The idea of a “just” war has been appropriated by the Christian civilisation. But two things need to be pointed out in that regard. First, the Western/Catholic church’s notion was limited to war carried on by or on behalf of states; second, justness originally involved what in logic is called ipsi dixit, or “because I say so”. To get around the moral issues created by the latter, theoreticians, both moral and military, came up with two concepts. One was jus ad bellum or when it was ok to fight a war and jus in bello, which specified what all could be done in such a war.
In fact, however, as the exhortations by Krishna to Arjun in the Bhagwad Gita show, the idea of a just war is a great deal older than the Catholic Church. Had Ayesha Jalal added a section about this in the Preface, the notion of Jihad as an Islamic peculiarity would have been more than somewhat dispelled. The duty to fight against injustice and oppression, it would seem, is universal and ancient.
But this book is not so much about Jihad per se, as about its history in South Asia. As always, Jalal writes with clarity — and an assertiveness born out of confidence. The result is a great read, not least because it shows that in South Asia at least, the enemy of the Jihadi is not always the kafir but the Muslim also. Thus, in a chapter entitled “The Martyrs of Balakot” she describes in great detail the experience of Sayyid Ahmed, South Asia’s first Jihadi.
In the end, it was the Yusufzai tribesmen who finished him and his men off. The reason: he had dared to interfere with their customs. “Unbending determination to maintain a distinction between the Muslims and non-Muslims blunted the effect of Sayyid Ahmed’s ethical teachings.” Prakash Karat should note.
Jalal has an interesting explanation for what went wrong with Sayyid Ahmed. Ahmed had made a fatal error in assuming that “since the Pathans were suffering under non-Muslim rule, they would welcome an Islamic government.” The Taliban made the same mistake. And perhaps Pakistan is making it also in Kashmir.
From a modern point of view, though, the last chapter entitled “Jihad as Terrorism” is of most relevance. She traces the origins of this metamorphosis to the writings and teachings of three persons — Sayyid Qutb, Ibn Taimiyya and Abul Ala Mawdudi. Jalal focuses on the last of this trio and says: “Mawdudi’s radical reformulation of Jihad was based on selective appropriations of the thoughts of some of his worthier intellectual forerunners in the subcontinent.”
Mawdudi, she says, did three things. First, he rejected the authority of traditional interpretations; second, he brought the nation-state into the discourse on and about jihad and the notion that Islam transcended it; third, he altered the meaning of what was ethical in his version of Jihad. In the beginning, which would be 1927, the West was the enemy, not the Hindus. The latter appear to have become a part of the target as a result of the second transformation mentioned above, namely, the induction of the nation-state.
Mawdudi also thought that reimposing the Sharia was the answer even though, she says, it left Muslims worse off. “He considered as law only that part of the Sharia which required the coercive backing of the State.” It would thus seem that whether he was fighting it or using it, the State was central to Mawdudi’s philosophy of religion. Individual preferences occupied a subordinate position.
In the end, though, for a Pakistani scholar — even one as erudite as Jalal — no discussion of South Asia, whatever the focus, is complete without the jolly old rant. Kashmir has become something like what psychologists call OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The difference, though, is that she does it with sophistication.
I am yet to see a Pakistani scholar make the crucial distinction between what is an instrument of the Pakistani state’s internal political policy and its external policy. The Pakistanis see Kashmir purely in the latter terms, whereas in fact it is at least 50 per cent of the former also because it is the equivalent of the totem pole around which the natives dance to get a sense of purpose.
Jihad or not, Pakistan without Kashmir would lose all sense of purpose.
PARTISANS OF ALLAH
JIHAD IN SOUTH ASIA
Permanent Black
Rs 595; Pp 373
Ayesha Jalal
