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India-Pakistan
The grand Deobandi consensus
2003-12-13
Since Fred yesterday wondered why members of the Naqshbandi Sufi sect would be assisting Deobandi sectarian outfits I managed to locate this old article (2000) I remember reading, although it is probably of little interest to anyone else.
The civil war in Afghanistan and the jehad in Kashmir have gradually veered to a Deobandi consensus. The dominant Hizb e-Islami of Hekmatyar lost favour with the Pakistani establishment in the mid-1990s. In its place, the Taliban of Mullah Umar, trained in the traditional Deobandi jurisprudence, enjoy popularity in Pakistan. In a parallel development, the Wahhabi or Ahle Hadith warriors have gained strength. The most effective jehadi outfit based in Lahore is Lashkar-e-Taiba, functioning as a subordinate branch of Dawat al-Irshad, an organisation with contacts in the Arab world, collecting jehad funds among the expatriate Muslim communities in the West.

The third strand of fundamentalist movement which seems attracted to the Wahabi-Deobandi combine in Afghanistan, is the Naqshbandiya. Most of the Muslim-populated North Caucasian region in Russia follows the shrine-worshipping mystical order of the Naqshbandiya. The uprising in Chechnya and its incursion into Dagestan is turning the Naqshbandi followers to the more strict orthodoxy of the Saudi-based Wahhabi order. In Afghanistan, the naqshbandi faith is represented by Sibghatullah Mujadiddi, Afghanistan’s first president chosen by the mujahideen in exile in Peshawar in 1989. Mujaddidi is a descendant of Sheikh Ahmad of Sirhind who led a mystical movement of purification under Emperor Jehangir and was greatly admired by Islamic revivalist movements in India. It is a measure of the greatness of Sheikh Ahmad that the Naqshbandis of Afghanistan, Central Asia, North Caucusus and Turkey are all Mujaddidi today.

All three movements, the Deobandi, the Ahle Hadith-Wahhabi, and Naqshbandi-Mudaddidi (in India), are against innovation in Islamic rituals. They oppose the eclecticism that developed among Muslims under the Mughals and wished to separate local accretion from the pure Islamic faith. The founder of the Naqshbandi order, Shaikh Ahmad, compelled the Mughal king Jehangir to persecute the Muslim mystical orders that had developed a spiritual consensus with Hindus and Sikhs. The other preoccupation of the Naqshbandis in India was opposition to the Shiite faith developing in the South of India and in the northern province of Oudh. Shaikh Ahmad had decreed that the Shiites were apostates and had to be put to the sword.
Kinda like the Paks and Banglas want to do with the Ahmadiyya...
In Pakistan, only one armed (Naqshbandi) religious outfit called Tanzeem al-Ikhwan is active under the aggressive leadership of Maulana Akram Awan. Based on the mystical teachings of Shaikh Ahmad, the madrassa run by him in Chakwal is said to have close links with the army. In the investigations that followed the 1995 unsuccessful military coup in Pakistan, led by Islamist officers, his name is said to have cropped up in the list of the accused, but was allegedly removed from the findings because of his close army connections.

Ahah... The plot thickens, even while the butter clarifies. In Pakland, and Central Asia to the Caucasus, we can't look at sects, or what they purport to stand for, but at who's linked to whom and what direction they're moving. The ultimate direction is that of opposition to any kind of innovation, driven by wahhabi philosophy (or at least theology). To my uneducated eye, there's not much difference any more between the Deobandis and the Ahle Hadith. The Brelvis, in the care of Noorani's JUP, tromp in lockstep in the same direction. And now the "peaceful" Naqshbandis show up with their own Fahne hoch.

In the mere space of about 35 years, the Soddies have managed to set this movement — you could almost describe it as an innovation — in motion, sweeping the Middle East and Central Asia. And now they've lost control of it, which would be funny if not for all the corpses it entails.
Posted by:Paul Moloney

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