The Faraizi Movement

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The Faraizi Movement The Faraizi Movement, essentially a religious reform movement had emerged forth during the 19th century, founded by Haji Shariatullah by the Bengali Muslims. The term Faraizi has been deduced from `farz`, standing for compulsory and mandatory duties ordained by Allah. The Faraizis are, thus, those bunch of men whose only objective is to implement and impose these mandatory religious duties. The promoter and initiator of the Faraizi Movement, Haji Shariatullah, however had represented the term in a different light and sense, implying to assimilate every religious duty ordained by the Quran as well as by the Sunnah of the Prophet. Prior to the uprising of the Faraizi movement, there lies hidden a history and backdrop which indeed had induced the Bengali Muslims and Shariatullah in large to incite such an action against the British oppression. Haji Shariatullah had been onto a pilgrimage to Mecca, staying back for twenty years and being absorbed in comprehending religious doctrines under Shaikh Tahir Sombal. Returning home, he had plunged a movement to make the Bengali Muslims espouse the true canons of Islam. After his return to Bengal under British Indian rule, he had remained a continuous witness to the appalling and degenerating conditions of his brotherhood, calling them forth to give up un-Islamic practices (Bidah) and execute their honest duties as Muslims (Faraiz). Due to various accumulating historical reasons, the Muslims of Bengal had been merrily complying with umpteen local customs, rituals and observances, which were almost unimaginable and displaced from the principles of Islam. Most Bengali Muslims did not even abide by the basic principles of Islam. Haji Shariatullah then and there had sworn to bring the Bengali Muslims back in the true path of Islam, which later had churned into the gargantuan Faraizi Movement. He had assayed to lay paramount accentuation on the five fundamentals of Islam, insisted on the complete acceptance and strict observation of virginal monotheism and reprobated all digressions from the original doctrines as shirk (polytheism) and bid`at (sinful conception). Umpteen rituals and ceremonies affiliated with birth, marriage and death like Chuttee, Puttee, Chilla, Shabgasht procession, Fatihah, Milad and Urs were heavily prohibited by Shariutullah. Saint-worship, demonstrating unnecessary admiration to the Pir, lifting of the Taziah during Muharram were also adjudged shirk. Haji Shariatullah indeed had laid gross emphasis upon justice, social equality and universal fraternity of Muslims. Haji Shariatullah deemed British domination in Bengal as exceedingly detrimental to the religious life of the followers of Islam. He spoke up that the complete non-existence of a lawfully-appointed Muslim caliph or representative administrator in Bengal had stripped the Muslims of the privilege of observing congregational prayers. To the Faraizis, Friday congregation was inexcusable in a predominantly non-

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ Muslim state like Bengal. The Faraizi movement thus began to circulate with astonishing promptness in the districts of Dhaka, Faridpur, Bakerganj, Mymensingh, Tippera (Comilla), Chittagong and Noakhali (back then, during British Indian times, the country was yet to be divided, hence these regions very well fell under the erstwhile undivided Bengal), as well as to the province of Assam. Faraizi movement, however, acquired its grooviest momentum in those provinces where the Muslim peasantry was horribly dejected under the tyrannical domination of Hindu zamindars and the sadistic European indigo planters. Many Muslims, on the other hand, did not abide by the Faraizi doctrine and tried to defend against their activities with aid from the Hindu zamindars. The landlords of Dhaka, hence, guaranteed the eviction of Haji Shariatullah by the police in 1831, from Ramnagar or Nayabari, where he had assembled his propaganda centre. Through unremitting engagement with the Hindu landlords and European indigo planters, this movement swelled into a socio-economic issue, which became an overriding feature of the Faraizi movement under Shariatullah`s son Dudu Miyan and his descendants. The landlords levied numerous Abwabs (plural form of the Arabic term bab, signifying a door, a section, a chapter, a title. During Mughal India, all temporary and conditional taxes and impositions levied by the government over and above regular taxes were referred to as abwabs. More explicitly, abwab stood for all irregular impositions on Raiyats above the established assessment of land in the Pargana) over and above normal rent and such abwabs were horribly dishonest in the eye of law. Several abwabs were of religious nature. Haji Shariatullah then intervened to object to such a practice and commanded his disciples not to pay these dishonest cesses to the landlords. The landlords had even inflicted a ban on the slaughter of cow, especially on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha. The Faraizis ordained their peasant followers not to cling and stick by to such a ban. All these heated instances added up to tensed and stressed relationships amongst the Faraizies and the landlords, who were nearly all Hindus. This was another major communal cause, which in the long run, had induced these two religious factions to stand against each other, leading to the Fairizi Movement. Gradually gathering up incidents under the Islamic-led Faraizi movement could be witnessed in various parts of Bengal, with overwhelming English-Bengali agreement for perhaps the very first time. The outraged landlords built up a propaganda campaign with the British officials, incriminating the Faraizis with mutinous mood. In 1837, these Hindu landlords indicted Haji Shariatullah of attempting to build up a monarchy of his own, similar in lines to Titu Mir. They also brought several lawsuits against the Faraizis, in which they benefitted dynamic cooperation of the European indigo planters. Shariatullah was placed under the detention of the police in more than one instance, for purportedly inciting agrarian turbulences in Faridpur. After the bereavement of Haji Shariatullah in 1840, his only son Muhsinuddin Ahmad, alias Dudu Miyan was heralded the chief of the Faraizi movement. It was under Dudu Miyan`s leadership that the Faraizi movement took on agrarian disposition. He had machinated and masterminded the oppressed peasantry against the oppressive landlords. In trembling vengeance, the Hindu landlords and indigo planters tried to hold back Dudu Miyan by constituting false cases against him. But, he had turned so very iconic with the peasantry that in these several issued cases, courts hardly ever establish a witness

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ against Dudu. The initial victories of Dudu Miyan caught the fancy of the masses and his reputed standing rose high and higher in their respect. These incidents also lent additional impetus to the circulation of the Faraizi movement and drew to its congregation not only numerous Muslims, who so far stood cold, but also Hindus and native Christians who assayed Dudu Miyan`s protection against the tyrannical landlords. Dudu Miyan however, passed away in 1862 and before his death he had appointed a board of guardians to watch over his minor sons, Ghiyasuddin Haydar and Abdul Gafur, alias Naya Miyan, who succeeded his father sequentially. The board, scouting under great troubles, kept the now-declining Faraizi movement from shattering to pieces. It was not until Naya Miyan reached maturity that it recovered some of its lost force and vigour. Nabinchandra Sen, the then sub-divisional officer of Madaripur, deemed it practical to enter into a treaty of mutual help with the Faraizi leaders, who, in their turn, demonstrated a zeal of cooperation towards the government. On the death of Naya Miyan in 1884, the third and youngest son of Dudu Miyan, Syeduddin Ahmad, was hailed as the leader by the Faraizis. During Syeduddin Ahmad`s period, the clash of the Faraizis with the Taiyunis, another reformist group, reached its peak status and religious debates between the two schools had become a common place episode in the then British Indian Bengal. Syeduddin was conferred the title of Khan Bahadur by the government. In 1905, on the question of the partition of Bengal, he lent tremendous support to Nawab Salimullah in favour of partition, but he too expired in 1906. Faraizi Movement was now, almost biting the dust of degenerating soil, with no potential hope for an intelligent tomorrow. Khan Bahadur Syeduddin was succeeded by his eldest son Rashiduddin Ahmad, also acknowledged as Badshah Miyan. During the early years of his leadership, Badshah Miyan strictly had defended the policy of co-operation towards the colonial government. But the dissolution and succeeding invalidation of the partition of Bengal made him terribly anti-British and he this began taking active part in the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements. Soon after the establishment of Pakistan, Badshah Miyan called for a conference of the Faraizis at Narayanganj and declared Pakistan as Dar-ulIslam and afforded permission to his followers to hold the congregational prayers of Jum`ah and Eid. In such a gradual manner, the Faraizi movement lost its erstwhile zing and forcefulness, as the country witnessed its Independence, coupled with the Partition into two distinctive nations, comprising Hindus and Muslims.

Mir Nasir Ali, known as Titu Mir is another important figure who was moved by the sufferings of the Muslim of Bengal. After returning from Pilgrimage, Titu Mir devoted himself to the cause of his country. He made Narkelbaria, a village near Calcutta, the center of his activities. Many oppressed Muslim peasants gathered round Titu Mir in their resistance against the Hindu landlord, Krishna Deva Raj. Titu Mir was able to defeat Krishna Deva and set up government. The British aiding the Hindu landlords sent an army of 100 English Soldiers and 300 sepoys to Narkelbaria. In 1831, Titu Mir died fighting the British forces.

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ The death of Titu Mir did not dishearten his followers. His example rather served as a source of inspiration for them in the years to come.

Shari`at `Ullah was born in 1781 in the village of Shmail in eastern Bengal. The founder of the Fara`izis, Shari`at `Ullah received his primary education in Calcutta and Hooghly. In 1799, when he was eighteen years, Shari`at `Ullah traveled to Mecca. The first two years he took training under a migrant Bengali, Maulana Murad, and for the next fourteen years learned more about the Maulana religion being the student of the Hanafi scholar, Tahir Sombal. Shari`at `Ullah was also initiated into the Qadiriyah order of Sufism during this period. Moreover, he spent two years at al-Azhar University in Cairo. After Shari`at `Ullah returned to Bengal in 1818 as a scholar of Islamic law and philosophy, he began to preach, but soon returned to Mecca, where he took the formal consent of his teacher to preach his own religious campaign. After returning to Bengal, probably in 1820 or early 1821, Shari`at `Ullah very soon attracted the aspired individuals among the peasants of eastern Bengal. Shari`at `Ullah`s message was one of the religious purification and he was deeply shocked by unacceptable beliefs and behavior well liked among Bengali Muslims. Shari`at `Ullah called for a return to farcflz that was the obligatory duties of Islam, particularly the profession of faith known as kalimah, fasting in Ramadan (sawm or rozah), attending daily prayers (salat or namaz), paying the poor tax (zakat) and pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj)`. Along with these rites Shari`at `Ullah focused on the principle of tawhid (monotheism). Variations from the original message of Muhammad were the products of either shirk (polytheistic religious beliefs) or bid`ah (sinful innovations). In practical terms Shari`at `Ullah prohibited the worship conducted at the shrines of a variety of Islamic saints, the rituals that are connected with the birth of a child or with circumcision, and the intense wailing at ceremonies to honor the Shari`at `Ullah`s heroes, al-Hasan and al-Husain. Uneducated Muslims who copied customs from the non-Muslim community held some of these rituals responsible on Hindu influence that either preserved by converting to Islam, or simply accepted. The scriptural fundamentalism of Shari`at` Ullah was widely accepted primarily among peasants in eastern Bengal. In order to successfully reach this audience the Fara`izi leaders preached in Bengali language and used that language in their initiation ceremony rather than Persian, Arabic or Urdu. They introduced a distinctive pattern of dress that made the members of their movement stand out from the rest of their community. Militant, unified, and composed mainly of illiterate peasants and artisans, the Fara`izis soon faced opponents as they came within the eastern Bengali districts of Dacca, Faridpur, Jessore, and Badkarganj. Firstly, Fara`izis directly challenged the orthodox or Sadiqi Muslims who were determined to maintain the practice of Islam as it was then. The Sadiqis were mainly descendants of the Muslims who had entered Bengal immediately after the conquest. Many of them were members of the landlord class, which was thought to be a group by the Fara`izis as economic and ideological enemies. Hinduism was

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ also an opponent, a fountain of polytheism and evil innovations. Once more religious tensions came up solely due to economics reasons, since the majority of landlords in eastern Bengal were Hindus. In 1831, Barasat had become the center of Fara`izi that led to disturbances against the power of local landlords. Indigo factories were burnt and peasants refused to pay rents to Hindu landlords because they often insisted illegal payments. Muslim peasants opposed for religious as well as economic reasons. Hindu landlords collected money for ceremonies like Durga Puja, the annual celebration of a Hindu goddess. Shari`at `Ullah asked his followers to refuse such demands and they did. Throughout the 1830s conflict started between the Fara`izis and their landlords with each side blaming the other, as the religious movement slowly became entangled in economic and political issues. This drifted toward rural conflict and continued after the death of Shari`at `Ullah in 1840 when his son, Dudu Miyan, succeeded him as leader of the community.

Mushin al-Din Ahmad was born in 1819 in a village of Madaripur of greater Faridpur district. He was popularly known as Dudu Miyan. He was the only son of Shari`at `Ullah. Dudu Miyan took his primary education from his father and then at the age of twelve he traveled to Mecca for further studies. He never achieved the levels of scholarship attained by his father, but Dudu Miyan very soon proved himself an active leader; able to create an effective organizational structure for the Fara`izis in their struggles and reform movements with opposing party and the landlord-planter set of Bengal. Dudu Miyan spent about five years at Makka for schooling. At the age of 19 he was called back on account of his father`s illness. It was a very critical moment of serious argument of the Faraizis with the landlords, European indigo planters, conventional Ulama and the Sabiqi or the non-Faraizi Muslim society. These communities began to attack the Faraizis individually as well as in collected groups, in which the government supported them. Though less learned than his father, he was youthful, energetic and astutely diplomatic. For all practical purposes he inaugurated an age of his own in the hapless rural society of Faridpur. To face the opposition party, the Faraizis effectively revived the traditional selfgoverning organization of panchayet system for minimizing conflict in the countryside, to check and control local disputes by good-will compromises and negotiation. For methodical and victorious operation of the panchayet, he took too many precautious measures. Following the socio-economic policies of his father, Dudu Miyan acknowledged equality and brotherhood of mankind and founded the doctrine of the proprietorship of land as due to the labor. He believed that the land belongs to the tiller. This attracted the attention of all the downtrodden peasantry and irrespective of religion and caste all peasantry followed his ideals and supported him in the Faraizi movement. With the help of his core-khilafat organisation, he took care of all the quarrels of the people in the rural society and settled their disputes, summoned and tried the culprits in the khilafat courts and enforced the judgments efficiently. He even traditionally imposed a verbal injunction against referring any case of the disagreement to the government courts without the permission of the Faraizi Khalifahs on constraint of ensuring non-availability of witness for or against the case. Unlike his father, Dudu Miyan was active in the world of politics and economics with a direct confront to the status quo. He proclaimed that God was the controller of all land and that the land tax was thus both unlawful and immoral. This declaration was extremely admired among Muslim peasants, but

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ completely offensive to landlords, indigo planters, and the police force. Severe clashes took place in 1841 and 1842, and as a result Dudu Miyan and forty-eight of his followers were arrested, tried, and put into prison. The case proceeded slowly through various stages of petition and finally in 1847 the conviction was set aside by the High Court in Calcutta. This dramatic victory in the Fara`izi movement greatly increased their prestige and also brought about a decade of peace between them and the landlords. After the break up of the Sepoy mutiny in 1857, the British government captured and imprisoned Dudu Miyan. He was released in 1859, again arrested and finally freed in 1860. By this time he fell seriously ill and died while staying in Dacca in 1862. The death of Dudu Miyan created a vacuum in the movement, which was not quickly filled. The eldest son Mushin al-Din Ahmad, Ghiyath al-Din, was chosen to replace him in 1864, but unfortunately he died later that same year. The second son, `Abd al-Ghafur, popularly known as Naya Miyan, followed his elder brother. Since he was still too young for effective control, three lieutenants became his guardians and supervised the movement until sometime in the 1870s when Naya Miyan took the active leadership of the community. Dudu Miyan lived from 1819 to 1862 but took the leadership of the Faraizi movement at its best after his father Haji shariatullah.