AMU Removes Maududi and Qutb: Is This How the Islamism is Supposed to be Defeated?
By
Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
3 August
2022
Rather
Than Excluding Them, the Need of the Hour Is To Openly Critique and Debate Them
Main
Points:
1. AMU removes
the books of Maududi and Syed Qutb from its Masters Course
2. This was
done after a group of academics complained to the prime minister.
3. The right
wing seems to be playing according to the rulebook put in place by the left.
4. The battle
of ideas is never won by censuring; rather it is won through rational and
informed debate
-----
Abul
A'la al-Maududi was an Islamic scholar, Islamist ideologue, Muslim philosopher,
jurist, historian, journalist, activist and scholar active in British India
----
A group of
academics recently wrote to the prime minister to remove two thinkers, Abu Ala
Maududi and Syed Qutb from the Masters curriculum at the Islamic Studies
Department of Aligarh Muslim University. It is not known whether the prime
minister’s office took any notice of the said letter but the University has now
complied and hurriedly removed the books written by these authors from the
course content. One can certainly argue that this is policing of thought, which
it certainly is; but the more important point to remember is that this is not
the first time such censoring is happening and it is certainly not the last time that we will hear this. Serious questions need to asked, not only from this
government, but also the past governments who gave rise to this cult of censorship.
Since the time of Nehru, books have been banned in this country which led to a
culture that it was okay for a government to decide in advance what constitutes
indoctrination and what kind of literature has the potential to corrupt the
minds of the people. It was only a matter of time that this censorship would be
extended to universities, the hallowed space of critical thinking and freedom
of speech.
The
political left, which controlled these universities for a long time had their
own list of tabooed authors who were not fit to be taught. They included Hindu
right-wing thinkers like Savarkar and Golwalkar who were kept out of the
curriculum with ideological indignation. So were other alternate perspectives
of Phule, Ambedkar and Muslim thinkers. The logic perhaps was the same: that
these thinkers are corrupting influences on young minds or worse still, what if
young students get converted to ‘their’ point of view? Or perhaps the idea was
to hold aloft a particular narrative of Indian society. As a former student in
one such university, I now realize the flawed thinking embedded in such a
selection. Many like me passed out of the university structure to realize that
we missed out on understanding the most important political strain in the
country. Moreover, the policy has been one of abject failure. Despite their
banishment from the university spaces, they continued to enjoy immense
popularity in social and national life; eventually overtaking even the
university spaces.
The Hindu
right wing intellectuals in India, who became ascendant in the past decade, are
making the same mistake. Removing the works of Maududi and Qutb must be seen in
a long line of such demands made by them, at times in the name of hurt
religious feelings or by citing threats to national integrity. Whether it is
the removal of Allen Lane’s book on Shivaji or the Ramayan essay of Ramanujan
which was removed by the University of Delhi, the underlying fear seems to be
the same: that it will have negative influence on the minds of young Indians.
Today, the right wing is an established stream within the overall Indian
intellectual tradition. One would have expected that with the passing of time,
they would become more surefooted within their domains rather than getting
unnerved by certain authors. But what seems to be happening is that the right
wing is essentially copying the formula developed by the left wing, which is to
shut out anything which is not to their liking. Although the right wing often
critiques the left, the AMU episode makes it doubly clear that they have
nothing new to offer. It is a pity that although they are in power, they are
still playing by the rulebook which was authored by the left. This makes one
wonder if they have any long-term perspective to challenge the hegemonic
imprint of left liberalism or they are just interested in political signaling
by targeting Islamist thinkers.
Sayyid 'Ibrāhīm Ḥusayn Quṭb, known popularly as Sayyid Qutb, was an Egyptian
author, educator, Islamic scholar, theorist, revolutionary, poet, and a leading
member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s
----
Maududi and
Qutb and many others like them have a foundational bearing on what is known as
Islamism today. It is their penchant to see the rule of Islam, enforced through
a Sharia state that has wreaked havoc in much of the Muslim world today. Indian
Maudidi, the poster boy of political Islam, who eventually migrated to
Pakistan, could achieve very little in terms of putting his ideas into practice.
Except of course putting the Ahmadiyya off limits from the Islamic community.
Qutb though, had much more influence and his ideas germinated in the form of
Muslim Brotherhood, which is at the root of political violence in many of the
countries today.
I have
little regard for either authors in terms of their ideas but it cannot be
denied that their work is read by millions of Muslims today. Many Muslims form
their idea of Muslim-ness through such authors. There is a battle of ideas
going on within the Muslim society; the moderates battling for hegemonic
control of the Islamic narrative from the extremists, many of whom happen to be
the followers of Maududi and Qutb. It is not surprising therefore that some
moderate Muslims have welcomed the expulsion of the books of these authors.
Aligarh Muslim University
-----
But is
throwing their books from the curriculum an effective solution? In today’s
world of internet, it is plainly foolish to do so. Anyone interested in reading
their books can simply walk into a library or login to a digital library. What
is needed is the very obverse. That the ideas of these Islamists must be
critiqued and debated freely. And what better place to do so than a university?
The way in which the AMU has capitulated to the demands tells us a lot about
the intellectual quagmire that these universities have plunged in. Ultimately, the
cult of Islamism has to be fought in the minds of Muslims. How does one do that
without first having the freedom to read and critique what is besetting that
mind?
----
A
regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher
on Islam and Muslims in South Asia.
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/amu-maududi-qutb-islamism-/d/127635
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