Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:00:33.263Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - South Asian religious reform movements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Sophie Gilliat-Ray
Affiliation:
Cardiff University
Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

A range of major religious reform movements that emerged in South Asia in the nineteenth century influence many Muslims in contemporary Britain. These movements in part evolved as responses to colonialism, and have been characterized as ‘the reformist Deobandīs, the quietist and revivalist Tablīghī Jamā‘at, the conservative and populist Barelwīs, the Islamist Jamā‘at-i Islāmī and the modernists’ (Lewis 1994: 36). These broad schools of thought still shape the character of Islam in the Indian subcontinent, and consequently they remain prevalent among British Muslims also. Not surprisingly, this diversity has significant consequences when it comes to the representation of Muslim interests in the public sphere, and towards the end of this chapter some of the issues and tensions surrounding ‘representative’ organizations, at both the local and the national level, are considered.

The political and military domination of the British in nineteenth-century South Asia was the outcome of economic activity and trade links that had begun a century earlier, under the auspices of the East India Company. Secular European powers were successfully capturing Muslim territory owing to their superior technological, military and economic capacity. This provoked a profound sense of crisis and self-reflection as Muslims questioned why divine guidance was no longer protecting the Islamic ummah (Cantwell Smith 1961). There was broad agreement about the need to reform and reinvigorate Muslim civilization, but also much disagreement about how this should be accomplished. A defining moment was the Indian uprising of 1857, which saw civilians and Indian army soldiers challenging British domination.

Type
Chapter
Information
Muslims in Britain , pp. 84 - 112
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×