Islam east of the Indus River had developed along different lines from that followed in the faith’s heartlands. It had reached almost every corner of the sub-continent, but was a minority religion everywhere other than in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and in perhaps half a dozen regional centres such as Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad. Contrary to what some Hindu nationalist historians would have us believe, most conversions to Islam had been voluntary, inspired as much by the challenge to the Hindu caste system represented by Islamic egalitarianism as by the examples of Sufi saints, who in many areas preceded the Muslim invasions. Islam represented a rare opportunity for social betterment, so it followed that most of these converts came from the bottom of the pile, as exemplified by the weavers and artisans of East Bengal. Most of them became willing if ignorant followers of the Hanafi school of law, the oldest, most inclusive and least hierarchical of the four schools of jurisprudence of the Sunnis, the Islamic mainstream which followed the precedents established by the Prophet and his immediate successors and acknowledged the authority of the line of caliphs who came after them.
The many waves of Turko-Afghan invaders who settled in northern India were also Sunnis, again mostly Hanafis, whereas the Persians who came with the Mughals were predominantly Shia, the largest minority sect in Islam, which regarded Imam Ali and his line as the legitimate descendants of the Prophet and thus the only true source of religious authority – a view considered heretical by orthodox Sunnis. However, centuries of contact with Hinduism also led to a measure of synthesis between it and both Sunni and Shia interpretations of Islam – an intermingling of views and practices that reformers such as Shah Waliullah and his sons found highly objectionable.
Elements of racism also came into play. Even though Islam stood for the equality of all men before God, the Muslim community in India developed a hierarchy that in many respects mirrored the Hindu caste system, a pecking order in which Hindustani Muslims descended from Hindu converts were at the bottom and those of Arab descent at the top, closely followed by Mughal, Persian and Afghan settlers. At the very pinnacle, naturally enough, were the Saiyyeds, whose descent from the Prophet accorded them respect bordering on veneration, enabling them to exercise what was generally a moderating influence on society by acting as mediators in disputes and as religious patrons. A significant number among this Muslim aristocracy resented their loss of power and equated it with the watering-down of Islam’s core values since the days of Emperor Aurangzeb. Many also embraced Sufi mysticism. The reformer Shah Waliullah was himself a follower of the Naqshbandi Sufi school, based on a movement originating in Bokhara in the fourteenth century which eschewed music and dance in favour of silent contemplation, and sought to recapture the simple intensity of early Islam through personal devotion. However, there are Sufis and Sufis. Prior to Shah Waliullah, the best-known Naqshbandi Sufi in India was Sheikh AHMAD SIRHINDI, who had been so appalled by the religious tolerance promoted by Emperor Akbar that when Jehangir succeeded him he began a political campaign to restore what he regarded as true Muslim values. These were centred on the overarching importance of tawhid, the oneness of God or absolute monotheism, as the basis of true religion, and on the need to combat all innovations and deviations from tawhid, as represented not only by Shia beliefs but also by many of the popular customs that had been adopted by Sunnis over the centuries. Ahmad Sirhindi’s application of Naqshbandi Sufism expressed itself in violent intolerance of Sunni backsliders and in the persecution of Shias and Hindus. Despite being proscribed in later years, the Sirhindi movement continued to inspire Sunni fundamentalists – among them Shah Waliullah, his four sons and those who studied under them at Delhi’s Madrassah-i-Rahimiya.
Thus the adolescent Syed Ahmad became a student of probably the most radical and reactionary school in India at a time when the umma, the world community of Islam, felt itself threatened to a degree not experienced since the days of the Great Khans. The Ottoman sultanate, after centuries as the pre-eminent power in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, was suffering one reverse after another at the hands of the Austrians, Russians and French, while at the same time its authority was being undermined from within by a series of revolts by regional viceroys. In India it was the same story. As Mughal power at the centre waned, local Muslim governors were breaking away to set up their own regional principalities. These, in their turn, were being taken over one after another by the British East India Company, beginning in Bengal and the Carnatic and then pushing into the interior: in 1799 Tipu Sultan was defeated and killed at Seringapatam; in 1803 the Mughal emperor Badshah Shah Alam, great-great-grandson of Emperor Aurangzeb, suffered the last in a series of humiliations at the hands of foreign invaders when he signed over what little authority remained to him to become a pensioner of the British in Delhi.
Unable to match the growing military and economic power of Europe, Islam responded through religious revival in a variety of forms. Disgusted at his emperor’s craven response to the takeover of his city by the British, Syed Ahmad’s teacher Shah Abdul Aziz issued a fatwa that Delhi had been enslaved. ‘In this city the Imam ul-Muslimin [religious leader of the Muslims; thus, the Mughal Emperor] wields no authority,’ he declared. ‘The real power rests with the British officers. There is no check on them, and the promulgation of the commands of kufr [heathenism] means that in administration and justice, in matters of law and order, in the domain of trade, finance and collection of revenues – everywhere the kuffar [heathen infidels] are in power.’ He therefore declared Hindustan to be a domain of enmity (dar ul-harb), and that henceforward it was incumbent on all Muslims to strive to restore India to that blessed state which had prevailed in earlier times.
This fatwa was little more than a symbolic act of defiance, but there can be no doubt that young Syed Ahmad left the Madrassah-i-Rahimiya thoroughly radicalised and with the conviction that un-Islamic forces were threatening his faith. As an expression of this radicalisation he abandoned the name ‘Muhammad’ as blasphemous, and became Syed Ahmad.
Biographies of Syed Ahmad such as that already quoted from state that after eight years of study in Delhi he married and moved back to his home town of Rae Bareli as a mullah. But there are other versions, including a biography written by a nephew, which give widely differing accounts and dates – suggesting that the writers were following very different agendas. They demonstrate that Syed Ahmad gathered under the umbrella of his leadership a number of factions that were only willing to sink their religious differences while he remained alive. One has to pick one’s path through these competing histories with caution, but it seems highly probable that Syed Ahmad abandoned his studies in Delhi in his late teens to join his elder brother, an irregular horseman in the forces of a Pathan freebooter named AMIR KHAN.
Even the most hagiographical accounts accept that Syed Ahmad did indeed spend time with Amir Khan, although the claim is that he did so as pesh-imam or chaplain to the troops, during which time he exercised moral influence over Amir Khan’s band of Pathan soldiery, besides performing several miracles. What is glossed over is that Amir Khan was no jihadi fighting for Islamic values but a deeply unpleasant mercenary, a Yusufzai originally from the mountains of Buner who fought for whoever paid the most or offered the best prospect of booty. At this period Amir Khan commanded the cavalry of the half-mad Maratha warlord Jaswant Rao Holkar; in effect, he was helping a Hindu to plunder central India. In British eyes Amir Khan and his Pathans were nothing less than pindaris or marauders, notorious for their acts of cruelty and rapine. Colonel James Tod, who witnessed Amir Khan’s depredations at first hand, describes him in his Annals of Rajasthan as ‘one of the most notorious villains India has ever produced’. Nevertheless, as a means of bringing order to central India the British authorities in Bengal entered into negotiations with Amir Khan, and in 1817 recognised him as the ruler of a new principality named Tonk.