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The Jamaat of Allah's Friends: Maulana Allahyar's Reformist Movement and Sacralising the Space of the Armed Forces of Pakistan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2020
Abstract
This article discusses a Sufi-inspired reformist movement that was set up in Chakrala (Pakistani Punjab) by Maulana Allahyar during the second half of the twentieth century. Attention is paid to the polemical religious context in which this movement arose, in part linked to the proselytising activities of local Shias and Ahmadis. Allahyar's preaching in the town created sectarian divisions within Chakrala's syncretic religious traditions. His reformist ideas also were articulated through a tablighi jamaat (missionary movement), which penetrated the armed forces of Pakistan during the military rule of Ayub Khan. Against this backdrop, the article also discusses the interface between Islam and the army, as this relationship played out in Indian prisoner-of-war camps holding captured Pakistani soldiers in the wake of the 1971 war, and so points to ways in which the mutual performance of mystical practices by Allahyar's Jamaat created a cohesive moral community.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society
References
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26 Ibid.
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37 He believed the community's fortune depended on strict observance of the sharia and complete submission to Prophet. See letters of Maulana Allahyar to Colonel Matloob, 27 August 1971, in Maktubaat (Chakwal, 1989).
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41 Maulana Ilyas's Tablighi Jamaat was a voluntary mass movement founded in 1927 in the Mewat region around Delhi in northern India. After the British rule ended in India, tablighis spread to all South Asian countries, devoted themselves to preaching, and were organised in the form of travelling preachers. See Yoginder Sikand, The Origins and Development of the Tablighi-Jama'at (1920–2000): a cross-country comparative study (New Delhi, 2002) pp. 4–5.
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48 A vow of allegiance to a sheikh as his disciple or murid.
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50 Ibid., p. 45.
51 The Naqshbandia Awaisia silsila was restored by Maulana Allahyar after a lapse of some 500 years after the death of Maulana Abdur Rehman Jami. Ibid., p. 252.
52 Ahmed-ud-Din, Hayat-e-Tayaba, p. 255.
53 Maulvi Suleiman was teacher of Arabic in a local school, Hafiz Abdul Razzaq and Bunyad Hussain Shah worked as lecturers in Islamic Studies at Government Degree College, Chakwal, and Government Degree College, Jhelum, respectively. He believed the community's fortune depended on strict observance of Sharia and complete submission to Prophet. See Ahmed-ud-Din, Hayat-e-Tayaba.
54 Ibid., p. 271.
55 Ibid., p. 313. The centre would be coupled with regional nodes, working in connection with the central Dar-ul-Irfan. A department of press and publication was set up, responsible for dealing with correspondence and the publishing of a monthly risala (journal), Al-Murshid. The publication committee comprised Hafiz Razzaq, Col. Matloob, Professor Buniad Hussain, Professor Baagh Hussain Kamal, Fazal Akbar, Haji Altaf Ahmed and Muhammad Hamid. See Ahmed-ud-Din, Hayat-e-Tayaba, p. 313.
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69 Ibid.
71 Major Ahsan Baig was born on 10 August 1944. He was initiated into the Naqshbandia Awaisia order in 1968, and was the first person from the officer cadre of the Pakistan Army to join Allahyar's jamaat. See Ta'aruf Hazrat Jee Baig Sahib, available at www.salkeen.org (accessed 12 September 2017).
72 Interestingly, Ahsan Baig was not among the prisoners of war. Rather he disguised himself as a prisoner of war and boarded the last ship going to India, sent there by Maulana Allahyar for the spiritual training of the sepoys and officials in the prisoner-of-war camps. See Jillani, Rashid Ahmed, Halaat-e-Aseeri mein Ahl-e-Allah ki suhbat (Bahawalnagar, 1990), p. 23Google Scholar.
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75 Ibid., p. 34.
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77 In a letter to Col. Matloob, Allahyar stated that “from a soldier to a colonel, all are equal to me, all are my spiritual progeny, only with exception to Ahsan Baig, who is my khalifa majaz [one who has been ordained the status of khalifa by his shaykh] for your guidance”. He described Baig as “heart” of his Jamaat. See Maulana Allahyar's letter to Colonel Matloob, 11 July 1973, in Maktubaat (Chakwal, 1989).
78 It is an armour that fights both against the self of the vain person and against other people. Without eliminating pride and vanity, the spiritual transformation is not possible, which is the defensive armour of ego. See Ajmal, Muhammad, ‘A note on Adab in the Murshid-Murid Relationship’, in Moral Conduct and Authority: the place of Adab in South Asian Islam, (ed.) Barbara Daly Metcalf (Berkeley, 1984), p. 246Google Scholar.
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83 Maulana Allahyar's letters to his disciples, Captain Khalid Hassan (19 October 1972) and Captain Hashim Jaan (11 January 1973), in Maktubaat (Chakwal,1989).
84 Werbner, Pilgrims of Love, p. 57.
85 Ibid.
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99 Muhammad, Murshid Jaisa Na Dekha Koi, p.160. While the Pakistan Navy dominated the Jamaat, some of the prominent members included airforce personnel such as Group Captain Sarfraz, Group Captain Arif Kazmi, Wing Commander Muzamil Jibran, and (the above-mentioned) Squadron Leader Mohsin Khan.
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109 It is hoped that this study may provide future avenues of research which could include comparative examination of other preaching movement in the Pakistan Army during the Ayub era. It might also prompt additional assessment of the impact of Ahmadi and Shia missionary activities in 1950s Pakistan. A comparative study of use of Islam by the army during the Ayub and Zia eras could also usefully be made.