Samastha Kerala Jam'iyyathul Ulama

Overview

Samastha Kerala Jam'iyyathul Ulama is an organisation of Scholars of Sunni Muslims of Kerala.

Historical Background:

Kerala Muslims, who constitute 24.7% of the total population of the state, have their own characteristics and peculiarities that distinguish them from other Muslim communities in India. Islam entered South India much early compared to the Northern parts of the country. Arab traders and missionaries propagated their faith by their own ideal manners, persuasion and example. The direct relation of Kerala Muslims with Arabian Islam alienates them from what is called Indo-Persian Islam. In contrast to the rest of Muslims in India, Kerala Muslims observe the Shafi’i school of law. They never enjoyed ruling power unlike in South India, but remained as self-reliant merchants, fishermen or peasants throughout the centuries. There were no linguistic barriers to alienate Muslims from their non-Muslim counterparts, as the entire Keralites speak the Dravidian language of Malayalam, and Muslims never used Urdu as their mother tongue.

Kerala Muslims were gifted with a harmonious combination of multi-layered religious leadership. Eminent figures of Sayyid families, great religious scholars and exemplary personalities of Sufi missionaries jointly collectively rendered effective leadership to Kerala Muslims through centuries, despite the miseries and hardship they were undergoing. Ideological divisions seldom occurred among them prior to 20th century, though Muslims around the world witnessed emergence of various interpretation to Islam, thanks to the religious leadership who successfully checked all onslaughts to the religious faith and practices. It is remarkable that this spiritual leadership had developed a variety of educational systems to impart Islamic knowledge to each and every sections of the society in a way best suited to and compatible with their period. There were Othupallies for primary education, Darses in the mosques for higher education, and Wa'az programmes for universal education, though not without demerits.

With the onset of 20th century and the introduction of modernist as well as western trends in all walks of life, Kerala Muslims also saw waves of changes sweeping them along with other communities. The tragic incidents of 1921, which was a culmination of almost four-century-long repression and anti-Muslim cruelties by the colonial powers and which had made Muslims’ condition worse and pathetic in all fields, expedited the modernization trends. However, the responses to the present situation took three different forms. The first group of some elites and so-called intellectuals braved to embrace the modernity and western culture in its full form and to discard religion seeing it as the major cause of their backwardness. The second response was from some modern-educated personalities and some religious-educated fellows, who were influenced by the modernist and reformist movements within Islam like Wahabism and Salafism. They called for a reformed Islam by rejecting the entire traditional heritage, accusing the centuries-old religious leadership and their majority followers of deviation from Islamic tenets, and by reinterpreting the religion overshadowing all the intellectual traditions. They also rejected any form of esoteric interpretation (tawil) and criticised most of the transmitted knowledge, practices, customs and rituals.

The third response came from the traditional spiritual leadership of Sayyids, Ulama and Sheikhs of Thareeqas (leading esoteric figures). They had to protect the Muslim community from the infiltrations and influences of western un-Islamic culture on one hand, and to defend the traditional Islam from being absorbed by the modernist, fundamentalist, and puritanical as well as reformist versions of religion on the other hand. To face both the challenges simultaneously, the spiritual leadership thought of reinvigorating the Islamic education, of spreading the grand heritage of knowledge, of organising to protect the traditional rites and rituals, and of making the public more religious and more sensitive towards new interpretations. Samastha Kerala Jam’eyyat ul-Ulama was the result of this traditional response.

Formation of Samastha:

Samastha Kerala Jam’eyyat ul-Ulama (All Kerala Ulama Organisation), known as Samastha, is an association of eminent Sunni scholars who enjoy the highest support base among Kerala Muslims. The formation of Samastha was the response of these traditional Ulama to the conditions of post-1921 period in which Kerala Muslim community generally witnessed a radical shift from the folds of individual leadership to the folds of organisations. When they became equally disturbed by the ongoing modernisation trends in western style, and in the first public circulation among Kerala Muslims of the fundamentalist and puritanical views of Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab (1702-1793), Salafism of Rashid Rida (1865-1935), Islamic modernism of Muhammad Abduh (1819-1905), pan-Islamism of Jamaluddin Afghani (1939-1897), and the Tahreek e-Mujahideen in North India.

The new ideologists first came out through the Kerala Muslim Aikya Sangham ( group for unity among Kerala Muslims), which was founded at Kodungallur of Cochin state in 1922 by leaders like KM Seethi Sahib, KM moulavi and EK Moulavi. It tried to bring the scattered and unorganised reformist activists together. Later, they formed a Ulama organisation, Kerala Jam'eyyat ul-Ulama, at a two-day conference of Aikya Sangham held at Alwaye in 1924 where a large number of scholars were invited. It is a fact that the outstanding members of the traditional Ulama did not openly reject the Kerala Jam'eyyat ul-Ulama at first. However, gradually, the platform of the organisation started to be utilised to attack the traditional Islam that was followed unopposed for centuries and which was nurtured under the guidance of eminent scholars headed by Makhdums of Ponnani. They declared a host of Islamic cultural traditions as Shirk and Bidaa, and alleged the centuries-old scholarly and intellectual tradition of Kerala Muslims with deviations and alterations.

The Ulama felt the need to organise to defend and protect Kerala’s Islamic tradition and to wage a revivalist movement against the new interpretations. Moulana Pangil Ahmed Kutty Musliyar, who had already started counter campaigns against the ‘Wahhabi ideology’, along with some other scholars met Marhum Varakkal Sayyed Abdurahman Ba Alawi Mullakkoya Tangal, who was a Sufi Sheikh, renowned religious scholar and a prominent figure of Sayyed family, to discuss the need of an organisational movement to defend the true spirit of the religion. Tangal suggested convening a meeting of the eminent scholars to discuss the suitable solution.

In 1925, some major ulama and other society leaders gathered at Calicut Valiya Juma Masjid and formed an Ulama organisation after prolonged and serious discussions. KP Muhammad Meeran Musliyar and Parol Hussain Moulawi was named the President and Secretary of the organisation respectively. The newly formed Ulama organisation convened within a year many popular conferences, mainly at places where the new ideologists had received big attraction, and directed the masses to be aware of the leaders and followers of the ‘Bida’i sects’. They also travelled throughout the state to convey the message of the ulama organisation to maximum religious scholars who were living in the mosques or religious centres serving the Islamic knowledge.

A year later on June 26, 1926, a bigger convention was called at Calicut Town Hall, where eminent scholars from across the state participated, under the chairmanship of Sayyid Shihabuddhin Cherukunchikkoya Tangal. The convention reorganised the previously formed temporary organisation and adopted a full-fledged organisational set-up in the name of Samastha Kerala Jam’eyyat ul-Ulama. The convention nominated Varkkal Mullakkoya Tangal as Samastha’s first president, while Pangil Ahmed Kutty Musliyar, Muhammed Abdul Bari Musliyar, KM Abdul Qadir Musliyar and KP Muhammad Meeran Musliyar became vice presidents, and PV Muhammad Musliyar and PK Muhammad Musliyar became secretaries in the first committee.

Mushawara, The Consultative Body:

Samastha’s supreme body, including the working committee, is called Mushawara, and it is consisted of 40 eminent scholars of the time who are drawn purely on the basis of their scholarship in Islam, religious piety, faithfulness and devoutness. The word Mushawara, consultation, is drawn from the Quranic order to seek scholarly advices in matters. From its inception Samastha often convenes the Mushawara meeting to discuss various issues concerning the religion and community, and almost all the meeting deal with a host of questions received from across the state and from outside where Malayali Muslims reside seeking Fatwas on a variety of issues. Later Samastha formed a Fatwa Committee from within the Mushawara to specially look in to the increasing queries on religious issues.

Registration:

Samastha was officially registered on November 14, 1934, as the government approved its bylaw, which was agreed upon after deep and wide scholarly discussions held in various Mushawara meets and in consultation with law experts. It promulgated the propagation of true Islam, impart of religious education and activities against superstitions and un-Islamic traditions as its primary and supreme objectives. Its bylaw also included encouragement for secular education compatible with religious beliefs, and calls for religious tolerance, interfaith friendship, peaceful existence and national progress.

Aims And Objectives :

According to the bylaw, the main aims and objectives of the organisation are,

(a) To propagate and spread the rites and beliefs of Islam according to the real view of Ahlu Sunnah Wal-Jama’a,

(b) To legally prevent the organisations and campaigns which are against the rites and beliefs of Ahlu Sunnah Wal-Jama’a,

(c) To look after all rights and powers of Muslim community,

(d) To promote and encourage religious education and do the needful for the secular education that will be compatible with religious beliefs and culture,

(e) To work for the welfare and progress of the Muslim society in general by eliminating superstitions, anarchy, immorality and disunity.

PUBLIC CONFERENCES

Samastha leaders organised a host of public conferences at various places to spread their message. Facing an opposition of secularly educated people, journalists, advocates and neo-scholars who had been fruitfully utilising all means from public meetings to publications to propagate their reformist ideologies and to brand traditionalists as courting shirk, Samastha leaders were compelled to come out to defend themselves against the allegations and to explain its views. Systematically held public conferences and anniversaries increased Samastha’s popularity, kept the majority of Mappila Muslims in their fold, and restricted the inroads of reformist ideologies. In the first 25 years, Samastha focused its agenda on conducting public conferences, dialogues and ideological conflicts. Between 1927 and 1944, it convened 15 annual conferences at various places attracting immense public attention. 70th year Anniversary E.K Aboobacker musliar addressing the crowd

The 16th conference held at Karyavattam was important as since then Samastha started to keep records and registers of all activities, resolutions and decisions scientifically. After that, the frequency of the huge public conferences decreased mainly because the organisation had tightened its foundation and fortress by 1950s and it had formed many sub committees and subordinate organisations to deal with different issues. In next 40 years, it conducted next eight conferences. The 24th and 25th conferences held at Calicut seashore in 1985 and 1996 were widely appreciated for the largest gatherings the town ever witnessed, for the discipline and obedience the huge crowd displayed, for the resolutions, topics and issues the conference sessions discussed, and for the attention both drew from non-Muslim, political and government circles. In 2002 Samastha celebrated its platinum jubilee holding public conferences at five major cities across the state – Kasargod, Calicut, Thrissur, Kollam and Tiruvanandapuram.

RESOLUTIONS

Samastha’s ideological battle against its multi-faceted opponents was waged mainly through its widely discussed resolutions adopted in each public conferences, and decisions taken at Mushawara meetings. At one side it passed resolutions against the views and policies of reformist organisations like Kerala Jam'eyyat ul-Ulama (later renamed as Kerala Nadwat ul-Mujahideen and known as Mujahids, Salafis and Wahhabis) and Jama’at-e-Islami (followers of Abul A’ala Moududi), who have different opinions on issues like Tawasul, Isthighasa, Taqlid, Ijtihad and on a host of many other religious matters. On the other hand, it directed the public against the accretions in the rituals and beliefs and promulgated to perform traditions like visits to the graves of respected religious personalities in pure Islamic way discarding all un-Islamic cultures. Though most of Samastha leaders were either sheikhs or Mureeds of any of renowned Sufi Tareeqah, it never hesitated to rigorously oppose many pseudo Tareeqahs that emerged in the state time and again. Many thareeqahs like that of Chottur, Korur, Nurisha, Aluva etc had to face the wrath of the people after Samastha rejected them in the light of detailed studies on their ideologies, activities, strings of their sheikhs and the opinions of eminent contemporary scholars about them.

Samastha was one of the first Islamic organisations in the world that declared the Ahmadiyya group (Qadiyanis, followers of Mirza Gulam Ahmed Qadiyani, who claimed prophethood) as non Muslims, embarrassing even the reformists who later followed the suit after the global Muslim scholars and organisations including Saudi-based Rabitat ul-Alam al-Islami issued the fatwa of ‘kufriyyat’ against them. Samastha voiced against Tableeg Jama’ath also when it started attracting the mass through its puritanical views and striking propagation activities. It appointed a five-member committee to study about Tableeg referring its literature, views of its founders and analysing its activities, and Samastha counted the group in the list of Mubthadi’is after the committee reported that many of its views are contrary to the traditional views of Islam. This was before Malaysia and many Gulf Arab counties and even Rabitah issued resolutions against Tableeg.

Samastha actively involved in each and every matters related to Muslims, issued its verdict on various issues strongly standing on the traditional views, and solved disputes in families, Mahallus, local Islamic groups and among personalities. One can understand the great contribution to and impact of Samastha on the Muslim community of Kerala when he evaluates the result and outcome of the near-century-long discursive tradition between traditionalists and modernists, and when it is explored that at what extend the generally appreciated ideas of reformism could influence the Mappila community. Anybody can easily understand where the majority stands presently and what are their opinions on various contentious issues, which underwent hair-split discussions in front of them in the light of Quran, Sunnah and views of Companions and early scholars. It can be said without any doubt that if the reformists could not get the hold of even one percentage of Kerala Muslim Mahallus, which are the basic unit of Mappila Muslims, after a long and multi-faceted propaganda, it is the success of Samastha in keeping its fortress without many fractures.

External links

* [http://samastha.net/ samastha.net]