Sufism, Pluralism and Democracy - Clinton Bennett

Sufism, Pluralism and Democracy - Clinton Bennett

7. In Search of God, In Search of Humanity: Vilayet-e-Mutlaka of Hazrat Delaor Husayn Maizbhandari

Sufism, Pluralism and Democracy - Clinton Bennett

Sarwar Alam [+-]
University of Arkansas
Sarwar Alam teaches at the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies of University of Arkansas. He received his doctorate from the same university in 2006. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia between 2007 and 2010. He is currently preparing a manuscript for publication entitled Jewels of Honor: the Perception of Power, Powerlessness, and Gender Among Rural Muslim Women of Bangladesh. He contributed two chapters on Sufi historiography and political activism in Bangladesh in South Asian Sufis: Devotion, Deviation and Destiny edited by Clinton Bennett and Charles Ramsey (Continuum, 2012).

Description

The ideological basis of the establishment of Pakistan, an “imagined community” to paraphrase Benedict Anderson, was Islam. It was the politics of “othering,” as mediated by religion, that inevitably caused the partition of India in 1947. “Islam is in danger” (“Islam khatre mein hein”) was adopted later as a slogan by the political elites as well as the ulama to defy the voice of oppositions or create inter- and intra-communal conflicts in Pakistan during the 1950s and 1960s. The tension among the communities still exists in the South Asian region. I have argued in this chapter that some Sufi masters tried to minimize this tension trough social activism and writings. Drawing upon Ibn al-‘Arabi and Maulana Rumi’s religious pluralism and humanity, the Vilayet-e-Mutlaka (1960) of Hazrat Delaor Husayn Maizbhandari (d. 1982) shows how Sufism may transcend parochialism and create an atmosphere of tolerance and interfaith dialogue.

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Citation

Alam, Sarwar. 7. In Search of God, In Search of Humanity: Vilayet-e-Mutlaka of Hazrat Delaor Husayn Maizbhandari. Sufism, Pluralism and Democracy. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 147-173 Jul 2017. ISBN 9781781792216. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=27387. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.27387. Jul 2017

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