Table Of ContentDEOBANDIS ABROAD:
SUFISM, ETHICS AND POLEMICS IN A GLOBAL ISLAMIC MOVEMENT
Brannon D. Ingram
A Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department
of Religious Studies
Chapel Hill
2011
Approved by:
Carl W. Ernst
Katherine Ewing
Bruce B. Lawrence
Ebrahim Moosa
Omid Safi
UMI Number: 3477466
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ii
ABSTRACT
BRANNON D. INGRAM - Deobandis Abroad: Sufism, Ethics and Polemics in a Global Islamic
Movement
(Under the direction of Carl W. Ernst)
This dissertation examines contemporary Islamic debates about the ethics and legality of
Sufism (Islamic mysticism) within a globally influential movement based at the Islamic seminary
(madrasa) known as Dar al-`Ulum Deoband in northern India. Two overarching, and interrelated,
questions motivate this dissertation. What are the historical origins of Deoband’s critique of
Sufism? And how is this critique variously appropriated and contested in the contemporary
world? To this end, it reconstructs the contours of Deoband’s engagement with Sufism in the
works of its founders and how this critique traveled through the Deobandi network to South
Africa, home to the most prominent Deobandi madrasas outside of South Asia and wide
participation in the Sufi devotions that the Deobandis have most vociferously critiqued.
The first and second chapters explore how Deobandis conceived Sufism exclusively as
ethical reform (islah) of the self and argued certain devotional practices (especially celebration of
the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday and of Sufi saints’ death anniversaries) are illicit innovations
(bid`a) in Islam. The third chapter reconstructs how Deobandi thought and institutions took root
in South Africa, attending to the circulation of Deobandi writings within South Africa and the
founding of South African Deobandi madrasas. The fourth chapter demonstrates how Deobandi
students position themselves within an imagined ‘Deobandi’ network and how they seek to
embody and internalize the ethics of Sufi practice. The fifth and sixth chapters assess the
reception of Deobandi critiques of Sufism in the South African public sphere, particularly in the
context of Muslim politics, society and popular media during and after apartheid.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I must express enormous gratitude, firstly, to my dissertation committee - Carl W. Ernst,
Katherine Ewing, Bruce B. Lawrence, Ebrahim Moosa, and Omid Safi. I would like especially to
single out two of them in particular: Carl, for showing exemplary patience and insight as my
dissertation advisor, and Ebrahim, as both a South African and a former Dar al-`Ulum student, for
sharing his intimate knowledge of the texts, events and personas in this dissertation along the
way.
A very special thanks is due to Abdulkader Tayob and the Centre for Contemporary
Islam at the University of Cape Town. The Centre gave me invaluable institutional support for the
duration of my time in South Africa, and the imprint of Professor Tayob’s thinking about Muslim
publics is especially evident in the final chapter. I also received generous assistance from the
gracious librarians of the National Library of South Africa branches in Cape Town and Pretoria,
the Documentation Centre at the University of Durban-Westville, and especially Sandy Shell of
the University of Cape Town’s African Studies Library.
Many others assisted me at various stages of the process, whether in applications for
funding, making contacts, finding sources, negotiating logistics on-the-ground, or simply through
insightful conversation: Khalil Ali, Ashraf Dockrat, Muneer Fareed, Scott Kugle, Christopher
Lee, Lauren Leve, Ismail Mangera, Waris Mazhari, Altaf Ali Mian, Muhammad Alie Moosagie,
Ahmed Mukaddam, Dietrich Reetz, Muhammad Khaled Sayed, Randall Styers, Sherali Tareen,
Goolam Vahed, and Muhammad Qasim Zaman.
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Interviews and fieldwork for this project were approved by the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) of the University of North Carolina’s Office of Human Research Ethics. A Social
Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, with funding from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as an Off-Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship
from the University of North Carolina enabled the research, while a Dissertation Completion
Fellowship from the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina funded the writing.
Without the support of both of these institutions, I would never have had the means to begin,
much less finish, a project of this scale.
Lindsay, I dedicate this to you. We both took on the biggest projects of our lives at
precisely the same time, and yet emerged relatively unscathed.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 1
Why Deoband? Why South Africa? . . . . . . 5
Who or What is a ‘Deobandi’? . . . . . . . 13
Sufism, Ethics, Polemics . . . . . . . 17
Sufism . . . . . . . . . 18
Ethics . . . . . . . . . 22
Polemics . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . 28
Chapter One ~ What Sufism is Not: Sufi Devotions and the Origins of the Deobandi
Critique . . . . . . . . . 32
Sayyid Ahmad, Muhammad Isma`il and the Roots of Deobandi Critique . . 35
Mawlud: How Ought One Love the Prophet? . . . . . 45
Grave Danger: Commemorating Sufi Saints’ Death Anniversaries . . 59
Chapter Two ~ What Sufism is: Deobandi Sufism and the Ethics of the Self . . 65
Purifying the Self, Purifying Society: Islah and Tajdid . . . . 66
Hajji Imdadullah: Sufism before Apologetics . . . . . 72
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Rashid Ahmad Gangohi: Sufism is/as the Law . . . . . 76
Ashraf `Ali Thanawi: Sufism, the Qur’an and the Hadith . . . . 78
Sufi Devotions, Sufi Ethics and Public Morality . . . . . 83
Fatwas fill the Void: Law and Muslim Publics in the Nineteenth Century . 87
Hardening Religious Boundaries: Gangohi on ‘Resembling’ Religious
Others . . . . . . . . 91
Ashraf `Ali Thanawi: Muslim Publics and Mass Sufism . . . 95
Chapter Three ~ How a Tradition Travels: Deobandi Scholars, Texts, and
Institutions in South Africa . . . . . . . 99
Islam(s) in South Africa and the Arrival of Deobandi Scholars . . . 101
Early Deobandi History in South Africa: Jamiatul `Ulama’ Transvaal, Waterval
Islamic Institute, and the Advent of South African Tabligh . . 107
Mahmud Hasan Gangohi and the South African Tablighi Jama`at . . . 119
Masihullah Khan: Imprinting Thanawi on South African Deoband . 125
Understanding Deobandi Madrasas in South Africa . . . . 134
Dar al-`Ulum Newcastle . . . . . . 134
Qasimul Uloom: In the Orbit of Newcastle . . . . 135
Madrasa In’aamiyya: Deobandi Sufism on the Web . . . 138
Chapter Four ~ The Madrasa and the Majlis: Locating Deoband Sufism . . 142
Qari Muhammad Tayyib on Sufism and the Deobandi Movement . . 144
Sufism and the Dars-i Nizami . . . . . . . 146
Comparing Curricula: Deoband and Azaadville . . . . . 149
Sufi Ethics ‘in’ and ‘of’ the madrasa: Dar al-`Ulum Azaadville . . . 154
Limitations on fieldwork in madrasas . . . . . 155
Azaadville’s Madrasa Arabia Islamia (Dar al-`Ulum Azaadville) . . 158
Who is a Deobandi anyway? . . . . . . 161
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On ‘studying’ Islam . . . . . . . 165
Sufi meditations to ‘open the heart’: Lessons in self-fashioning . . 169
Cultivating a pure sensorium: TV, radio and bodily demeanor . . 174
Pedagogy and persuasion: Sufi ethics and the majlis . . . . 177
Chapter Five ~ Deoband in Public: Polemics and Apartheid Politics . . . 187
Deobandi and Barelwi Polemics: Textual Exchanges . . . . 189
Locating Polemics: The Majlisul Ulama and Barelwi Institutions . . 191
The contours of Deobandi/Barewli polemic in South Africa . . 196
Public Confrontation: Deobandis, Barelwis, and Apartheid Politics . . 204
Maulana Khushtar and the Tablighi Jama`at . . . . 204
Anti-Apartheid Activism and Anti-`Ulama’ Sentiment . . . 210
Ebrahim Adam and the ‘Barelwi Menace’ . . . . 222
Murder in the Mawlud: Azaadville, March 1987 . . . . . 227
Politicizing Sufism: The Mawlud and the Halqa in the 1980’s and 1990’s . . 230
Contesting Deobandi `Ulama’ in the Twilight of Apartheid . . . 238
Chapter Six ~ New Rivalries, New Rhetoric: Sufism, Media and ‘Heritage’
after Apartheid . . . . . . . . 241
Media, Law and Muslim Publics: Before and After Apartheid . . . 243
Mawlud on the Radio, ‘Grave Worship’ on TV: New Parameters of
Religious Debate. . . . . . . . 246
Devotional Piety after Apartheid: Mawlud, Kramats and the Cape Sufi
‘Heritage’ . . . . . . . . 254
Conclusion: Sufism as a Moving Target. . . . . . . 268
Appendix A: Sample Interview Questions . . . . . . 272
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . 274
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A note on orthography
For transliteration of Urdu and Arabic texts, I have kept orthographical standards fairly
simple: I have used ` to represent the `ayn and ‘ to represent the hamza. But as the lingua franca
of Muslim textual discourse in South Africa is English, locally published texts transliterate terms
from the Urdu and Arabic using a wide variety of standards (or none at all). This presents special
orthographical dilemmas. Thus, throughout South Africa words such as salat are typically
rendered salaat. Dar al-`Ulum becomes ‘Darul Uloom’. Spelling for the mawlud festival, central
to this research, is especially vexing: ‘mawlud’, ‘mawlood’, ‘moulood’, and ‘mouloud’ are all in
common use. Ashraf `Ali Thanawi’s name can be rendered ‘Thanvi’, ‘Thanavi’, ‘Thanwi’ or
‘Thanawi’, all equally legitimate spellings. Sufi is commonly written ‘Soofie’. The orthographic
traditions of the Cape only compound the difficulties. Names such as Jamal al-Din are often
written ‘Gamieldien’; `Abd al-Qadir becomes ‘Abdulkader’ or ‘Abdulkader’; Ali becomes `Alie’.
Qasim can be spelled ‘Cassim’. Masjid may be spelled ‘masjied’.
My modus operandi throughout this dissertation has been to uphold my own standard for
words that I transliterate from the Urdu (for example, I use ‘mawlud’ and ‘Thanawi’), while
retaining spellings as they appear in South African English-language publications, in both titles
and quotations. Thus I will write Ashraf `Ali Thanawi, but if I am quoting a text that spells his
name differently, I will of course spell it as it appears in that text.
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Description:DEOBANDIS ABROAD: SUFISM, ETHICS AND POLEMICS IN A GLOBAL ISLAMIC MOVEMENT Brannon D. Ingram A Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North
