Islamic revivalism or fundamentalism is one of the most striking features of modern Sri Lanka. Though more visible to the naked eye now than ever before, Islamic "revivalism" goes back to the late nineteenth century. And its character has been changing from time to time.
Reformists hope that with changes in the national and international contexts, it will undergo further mutations. After all, revivalism, like other socio-cultural movements, is rooted in specific historical contexts.
The earliest phase of Islamic revivalism in Sri Lanka spans the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries up to the mid-1980s. This phase could be termed "progressive". From 1985 onwards, a "fundamentalist" phase sets in. And though fundamentalism seems entrenched now, movements which question some of its tenets have sprung up.
Sufi controversy
Interestingly and significantly, opposition to entrenched ideas of fundamentalism has arisen not in places where Muslims are in a minority, where they are exposed to alien influences, but where they are in a majority, and in a place known for its orthodoxy.
The nerve centre of the latest deviant movement has been Katthankudy in Eastern Sri Lanka. Kattankudy is a completely Muslim town in Batticaloa district which boasts of having the largest number of mosques per square kilometer in the world. Women are shrouded from head to foot and even tiny tots cover their head with a hijab.
Though a stronghold of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema, Jamaat-e-Islami, Tablighi Jamaat and also Wahabism, of late, Katthankudi became home to Sufism in the 1970s. The charismatic AJ Abdur Rauf Mowlavi started saying that God had a form, that he resided everywhere and in everything, that Prophet Mohammad was but an incarnation of God who came to the world to set the wrongs right.
According to ULM Harees Fadahi, General Secretary of the Kattankudy Jamiat-ul-Ulema, Abdur Rauf Mowlavi is advocating the use of the Kutthuvilakku (the traditional brass oil lamp) with seven wicks, though lighting such a lamp is part of Hindu and not Islamic ritual.
Fadahi said that Rauf Mowlavi had imbibed "Hindu" and other un-Islamic ideas from the writings of Tamil Nadu poets like Abdur Rahman and Kannadasan (the latter’s Arthamulla Indumadham or "Meaningful Hinduism" coming in for special mention). The fundamentalists argued that what he was preaching was not Sufism, which was acceptable in Islam ( but applicable only to spiritually evolved persons ), but Hinduism.
In 1979, Rauf Mowlavi was accused of "misleading" Muslim youth who flocked to listen to his powerful oratory and joined his madrasas. The All Ceylon Jamiat-ul-Ulema issued a fatwa declaring that he had left Islam and that the Muslims should sever religious ties with him and his followers.
But this did not deter Rauf Mowlavi, who continued to spread what he considered to be Sufism. Being an Islamic scholar himself, he justified his ideas on the basis of the Quran and Hadees. And being a brilliant orator, he was able to influence a growing number of youth.
This led to periodic clashes between the orthodox elements and the Sufis, with the Sufis accusing the Jamiat-ul-Ulema of being Wahabi, an ultra-orthodox Saudi Arabian sect. They pointed out that Wahabism was only ten years old in Katthankudy and therefore had no right to impose itself.
After a lull, the conflict came to a head late in October and in the first week of November this year, when Jamiat-ul-Ulema activisits attacked a mosque run by Rauf Mowlavi’s organisation and flattened two of his madrasas in Katthankudi. Curfew was imposed on the town and for five days life was at a standstill.
Alarmed about such clashes taking place in the month of Ramzan, a former Sri Lankan Minister, MLAM Hisbullah, got the two groups to meet in Colombo last weekend, and an agreement was thrashed out. Harees Fadahi told Hindustan Times that the All Ceylon and Katthankudy Jamiat-ul-Ulema had declared that Rauf Mowlavi and his followers would be deemed to be Muslims and that the Murdat fatwa, issued in 1979 against him, was withdrawn.
But "for the sake of peace and amity" he refused to give any details of the agreement. It is, therefore, not known if Rauf Mowlavi has retracted from his theological line or he will be able to propagate his Sufi ideas. Perhaps the differences have just been papered over for the time being to end an acute public embarrassment.
