THE FARA'IDI MOVEMENT

The Fara’idi was the most important movement for renascent Islam of eastern Bengal during the 19th century. For more than fifty years, it dominated the history of that territory, striving to create among the rural peasantry a genuine Islamic order.

Haji Shariat Allah, the founder of the movement, rose to prominence in 1818 only after he began this reformist movement at the age of 38. He was born into a humble family in 1781 at Shamail, a village which later was included into the district of Faridpur. His father was rather poor and died when he was only eight years old.

Thereafter he was cared for by his paternal uncle and aunt who, having no male issue, treated him with much tenderness and affection. He thus passed his boyhood as a gay and carefree child, having little knowledge of schooling or strict discipline.

Once after being reprimanded sternly for some misbehaviour by his uncle, Shariat Allah left home and ran away to Calcutta when he was twelve years old. There he presented himself to a teacher of a Quran school who, taking pity on the boy, enrolled him in his classes. Having completed the recitation of the Quran, he went to Phurphura for lessons in Arabic and Persian at the recommendation of his teacher. When he had attained proficiency, he attached himself to another uncle where he continued his studies.

Sometime later, his uncle decided to visit their native village, Shamail, and taking his wife and nephew 167 with him, he set out in a small sail boat. On the way they encountered a disaster and both his aunt and uncle were drowned. This sudden calamity struck so deep in his mind that he abandoned all intentions to go home and instead went to Calcutta and once more presented himself before his old teacher.

The Maulana was so disgusted with the British regime that he decided to emigrate to the holy city of Mecca. The boy begged to accompany him and there received an opportunity in this international centre of Islamic culture to prepare himself for the great role he was destined to play in his later life.

Twenty years later in 1818, having fortified himself with Islamic learning, the Haji returned to his home country to preach and teach.

Here he found many local superstitions practiced by the common people which appeared to him quite normal before his trip to Mecca, he now realized were grossly unislamic. Contemporary sources reveal that the Muslims of Bengal did not hesitate in ascribing superhuman powers to the Sufis and Pirs such as giving life to the dead, killing anybody at will, being present at several places at a time and foretelling the future. Because of these miraculous powers, people considered the tomb or shrine of a Pir as a place of pilgrimage. They offered fruits and flowers at their tombs and illuminated them at night. On the last Thursday of Bhadra (a Bengali month) an effigy known as Bera was made of paper and ornamented with tinsel; it had a prow resembling a female face with the crest and breast of a peacock. The effigy was then put on a raft and set afloat at sunset with much ceremony on the river. In observing Muharram in a noisy and clumsy 168 way, reminiscent of the Hindu festivals of Durga Puja and Ratha Jatra, there was no difference between Sunni and Shia. The Muslim Bengalis thus steeped themselves in the superstitions and vices of the Hindus.

Inflamed with a burning desire to reform the Muslims of Bengal, Haji Shariat Allah tirelessly addressed gatherings, preaching the pure doctrine of Islam indoors and outdoors, not only in his own village but in neighbouring districts as well. The name “Fara’idi” was taken from the Arabic root-word, Fardz to designate the obligatory duties of a Muslim. In the Imperial Gazeteer of India, The British Governor, William W. Hunter, wrote: “The rapid spread of the Fara’idi movement in the lifetime of its founder affords sufficient justification for his enthusiasm.”

The British mistakenly identified the Fara’idi as “Indian Wahabis”. Subsequent investigation proved that label a complete misnomer.

The Arabian “Wahabis” adhered to the Hanbali school of law while the Fara’idis were strict Hanifis. Another difference between the Fara’idis and the Tariqa Muhammadiya led by Sayyid Ahmad Shahid and Shah Ismail Shahid and the movement of Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab is that the former believed in Taqlid or unquestioning adherence to the Madhab of Ibn Hanifa while the former two movements for renaiscent Islam were firm advocates of Ijtihad in matters of jurisprudence. A sociological difference is that the Fara’idis were exclusively rural while the base of the Tariqa Muhammadiya and the Arabian Wahabi was primarily urban.

Haji Shariat Allah was endowed with a strong but pleasing personality. He was of middle height, of fair com169 plexion and wore a long and handsome beard. He always covered his head with a voluminous turban. The attractiveness of his manner and his sincere, soft and sympathetic heart roused the apathetic and careless Bengali peasantry to new enthusiasm for the faith. Nobody in Bengal ever appealed more to the hearts of the people than Shariat Allah with his blameless and exemplary life. According to contemporary popular accounts, his appearance was beautiful and awe-striking.

Haji Shariat Allah soon encountered severe opposition among the conservative ulema who wanted only to preserve the existing order. However, his fiercest opponents were the class of Hindu zamindars or landowners who harassed and oppressed the Muslim peasantry in numerous ways and the English indigo planters. Most of his followers thus consisted of those in humble occupations such as the farmers, the weavers and oil-grinders who found in him a champion for the improvement of their lot.

Muhsin ud-din alias Dudu Mian the only son of Haji Shariat Allah, succeeded him at his death in 1838 as the head of the movement. In character and temperament, he was strikingly different from his father and not endowed with talent for scholarship; his field of work lay in the realm of practical action. Under him, the Fara’idi became organized into a strongly knit and powerful society, virtually a state within a state, having little contact with British rule except for the payment of taxes. His energetic career exhilarated his friends and followers and struck terror in the hearts of his adversaries. Popular accounts are replete with his adventurous exploits against the oppressive Hindu 170 zamindars and the British indigo planters. The court files and police records were full of accounts of his activities. In his report, OUR INDIAN MUSSALMANS: ARE THEY BOUND IN CONSCIENCE TO REBEL AGAINST THE QUEEN?, William Hunter considers them as the worst enemy of the British Government in India, and maligns them as “reactionaries,” “fanatics” and “trouble-makers.”

Among the ulema, the most insistent opponent of the Fara’idi was Maulana Karamat Ali. He carried on fierce propaganda against them representing them as innovators, heretics and ridiculing them as the “Kharijis of Bengal.”

He disputed with them endlessly on minor points of Fiqh (jurisprudence) and involved himself in much argument over trivial points as is the habit of the more narrow-minded of the ulema. But the real reason Maulana Karamat Ali opposed the Fara’idi was due to their uncompromising attitude towards British rule. The Maulana then issued a Fatwa, condemning the Fara’idi and declaring India as part of Dar ul-Islam since a large number of Muslims lived there and Islamic rites were still observed. He ruled that any call for Jihad against the Government in Dar ul-Islam was unlawful and should be regarded as rebellion and sedition. He even went so far as to call upon the Muslims of India to unite with the British to crush the Fara’idi.

Faced with such an effective movement for Islamic revival, the Hindu zamindars and the British indigo planters persecuted the Fara’idi ruthlessly through officially condoned acts of violence and terror. Numerous false 171 charges were brought against Dudu Mian and he was arrested several times. His followers were sometimes subjected to barbarous tortures. Despite this harassment, the movement continued to expand until Dudu Mian’s death in 1862.

The successors to the Fara’idi did not prove equal to the calibre and ability of Haji Shariat Allah and Dudu Mian so that this lack of strong leadership and the vigorous attacks of the rigidly conservative ulema brought about the disintegration of the movement.

Though it has survived until the present, it has lost all its social and religious effectiveness.

The history of the Fara’idi proves that the Muslims of Bengal have powerful and enduring ties with Islam and its heritage and can still become a great force for Islamic renaissance once dynamic, honest, capable and selfless leadership arises among them.

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