Abstract
This chapter will argue that Vakkom Moulavi, like other Muslim modernists, was influenced by the European understanding of Oriental degeneracy and that therefore, he believed in the decline of both the medieval and contemporary Muslims. This, according to him, necessitated initiating religious reform among the Mappila Muslims of Kerala. His religious reform was part of the worldwide islahi movement spearheaded by Egyptian scholars like Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida through the periodical al-Manar. Vakkom Moulavi argued that the material as well as spiritual prosperity of Muslims was the ultimate objective of the Islamic principles. Therefore, the decline of contemporary Muslims was nothing but the punishment for their ignorance of Islamic principles and failure to follow it. While maintaining that the belief in the unity of God is the central Islamic principle, he held that the Qur’an and Hadith (prophetic traditions) are the only “true” foundations of faith. Therefore, he called upon Mappilas to reject their popular religious beliefs and practices, which cannot be validated with reason and science, and return to the values of the Qur’an. In this process, he rejected most of the Islamic traditions, which resulted in a kind of “protestantization of faith.”
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Notes
Vakkom Moulavi, “Tawhidum Shirkum” [Tawhid and Shirk]. In Vakkom Maulaviyude Thiranjedutha Kruthikal [Selected Writings of Vakkom Maulavi], ed. S. Mohamed Abda (Vakkom: Vakkom Maulavi Publications, 1979), 175–176.
Vakkom Moulavi, “Islam Matha Sindhanta Samgraham” [“An Outline of Islamic Religious Principles”]. In Vakkom Maulaviyude Thiranjedutha Kruthikal [Selected Writings of Vakkom Maulavi], ed. S. Mohamed Abda (Vakkom: Vakkom Maulavi Publications, 1979), 101–102.
Vakkom Moulavi, “Islam Mata Navikaranam” [“Islamic Religious Renewal”], in Vakkom Moulavi: Prabhandhangal, Smaranakal [Vakkom Moulavi: Essays and Obituaries], ed. Haji M. Mohamed Kannu (Trivandrum: Arafa Publications, 1982), 96–97.
See also Vakkom Moulavi, “Swagatha Prasangam” [“Welcome Speech”]. In Vakkom Moulavi: Prabhandhangal, Smaranakal [Vakkom Moulavi: Essays and Obituaries], ed. Haji M. Mohamed Kannu (Trivandrum: Arafa Publications, 1982), 4–5.
Kosugi Yasushi, “Al-Manar Revisited: The “Lighthouse” of the Islamic Revival,” in Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World: Transmission, Transformation, Communication, ed. Stephane A. Dudoignon, Komatsu Hisao, and Kosugi Yasushi (London: Routledge, 2006), 5.
Francis Robinson, “Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia,” Modern Asian Studies 42, 2/3 (2008): 269.
Francis Robinson, “Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print,” Modern Asian Studies 27, 1 (1993): 243.
Vakkom Moulavi, “Mathaparamaya Chila Chodyagalum Avaykku Moulaviyude Samadanagalum” [“Certain Religious Questions and Moulavi’s Response to Them”], in Vakkom Moulavi: Prabhandhangal, Smaranakal [Vakkom Moulavi: Essays and Obituaries], ed. Haji M. Mohamed Kannu (Trivandrum: Arafa Publications, 1982), 145. Hereafter “Certain Religious Questions”
Albert Habib Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 233;
Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni Usul al-Fiqh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 214–220.
Steve Bruce, Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 13–14.
Fazlur Rahman, Islam & Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 155.
Annemarie Schimmel, Gabriel’s Wing: A Study of the Religious Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, 2nd ed. (Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan, 1989), 42–43,
Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850 (London: Routledge, 2000), 166, 178. Aarukutty Muhammad Musaliyar. Vakkom Moulavi, “Lawh al-Sabah,” in Vakkom Maulaviyude Thiranjedutha Kruthikal, 241 and 200.
M. A. Shakoor, “Vakkom Moulavi: The Man Who Led the Islamic Renaissance in Kerala.” http://vmmrcblogspotcom.blogspot.com. Accessed June 1, 2008.
See Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003);
Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988).
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 3.
Ovamir Anjum, “Islam as a Discursive Tradition: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 27, no.3 (2007): 659.
Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 28.
Talal Asad, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam (Washington: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1986), 14.
Wael B. Hallaq, “What Is Shari‘a?” Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law 12 (2005–2006): 155.
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© 2014 Jose Abraham
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Abraham, J. (2014). Promotion of Islamic Reform. In: Islamic Reform and Colonial Discourse on Modernity in India. Postcolonialism and Religions. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378842_5
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