Islamic Reform and Colonial Discourse on Modernity in India

Socio-Political and Religious Thought of Vakkom Moulavi

Jose Abraham

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137378842
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

In Kerala, Vakkom Moulavi motivated Muslims to embrace modernity, especially modern education, in order to reap maximum benefit. In this process, he initiated numerous religious reforms. However, he held fairly ambivalent attitudes towards individualism, materialism and secularization, defending Islam against the attacks of Christian missionaries.

1

Vakkom Moulavi: Biographical Details

Vakkom Moulavi is known as the “father” of the Muslim socio-religious reform movement in Kerala. He effectively used communication networks to promote his ideas of patriotism, modern education, and religious reform. The son of an educated and wealthy merchant, he received a well-rounded education, characteristic of the children belonging to the “noble” (ashraf) class. Like his contemporaries, he was shaped by discourse on modernity, nationalism, and socio-religious reform movements in Kerala, North India, and Egypt, spearheaded by Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida through the periodical al-Manar. He was a staunch patriot and began his career as a journalist. In 1905, he started a Malayalam newspaper named Swadeshabhimani (patriot) to educate people about their rights and responsibilities and campaign for a responsible government committed to public welfare in Travancore. He used his journals—two in Malayalam (Muslim in 1906 and Deepika in 1931) and one in Arabie-Malayalam (al-Islam in 1918)—to motivate Muslims to pursue modern education and to bring them to the forefront of the nationalist movement. He also initiated a religious reform movement among Mappilas condemning popular religion and rejecting the authority of ulama. While his writings therefore, provoked an angry response from the conservative “ulama” and their supporters, the educated middle-class Muslims of Kerala warmly welcomed it, which eventually laid the foundation for the Islamic reform (islahi) movement in Kerala. Without this great patriot and reformer, with his strong sense of responsibility and courage, the modern history of Kerala, especially that of the Mappilas, would have been different. This chapter is an attempt to highlight the significant aspects of Vakkom Moulavi’s life and his contributions to the socio-religious reform movements in Kerala.

Ancestral Background

Vakkom Moulavi’s grandfather, Ahmad Kunju, belonged to a prominent family in Kulachal.¹ His family is thought to have originated from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, and to have migrated to Kulachal sometime during the eighteenth century.² His mother was a niece of Pathe Khan, who was a high-ranking police officer (nayak) in Travancore.³ Pathe Khan’s family was originally from Hyderabad, Deccan, but they moved to Travancore when he was offered an appointment as a police officer.⁴ Thus, Vakkom Moulavi’s ancestors possessed the prestige and privileges of the colonial salariat class.

Vakkom Moulavi was born in Vakkom, in the Chirayinkil Taluk of the princely State of Travancore, South India, on December 28, 1873 (8 Dhu‘l-Qa‘da 1290).⁵ His father, Mohammad Kunju Sahib, was a member of the Ayroor Kayippurath family in Varkkala.⁶ He married a certain Hashubi and went to live in her ancestral home, called Poonthran Vilakam, at Vakkom, and for this reason he was later known as Poonthran.⁷ The household at Poonthran Vilakam was one of the few Muslim families in Travancore who were highly regarded for their wealth, wisdom, prestige, and community service. Vakkom Moulavi was one of their ten children.⁸ According to Sharafudeen, Mohammad Kunju Sahib was a wealthy merchant who traded in coir, coconut, and coconut oil.⁹ He was ingenious and was widely acknowledged as a “man of ‘progressive’ thinking.”¹⁰ He was also a devoud Muslim, deeply interested in religious issues, and a prominent community leader.¹¹

It is believed that there was an excellent library at Poonthran Vilakam containing many contemporary periodicals and books in the Malayalam, Tamil, Arabic, Urdu, and Persian languages. Therefore, scholars from different regions and religious persuasions frequently visited Poonthran Vilakam. Intellectuals and seekers of wisdom gathered at this place to quench their thirst for knowledge and to engage in scholarly discussion. Often, scholars, when visiting Vakkom or its surrounding areas, were invited to Poonthran Vilakam. Thus, religious tolerance and openness toward the search for knowledge were part of Vakkom Moulavi’s family heritage. Vakkom Moulavi’s upbringing gave him a unique opportunity to interact closely with a number of contemporary leaders of the socio-religious reform movement in Kerala.¹² According to Muhammad Kannu, the Ezhava reformer Sree Narayana Guru¹³ frequently visited Poonthran Vilakam and held in-depth discussions with Moulavi’s father and his older brother, Muhammad Muhiyiddin, who was believed to be a noted Sufi saint. Islamic mysticism and the monotheistic understanding of God were often the topics of their intellectual deliberations. Father Samuel Daniel, a Christian missionary, and Kumaran Asan (1873–1924), a prominent Malayalam poet and social reformer of Kerala, were other distinguished visitors to Vakkom Moulavi’s ancestral home.¹⁴

Early Education

Vakkom Moulavi mastered the Arabic, Urdu, and Persian languages and acquired a profound knowledge of the Qur’an, hadith, logic, Islamic jurisprudence, and Islamic history from prominent scholars of his time. Alappuzha¹⁵ Sulayman Moulavi (d. 1919), a renowned scholar of the Arabic, Urdu, Tamil, and Malayalam languages, taught him Persian and Urdu.¹⁶ Vakkom Moulavi learned logic and Islamic law (fiqh) from Kunji Poker Musliyar of Andathodu, Malabar. Mappila Labba Alim Sahib was his tutor for Islamic religious sciences, while another Moulavi, who was a revenue administrative officer (tahsildar)¹⁷ of Veloor, taught him Arabic grammar, poetics, and ethics. An Arab scholar visiting Sri Lanka during that time was invited to teach him Arabic literature.¹⁸ Muhammad Kannu argues that Moulavi’s family heritage facilitated his mastery of the Tamil and Urdu languages.¹⁹ Owing to his all-round education and intellectual curiosity, he was a full-fledged Islamic scholar by the time he was twenty-five years old.

Along with this traditional Islamic education, Vakkom Moulavi also received training in the Tamil, Sanskrit, and Malayalam languages, as well as the associated literature and poetics. This well-rounded education provided him with a unique world-view that enabled him to appreciate non-Muslim cultures and religious traditions. Tamil scholars from Kayal Patanam²⁰ and Kizhakara²¹ taught him the Kural²² and Nannul.²³ Kesava Pillai, who was a teacher at a vernacular middle school at Vakkom, taught him Sanskrit. He also learned the literary, linguistic and philological works of Kerala Varma Valiya Koyi Thampuran (1845–1914)²⁴ and A. R. Rajaraja Varma (1863–1918).²⁵ The study of the Malayalam language and literature made him an elegant and powerful writer and eloquent orator in Malayalam. His reading of Malayalam dailies like Malayala Manorama and Nasrani Deepika kept Moulavi abreast of socio-political changes in Kerala.²⁶ According to Shakoor, Vakkom Moulavi also subscribed to Arabic daily newspapers and periodicals published in Cairo, Damascus, and Mecca. Along with his command of Indian and Islamic languages, he also acquired a working knowledge of English.²⁷

Moulavi was a close associate of Sayyid Hamid Koyamma Tangal, one of the Bukhari saints of Kerala. It was he and Mappila Labba Alim Sahib that inspired Vakkom Moulavi to translate al-Ghazali’s Kimiya’ al-Sa‘ada into Malayalam.²⁸ Moulavi was greatly influenced by Muhammad Nuh Kannu Musaliyar (d. 1903), who was proficient in several languages including Malayalam, Arabic, Tamil, Persian, and Urdu.²⁹

Marriage and Family Life

In 1901, at the age of 28, Vakkom Moulavi married Halima, a daughter of the Kayalpuram family in Ayroor, Varkala. She was the sister of A. Muhammad Kunju Moulavi (1890–1964) and A. Muhammad Kannu (d. 1956), who were prominent leaders of the islahi movement in Kerala. A year later, Vakkom Moulavi lost his father, which deeply affected him. Consequently, in 1903, his ancestral property was divided and he became the heir to a vast estate and enormous wealth. Unfortunately, after two years, his wife Halima died due to complications following the birth of his first son, M. Abdul Salam (1905–1935).³⁰ Her premature death was a great loss for him and made him miserable for a long time. In 1905, Vakkom Moulavi married Halima’s younger sister Amina. They together had nine children: seven sons (Abdul Hayy, M. Abdul Wahaab (d.1953),³¹ Vakkom Abdul Khadir (1912–1976),³² Abdul Haqq,³³ Ubaidulla, Mohammed Eeza (1929–1999),³⁴ and Iqbal) and two daughters, of whom the eldest died at the age of two and the second, Amina Sahiba, later married Muhammad Abda.³⁵

Vakkom Moulavi: Publisher and Manager

According to Robinson, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, Muslim reformers from the Indian subcontinent realized the potential utility of print media in helping Muslims understand the meaning of Islam and live responsibly:

[B]y the 1820’s in the Indian subcontinent Muslim reformist leaders were busily printing tracts. By the 1830s the first Muslim newspaper was being produced. By the 1870s editions of the Qur’an and other religious books, were selling in tens of thousands. In the last thirty years of the century, over 1700 newspapers and magazines in Urdu were started. All who observed the world of printing noted how Muslims understood the power of the press. In Upper India at the beginning of the 20th century 4000–5000 books were being published in Urdu every decade and there was a newspaper circulation of tens of thousands.”³⁶

The nineteenth century saw the advent of journalism in Travancore.³⁷ By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Mappila Muslims also began to engage actively in the printing industry.³⁸ According to Ahmad Moula...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1 Vakkom Moulavi: Biographical Details
• 2 Swadeshabhimani and Identity Politics in Kerala
• 3 Contributions to Educational Reform
• 4 Promotion of Islamic Reform
• 5 Representing Islamic Modernity
• 6 Community Mobilization
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index