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R E F O R M E R S
Shah Wali Ullah
Shah Wali Ullah was born in 1703. He belonged to a family of religious preachers.
He was raised up in an environment where people use to have discourses on Quran,
shariah, Muslim morality and social values. His father was a religious scholar of repute.
Mad
rasa
Rahimia was established by father of Shah Wali Ullah
,
Shah Abdur Rahim in
Delhi. This
madrasa
served the Mus
lims of Northern India. Shah Wal
i Ullah
received his
early education from the same college. After graduating he started
to teach over there. He
continued teaching till 1730 when he went to Saudia Arabia for further studies in
theology. There he spent more t
han a year. During his stay there
he met Sheikh Abu
Tahir bin Ibrahim for whom he had great regard. He returned to sub
-
continent with a
vivid aim in his mind to serve the Muslims of sub
-
continent and Islam.
When he was just 4 years old in 1707 the last Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb
Alamgir die
d and the history of sub
-
continent took a new turn and the power and social
status of Muslims in sub
-
continent started to decline. Since his death the political decline
of Mughals and social decline of Muslims started and it is still declining. Shah Wali
U
llah experienced this decline as he grew up and was worried about it. Throughout his
life he wanted to revive Islam and the status of Muslims in the subcontinent he tried to
solve problems faced by Muslims systematically.
Weaknesses of Muslims of subconti
nent. (
realized
by Shah Wali Ullah).
I.
Muslims were not following Islam according to its true teaching because they
didn’t understand it properly.
II.
Muslims were divided among themselves on the basis of different sects.
III.
Muslims were indulging themselves in
the luxuries of life.
IV.
Muslims were losing status
and their rule in Subcontinent because of loss of
political power.
Dr. M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
2391591, moiz200@yahoo.com
Dr. M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
2391591, moiz200@yahoo.com
2
His Efforts:
-
Message:
-
The first message Shah Wali Ullah spread amongst the Muslims was regarding
unity. He said that one of the major causes behind the decline
of Muslims in subcontinent
is the disintegration and disunity amongst them. He further stated that Shias are not
"Kafirs" and are Muslims. He said this division between them has weakened Muslims.
That is why other nations like Marathas are becoming stronge
r and overtaking Muslims.
Translation of Holy Quran:
-
Shah Wali Ullah believed that Holy Quran was not understandable to all the
readers because of the language barrier. That is why he translated the Holy Quran into
Persian. Persian was understood and spo
ken by many Muslims at that time. He believed
that if Muslims can understand the message of Quran than it would be easy for them to
act upon it.
Different books:
-
Shah Wali Ullah wrote many books throughout his life on religion. The main
purpose behind all the books was to make the teachings of Islam understandable to most
of the Muslims. His two most famous works are "Izlat ul Akhfa" and "Hujr
atulah ul
Baligha". Hujratulah ul Baligha was the explanation of Holy Quran and Izlat Ul Akhfa
was written on the principals of Quran and Islam.
Political efforts:
-
Although he was a religious scholar but he didn’t stop there. He wanted to remove
Maratha
s from the throne of Delhi. To overpower Marathas he requested Ahmed Shah
Abdali of Persia to invade India, defeat Marathas and restore Muslim rule in India.
Ahmed Shah Abdali came in 1761and defeated Marathas in the famous battle field of
"Panipat" near D
elhi. This battle is known as the third battle of Panipat. Ahmed Shah
Abdali although removed Marathas but did not stay in India so once again Delhi went
under the weak administration of Mughals.
Dr. M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
2391591, moiz200@yahoo.com
Dr. M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
23915
91, moiz200@yahoo.com
3
His social principles:
-
He propagated the principles of Adl and Tawazun, “Adl” means Justice and
'Tawazun" means equilibrium. He persuaded Muslims to practice these principal
in their
daily lives to make their lives better. He believed that these two principles are the back
bone of any economy and through this Muslims can make their
economic
conditions
better.
Importance:
-
Shah Wali Ullah was one of the most important religious reformers of
Subcontinent. There are other reformers as well however Shah Wali Ullah is the most
prominent amongst them. He not only tried to bring Muslims closer to their religion but
he had a comple
te chalked out plan for the restoration of Muslim power in India. Another
distinction he has is that he propagated such ideals which were long las
ting and
applicable at any time. For example unity of Muslims and proper understanding of Islam
by them.
Syed
Ahmed Shaheed Barelvi:
He was a very ambitious man who wanted to see Muslims of India in a better
position than they were. He was born in 1786 in Barely. He belonged to Hasni Syed
family. It is believed that he was distantly related to Shah Wali Ullah. I
n his early days he
wanted to become a religious scholar but he lacked the abilities required to become one.
His ambition brought him to Shah Abdul Aziz, son of Shah Wali Ullah. Shah Abdul Aziz
He guided him about his future and told him that if he really
wanted to do something for
Muslims he should conduct Jihad for the Muslims where ever the Muslims are in need
and weak. Shah Abdul Aziz declared India “Darul Harb”, place of war or a place where
Muslims cannot live their lives according to the teachings of
Islam. For this purpose Syed
Ahmed was not properly trained. He needed some to guide him in the art of warfare and
teach all that is need to plan and conduct attacks on the enemy and how to survive when
attacked. For this purpose Shah Abdul Aziz sent Syed
Ahmed Shaheed to Amir Khan a
commander of Pathan army to get combat and military training.
Dr.
M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
2391591, moiz200@yahoo.com
Dr. M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of
History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
2391591, moiz200@yahoo.com
4
In 1821 he went to offer Hajj and stayed there for 2 years and learnt religion. He
came back and made Jihad his ambition. He visited
many areas of India to gather support.
He was able to collect some thousand volunteers to fight along him. He came back to
Punjab and challenged the authority of Sikh rulers. In early years of their struggle to free
the Muslims of Punjab they were successf
ul and the movement became popular. Many
other Muslims who came to know about the movement came and joined Syed Ahmed
Shaheed. At one stage the Muslim army reached around 80000 fighters.
Reason for the failure of Jihad Movement:
1.
Threat to local rulers:
The local Muslim rulers who supported the movement in its early days started to
feel uncomfortable. Their main fear was the presence of such a large army in
their area.
This army had every
thing except an area to rule. Basically it was not meant to rule any
area the main reason for the formation of this army was to support suppressed Muslims of
Punjab. The rulers of N.W.F.P. thought that after dealing with Sikhs in Punjab they might
turn towards us and would take our rule as well. Out of this fear the local
rulers betrayed
Syed Ahmed Shaheed Barelvi.
2.
Unpopular in Muslims of Punjab:
The people who came to fight in Punjab came from different places in India. They
did not have any means of income. So to survive they started to tax the Muslims of
Punjab on behal
f of their support. The Muslims who were already under so much
pressure were unable to pay this tax. This created frustration amongst the Muslims of
Punjab.
3.
Heterogeneous army:
The army of Syed Ahmed Shaheed was a volunteer army and these volunteers
came
from many different parts f India. They belonged to different areas and races. They
had different styles of fighting on which they argued a lot. The only thing bonding them
together was the leadership of Syed Ahmed Shaheed. This difference among them
contr
ibuted towards their defeat.
Dr. M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
2391591, moiz200@yahoo.com
5
Haji Sharyat Ullah:
He was a very devoted Muslim who wanted to serve Islam. He was worried about
the situation of Muslims of sub
-
continent and wanted to bring a change in their condition.
After some time he came up with the conclusion that Muslims have stop observing the
obligatory prayers like Namaz, Roza, Zakat etc.
He started
Faraizi Movement with the believe that by offering all the obligatory prayers
Muslims would become better and closer to Islamic values.
Dr. M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
2391591, moiz200@yahoo.com
6
The Advent of British:
In 1600 C.E. East India Company was established in England. Queen
Elizabeth
granted the charter to East India Company to trade in areas East of Africa. This included
Sub
-
continent, Indonesia, and Malaysia etc. In the start the East India Company tried
their luck in islands of Indonesia but they were unable to extract des
irable profits from
there.
To make trading more difficult they had a formidable opposition in the form of
Dutch. The Islands of Indonesia were already claimed by Dutch and Portuguese. In 1623
an incident permanently convinced British to turn towards India.
Twenty one men were
killed by Dutch in Amboyna out of which ten were the servants
of British East India
Company, t
he incident in known as Amboyna Massacre
1
.
The first British ship landed in India in 1608 at
Calicut.
This was the time period
of
the fourth Mughal Emperor
Jaha
ngir
. He did not allow British to trade in India. However
British did not lose hope and continued to convince Mughals for the permission. Finally
in 1612 a limited permission was granted to British
by Khurram (Shah J
a
han) t
he
governor of Gujarat.
As a result British erected their first factory in Surat.
James I
dispatched
Sir Thomas Roe to the royal court of Jahangir in 1614.
The main reason of coming of British to India was trade of spices, cotton, jute,
rice etc. Secondl
y they also wanted markets for selling their products. The things which
were easily available in India had a high demand in Europe. The traders of Europe always
wanted to trade with India and they had come to India by land. However the route from
land took
years to reach to India from Europe. It took more than two years for Marco
Polo to come to India. The major
breakthrough
in the travel to India was in 1496 when
Vasco de Gama of Portugal crossed the much feared Cape of Storms in the South of
Africa (later
the same place was name
d
as Cape of Good Hope).
Portuguese opened the sea route to India. They were first people who started to
trade with India from Europe. The next European people to follow them were Dutch.
England was the third European country to tra
de with India. Portuguese and Dutch
restricted themselves to small areas with in India. On the other hand British tried their
luck all o
ver India and it paid off. With
in 150 years of their stay in India British were in
such a strong position that they star
ted to challenge the local rulers and even the Mughal
1
In 1623 the Dutch governor, Herman Van, stationed there was suspicious about the presence and activities of
British. He believed that British are conspiring with Japanese to kill him. As preemptive measure he ordered the
killing of 10 British 10 Japanese
and one Portuguese man. See,
D. K. Bassett (1960). The “Amboyna Massacre” of
1623. Journal of Southeast Asian History, 1, pp 1
-
19.
http://
doi:10.1017/S0217781100000107.
7
Emperors.
They challenged and defeated Siraj
-
ud
-
Daula the nawab of Bengal in 1757 in the
f
amous battle of Plassey.
Dr. M. Moiz Khan
Assistant Professor
Dept. of History
,
University of Karachi
0322
-
2391591, moiz200@yahoo.com
8
Different attempts by Indians to prevent British from
taking control over India:
Since British arrive in India they were trying to take control over India one way or
another. In the early days of their stay they were taking control over the economic
activity of India. Then after spending some decades they felt more comfortable and
strong enough to challenge the authority of Indians.
British challenged the authority of
Aurangzeb on the issue of tax exemption.
However he was a powerful Mughal Emperor that is why he was able to crush British
easily in 1691.
Then British tried to take control of Bengal. In 1757 they challenged Nawab of
Bengal Siraj
-
ud
-
Dauala. The dispute w
as over the fortification of one factory of British.
Although the Nawab was able to defeat British in early battles but he was finally defeated
in the famous battle of Plassey. His minister Mir Jaffer betrayed him in the battle and
made the British victory
possible.
In 1764 the Nawab of Bengal Mir Qasim, Nawab of Oudh Shuja
-
ud
-
Daula and
Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II fought with British at the battle of Buxar. British defeated
the alliance of these three rulers and took control of more lands in sub
-
continent.
Then Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan were challenged by British in their territory,
Mysore. Hyder was able to defeat British and signed a treaty in which British agreed not
to disturb him again. His son Tipu was again challenged by British however he was not
abl
e to overpower British despite early victories.
British also took over Sindh in 1843. The conquest of Sindh was a result of
frustration of British defeat in Afghanistan. They had been trying to capture Afghanistan
and successive British failures diverted t
heir attention towards Sindh.
In Punjab Ranjeet Singh also did not accept the supremacy of British. British tried
to take control over Punjab but Ranjeet defended it well It was after his dea
th, that
British annexed Punjab in 1849.
The last attempt by Ind
ians to prevent British from taking control over India was
the War independence 1857. This was the biggest struggle against British in India. It was
supported by many Indians from different parts.
In short all the efforts by Indians to resist against Briti
sh control failed. The main
reason behind these failures was that Indians were not united at any time and had their
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own personal interest.
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