or nature of those religions.’ The Sufi ethos that
constitutes equality, social justice, Suleh Kul, Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud ideology and
accommodationist vision. All these factors of syncretic tradition created
pluralistic outlook among the Sufis.
2
Qazi Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib (Lahore: Vanguard Books Limited, 1977),
p.333.
3
Rene Guenon, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrine, (trans.),
Marco Pallis (London: Luzac & Company, 1945), pp.261‐62. Also see Ibid.,
p.339.
4
Ikram Ali Malik, Tarikh‐i‐Punjab, vol.1 (Lahore: Salman Matbuat, 1990),
pp.98‐99. Robin Rinehart also traces the origin of syncretic ethos in ancient
Indian philosophy. Also see Robin Rinehart, “The Portable Bulleh Shah:
Biography, Categorization and Authorship in the Study of Punjabi Sufi Poetry”,

Numen, Vol.47, (1), (1999), p.68.
5
Buddha Prakash, Political and Social Movements in Ancient Punjab (Lahore:
Aziz Publishers, 1976), p.7.
6
Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.340.
7
Tara Chand, Influence of Islam on Indian Culture (Lahore: Book Traders,
1979), p.132.
8
Guenon, Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines, pp.261‐62.
9
Chand, Influence of Islam on Indian Culture, p.112.
10
S. A. A. Rizvi, Shah Waliullah and His Times (Canberra: Ma’rifat Publishing
House, 1980), p.358.
11
Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, pp.26‐27.
12
J. L. Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India: Medieval
Indian Society and Culture, (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Limited,
1983), p.200.
13
14
Auliya Rinjon Mahatir, Philosophy of Religions, (trans.) (Lahore: Fiction
House, 1999), pp.164‐65.
15
Though Chishtiya and Suhrawardyia Orders the influence of Rumi and that
of Ibn‐ul‐Arabi in the form of poetry reached India by the end of 13th century
onward. Mathnawi of Maulana Rumi served as the carrier of Wajudi ideas in
India among the Sufis. See Richard M. Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian
History, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.190. Also see Asghar Ali
Engineer, “Sufi Islam: the harbinger of peace” in the Tribune, March 28, 2002.
120
And Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Lahore: Sang‐e‐Meel
Publications, 2003), p.130.
16
Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p.17.
17
Qazi Javed, Hindi‐Muslim Tehzib, p.324.
18
Noor Ahmad Chishti, Tahqiqat‐i‐Chishti (Lahore: Al‐Faisal Nashran, 2001),
p.174.
19
Ikram Ali, Tarikh‐i‐Punjab, vol.1, p‐88.
20
Ibid.
21
22
Ali, Tarikh‐i‐Punjab, vol.1, p.99. Also see Afzal Iqbal, “Influence of Rumi on
the Culture of South Asia” Journal of Pakistan Studies Vol.2, (1&2), (1993),
p.52.
23
24
Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, p.191.
25
Mystical poetry of Baba Farid, Shah Hussain, Baba Bulleh Shah and Sultan
Bahu pertained these symbols, which was amply testimony of the theory of
Wahdat‐ul‐Wajud.
26
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p.345. Also see Murry T. Titus,
Islam in India and Pakistan, (Karachi: Royal Book Company, 1990), p.156. Also
see Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Tarikh‐i‐Masshaikh‐i‐Chisht (Lahore: Mushtaq Book
Corner, n.d), pp.451‐496.
27
Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India, p.202.
28
29
Romela Thapar, Early India: From Origin to AD 1300 (New Delhi: Penguin
Books Limited, 2002), p.488.
30
31
Ibid., p.327.
32
Mubarak Ali, Barr‐e‐Saghir Mein Musalman Moashray Ka Almiyya, (Lahore:

Fiction House, 2005), p.85.
33
Vali‐ud‐Din, Cultural History of India, cited in Mehta, Advanced Study in the
History of Medieval India, p.199.
34
Satish Saberwal, “On the Making of Muslim”, Historian (unpublished), p.2.
35
Ali, Tarikh‐i‐Punjab, vol.1, p.97.
36
Qazi Javed, “Punjab ki Sufiana Tarikh Par Aik Nazar”, in Mubarak Ali (ed.),

Seh Mahi Tarikh (Lahore: Fiction House, Jan,2001),p. 57.
37
Rizvi, Shah Waliullah and His Times, p.358.
38
Shaikh Muhammad Ikram, Abi Kausar (Lahore: Edar‐i‐Saqafat‐i‐Islam, 1990),
p.222.
39
Richard M. Eaton has provide a detailed account of their conversion at the
hands of Baba Farid. See for detail Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History,
p.215.
40
Tahir Mahmud Malik, “Silsila Qadriya Ka Bani” Jang (April 29, 2007).
41
Abdul Majeed Sindhi, Pakistan main Sufiyana Tehrikain (Lahore: Sang‐e‐

Meel Publishers, 2000), pp.85‐86.
42
Majeed, Pakistan main Sufiyana Tehrikain, pp.83‐90.
43
Najeeb Ashraf cited in Ikram, Abi Kausar, p.456.
44
121
45
Chand, History of Freedom Movement in India,Vol‐1, (Lahore: Book Traders,
1979), p.208.
46
Ibid.
47
Aitzaz Ahsan, The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan, (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 1996), pp.138‐39.
48
Ibid.
49
Ibid.
50
Ibid.
51
Ikram, Abi Kausar, p.465.
52
53
Ibid., p.325.
54
55
Ibid., p.207.
56
57
Mukash Akbar Abadi, Masail‐i‐Tasawaf (Lahore: Book Home 2004), p.67.
58
59
Nizami, Tarikh‐i‐Masshaikh‐i‐Chisht, pp.494‐496.
60
Interview with Muahmmad Ashraf Sialvi Muhtamam Jamia Ghauthiya
Mehria Sargodha dated January 8, 2007.
61
Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, pp.229‐30.
62
Khanqah denoted a hospice where Sufis accommodated their disciple for
spiritual training. Also see David Gilmartin, “Religious Leadership and the
Pakistan Movement in the Punjab” Modern Asian Studies, Vol.13, no.3 (1979),
490.
63
Mubarak Ali, Barr‐e‐Saghir Mein Musalman Moashray Ka Almiyya, p.85.
64
Maksub Ahmad Khan, “Khanqahs: Centers of Learning” in Mansura Haider
(ed), Sufis, Sultans and Feudal Orders, (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2004),
pp.71‐3.
65
Ibid.
66
Francis Robinson,” Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact
of Print” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27(1), (Feb., 1993), p. 238.
67
Gilmartin, “Religious Leadership and the Pakistan Movement in the Punjab”,
p. 491.
68
Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, pp.239‐41.
69
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p.346.
70
Richard Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, p.204.
71
Ibid., p.‐239.
72
Ibid., p.205.
73
Ibid., p.242.
74
Robinson,” Technology and Religious Change”, p.238.
75
Eaton, Essays on Islam and Indian History, p.239.
76
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Commentaries, Print and Patronage: Hadith
and the Madrasas in Modern South Asia” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies, Vol.62(1) (1999), p.60.
77
Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian
Islam Since 1850 (Lahore: Sang‐e‐Meel Publishers, 2001), p.17.
78
79
122
80
Baba Farid cited in Syed Afzal Hussain and Agha Amir Hussain, Azeem Sufi
Bazurg Baba Farid (Lahore: Classic, 1992), p.307.
81
Shafqat Tanveer Mirza, “Dohas of Baba Farid”, Dawn (Jan, 2006)
82
http/www.apnaorg.com, Hassan N. Gardezi, “Sufi Mysticism of Indus Valley”
(accessed on 26 Jan 2006)
83
84
http/www.apnaorg.com (accessed on 26 Jan 2006)
85
86
http/www.the‐south‐asian.com (accessed on 26 Jan 2006)
87
Javed, Barr‐e‐Saghir Mein Muslim Fikr, pp‐167‐68.
88
Sultan Bahu, Abeyant of Hazrat Bahu, Eng. Trans, Maqsood Saqib, (Lahore:
Suchet Kitab Ghar, 2004), p.31.
89
90
Bahu, Abeyant of Hazrat Bahu, p.65.
91
Bahu, Abeyant of Hazrat Bahu, p.39.
92
Ibid., p.31.
93
Ibid., p.150.
94
Ibid., p.50.
95
96
Jalal, Self and Sovereignty, p.21.
97
Mehr Ali Golrwi, Mirat‐al‐Irfan (Lahore: Pakistan International Printers
Limited, 1986), p.1.
98
Bulleh Shah, Kalam Baba Bulleh Shah (Lahore: Edara‐e‐Peaigham al‐Quran,
2006), p.153. Also see Taufiq Rafat, Bulleh Shah: A Selection, (Trans), (Lahore:
Vanguard Publications, 1982), pp‐68‐71.
99
Ahsan, The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan, p.146.
100
Kalam Waris Shah quoted in Saeed Ahmad, Great Sufi Wisdom Waris Shah
(Rawalpindi: Adnan Books, 2003), p.39.
101
Ahsan, The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan, p.147.
102
Mian Muhammad Baksh, Kalam Mian Muhammad Baksh (Lahore: Shabir
Brothers, n.d), pp‐109‐10.
103
104
S. M. Ikram, A History of Muslim Civilization in India and Pakistan, (Lahore:
Institute of Islamic Culture, 1997), pp.250‐51.
105
106
107
Wendy Reich,” The uses of Folklore in Revitalization movement”, Folklore,
Vol.82, no.3, (Autumn, 1971), 233.
108
Reich, “The uses of Folklore in Revitalization movement”, p.234.
109
Jalal, Self and Sovereignty, p.21.
110
I. H. Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo‐ Pakistan Subcontinent
610‐1947 (Karachi: Ma’rifat Limited, 1977), p.131.
111
Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Karachi:

Oxford University Press, 1964), p.152.
112
Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo‐ Pakistan Subcontinent, p.132.
113
C. A. Bayly, Origin of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical
Government in the Making of Modern India (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1998), p.217.
123
Hussain Ahmad Khan, Negotiating With Other
REVIEW ARTICLE
NEGOTIATING WITH OTHER: CONCEPTUALIZING

CULTURE AND POWER
HUSSAIN AHMAD KHAN

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE,
SINGAPORE
Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration of
Landscape and History (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1988)
Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre‐State in 19th Century Bali
(NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980)
James L Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar (Durham and
London: Duke University Press, 1995)

Contemporary historians have paid a particular attention towards
conceptualizing the interaction of various cultures. They investigated
such negotiations with different analytical tools: a few used
Foucauldian and Saidian paradigms to understand this negotiation as
a mean of exerting power, many others emphasized upon a complex
process of exchange and transformation of cultural values. How can
we study a culture, what is the relationship of power with culture and
rituals, can ideas be formulated by studying the encounter of
individuals with a barren land? All these inter‐related questions are
addressed in the books under review. These books are similar in a
sense that all of them deal with the encounter of different cultures,
identifying multiple voices, and conceptualizing tradition within an
alien land. These books also see a relationship of power with culture
and explore the delicacies of this relation in the social settings of
different societies. The books under review study the interaction of
alien/different cultures in different societies.

127
(I)

Grounded in local history drawn from a range of cultural, temporal
and spatial settings, The Road to Botany Bay conceptualizes complex
ways in which taken‐for‐granted historical assumptions of the
aborigines, Australia’s earlier inhabitants are discursively
(re)produced, negotiated and contested. Like his other publications, 1
Paul Carter contends that whatever written about the colonized
states has been distilled through the version of the First Fleet
Chroniclers like Philip, Tench, Collins, Hunter and White. 2 The real
colonized is still groping in the darkness in order to be rightly
understood and interpreted, and to speak for itself.
The title of the book deceptively reminds us of a fertile land
or a coastal area, however, it is a barren place full of burnt bushes
and ashes without a single trodden path that could be found. The
metaphorical allusion of ‘The Road to Botany’ depicts “a fantasy
about the other place”, a place that is still to be discovered, a land to
which limitless fables are associated. Thus it points to the history of
history‐less people, the subjects on their own land and who are yet
to be treated as actors. It is also the sensibility of first generation of
explorers who thought Australia as a “place of market schemes, the
place of highwaymen, unseen violence”, etc. 3 Moreover, Carter
identifies this road to a journey towards a new geographical history,
i.e., spatial history as opposed to the Imperial history. The Road to
Botany Bay sheds the veil of imperial studies and introduces the
history of ecological records and their implication in the construction
of history. Its interest lies in the unfinished maps, travel records and
unread footprints that provide us with the pre‐historical details. The
history, not concerned with a chronological order but to the
“historical beginnings”, is labelled as the spatial history. In order to
authenticate the analyzed annals, every chapter of the book is
punctuated with a line taken from the existing records of the
historians.
Carter devotes a whole chapter in dealing with the problem
of referentiality in the Australian backdrop. It examines Captain
Cook’s act of giving names to Australian coasts, mountains and
terrestrial planes. The historians have to juggle with the double
identity of Cook, as a person and as a mythical character. Both
categories reflect the extreme nature of Imperial history and the
problem begins when these traits are confused in the historical
writings. “His descriptions of the Australian coast are said to be less
128
than fulsome and, much worse, he never came back”. 4 Thus the
character of Cook oscillates between critical remarks of Thomas De
Quincey, and the positive appraisal of John Cawte Beaglehole. Where
De Quincey has reservations on Cook’s act of giving name,
Beaglehole thinks it subtle and discrete. Whatever criticism is
generated by the Western historians, it centres on the issue of
‘historical positivity’ that leads to the neat Imperial mind set. Clark
believes that the important aspect in Cook’s act of giving names is
“the active nature of the explorer’s space and time’. His names
‘claimed no finality or universal validity. On the contrary, they were
deployed contextually, strategically… They alluded to the journey
itself, as it unfolded horizontally, revealing itself as a succession of
5
events”. Hence, Cook traces “the genealogy of particulars” rather
than going in chronological or thematic intricacies.
Carter argues that the colonizers imagined the colonized.
For instance, Caleb Burchett, one of the explorers of Australia,
created his own space which was not actually present before his
arrival. He interpreted the map by using his ability to translate it
symbolically. Carter contends that the historians and explorers,
ironically, relied on stories of socially oppressed convicts. The wild
imagination of convicts led them to present the Botany Bay as a path
which leads to a definite place. Ironically, their metaphoric
representation and figurative language was the legacy of the
6
Western reasoning. It resembled the British’s portrayal of the British
Empire. For convicts, Botany Bay was the symbol of freedom that
could substitute the loss of their space. The first fleet historians
mocked at the convicts for their “fertility of imagination” and
storytelling, yet they exploited the convicts’ creative skill for their
own purpose of history making. Thus the fabrication of the events by
the convicts “represented strategies for constructing a believable
place‐‐‐ a place in which to speak and, no less important, a place
from which to escape”. 7 In other words, another space is carved out
on the map of history that reflects the agony of dislocation in mythic
fantasies.
According to Carter, the Western historians are unable to
find out the spatial significance of a place in the generic discourse of
history. The place is treated just like a stage which is dependent on
its actors. Carter specifically discusses this point with reference to the
history of Australia. He opines that for historians like Clark and
Blainy, “Australia was always simply a stage where history occurred,
history gives a theatrical performance”. 8 These historians ascribe the
129
role of staging an event to history and not to the historians. To them
the history reveals itself in an orderly manner and writes its own
destiny. Carter attributes such passive, reduced and static role of
spatial orientation to ‘imperial history’. The imperial history gives us
neat classifications and treats all histories as fit in the pre‐existed
taxonomies. The logic of cause and effect of imperial history blurs our
vision and leads us to illusive alleys of an “emergence of order from
chaos”. The dramatic role of history weaves a heroic narrative where
the historical events and characters are stumbled into performing a
fable.
The second misrepresented fact is the “cultural absence” of
the aborigines who are merely treated as a “prop”. Their role is
reduced and contrasted against the heroic fable of Cook as the
discoverer of Australia. Carter contends that the Road to Botany Bay
also sheds light on the aborigines. It was their “meeting place”, and
also symbolizes the encounter with nature and savages. 9 Carter
equates these savages with convicts and argues that both categories
made their appearance in white history as comparable entities on the
basis of unreasonableness and uncivilised behaviour. Both are
identified as tale‐bearers. Aborigines lost their language and culture,
and became silent entities on the pages of histories. Carter argues
that aborigines’ history is a symbolic history. They are absent or
10
partially present in our historical consciousness . This very absence
from our historical consciousness leads us to question the “form and
historically constitutive role” of our histories. 11
Carter uses the history of place and space to question the
assumptions of the Western historians. To him, the task of spatial
history is to restore the suppressed and muffled voices that are heard
and understood through their personal space. It may begin in one’s
fantasy, but represents a mythic past. In case of Botany Bay, the
aborigines destroyed the floral beauty of the land as it hindered their
path. What the convicts saw was actually the aftermath, not the
integral part of that place, however, through the ashes the whole
metaphoric story was emerged. Spatial history brings into discussion
the fossilized past and makes us flee from the physical to the
metaphysical. Its objective is to negate the pre‐defined boundaries
and to show us the “plurality of historical directions”. It leads us to
think about the history that does not fit into any prior taxonomy or
classification and to generate a nihilistic approach.
Carter does take help from Derrida 12 in elaborating
fossilized past when he terms spatial history like ashes which we can
130
neither ignore not comprehend. This leads him to identify the
fractured history. We cannot understand past as it was. We can only
know its traces. It is precisely here that he becomes critical of
imperial and western histories. But his overall argument remains
Eurocentric in nature when he says that in historical discourse,
aborigines are absent or silent. Carter apparently ignores the cultural
transformation from one form to another, especially in the
interaction between a colonized and colonizer. In a new form, older
values always exist. It is understandably so because Carter’s analysis
looks at convicts and aborigines with the same conception. If the
history of colonial Australia is not that of massacre or murder, then
there should be a kind of negotiating ground which can help in
understanding the aborigines. Another problem in his discourse is
that he questions cause and effect relationship in historical discourse
yet argues that knowledge is the effect of power. In this sense he is
contradicting himself. By adopting such approach, Carter fails to
explain the accidents, innovation, and the epistemic crisis that the
empire faces in colony where it (empire) needs help of locals to
overcome these problems.

(II)

Status was everywhere, whether it was in ideas or in constructed
social reality. It was in the heart of culture which was not imposed
through oppressive state apparatus, but by using ritualization. 13 This
ritualization or acts of performance defined the very notion of
hierarchical structure and gave it legitimacy. This is the main theme
of Clifford Geertz’s book, Negara: The Theatre‐State. Geertz’s use of
symbols and rituals in power structure is somewhat similar to Yuri
Lotman. Both deploy the technique of semiotics to define the system
of hierarchies and order in the society. 14
Geertz associates the notion of historical centrality to
Negara (literally means town, city) while conceptualizing Indonesian
history. The word, Negara, in its broadest sense means the high
culture that a city supports. There were many Negaras which are
difficult to trace on the basis of evidence. From the fifth century
onwards, various kingdoms rose, reigned, fought and fell “in a steady,
broadening stream”. 15 The process of “state formation and
dissolution” 16 came to an end with the Dutch occupation of the
region. The development of pre‐colonial Indonesia was not a
monolithic entity rather it comprised loose networks of variegated
131
states. Arrival of Muslims and then Dutch brought radical changes in
Indonesia, but still Bali remained unaffected from developments. For
Geertz it can be considered “a model of Negara” that can be used for
understanding the history of Indic Indonesia (i.e. Cambodia, Thailand,
Burma).
Unlike other countries where rituals and ceremonies were
means of accumulating and extending power, Balinese state rulers
treated power as a mean to achieve some sacred ritual, i.e. “power
served pomp, not pomp served power” 17 . The fantasy of Balinese
state lied in the sanctity of pride over all other matters. The rulers of
this state thought that the power and sovereignty was naturally given
to them by God, and it was their duty to preserve it. Such thought
was half influenced by the Indian caste system. Suicide was
considered a dignified way to end one’s life, and the local rulers
preferred it rather than getting subjugated by the foreign invasions.
The hierarchical state could not have been possible without
a support from the lower stratum of the society. In south Bali, this
support came from the caste system. It was based on two broad
categories triwangsa (comprising three varnas – Brahmana, Stria and
Wesia), the other was Sudra (may also be called outsiders).
“Triwanga” were further divided into those “who owned power and
those who did not; and whereas the former received deference and
18
obedience from the Sudras, the latter received deference alone” .
Kingship was another important institution. The groups
maintained their identity through endogamy and by the process of
differentiation. Emergence of a new group within the same old group
made hierarchical structure flexible. Another important social
institution, Clientship, helped in maintaining the state structure. It
constructed a relationship not only within different groups but also
with other regions. 19 This clientship had several forms like spiritual,
commercial and political etc. Along with the clientship was another
cushion to state organization, i.e., alliance. These alliances were
among the individuals, groups and regions and extracted strengths
from “cultural and symbolic” entities and associations rather than
“sociological and structural” 20 links. For instance, exchange of gifts,
symbolic association with six Great Temples (Sad Kaliyangan),
contracts and treaties. These treatises not only defined “official
players in this superordinate game”, but also “codified the pretexts
upon which the alliances could be broken” 21 .
The Negara always tried to absorb village society which was
somewhat “self contained, cosmologically based organic unit” 22 . The
132
nobles build their houses near the palace of their core‐line king” 23 .
Unlike gentry, peasantry’s polity was local‐centric. It had three major
roles: (i) to order and regulate community life (ii) to oversee
irrigation and (iii) the management of popular rituals. For each of
these functions separate institutions were established which had
their own hierarchies. They were “non‐coordinated rather, they
intersect and overlap” 24 . A state official (perbekel) linked villager to
the lord. It was not a coercive relationship rather “ceremonial
system” helped to operate the system. 25
Hierarchical structure was also manifested in the political
spectacles. Such type of “ceremonial life was as much a form of
rhetoric as it was of devotion, a florid boasting assertion of spiritual
power. Leaping alive into flames was only one of the grander
statements of a proposition that royal tooth filings, royal temple
dedications, royal ordinations, and in the puputans, royal suicides
made in other, no less categorical ways: there is an unbreakable
inner connection between social rank and religious condition. The
26
state cult was not a cult of the state” . Such culture can only be
understood by explaining some expressed “symbolic forms” and
relationship of these symbols with the social fibre, which Geertz
terms as a “hermeneutic circle” 27 . King had central place in all these
ceremonies and “the place where he sits” – palace‐ became “a sacred
symbol, a replica of the order it was constructed to celebrate” 28 . In
Bali, “the state drew its force, which was real enough, from its
imaginative energies, its semiotic capacity to make inequality
enchant”. 29 Greetrz’s main contention is to restore native’s voice as
he had argued in his many writings, 30 which led him to take refuge in
conceptualizing Bali’s rituals as an end rather than a source of power.
However, he does not explain much about the audience of such
events where the rulers committed suicide. In such a way, Geertz not
only fails to substantiate his basic hypothesis (power serves pomp
rather than pomp serves power) but also fails to fulfil his agenda of
restoring the voice of locals.

(III)

James Hevia’s book is about ‘Guest Ritual’, imperial audience, and
rites through which Qing dynasty executed its foreign policy. The
book also examines the working of British embassy under Georg Lord
Macartney in the late eighteenth century. It questions many notions
like “Chinese world order”, “sinocentricism”, “tribute system”, and
133
interpretations of Sino‐Western conflict by Euro‐American

intellectuals regarding the fixity of Chinese culture in remote past.
Hevia’s main intention is to “construct a symmetrical account, one
that would not privilege either the Qing or British record of events
and would in the process help to breakup simplistic dichotomies”
(like China/West, tradition/modernity, etc.). 31 Hevia explores an old
issue with a new dimension to objectively analyse the facts. By
borrowing the analytical tools from Edward Said, Gramsci, Foucault
and Raymond William, Hevia pursues a historiographic genre with
anthropological understanding of Qing ritualization. His study
investigates the cultural misunderstandings resulting from the
formation of discrete imperial structures of sovereignty and power.
He critically evaluates the sources in English and Chinese languages
about Macartney’s mission and treatment of Sino‐Western
encounter. Hevia unravels the cross cultural power in the Chinese
and the British statecraft.
The book analyzes the initial meeting between Lord
Macartney, the representative of the East India Company, and the
Qianlong emperor. Hevia consults the original Chinese sources in
order to present the story of Chinese side. While planning and
organizing the British embassy in China, the main purposes were to
serve not only economic interests of the British Empire, but also to
project ceremonial values of the motherland. For Hevia, the latter
aim of the British embassy was primarily to celebrate “the national
character” of the Great monarchy in Asia. “Qing court was probably
32
the most sophisticated in Asia” and might get easily impressed
with the “rhetorical display” of Macartney’s English manners. Here,
Hevia critically analyzes the use of British vocabulary items like
‘diplomacy’, ‘trade’, and the British interpretation of ‘China’ and
‘oriental sensibilities’. Sensibility of all such notions was manifested
in a letter from George III to the Qianlong emperor. George III began
his letter by showing equality between the monarchs of both China
and the Great Britain with all the titles of Sovereignty like ‘His Most
Sacred Majesty’, ‘Supreme Emperor of China’ etc. Then George III
unravels his purpose of sending the British fleet to China, which was
to discover new territories and to gain knowledge. The main purpose
of establishing embassy in China also remained the same. According
to Hevia, “[it was] the way in which the British ambassador insisted
on presenting it that provides a point of entry into the cultural world
33
from which the letter came” . In the late eighteenth century, the
British ‘bourgeois civil society’ was cognizant of the significance of
134
‘diplomacy’ and ‘trade’ “as the two mechanisms for communicating

across national boundaries”. 34 The so‐called public opinion was
generated through this class, who disdainfully rejected the values of
the lower strata of the society by labelling them ‘vulgar’. Such
foundations of bourgeois civil society were also engrained in the
British embassy, which “provided rich metaphors for translating
Chinese actions’ into familiar behavioural categories”. 35 Chinese
nation was presented as “speaking one language, governed by one
law, and sympathizing in the same manners”. 36 On the contrary, the
English government was a combination of different hierarchical
orders, aristocracy, and democracy. The Chinese fashion of art and
architecture became a part of eighteenth century Europe, yet it was
considered as the ‘mere fabrication of European style’. Even the acts
of British ambassador in the Chinese court were interpreted as a
mean of celebrating the sovereignty of the British Empire.
One way of understanding the traditional philosophy of a
state is to study the rituals of its people. With this notion, Hevia
analyzes “the textual sources of Guest Ritual” and traces the
exclusive and inclusive nature of lords and their hierarchical
structures. He begins this study by presenting a stark contrast
between the English and Chinese meanings of ‘Guest’. Contrary to
the English meanings of Guest, the Chinese connotations mean the
37
people below the rank of the emperor. According to Hevia, “the
lesser lords are said to come to court and make offerings. That is,
they present petitions and local products (fangwu), things unique or
special to their domain”. 38 It furthers the difference between higher
and lower domains. To Hevia, in Chinese civilization or at least in the
court ritualizations, the relationship of people with the things was
more important than the relationship of people among themselves.
This whole ontological process leads to “the process of centring”
where the “engagement between cosmic pattern and human
classification continually channels action away from extremes and
toward a contingent spatial centre that temporarily constitutes a
39
cosmo‐moral order made up of the Cosmos, earth, and humanity”.
The primary purpose of this ritual is to provide the occasion where
the strength of ‘lesser lords’ is acknowledged and considered
inclusive. The process of Guest Ritual gives us the theory of
asymmetry that is missing in the British Imperial structures. Hevia
deduces all this information from the section on the Guest Ritual of
Comprehensive Rites of the Great Qing and Lord Macartney’s
account.
135
Hevia’s methodological approach is different from the

Rankian and EH Carr’s tradition of common truth. He intends to
“destabilize the taken‐for‐granted relationship between sources
(facts) and interpretation”. 40 He admits that all historical accounts
are political in nature but his intention is to locate “our own
historiography” that is concerned with our daily life. Like Said and
Foucault, he acknowledges that the present defines the past;
European and Chinese accounts of Europe may be viewed within this
perspective. The book, as a whole, presents a well knit argument. It
not only provides new facts about the first British embassy in China
but also explores them in a new way. One major problem in the book
is that it treats multifarious tendencies in the Chinese culture.
However, it fails to appreciate the multiplicity of voices in
the European thought. One also feels overemphasis on power
structure which ignores the forces at work. The actors who were
actual part of the event are de‐contextualized and assigned a place
within the power structure. Although the author did try to
contextualize Macartney’s tendencies but more description of the
Chinese background may have been useful for the reader. However,
the more problematic point in the book is the projection of
nationalism in the functioning of British embassy. Many studies
suggest that the nationalism developed in the nineteenth century
British Empire. However, Hevia studies it in the eighteenth century
Britain.
136
END NOTES

1
Paul Carter, The Lie of the Land (1996), Material Thinking: Collaborative
Realisation and the Art of Self‐Becoming (2004).
2
Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration of Landscape and
History (New York: Knopf, 1987), p. 295.
3
Ibid., p. 318.
4
Ibid., p.1.
5
Ibid., p.7.
6
See a good commentary on western tradition of testimony, Rick Kennedy, A
History of Reasonableness: Testimony and Authority in the Art of Thinking (NY:
University of Rochester Press, 2004)
7
Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, p. 295‐6.
8
Ibid., p. xiv
9
Ibid., p. 320
10
Ibid., p. 327.
11
Ibid., p. 350.
12
For Derrida’s conception of history, see Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian
Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago & London: University of Chicago
Press, 1995)
13
John W. Schoenfelder, “New Dramas for the Theatre State: The Shifting
Roles of Ideological Power Sources in Balinese Polities”, World Archaeology,
Vol. 36, No. 3, The Archaeology of Hinduism (Sep., 2004), p. 399.
14
Andrey Zorin and Nicole Monnier, “Ideology, Semiotics, and Clifford Geertz:
Some Russian Reflections”, History and Theory, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Feb., 2001), pp.
57‐73.
15
Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre‐State in 19th Century Bali (NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1980), p.4.
16
Ibid., p.4.
17
Ibid., p.13.
18
Ibid., p.26.
19
Ibid., p.35.
20
Ibid., p.40.
21
Ibid., pp.42‐3.
22
Ibid., p.45.
23
Ibid., p.46.
24
Ibid., p.53.
25
Ibid., p.81.
26
Ibid., p.102.
27
Ibid., p.103.
28
Ibid., p.109.
29
Ibid., p.123.
137

30
Clifford Geertz, "From the Native's Point of View": On the Nature of
Anthropological Understanding, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Oct., 1974), pp. 26‐45
31
James L Hevia, “Postpolemical Historiography: A Response to Joseph W
Esherick”. Modern China, Vol. 24, No. 03 (Jul., 1988), pp. 321‐22.
32
James L Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar (Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 1995), p.59.
33
Ibid., p.62.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid., p.65.
36
Ibid., p.67.
37
According to Hevia, the whole process of Guest ritual is based on the binary
oppositions like upper/lower, superior/ inferior (contrary to the English
connotation where guest is a person of equal rank). The Chinese implication of
this word is of host (according to the English meanings the two words stand in
contrast with each other). Hevia first explores the preface of the Guest Ritual
text. It starts with the invocation of Zhou rulership. The preface implies both
the process of inclusion and exclusion. In case of inclusion, the address of the
Emperor extends towards the whole world (the word, siyi implies the four
directions). On the other hand, the word qin refers to ‘bring close’ the other
domains as the Chinese monarch is based on the hierarchical structures. Here,
Hevia alludes to the distracted translation of the word, yi, which originally
means ‘other peoples’ and the British sources referred to it as ‘barbarians’.
38
Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar, p.121.
39
Ibid., p. 123.
40
Ibid., p.224.
138
Basharat Hussain Qizilbash, Book Review
HAFEEZ MALIK, US RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN

AND AFGHANISTAN (THE IMPERIAL DIMENSION)
(KARACHI: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2008)

Hafeez Malik’s US relations with Afghanistan and Pakista” attempts to
interpret and explain the sole superpower’s relations with these two
countries from the rise to the fall of Taliban during the Clinton and
Bush administrations. Afghanistan has been a battleground of foreign
powers and local warlords for almost three decades, and according to
a senior British military official, it is likely to remain destabilized for
another three decades, as well.
In the coming months, under the new US President Barack
Obama, more American troops are expected to be committed to
Afghanistan. Oil is often cited as the main cause of US occupation of
Iraq but there is no such reported wealth in Afghanistan. Then, why is
the US so much interested in a country, which is the fourth most
backward in the world having an adult illiteracy of 71 per cent, where
half of the population does not have reliable sources of food and
water, and where one out of four children dies before attaining the
age of five. One explanation given by the Americans in the justification
of their occupation of Afghanistan is that the Taliban government was
a source of terror in the world due to an extremist brand of religious
ideology pursued by it and their sister organization Al Qaeda, led by
Osama bin Laden. US President Bush will be out of office by January
2009 but he and his colleagues represented the American mindset
about Islamic radicalism. Bush publicly labeled the Taliban as “Islamic
fascists” and claimed that Osama wanted to set up “a totalitarian
Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain” and termed his
own policy against them as “his crusade, this war on terrorism (that) is
going to take a while.” His Vice President Dick Cheney and the former
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld emphasized that Qaeda wanted
to establish a global caliphate across Asia, Africa and Europe. General
John Abizaid, the C‐in‐C of Central Command in 2005 interpreted the
threat in a more perceptive manner by stating that “they will try to re‐
establish a caliphate throughout the entire Muslim World…the
caliphate’s goals would include the destruction of Israel. Just as we
had the opportunity to learn what the Nazis were going to do from
Hitler’s words in Mein Kampf, we need to learn what these people
intend to do from their own words.”
In order to understand as to how real are the American
apprehensions Dr. Malik has referred to the English translation of
141
Osama’s twenty – four fatwas by Professor Bruce Lawrence and James
Howarth. Two fatwas were issued from Sudan (1994‐95); four from
Afghanistan (1996‐98); five from (1998‐2001) explain his views on the
nuclear bomb, relations with Mulla Omer and the 9/11 attacks;
another six from (2001 – 2002) deal with “crusader wars”, relations
with US and her allies; and the last seven (2003 – 2004) contain his
pronouncements on the Iraq war and the fate of Saudi Arabia. The
author contends that though Osama’s pronouncements were couched
in Islamic terms, “his political ideas and demands were perfectly
secular.” Dr. Malik thinks that Osama is quite clear about the
objectives of US foreign policy as he firmly “believes that the United
States is fundamentally an enemy of Arab states, supports Israel at
their expense, and plans to occupy the Muslim lands in order to
control their major resource – oil – with the help of collaborative Arab
regimes.” He added, “ we strike them because of their injustice
towards us in the Muslim world, especially in Palestine and Iraq and
their occupation of Saudi Arabia.” After discussing the Qaeda threats
and the consequent American perceptions, the author quotes
Professor Stephen Helms, who argues that “Qaeda’s principal aims in
its war with the US are to drive the US forces out of the Gulf, to end
US support for Mubarak (of Egypt), and to end US support for Israel.
All three aims are perfectly secular…” Dr. Malik states that in spite of
the fact that Osama “does not justify terrorist operations against the
United States in order to subordinate ‘unbelievers’ to the true faith of
his interpretations” and present his jehad as ‘legitimate self‐defence’,
the fact of the matter is that his jehad has been frighteningly lethal
and has therefore invoked a corresponding deadly response from the
Americans.
Keeping in view the Qaeda threat, many think tanks have
been set in the world to analyze the nature and potential of this
organization. One such think tank is the Century Foundation headed
by Richard A. Clark, who served Bush I, Clinton and Bush II as a Special
Assistant for Security and Counterterrorism. Their analysis suggests
that Qaeda operates at four levels. The first level consists of the (400
to 2000) inner circle hard core operatives, who engage in terrorist
operations. The second level contains about a dozen Qaeda related
jehadi groups with a following of 50,000 to 2,00,000 people, who are
willing to commit terror acts and die as suicide bombers. The third
level extends over 200 to 500 million people who identify with
Qaeda’s cause and provide moral and logistical support whereas the
fourth level is the Muslim Community living in Muslim countries and
the diaspora. The Century Foundation’s 2004 report concluded that
only about one‐tenth of one per cent of Muslims were jehadis and
142
that “the threat to (US) is not ‘terrorism’, or even terrorist
organizations, but rather the jehadi terrorists who seek to hijack Islam
and use violence to replace governments with non‐democratic
theocracies” (p. 266).
A significant number of Qaeda sympathizers could be found
in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Under a complex system, it recruited
sympathizers by paying reasonably well stipends and even paid
modest pension in some cases. According to the confessional
statement of an Algerian Qaeda veteran, some members were paid $
60 to 90 on quarterly basis. When the Pakistan government was
negotiating peace deals with the local Maliks in South Waziristan, it
found out that they were bound to provide shelter or employment to
militants because they had taken huge loans from Qaeda (p‐214). An
arrested Taliban leader revealed in 2004 that he had personally
distributed over Rs.100 million to disrupt Hamid Karzai’s presidential
election in Afghanistan.
In spite of much discussion and debate, the Western
academics remain divided over the true objectives of Qaeda. To the
eminent French scholar Olivier Roy, the Qaedaites are global jehadis
who view the growing Western influence as an encroachment on the
Muslim Ummah. They represent that generation of Muslims who were
brought up in the West due to migration of their families and are
therefore dissociated from the native cultures and detached from the
religious moorings. At the same time, they have failed to assimilate in
the European cultures and are thus ‘deterritorialized’. In other words,
the Qaedaites are a transnationalized floating mass of universal
Ummah which neither belongs to the East nor to the West.
On the contrary, Professor Robert A. Pape of the University of
Chicago thinks that Qaeda is “less a product of Islamic
Fundamentalism than a simple strategic goal: to compel the United
States and its Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the
Arabian peninsula and other Muslim countries.” Pape has reached this
conclusion after collecting data of seventy‐one terrorists who killed
themselves between 1995 and 2004 in attacks sponsored by Qaeda.
His analysis drew three interesting conclusions: One, a very large
number of those attackers were Arabs from the Gulf where the
Americans have stationed their forces since 1990. Two, the other
terrorists belonged to Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and
Morocco‐the countries considered to be the closest allies of the US in
the Muslim world. Three, ironically, none of them belonged to Iran,
Sudan and Libya whom the US State Department branded as “state
sponsors of terrorism.”
143
Osama’s refuge in Afghanistan brought the American wrath

on the Taliban regime. Although the Taliban were routed within 102
days, in effect, this war was won with a cheque‐book and the massive
air power. The CIA bought the support of Northern Alliance for a paltry
cash of $ 1 million. The big warlords each in the north and the Pashtun
belt in the south turned against the Taliban at the price of $ 50,000
whereas the loyalty of each of the relatively smaller warlords was
purchased by the payment of ten to twenty thousand dollars in cash.
In all, the CIA paid $ 70 million in bribing the anti‐Taliban elements but
this figure does not include the payments made to the senior Pashtun
tribal leaders in their secret bank accounts around the world. While
the US carried an active military compaign against the Qaeda and
Taliban from October 2001 to May 2003, mysteriously, it allowed
Mulla Omer and Osama to escape from Afghanistan. According to an
American specialist on Afghanistan, the combined force of Taliban and
Qaeda consisted of 125,000 men with only 25,000 as serious fighters
but strangely the entire might of the Pentagon has not been able to
completely subdue them in the last six years.
It is generally believed that the Taliban and Qaedaites
escaped to the difficult mountainous terrain along the Pak – Afghan
border, so Pakistan became a test case for the American policy
makers. Since 9/11, Pak – US relations have been determined by the
Afghan question but at the same time this issue generated a debate
within Pakistan whether these two nations have had a ‘true’ or ‘false’
relationship. After the twin towers collapsed, Pakistan was told by the
then US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that it ‘faces a
stark choice: either it is with us or it is not. This is a black and white
choice with no gray.” Pakistan was also handed a single sheet of paper
containing seven conditions which were not negotiable. The author
thinks that Pakistan accepted the diktat for three reasons: firstly, if
Pakistan had refused, the US might have turned to India or a Central
Asian state to achieve her objectives in Afghanistan. Secondly, the
American vindictiveness could have lead to Pakistan’s punishment in
Kashmir and the possible destruction of her nuclear assets by the
Indian Military (p‐189).
Proponents of ‘false’ Pak – US relationship also point out that
the repeated US commitment to strengthen democratic institutions
worldwide including Pakistan is a total sham because when democracy
in foreign lands does not serve the US national interest, it is blithely
jettisoned. Pakistan is a perfect example. Initially, the US imposed
sanctions when Pakistan tested nuclear weapons and General
Musharraf imposed marital law in 1999 but after 9/11 as Pakistan’s
services were desperately required in the war against terror, President
144
Bush waived off both sets of sanctions on 22nd September and 27th
October 2001 paving the way for American military sales and
assistance to Pakistan. If this is not double standard then what is it?
Naivety of President Clinton was equally grotesque. Three days after
Musharraf had toppled Nawaz Sharif’s government, the US
Ambassador William Milam delivered him a letter from Clinton
chastising the general for the illegal coup and urging him to announce
a road map for the restoration of democracy but at the same time
begged Musharraf to help US in apprehending Osama. Either the
Americans are simpletons or they are fooling the world. They wanted
Musharraf to deliver Osama ‘dead or alive’ to them hence the ‘irritant’
of restoration of democracy in Pakistan virtually disappeared between
the two states. Later, Bush warmly received Musharraf in the White
House in 2002 and 2004 and praised him as “a leader of great courage
and vision.” As the war against terror raged around the world and the
US pressed Pakistan “to do more,” the opponents of close cooperation
with the Americans in Pakistan began to urge that we should not act
as a vassal state because sooner or later the US would ditch us the
same way as it ditched us after the Russian withdrawal from
Afghanistan.
It was this scenario which compelled a senior US official, the
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to probably admit for the
first time the ‘false’ nature of relationship between the two countries:
“For years we had an unbalanced policy in South Asia….People would
look at it superficially and say we had a great relationship with
Pakistan, but it was in a way a false relationship because in the first
instance it was built against the India – Soviet Union axis, and then
latterly it was against the soviet occupation in Afghanistan….So we
didn’t have a policy for Pakistan, we had a policy with Pakistan
directed at something else…what we are desirous of is for our
Pakistani friends to try to develop a relationship about Pakistan.” How
this complex relationship has to be conducted in future, will be the
first big test of the Obama presidency.
BASHARAT HUSSAIN QIZILBASH

PAKISTAN
145
Ashfaq Ahmad Lone, Book Review
AYESHA JALAL, PARTISAN OF ALLAH (LAHORE:

SANG-E-MEEL PUBLICATION, 2008)
In the background of the prevailing extremist ideologies in Pakistan
and Afghanistan, Ayesha Jalal locates the roots of the concept of Jihad
in the shifting historical context of South Asia. She traces two shades
of the concept of Jihad; as an ethical praxis and as a war against
infidels. It is with the owning and pursuing of the later version of jihad
by Syed Ahmed and Ismail Shaheed in the history of subcontinent
when the debates regarding jihad prevailed.
Jihad can be understood etymologically as to strive against an
undesirable opponent ‐‐‐‐ an external enemy, Satan, or the base inner
self. The root word, Jahada, appears forty one times in the eighteenth
chapter of the Quran and all the times it is not used in the sense of
sacred war. In the first century of Islam, the Kharajite, ‘the Extremist
sect’, defines it as legitimate violence against the enemies of Islam. For
the Kharajites both infidels and Muslims deviated from the Quran and
the practices of the holy Prophet are considered as the enemies of
Islam. Almost all the early Muslims legal schools, however, strongly
condemn and reject the Kharajite version of Jihad. The Muslim Legists
view that moral wrongs can be eradicated through preaching good
and forbidding wrong and they term it as the Jihad of the tongue. In
the period of Umayyad and Abbasiad, the rulers persuade the legist to
define Jihad as an armed struggle and divorce it’s meaning as an
ethical struggle. The Muslim legists, following the directions of
Umayyad and Abbasid rulers, keep the ethical meaning of Jihad out of
authentic collections of Hadiths. Many sufisitic understanding,
however, contest this narrow interpretation of Jihad and consider the
spread of religion by the sword as the political dominion of Islam. Sufis
and scholars such as Ibn Miskawayh, Abu Hamid al‐Ghazali and
Jalaluddin Rumi favored the ethical meaning of Jihad.
The sufistic and scholarly interpretations influence the south
Asian mystics and religious scholars. Before Shah Wali ullah, the
ideology of jihad is a needless meaning for the Muslim rulers as their
rule translates India into an Abode of peace (Dar‐ul‐Islam). The Central
Asian Hanfi scholars and jurists such as Abu Yusuf, Muhammad Ash
Shaybani, and Ibn Abi Bakr Marginani confer the blue prints for Islamic
jurisprudence in subcontinent in the period of sultanate. They, in the
absence of the textual sources, favour the preexisting social customs
in the newly conquered territories. According to the Jurists, “Jihad
could only be waged against the Dar‐ul‐Harb” (an abode of war).
Although, it is a fact that Muslim rulers always associate themselves
147
with their religious identity, yet their temporal interests remain

incompatible with the sacred law. This incompatibility however fails to
trouble their religious understanding. In the history of subcontinent,
therefore the sharia always remains subsidiary to the law ordained by
the temporal rulers.
Shah Wali ullah makes an attempt to purify sharia from the
Badiths while following Sheikh Ahmad Sirhandi. He, however, also
makes an attempt to harmonize the tension between the wujudis
(pantheist) and shuhudis (theist) as well as between the Sufi tariqah
and the sharia when the Muslim power faces decline. He proposes stiff
measures to counteract non‐Muslim influences and also emphasizes
the external over the internal dimensions of Muslim identity. For him,
Islam is the most perfect religion because it instructs jihad as a self‐
correcting principle that help preventing dispersion in Muslim
community. He further holds that only a Muslim caliph having a strong
army at his disposal can wage jihad. The Caliph then, after winning
the war, must follow strictly the examples set by prophet. He also
writes many letters to the Muslim rulers and military commanders and
persuades them to take up arms against the non‐Muslim in order to
strengthen Muslim power in India.
The Balakot war was an attempt by Sayyid Ahmad Shaheed
and Maulana Ismail Shaheed to translate the revolutionary ideas of
the Ahmad Sirhandi’s ideas on Sunni reforms and the elimination of
Bidath with shah Wali Ullah’s jihad movement. It is severely criticized
by many of their contemporaries such as Maulana Fazl‐I‐Haq
Khairabadi, a senior disciple of Shah Abdul Aziz. He serves the East
India Company before becoming the chief Justice of Delhi in 1855 and
after the fall of Delhi he extends
his cooperation to the British. As a philosopher of logic and a
rationalist, he promotes secular learning. He tries to curb the Shah
Ismail’s Wahabi Jihad movement and he, along with other leading
Ulema, issues a fatwa declaring Shah Ismail as an infidel and even
recommends his execution.
In British India when the loyalty of the Muslims of India are
questioned for waging war against queen many leading Scholars such
as Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi and his followers repudiate the doctrine of
Jihad in order to safeguard the interest of Muslims. For them, as long
as the Muslims are allowed to practice their religious rituals without
any restriction India must be considered as an abode of Peace. Many
leading secular figures such as Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Nawab Abdul Latif
Khan and Syed Ameer Ali, follows this point of view.
After the war of independence, the intellectual discourse on
jihad was primarily based on the sense of belonging to the worldwide
148
community of Islam. Jamaluddin Afgani, Abul Kalam Azad, Obaidullah
Sindhi and Muhammad Iqbal endorsed this very concept of Islamic
universalism that was a response to the western concept of territorial
nationalism. After partition Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi popularized his
own interpretation of jihad. According to him, Islam is a revolutionary
religion, which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and
rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals. For him Jihad is
the only way through which an ideological state can be established
that can ensure the well being of the mankind and eliminate all the
injustices prevailed in the world.
The last section of the book focuses upon the mechanism of
Jihadi ideology as it prevails in the contemporary Pakistan and
Afghanistan. After the soviet invasion of the Afghanistan US
government invest billions of dollars in the Jihad movement in order
to destabilize the Soviet Union. The policy was devised and secretly
approved by the US president Jimmy Carter. Pakistan played an
important role in fostering the Islamic fundamentalism and its state
agencies (ISI) became the chief patron to the madrassas propelling an
extremist and violent form of Islam. The Mujahidin were trained by
the intelligence agencies of America and British with the enthusiastic
help of Pakistan and this policy was pursued till the fall of Soviet
Union. But after 9/11 America turned against the Talibans and
Pakistan was forced to become an ally of the US in the war against
terrorism. Musharraf regime, following the US agenda, acted against
the Islamic militant groups though keeping intact Pakistan’s Kashmir
policy.

MUHAMMAD ASHFAQ AHMAD LONE

PAKISTAN
149
Notes for Authors
1. Research papers, notes, review articles, comments, rejoinders and book reviews-in
English only should be sent in duplicate together with floppy in MS-Word to:
Dr Tahir Kamran, The Editor, The Historian, Department of History, GC University,

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The Historian

Volume 7 July-December 2009 Number 2

© The Historian is published by the Department of History, GC

No potion of this journal may be reproduced by any mechanical,

Price: 250 PKR

Assistant Editor: Umber bin Ibad

Design & Production Incharge: Shifa Ahmad

Editorial Advisory Board

David Gilmartin – Department of History, North Carolina State University, USA

MAIN MERNEY KO PHER RAHA HOUN, MERNEY KO: GENEALOGICAL

A LITANY OF ERRORS: PAKISTAN’S KASHMIR POLICY (FROM 1996-

THE HISTORY OF HADĪTH LITERATURE: A REVIEW OF MUSLIM AND

THE END OF HISTORY: INTERPRETING HEGELIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN

RELIGIOUS SYNCRETICISM IN PRE-MODERN PUNJAB…AMIR KHAN

NEGOTIATING WITH OTHER: CONCEPTUALIZING CULTURE AND POWER

HAFEEZ MALIK, US RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN (THE

AYESHA JALAL, PARTISAN OF ALLAH (LAHORE: SANG-E-MEEL

NOTES FOR THE CONTRIBUTORS AND BOOK REVIEWERS

MAIN MERNEY KO PHER RAHA HOUN, MERNEY KO: 1

On 7 Muharram 1969, a mourning procession emerged from the

was compounded with Iranian revolution, and Zia‐ul Haq’s anti‐Shia

This favourable international environment encouraged

Jihadi groups, Deobandi madrasas and Sunni

The above mentioned complexities beg a question, why did

A LITANY OF ERRORS: PAKISTAN’S KASHMIR

IRFAN WAHEED USMANI

Pakistan’s Kashmir policy became more and more

Privately some Pakistani expressed the wish that, from his

ALI USMAN QASMI

The predominant view among scholars of Islam has

DEFINING HADĪTH AND SUNNAT

The knowledge of Hadīth (pl.: Ahadīth), acquired through a scholarly

TRADITIONAL MUSLIM ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY OF HADĪTH

WESTERN CRITIQUE OF HADĪTH LITERATURE

THE END OF HISTORY: INTERPRETING HEGELIAN

UMBER BIN IBAD

HEGEL’S DESCRIPTIVE WORLD-HISTORY

governors Mahometans, or people of the Warrior Caste of

HEGELIAN UNDERSTANDING OF BEING

Though concepts are interrelated despite their division into

BEING APPEARS IN DIFFERENCE

BEING AS POSSIBILITY [MOGLICHKEIT]

BEING AS UNHIDDENNESS (ALETHEIA)

BEING APPEARS IN MULTIPLE WAYS IN MULTIPLE EPOCHS

BEING APPEARS THROUGH APPREHENSION NOT GRASPING

BEING IS THE SELF-SAME NOT MOVING FOR ABSOLUTE SELF-

Heidegger thinks Hegel grasps the understanding of spirit as

HEGELIAN AND HEIDEGGERIAN UNDERSTANDING OF GROUND 43

The relation between ground and being, however, appears

BEING APPEARS THROUGH GROUND

interpretive situation found its reception in a concealed way. The

The thinking being, for Dasein, thinks not immersing in

AMIR KHAN SHAHID

The syncretic tradition1 may be described as a

poetic expression, politeness, oral tradition and extra ordinary

NEGOTIATING WITH OTHER: CONCEPTUALIZING

HUSSAIN AHMAD KHAN

interpretations of Sino‐Western conflict by Euro‐American

‘diplomacy’ and ‘trade’ “as the two mechanisms for communicating

Hevia’s methodological approach is different from the

HAFEEZ MALIK, US RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN

Osama’s refuge in Afghanistan brought the American wrath