The Prisoners of Malta (Asiran-i
Malta)
By Maulana
Syed Mohammed Mian (translated by
Mohammad Anwar Hussain and Hasan
Imam), Manak Publications, New Delhi,
2004 ISBN: 81-7827-104-4,
Price: Rs. 295, pp. 279.
Reviewed
by: Yoginder Sikand
Although numerous ‘ulama played
a leading role in India’s freedom
struggle, little literature exists
on them in English. Much has been
written on them in Urdu, but this
is largely inaccessible to the English-knowing
public. This book on the ‘ulama
of the Dar ul-‘Ulum madrasa in Deoband
is thus a very welcome contribution
to the limited corpus of writings
in English on the politics and contributions
of the Indian ‘ulama.
Recent years have witnessed a concerted
campaign by Hindutva groups in India
to brand madrasas as ‘dens of terror’
and as allegedly engaged in ‘anti-national’
activities. Madrasas, so it is claimed
by their detractors, are engaged
in ‘conspiring’ to ‘destabilise’
India, in league with a host of
anti-Indian forces, such as the
dreaded Pakistani secret services
organization, the ISI, as well as
numerous unnamed ‘radical Islamist’
groups. As several commentators
have pointed out, there is little
or no substance to this allegation.
They also stress the little-known
fact that while numerous leading
madrasas of the country and their
‘ulama were in the forefront of
India’s freedom struggle, Hindutva
groups consistently opposed to the
national movement and, like the
Muslim League, collaborated or colluded
with the British Raj.
This book provides a fascinating
glimpse of the involvement of key
Deobandi ‘ulama in the Indian independence
movement. The author, Maulana Mohammad
Mian, was himself a leading Deobandi
and served for many years with the
Deobandi-related Jami‘at ul-‘Ulama-i
Hind (‘The Council of the ‘Ulama
of India’). His close association
with numerous politically active
Deobandis who played a central role
in the struggle against the British
is strikingly brought out in the
fascinating details that he supplies
in this book, which have been almost
totally ignored in most other accounts
of the Indian independence movement.
The focus of the book is on two
important Deobandi ‘ulama, who,
besides being leading Islamic scholars,
were also important figures in the
Indian national movement. The first
of these was Mahmud ul-Hasan, the
first student of the Deoband madrasa,
and who later rose to become its
rector. The other is Maulana Husain
Ahmad Madani, a disciple of Maulana
Mahmud ul-Hasan, who served as rector
of Deoband in the crucial years
leading up to India’s Partition
in 1947.
Mian presents the two ‘ulama as
carrying on in the tradition of
the founders of the Deoband madrasa.
The madrasa, he writes, aimed at
preserving the Islamic tradition
as well as training its students
to work for the independence of
the country from British rule. Mian
focuses more on the latter purpose
than the former. Over several long
chapters he details Maulana Mahmud
ul Hasan’s role in this regard.
These include his setting up of
a Deobandi student organization
that sought the cooperation of the
Turkish Sultan in rising up against
the British; the numerous fatwas
that he and other Deobandi ‘ulama
issued against the British and in
favour of the Non-Cooperation Movement
led by Gandhi; his role in bringing
the Jami‘at ul-‘Ulama in close association
with the Congress in the course
of the Khilafat Movement, and, finally,
his travel to the Hijaz in order
to mobilize Arab and Turkish support
against the British, which led to
his imprisonment in Malta by the
British.
Maulana Mahmud ul-Hasan died in
1920, a few months after his release
from imprisonment in Malta. He was
succeeded by his close disciple
and student, Maulana Husain Ahmad
Madani. Mian describes Madani’s
yeoman contribution to India’s freedom
struggle, in the course of which
he had to suffer long bouts of imprisonment
as well as taunts from his Muslim
League rivals of having allegedly
sold out to the ‘Hindu’ Congress.
Of particular interest in this section
is Mian’s discussion of Madani’s
approach to nationalism, which set
him clearly apart from both the
Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha,
who brooked no possibility of Hindus
and Muslims being members of a common
nation. In opposition to the League
and the Mahasabha, Madani developed
the concept of a ‘united nationalism’,
for which he sought sanction from
the example of the ‘pact of Medina’
that the Prophet Muhammad entered
into with various non-Muslim tribes.
All the signatories to the pact
were considered to be members of
a commo
In highlighting the important role
of leading ‘ulama in India’s freedom
struggle, this book forcefully challenges
the notion, so widespread today,
of madrasas and their ‘ulama
being fiercely ‘obscurantist’
and hostile to nationalism and
inter-community harmony. That
said, the text is marred by a
too strictly literal
translation. Large parts of the
book are not of any particular
historical interest, and could
well have been left out, for
they make rather tedious
reading. On the whole, however,
this book is a welcome addition
to the limited corpus of
writings in English on the
Indian ‘ulama. Numerous other
such works exist in Urdu, which
urgently need to be rendered
into English and other
languages.