Gota & Muslim Predicament
Dr. Ameer Ali
Over the past few years, I have contributed several pieces to this and other journals on a number of issues regarding Sri Lankan Muslims, such as MMDA, burqa, niqab and abaya, ifthar dinner parties, madrasas, mosques, sharia, Muslim leadership, and so on. Those pieces, as expected, attracted measured appreciation as well as outright condemnation, both by Muslims as well as non-Muslims. In all those contributions, my views were governed by lessons I learnt from social science disciplines such as history, politics, economics and sociology. Even my views on Islam were and are shaped by those disciplines. If one could go through all what I had published, one would not fail to delineate the single most pertinent theme that I was trying to discuss, i.e., challenges facing Muslim minorities living in non-Muslim societies and polities. I want to go back to this theme once more, because some of those issues I discussed earlier are now re-emerging with disturbing sentiments, as preparations are afoot for another General Election. Those who read my earlier pieces may accuse me of repeating the same arguments, but I want to summarise them to contextualise Muslim predicament under Goth’s presidency.
An international canvas
Wherever Muslims live as minorities, they, their religion, culture and economy have come under attack, especially after the year 2000. Whether in a predominantly Christian environment, as in Europe and America, or, Hindu environment, as in India, or, Buddhist environment, as in China, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, Muslim minorities are facing enormous challenges. That there are specific factors at play in each case is not denied. Taken together however, there is one common issue that bedevils Muslim relations with majority, and that issue emanates from a confusion between believing and belonging. How to live as a believer in Islam while belonging to a non-Muslim polity or country is a problem that arose recently in Muslim history. Broadly speaking, the genesis of this issue could be sought in the post-World War II unequal economic development between the First and Third Worlds on the one hand, and post-Khomeini Islamism on the other.
There were two stages in the growth of this problem. Its first stage goes back to the immediate post-War decades, when Muslims in their thousands from former colonies, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey and Algeria, flocked to First World countries such as Great Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia and North America, and filled First World farms and factories with cheap labour. Rapid economic growth and prosperity in the First and economic slowdown or stagnation in the Third was the underlying reason for this migration. However, while the receiving countries were happy to accommodate these immigrants and profit from their labour, without too many restrictions, they failed at the same time to take any measures to naturalise these communities, because these migrants were expected to be repatriated once their contracts were over. That did not happen. As the migrants stayed long and were even permitted to bring in their immediate family to join them, there began a gradual ghettoization of Muslims in several cities of Europe, Britain and North America. Not only these ghettos exhibited their religious and cultural identity by way of azhan (call for prayer), open air congregational prayers, halal food, cultural dress and native language, but also reluctance to integrate with the society that accommodated them. Thus, in the first stage, both sides, the hosts and the guests adopted a policy of live and let live.
Into this environment entered the second stage, which was marked more by the migration of Islamic ideologies than Muslim people. This stage may be reckoned to have started after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The success of this revolution followed by the collapse of socialist economic experiments, and both occurring in an environment of petroleum-propelled prosperity in Muslim Middle East and North Africa gave birth to a new wave of Islamic awakening throughout the Muslim world. One outcome of this awakening was the re-emergence of the pre-nineteenth century de-territorialized notion of ummah as a determining identifier of Muslim belonging*.
Originally, it was the Prophet of Islam who introduced the concept of ummah to include all believing men and women. It should be noted however, that in Prophet’s Medina, those believers included not only Muslims, but also ahl al-kitab or people of the Book, namely, Christians and Jews. After his death, the concept of ummah was defined narrowly by Muslim theologians to include Muslims only. Thus, all Muslims, wherever they live, belong to one ummah.
As long as Islam and the Muslim Caliphate remained the dominant imperial power there was no clash between believing and belonging. The situation changed with the rise of nationalism and formation of independent nation states. Today, the Organization of Islamic Countries has a total membership of fifty-seven or fifty eight depending on whether one includes or excludes the Palestinian Territory. Among this family of nations the primary allegiance of a citizen is to his/her country (watan) and not to the universal ummah. Demand for territorialized patriotism overwhelms the demand for de-territorialized ummatism.
However, to Muslims living as minorities in non-Muslim countries, the idea that they belong to the Prophet’s universal community created a dilemma at times. For example, in times of wars between India and Pakistan and during Hindu-Muslim riots in India, Muslims of both countries face excruciating pains of mental agony. In the first case, local Muslim neutrality was often portrayed as unpatriotic by Hindus, while in the second as un-ummatic by Muslims. Yet, until the birth of militant Islamism following the awakening after the 1970s, Muslim minorities remained unconcerned about their divided allegiance between watan and umma. With the ascendancy of Militant Islamism however, one could witness the reassertion of ummatic feeling, and with the declaration of a caliphate by ISIS in 2013, the allegiance to ummah took precedence over allegiance to watan at least in the minds of some young Muslims. The migration of hundreds of such men and women from minority zones to fight for ISIS caliphate was the product of this ummatic reinvigoration.
Sri Lankan scene
Muslim minority in Sri Lanka has a unique history. From the time of its first appearance in the 8th century right down to the last decades of 20th century the history and growth of this minority was a story of exceptional integration and peaceful coexistence with majority Sinhalese Buddhists and minority Hindu Tamils. Nowhere in the world one could find another example of a Muslim minority that became so thoroughly indigenised and integrated with the rest of the plural society while protecting its religious identity, as in Sri Lanka. In short, until the rise of Islamism internationally, there was no conflict between believing and belonging for Muslims in this country.
Between the theological binary dharul Islam (abode of peace) and dharul harb (abode of war), Sri Lanka fell into a third category introduced later and called by various names like dharul sulh (abode of truce), dharul hudna (abode of calm) and dharul aman (abode of safety). As a member of the third category, Sri Lanka’s treatment of Muslims and respect shown to them by Buddhist monarchs was so magnanimous, that at it is difficult to find a similar example anywhere in Asian history. This explains why that community became so quickly indigenised, ubiquitously settled, and became an inseparable part of Sri Lankan economy, in spite of attacks by Sinhalese nationalists in the 19th century. For instance, when riots broke out in 1915 between Sinhalese and Muslims for the first time, and in spite of material losses incurred by indigenous Muslims at the hands of rampaging Sinhalese thugs, none of the victims chose to run away from the country, but remained even more solidly rooted to native soil and decided to become even more integrated. The fact that the flow of Islamic teachings and practices switched direction after 16th century, from Islamic Middle East to Hindu India, and particularly to its southern quarter, was largely responsible for Islam’s peaceful penetration into and coexistence with Buddhism in Sri Lanka. After all, Islam is not a monolithic entity. It is ethnically, regionally, culturally and philosophically a differentiated product.
This situation began to change however, from late nineteen fifties, when Indian born Tabligh Jamaat (TJ), began its activities in this country. TJ’s mission was and is to make Muslims more committed to Islam by conscientiously following the religious obligations. Because of its activities, mosque attendance over the decades increased by manifold demanding roomier mosques to accommodate crowding worshippers. Likewise, the number of pilgrims to Mecca, not only for the annual hajj but also for umra in between, multiplied by several fold, so much so pilgrimage, the fifth pillar of Islam, has grown into big business today. With a strong commitment to ibadat (religious duties), Muslim attachment to the de-territorialized ummah also grew stronger at the expense of watan. While transforming into a more devotional community however, the millennium old attachment shown by previous generations of Muslims to the traditions, culture and ethos of this country began to show signs of ebbing under TJ influence. By becoming too otherworldly in outlook and too detached from worldly affairs, they, quite innocently, neglected the demands of the nation. Once attachment to life in this world itself devalued, why should a believer bother about the nation? This is the unfortunate outcome of TJ’s approach to Islamic preaching.
