Talk:Syed Ahmad Barelvi

Influence

Would it be helpful to have a section on Ahmed's enormous influence on the current religious politics of the subcontinent and subcontinent diasporas? I'm not familiar with Wikipedia guidelines, and maybe this would duplicate material elsewhere or be deemed not relevant for a biographical entry. Eteb3 (talk) 17:54, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Relevance of Sectarian Violence

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Sectarian Violence

On 21 April 1802, the puritanical followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab sacked the holy city of Karbala, killed more than 5000 Shias, and vandalized the holy shrines. In 1804, they attacked Prophet's Shrine in Medina and in 1805, Makkah, forcing people to adopt their creed . While this cruelty sent shock waves to the Muslims all around the globe, it encouraged Syed Ahmad Barelvi and Shah Ismail Dihlavi to take up arms and enforce their puritanical views. They were the pioneers of anti-Shia terrorism in the subcontinent. Scholar Barbara Metcalf writes:

A second group of Abuses Syed Ahmad held were those that originated from Shi’i influence. He particularly urged Muslims to give up the keeping of ta’ziyahs. The replicas of the tombs of the martyrs of Karbala taken in procession during the mourning ceremony of Muharram. Muhammad Isma’il wrote, ‘a true believer should regard the breaking a tazia by force to be as virtuous an action as destroying idols. If he cannot break them himself, let him order others to do so. If this even be out of his power, let him at least detest and abhor them with his whole heart and soul’. Sayyid Ahmad himself is said, no doubt with considerable exaggeration, to have torn down thousands of imambaras, the building that house the taziyahs.

Scholar S. A. A. Rizvi has given more details about time, places and circumstances in which these attacks were carried out. In response to these attacks, some shias started to recite tabarra. Maulana Syed Baqir Dihlavi, the editor and owner of Dihli Urdu Akhbar, stopped them from doing so After their death in Balakot in 1831 while being chased by Maharaja Ranjit Singh's army, their legacy of sectarian terrorism continued. The incidents of Wahhabist Sunnis attacking Azadari gatherings were not uncommon. One such event is reported in Delhi's Urdu Akhbar on 22 March 1840:

Some Sunnis had come to attack the gathering of Taziyah-dari in the bungalow of  Mrs. Amir Bahu Begum, the widow of Shams al-Din Khan. However, the magistrate came to know about it the night before. He met with the local police officer and ordered him to appoint sufficient force and stop the agitators from reaching there. As a result of timely measures, it was reported that the event concluded peacefully.

Legacy

While Syed Ahmad’s military adventure failed costing him his life, his ideological legacy continued in the Deoband school of thought. Data shows that around 90 percent of religious terrorists in Pakistan are Deobandis by faith and many of them belong to the Pashtun belt (the area where Syed Ahmad carried out his military endeavour).

References

Dr. Hamza Ebrahim (talk) 18:31, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

The said content is totally irrelevant to this biographic article owing to the reason that just a single mention in a book doesn't merit a whole section.

Karbala incident is irrelevant to this article and the said sources give no mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi's and Shah Ismail Dehlavi's getting influenced and taking up arms against Shias. The only mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi as to sectarian violence is in Barbara Metcalf's book which is just saying about his urgence to people for that thinking it to be unislamic. About torning down of imambarahs by him, she herself says that it is no doubt considerably exaggerated. The other scholar's mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi in sectarian violence needs to be clarified and the source itself needs to be checked with WP:HISTRS. Rest about the incident cited from Delhi's Urdu Akhbar has no mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi's link to it. The legacy part has an unreliable source and even that too has no mention of Syed Ahmad Barelvi's link to it. It's just pushing a particular POV.

Thus these sections are totally irrelevant and mostly amounts to WP:SYNTH and it's tone is also not up on WP:NPOV so they are not not on merit to be included in a biographical article. This is a biographic article about a person which cannot be made a place for illustrating sectarian differences. Thanks and regards! USaamo ^(t@lk) 00:27, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I cited few books, but the incidents are mentioned in many scholarly sources.

Andreas Rieck in his recent book: "The Shia's of Pakistan", Oxford University Press (2016). On page 16, he notes: "S. Ahmad Barelvi (1786 - 1831), who later became famous as the leader of an aborted jihad against Sikhs, toured North Indian towns from 1818 to 1821 with hundreds of followers preaching against Shia beliefs and practices. The main targets of their attacks were ta'ziya processions, which had become popular among Sunnis as much as Shias. S. Ahmad repeatedly resorted to the burning of ta'ziyas, provoking riots in some cases".

Athar Abbas Rizvi is a well known Indian historian and author of many scholarly books. You can check his profile at: http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50051032/. His book that I cited, has been cited and reviewed in many scholarly publications, thus completely in line with WP:HISTRS. In the cited book, "A Socio-Intellectual History of Isna Ashari Shi'is in India", Vol. 2, Canberra (1986) he writes: "In Banaras, the party broke several hundred ta'ziyas and used the paper and wood to cook their food. Ta'ziya platforms and 'Alams were also destroyed. On their way to Patna, the Sayyid's party ruthlessly demolished ta'ziya platforms and laid the foundation of mosques in their stead. The Imambarahs were also laid waste" (p. 307). This vandalization of religious symbols of a minority sect within the Indian Muslim community is an important part of their history.

What Professor Barbara Metcalf calls exaggeration is the number of tazias torn out given by his followers would be exaggerated, neither did she deny the sectarian hatred preached by him nor his physical attacks. Sectarian violence preached and practiced by Syed Ahmed Barelvi is an important part of his life and legacy. It is the beginning of the modern anti-shia violence in South Asia.

Please note that what I wrote is not the mention of "sectarian difference" but "sectarian violence". The section on religious reform needs to mention the sectarian difference of Syed Ahmad Barelvi and other Muslims, i.e. the mention of his followers as Deobandis and Ahle Hadith sects. His sectarian violence is different from this, as it involves hate speech and physical violence, something we see in terrorist organisations. I have cited a PhD dissertation and there are many scholarly sources discussing the sectariuan violence carried out by his Deobandi followers. We just need to state facts and not sensor them, we can't do cherry picking where we hide the uncomfortable facts about people we admire. Don't see it as a 'bad guy' vs 'good guys' thing WP:USTHEM. On Wikipedia, we need to assume good faith WP:AGF.

Charles Allen in his book "God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad", ABACUS (2006); links the attacks carried out by Wahhabi movement on holy places to India. He says: "The desecration of the tomb of Prophet in Medina in 1804 by Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud's jihadis and the subsequesnt occupation of Mecca shocked the entire Muslim umma, Sunnis and Shias alike. But there were those among the orthodox Sunnis who saw the iconocalsm of the Wahhabis as acts of cleansing and restoration, among them a group of pilgrims from Sumatra present in Mecca at the time of the first Wahhabi raid in 1803" (p.69). He describes the influence of these incidents on indian pilgrims in the next two pages and goes on to say: "there in 1821 or 1822 Titu Mir met a fellow Hindustani who already had a great following: the charismatic Syed Ahmad of Rae Bareli" (p.71). He continues: "When Syed Ahmad returned to India he took with him a distinctly more hard-line, less tolerant and more aggressive Islam, directly inspired by the Wahhabi model" (p.77).

The legacy of this violence is best described by Z. Sewag in his scholarly article, "The Intra-Sunni Conflicts in Pakistan", Palgrave (2016): "Subsequently, Shah Abdul Aziz Dehlvi (1745–1823), the son of Shah Waliullah, Shah Ismail Dehlvi (1779–1831) and Syed Ahmad Shaheed (1786–1831) planted Wahhabism in the veins of Indo-Pak Subcontinent, and also excommunicated and apostatized both Shias and Sunni Sufs by labelling them as deviants. Dehlvi and Shaheed undertook militant jihad against Sikhs and were killed in Balakot during fghting in 1831. Their jihadist movement replaced the dovish Hanafsm with the hawkish Hanbalism, paving the way for Wahhabism and neoKharijism in the region".

Dr. Hamza Ebrahim (talk) 11:28, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Reform, resistance or jihad?

USaamo, You write "Reversion of renaming of section, it was not just Jihad against Sikh empire but a whole Reform/Resistance movement as mentioned in books of which Jihad was a part". Yet, this section title, is clearly unsubstantiated.

• This section has no mentions of "reform" (except for calling his followers "reformers"; what did they reform?)
• It has no mention of "resistance"
• But it has 7 mentions of "jihad".

It is obvious what the section title should be, isn't it? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:29, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Well it was actually all the three in his movement the way he went. He wanted to reform Muslim thought, he resisted against unislamic traditions and waged Jihad for enforcement of it but I agree there should be another suitable title for this section but it definitely can't be Jihad against Sikh empire as it was just a part of his whole movement. In the books I've read about him like Tareekh e Hazara and Hazara Gazetteer his movement was titled as Tehreek e Jihad or Tehreek e Mujahideed or Jihad Movement. USaamo ^(t@lk) 13:11, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Syed Ahmad Barelvi's movement laid the foundation for the Deobandi and Ahle Hadith schools of thought. This needs a separate section. His Jihad against and establishment of a religious rule needs a separate section. His jihad on Shia gatherings and holy places brought the long standing theological dispute to physical violence, hence this deserves a separate section. Syed Ahmad is a very important personality in modern South Asia whose legacy lives on. The article needs more details, but based on scholarly sources as required by [[WP:HISTRS].

Dr. Hamza Ebrahim (talk) 14:58, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Was it a resistance movement? No. He belonged to Awdh and came to Peshawar as an active invader with clear motives of establishing a religious rule. He didn't join the Faraizi movement in Bengal or other resistance movements against the British East India Company rule. He actually fought against the most powerful local ruler, Ranjeet Singh, who is recognized as the last major obstacle in the path of East India Company's complete conquest of India. So, Syed Ahmad's campaign wasn't a local resisting an invader, but it was an attempt to establish what he envisioned as an Ideal Islamic rule - a Jihad. This is what he called it. Dr. Hamza Ebrahim (talk) 15:08, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Barbara Metcalf writes:

"Sayyid Ahmad's reformist teachings were set down in two works that, when printed on the new lithographic press of the day, soon achieved wide circulation. The Sirat'ul Mustaqim (the Straight Path) was compiled by Muhammad Ismail in 1819. Written initially in Persian, it was translated into Urdu in order to reach a wider audience. The second work, Taqwiyatul-Iman or the strengthening of the Faith, was written directly in Urdu. The two works stressed above all the centrality of tawhid, the transcendent unity of God, and denounced all those practices and beliefs that were held in any way to compromise that most fundamental of Islamic tenets. God alone was held to be omniscient and omnipotent. He alone, entitled to worship and homage. There were, the followers of Sayyid Ahmad argued, three sources of threat to this belief: false sufism, Shiá doctrines and practices, and popular custom"[B. Metcalf, "Islamic revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900", pp. 56 - 57, Princeton University Press (1982).].

Dr. Hamza Ebrahim (talk) 22:35, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

the mujahideen movement and objectives

Syed Ahmed shaheed started a great moment in the north of India, this moment is known as tehreek-e-mujahideen or the struggle of freedom fighter; this movement produced a spirit of survival in Muslim and they started freedom struggle the movement started in 1831 after his arrival from Hajj.

The mujahideen movement was against the polythem and emphasized the unity of Allah. It is the main objective were as follows: 1)To preach and stress upon Unicity of Allah. 2)To revival the teaching of Islam. 3)To save the Muslim from non Islamic values.

4)To established on Islamic state in the subcontinent.

5) To preach jihad against evil forces.

In the beginnings of mujahideen Syed Ahmed shaheed wanted to eliminate the domination of sikhs in Punjab, and KPK and revival Islamic values  started the jihad in Punjab and KPK. 202.5.149.52 (talk) 11:06, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

History

The various challenges faced by Ahmed shaheed bareilvi mujahideen 36.255.44.159 (talk) 14:53, 23 October 2024 (UTC)