The 'We will not make laws that go against revelation and prophetic traditions' line harks back to the ideological castration of the Awami Muslim League. There is a history to it which needs to be unpacked.
The Awami Muslim League was formed as a counter to the East Bengal Muslim League's anal retentiveness. The EBML core, known as the 'Dhaka group', gave no space for incoming post-partition Muslim leaders from West Bengal or from Assam. Think of the disgust of newcomers at this self interest. Disgust is an important trigger for alternative political configuring.
Initially the Awami Muslim League packed quite a bit of Islamic mojo, influenced as it was by Shamsul Huq, a disciple of Abul Hashem. That's Abul Hashem of; Burdwan in West Bengal, ' The Revolutionary character of the Kalima', 'Khilafatur Rabbani' and father of historian Badruddin Umar. This chap, who I am fascinated by is perhaps the closest we ever got to Cerebral Islamic Left. I wonder how things may have been if Allah had not tested Abul Hashem with blindness.
Alternative presents aside, during one tense time Shamsul Huq was imprisoned and the Mujib group got prominence and the rest is history unfortunately. This newer group castrated the Islamic potency of their party to 'appeal to minorities' whilst still showing a safety blanket approach to Islam to the people. Nothing challenging or creative in that department. Its called parochialising oneself out of large mess and into a corner.
The Awami Muslim League was formed as a counter to the East Bengal Muslim League's anal retentiveness. The EBML core, known as the 'Dhaka group', gave no space for incoming post-partition Muslim leaders from West Bengal or from Assam. Think of the disgust of newcomers at this self interest. Disgust is an important trigger for alternative political configuring.
Initially the Awami Muslim League packed quite a bit of Islamic mojo, influenced as it was by Shamsul Huq, a disciple of Abul Hashem. That's Abul Hashem of; Burdwan in West Bengal, ' The Revolutionary character of the Kalima', 'Khilafatur Rabbani' and father of historian Badruddin Umar. This chap, who I am fascinated by is perhaps the closest we ever got to Cerebral Islamic Left. I wonder how things may have been if Allah had not tested Abul Hashem with blindness.
Alternative presents aside, during one tense time Shamsul Huq was imprisoned and the Mujib group got prominence and the rest is history unfortunately. This newer group castrated the Islamic potency of their party to 'appeal to minorities' whilst still showing a safety blanket approach to Islam to the people. Nothing challenging or creative in that department. Its called parochialising oneself out of large mess and into a corner.
The creation of Bangladesh ushered in a political field in which secularism was injected in from the top as part of what some would call Mujibbad. Others, less impressed by the man's qualities would call it amateur Kemalism. Islamic political forces were generally wrong-footed, enfooled, murdered and sailed by the escalation of conflict that soon became an Independence war.
The costs of losing have been high and inter-generational on the character of the Bangladeshi collective mind. It explains a lot, though maybe I am completely wrong and the materialist character of so many deshi students and buddhijobbis is a greater function of their ahistoric disinterest in a challenging Islam. Maybe people like Shahriar Kabir have no agency in this realm. Put another way, if partition splattered the mojo of the Indian Muslim intelligentsia, 1971 purged a lot of deeni thought from the Bengali Muslim Mind. Brotherly betrayal scarred deeply, it was purposively designed to. Elite university students of the early 70s tell me scary stories of how they would secretively pass around Islamic tomes to each other in fear of public lynching. And no these aren't the Liberation Capitalists.
Nowadays the Bangladesh Awami League's Matia Choudhury repeats the 'Quran and Sunnah' slogan as if it means anything. I pick her because there is something of the warrior princess about her, a lefty namazi type of a totally different age. She deserves a better boss. Meanwhile, the two battling begums begin their 'secular' political campaigns from the tombs of Shah Jalal and company of Sylhet to curry favour with the masses and associate themselves with a figure of unified devotion. This is Spiritual Capitalism of the worst kind. And it makes me understand why middle agers and seniors in Bangladesh who are returning to their religion with vigour stay away from The Sufi Shelf. Petrodollar empowerment of 'Wahhabism' has less to do with it than disgust at corruption.
Secular abdication, confusion and defilement of the Islamic political imperative is now way to approach the challenge of our times. So Moti Apa, the 'Quran and Sunnah Platitude' is not enough. Islam is more than dead and dry legal traditions and religious rites, more than a set of taboos, more than liberation from castocracy. It is actually very difficult to develop and realise socio-politically.
And you are not helping. I'm fairly sure that you dont even think of it as a problem.
What I would like to see is 1) the social delegitimisation of the political symbols which allow The Platitude to breath, 2) increasing public realisation of the 'No' option in the election and 3) a better negotiation from the brains, the heart and the limbs of society.
All because Secularism, Nationalism and (m)Islamism have little to offer except for highly inefficient social mobility. Development Dung cannot hold together the cracks through which the better natures and aspirations of millions bleed.
No comments:
Post a Comment