Abstract
Vakkom Moulavi’s appropriation of modernity cannot be read within the framework of a simple cause-and-effect trajectory in which the colonizer acted and the colonized reacted. Such a reading would take away Vakkom Moulavi’s agency and delineate him as one of the “simple-hearted victims of colonialism.”1 A closer reading of his writings would help us to understand that he evaluated, judged, and appropriated certain aspects of modernity. Such an appropriation was not a blind imitation, but an active engagement in colonial discourse.2 In fact, he challenged European modernity and argued that Islamic modernity is much more relevant, universal, and complete. He denied the accusation that Islam is responsible for the decline of Muslims and held that it was Islamic principles that made early Muslims the ideal community in human history. They created one of the best civilizations, translated the ancient wisdom of the Greeks and Romans, and contributed to the development of Mathematics, Geography, Optics, and the Medical Sciences. He admonished European scholars and Christian missionaries for their ignorance of the golden age of Muslim civilization and for misleading others about the truth of Muslim history. His criticism of the West can be analyzed within the framework of nationalists who believed in the moral decadence of the West and the spiritual superiority of the East.
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Notes
Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), xiv.
Sumit Sarkar, A Critique of Colonial India (Calcutta: Papyrus, 1985), 38.
Vakkom Moulavi, “Surat al-Fatiha,” in Vakkom Maulaviyude Thiranjedutha Kruthikal [Selected Writings of Vakkom Maulavi], ed. S. Mohamed Abda (Vakkom: Vakkom Maulavi Publications, 1979), 57–58. According to Vakkom Moulavi, the din of Allah is the same among all communities: the differences lie only in branches of law (furu‘ahkam), rituals, and practices.
Vakkom Moulavi, “Islam Matathekuriche Mahakavi Valltholinte Abadha Dharana” [Poet Vallathol’s Misunderstanding about Islam], in Vakkom Moulavi: Prabhandhangal, Smaranakal [Vakkom Moulavi: Essays and Obituaries], ed. Haji M. Mohamed Kannu (Trivandrum: Arafa Publications, 1982), 121. Hereafter “Vallathol.”
Albert Habib Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 235–236.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 9.
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), 31, f.n. 13.
Mansoor Moaddel, “Religion and Women: Islamic Modernism versus Fundamentalism,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, no. 1 (March, 1998), 115.
Steve Bruce, Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 9.
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.
Muhammad Iqbal, “Presidential Address Delivered at the Annual Session of the All-India Muslim League at Allahabad on the 29th December 1930,” in Iqbal, Jinnah, and Pakistan: The Vision and Reality, ed. C. M. Naim (Syracuse: Syracuse University, 1979), 193.
Ibid., 193–194. Also, Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan and Institute of Islamic Culture, 1989), 123.
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© 2014 Jose Abraham
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Abraham, J. (2014). Representing Islamic Modernity. In: Islamic Reform and Colonial Discourse on Modernity in India. Postcolonialism and Religions. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378842_6
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