A common culture
Muslim participation in non-Muslim festivals and functions
BY WARIS MAZHARI
I slam,
properly understood, is the religion of human nature. It provides
guidelines for establishing a proper and firm link between individual
human beings and their creator. It also provides guidance for relations
between individuals themselves. It insists that one can have a proper
relationship with the creator only if one has proper relations with all of
god’s creation, including all other human beings, because, as a well-known
Hadith attributed to Prophet Muhammad says, “All creatures are [members
of] the family of God (al-khalqo ayalullah).” After finishing his
prayers, the prophet would beseech god thus: “O God! The Sustainer of
myself and of all things, I bear witness that all the slaves of God are
brothers to each other (alahuma rabbana wa-rabba kulle shaiin ana
shahidun an al-ibada kullahum ikhwatun).”
To actualise this vision of universal brotherhood and
solidarity, it is imperative that Muslims and people of other faiths
establish close and friendly relations. They should help each other and
share in each others’ joys and sorrows. This is indispensable for building
a harmonious society. Islam insists on respect, compassion and love for
all human beings.
The Koran commands Muslims thus: “Allah forbids you not,
with regard to those who fight you not for (your) faith nor drive you out
of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth
those who are just” (60:8).
Accordingly, the prophet invited non-Muslims to his home
and accepted their invitations to visit their homes. He would visit
non-Muslims when they were ill to inquire about their health, join their
funerals and exchange gifts with them. When the notorious hypocrite
Abdullah Ibn Ubay died, the prophet went for his funeral. When his body
had been laid in his grave, he placed his own shirt on it. According to
Jabir Ibn Abdullah, the narrator of this report, the prophet did so
because Abdullah Ibn Ubay had provided the shroud for the prophet’s uncle,
Abbas, when he died in the battle of Uhud. Thus the prophet repaid
Abdullah Ibn Ubay for this deed. This action clearly suggests that we must
repay goodness with goodness even if it relates to someone who is an
inveterate foe, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.
Generally speaking, in the early and classical Muslim
period non-Muslims living under Muslim rule were not pushed into separate
ghettos where they would have had no social interaction with Muslims. This
is quite in contrast to Europe in the same period and even until much
later, where, for instance, Jews were confined to their own localities.
Often after conquering new lands, Muslim rulers settled Muslims in the
towns and localities where the existing non-Muslim communities lived. This
inevitably promoted considerable interaction between Muslims and others at
the social, economic, cultural and even religious levels.
However, it must be admitted that today misunderstanding
abounds as to Islamic teachings about relations between Muslims and
others. Not just non-Muslims but even many Muslims themselves suffer from
serious misconceptions about these teachings. There are several causes for
this. Widespread anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim propaganda at the global
level is surely one of these. In India, the political agenda of certain
right-wing forces is based entirely on this anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim
project. Through this they want to utterly weaken the Muslims, to destroy
them socially, economically, politically and culturally and to eventually
absorb them into the Hindu cultural milieu.
Another cause for these misunderstandings about Islamic
teachings regarding intercommunity relations must be sought in the very
structure of what is now called Hinduism. In actual fact, Hinduism is not
a religion at all in the conventional sense of the term. It is, rather, a
collection of different religious traditions and cultural practices.
‘Hinduism’ can even accept and absorb atheism. In contrast, despite its
flexibility, Islam cannot compromise on its beliefs and basic principles.
Certain values based on religious principles do indeed come in the way, to
a certain extent, of social and cultural interaction between Hindus and
Muslims in India.
Besides this, another major cause for wrong conceptions
about what Islam teaches about how Muslims should relate to others are
certain views of the early fuqaha (scholars of Muslim
jurisprudence) and narrow-minded ulema about intercommunity relations,
which, one must stress, are not in accordance with true Islamic
teachings.
A historical survey
Hindus and Muslims have been living with each other in
India for more than 1,200 years now. Islam first entered India in the
southern Malabar region, through the agency of Arab traders and
missionaries who used peaceful means to spread the faith. They impressed
the local rajas with their character, for which they won their respect.
Consequently, they were able to closely mix with the local populace and
established a place for themselves in their hearts.
Shortly after, Muslims established a presence in North
India with the invasion of Sindh by Muhammad bin Qasim in the early eighth
century. This was followed by the invasions of the Turks and Afghans from
Central Asia. A large number of Muslims settled in India in their wake.
Unlike in the case of the early Muslims in Malabar, this new Muslim
presence was not welcomed by the local Indians. This is because these
Muslims had entered India as invaders who then became rulers of the land.
Yet despite this, these Muslims gradually established links with the local
Indians, leading to the emergence of a broadly shared Hindustani culture
and styles of living. This intermingling also gave rise to the Bhakti and
the Sufi movements, both of which clearly indicate a remarkable degree of
cultural synthesis between Hindus and Muslims.
One aspect of this shared culture was the widespread
participation of Hindus and Muslims in each others’ functions and
religious festivals. A number of Muslim rulers participated or shared in
Hindu festivals in order perhaps to promote their political interests.
There is no doubt that this helped promote closer bonds between Muslims
and Hindus. Writing in the Tughlaq period, the historian Isami notes that
Muhammad bin Tughlaq used to play Holi with his Hindu nobles. Sultan
Zainuddin of Kashmir also participated in Hindu festivities.
A number of Sufis of this period are said to have
celebrated Basant, the popular North Indian Hindu spring festival, with
much gusto. An interesting story is told as to how this began. The death
of his nephew Maulana Taqiuddin Nuh caused the noted Sufi saint of Delhi,
Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya, deep distress and sadness. It so happened that
just then a group of Hindus, singing and making merry, passed by on their
way to the Kalikaji temple to offer saffron flowers there on the occasion
of the Basant festival. On seeing them, Amir Khusrau, Khwaja Nizamuddin’s
close disciple, burst out of his sadness and, in a state of revelry,
rushed to meet his master who was at that time at his nephew’s grave. On
seeing Khusrau and hearing the verses in Hindi and Persian that he had
composed on witnessing the joyous Hindu pilgrims, Khwaja Nizamuddin
smiled. And since that day, whenever Hindus headed towards the Kalikaji
temple, Sufis of Delhi would take saffron flowers in their hands and head
towards the shrine of Maulana Taqiuddin Nuh, taking along with them
qawwals and chanting mystical verses.
This is how the Muslims of Delhi began celebrating the
Basant festival. Soon it became a 15-day festival at numerous Sufi shrines
in the town. During this period Muslim women would wear yellow, or
basanti-coloured, clothes and sing Basant songs like their Hindu
sisters. Yet it must be said that there is no evidence of Sufis who abided
by the Shariah (and these included Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya himself)
participating in Hindu festivals such as Holi, Dussehra and Diwali.
The Mughal era was known for its religious tolerance and
all Mughal emperors, with the notable exception of Aurangzeb, participated
in various Hindu festivals. Holi and Diwali were celebrated inside the
royal palace during Akbar’s reign and ordinary Muslims, emulating the
emperor, also began doing so. Aurangzeb prohibited these festivals from
being celebrated inside the palace but many common Muslims continued to do
so. In his memoirs, Tuzk-e-Jahangiri, the Mughal Emperor Jehangir,
son of Akbar, writes: “[On the occasion of the Raksha Bandhan festival]
Hindu nobles would tie rakhis on my father’s hand, decorated with rubies,
pearls and other precious jewels. When this became too much to bear, my
father instructed them to tie only a simple silk thread on his hand. In my
time the [Hindu] nobles also did the same and then I also issued an order
that they tie only a silk thread on my hand.”
Dussehra and Diwali were also celebrated with much gusto
in the courts of Akbar and Jehangir. According to the Alamgirnama,
Dussehra was also celebrated even in Aurangzeb’s court. There were a
number of Hindu slave girls in the royal palace in Akbar’s and Jehangir’s
reign. The Mughal princesses played Holi with these girls and with
visiting Hindu Rajput princesses and the Mughal emperors would join them
in this.
Later Mughal emperors such as Shah Alam II, Akbar Shah II
and Bahadur Shah Zafar, who were known for their addiction to luxury and
their only very loose attachment to religion (if at all), are known to
have celebrated various Hindu festivals with their Hindu and Muslim
noblemen. The late Mughal historian Munshi Fayazuddin describes the
Dussehra celebrations in Bahadur Shah Zafar’s palace thus: “On the day of
Dussehra the emperor assembled his court. A neelkanth bird was made
to fly before him. Then the keeper of the royal birds brought out some
falcons. The emperor placed a falcon on his hand and then dismissed the
court. In the evening the head of the stables applied mehndi on the
special horses. The emperor inspected them and, giving the man a reward,
dismissed him.”
The Tuzk-e-Jahangiri also indicates that in the
courts of Akbar and Jehangir, horses and elephants were richly decorated
and brought before the emperor on the occasion of Dussehra, in accordance
with Hindu traditions.
Like the Mughals, the nawabs of Awadh also celebrated
numerous Hindu festivals. The famous Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir wrote two
masnavis on Holi, which describe very evocatively the scene of this
festival being celebrated in Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah’s court.
Following the practice of numerous Muslim rulers of India
who patronised and participated in various Hindu festivals, many common
Muslims did the same. This was particularly the case with numerous
recently converted local Muslim communities or such groups that had only
partially converted to Islam and still maintained many of their
pre-Islamic beliefs and practices. It was common for them to attend local
or ‘Hindu’ fairs, some of which were religious in character. Evidence for
this is plentiful in the historical records and numerous Urdu poets such
as Nazir Akbarabadi, Insha, Faiz, Hatim, Amanat Lakhnavi and others even
wrote poems on such festivals and fairs.
It is obvious that many aspects of these Hindu festivals
that Muslim rulers and subjects participated in were not in accordance
with the commandments and principles of the Shariah but to the extent that
it was possible to legitimise this participation within the limits of the
Shariah, the ulema did not stop them from doing so. These Muslim rulers
were well aware that their actions were not in full accordance with the
Shariah but they probably felt that this helped gain legitimacy for
themselves from their Hindu subjects and facilitated peace and harmony in
their domains. For some however, it was sheer entertainment.
In describing the active participation of Muslim rulers
and common Muslims in these festivals I do not mean to pass any judgement
on the phenomenon. Rather, my aim has been to present an important, and
not often recognised, part of the history of Hindu-Muslim relations in
India in order to highlight the shared cultural traditions that the
interaction between the two communities gave birth to. I also wish to
indicate how deeply the Indian Muslim rulers and their Muslim subjects
were rooted in the Indian cultural milieu notwithstanding what the demands
of the Shariah truly were with respect to participation of Muslims in the
festivals and other functions of people of other faiths.
The Shariah position on Muslims’
participating in non-Muslim festivals
Having discussed the participation of Muslims in Hindu
festivals from the cultural and historical points of view, it is crucial
to also look at it from the perspective of the Shariah.
Islam does not prevent Muslims from interacting closely
with non-Muslims whom they live amidst. If members of a plural society are
not bound closely together through strong ties of friendship, interaction
and mutual assistance, such a society will soon disintegrate. At the same
time, it must be stressed that Islam has its own views, beliefs, system or
code of ethics and social rules, which it insists its followers must abide
by, including as regards Muslim participation in non-Muslim festivals.
The classical fuqaha have tried to lay down the
limits, forms and conditions regulating Muslim participation in non-Muslim
festivals and other social gatherings and functions. These have been
discussed at length in the books of fiqh, particularly in the
sections that deal with relations with non-Muslim zimmis. The vast
majority of these fuqaha were of the view that it was not
permissible in the Shariah for Muslims to participate in non-Muslim
festivals. They argued that this was because these festivals are religious
in nature and involve aspects of polytheism, which Islam cannot compromise
with. Invoking several Koranic verses and Hadith reports, they lay down
that for Muslims to participate in non-Muslim festivals is clearly haram
(forbidden).
One Hadith which they quote to back their stance relates:
“It is narrated from Anas Ibn Malik that when the Prophet of God reached
Medina, the people used to observe a festival that lasted for two days. He
asked what these two days were and his companions replied that in the days
of ignorance they used to play and make merry on these days. The Prophet
then said that God had given two better days than these: Id ul-Azha and Id
ul-Fitr.”
In a similar vein, the Caliph Umar is said to have
advised, “Stay away from the festivals of the enemies of God.”
Numerous other such reports are referred to and discussed
in great detail in Allama Ibn Taimiyah’s well-known book, Iqtiza al-Sirat
al-Mustaqim (‘The Requirements of the Straight Path’). Ibn Taimiyah
sternly forbids Muslims from participating in non-Muslim festivals,
insisting that it is haram and a cause for provoking divine wrath.
This remains the position of the vast majority of our
contemporary ulema as well. However, the fact is that the fiqh
perspectives that are offered in order to back this claim are
characterised by inordinate strictness, harshness and narrowness. In my
opinion, this vexed issue needs to be studied and discussed within the
framework of what is called fiqh ul-aqalliyat or ‘fiqh for
[Muslim] minorities’.
Functions and other gatherings of non-Muslims which can be
considered religious festivals generally involve un-Islamic, polytheistic
aspects. On the other hand, there are other functions that are not in
essence religious in nature and can be called social functions or, at
best, semi-religious functions. They mark various important life cycle
events such as marriage, birth, death, or the inauguration of a shop or a
building, and various other occasions marking joy and sorrow. It may be
that some un-Islamic practices are observed during these functions.
However, it appears that there is nothing wrong if Muslims avoid these
practices and participate in these functions. This cannot be construed as
tantamount to participating in polytheistic celebrations that the
fuqaha have condemned based on their reading of the Islamic scriptural
sources.
It is necessary to properly determine the rules, limits
and conditions of Muslims being allowed to participate in non-Muslim
religious festivals. If on the occasion of Holi or Diwali a Muslim accepts
the invitation of a Hindu friend to visit his house, participates in the
joys of the festival and presents gifts to him, is it forbidden according
to the Shariah? In a plural society, is it at all proper for a Muslim to
refuse his Hindu friend’s invitation to visit his home? Muslims live as a
minority in India and the added importance of close cultural interaction
and relations between Muslims and others in this context needs no
explanation. If Muslims do not choose to maintain close bonds with their
non-Muslim neighbours and share in their grief and joys, they will be
pushed even further to the margins of society. This would create immense
problems for them, not just in the social, political and economic spheres
but even in their religious lives as well. Hence the rules, conditions and
principles of participating in non-Muslim functions and festivities must
be studied and developed in this light.
The classical fuqaha permitted Muslims to set up
stalls and shops in places where non-Muslims celebrate their religious as
well as secular social functions. They allowed them to earn a profit from
such commercial activities. This is, in a sense, a sort of participation
in these festivals and functions. Indeed it can even be said to be a form
of cooperation and promotion of such festivals and functions.
In this regard, the question arises if the participation
of Muslims in non-Muslim fairs, which are generally associated with some
or other non-Muslim religious festival but whose basic purpose is to
provide popular entertainment, can be said to be tantamount to
participating in non-Muslim religious festivals, which the fuqaha
forbid? It is a well-known fact that many Muslims do participate in such
fairs throughout India, where they enjoy the entertainment that is
provided therein. Some of this entertainment is clearly religious in
nature or background as, for instance, the Ramlila plays in North India.
Can seeing such programmes be considered to be tantamount to participating
in non-Muslim religious festivals, as the ulema claim?
It is necessary to discuss these issues and evolve
suitable responses keeping in mind the sensitivities of living in a plural
society and the demands of collective social existence, in the light of
which we can develop the necessary possibilities within the broad
framework of the Shariah. The classical fuqaha, it must be noted,
did indeed develop such possibilities and spaces for Muslims living in
what they termed as dar ul-harb (‘abode of war’) or dar ul-kufr
(‘abode of infidelity’), which are terms and concepts that are not
mentioned in the Koran and are not relevant today.
For instance, Allama Ibn Taimiyah, who is noted for his
strict, indeed extreme, approach with regard to intercommunity relations,
writes in his well-known work, Iqtiza al-Sirat al-Mustaqim, thus:
“The prohibition on imitating non-Muslims and the commandment to
distinguish oneself [externally] from them relates to the context when the
deen [Islam] is already in a position of domination. When, in the
beginning, the Muslims were weak, these commandments were not given. Then
when the deen received power and domination, these commandments
were issued. In this way Muslims living in dar ul-harb and dar
ul-kufr are not obliged to abide by the commandment to distinguish
themselves externally from non-Muslims because this might cause damage [to
them]. Indeed in some such cases it is advisable or sometimes even
necessary for Muslims to share in the external practices and ways of [the
non-Muslims] if this is in the interests of the deen or in
accordance with higher purposes.”
This comment by Allama Ibn Taimiyah is of crucial
importance. He makes a critical distinction here between the conditions of
Muslims living in a state of numerical and political dominance and those
of their co-religionists living as minorities and accepts that different
rules might apply to them in matters relating to adopting certain
practices of non-Muslims (provided they did not contravene Islamic beliefs
such as monotheism). In this way he is able to highlight the flexibility
of Shariah rules depending on changed social contexts.
Unfortunately, the Indian fuqaha and muftis do not
appreciate this very crucial point that Ibn Taimiyah made. Instead, they
insist that the fiqh formulations developed in a period of Muslim
political dominance be strictly applied to a vastly different context
today where, as in India, Muslims are a minority and a marginalised one at
that. This, in my view, is not a realistic approach. To seek to blindly
impose fiqh prescriptions developed in, and relevant to, a context
of Muslim domination to our Indian context today can only create greater
problems for Muslims and Islam rather than solving them.
In today’s context of religious pluralism, especially in
countries like India, it is necessary to review some of the views of the
classical fuqaha on such vexed issues as imitating non-Muslims,
cooperating with them and participating in their functions, which are
certainly no longer relevant. These issues must be seen not from the lens
of the classical fiqh of Muslim domination but rather from within
the emerging paradigm of what is called ‘fiqh for [Muslim]
minorities’, which seeks to steer Muslim minorities away from adopting
extremist positions and, while enabling them to abide by the basic
principles of Islam, facilitates their adjustment to contemporary
political and cultural realities and demands.
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