The Shrinking Frontiers of Islam

Author(s): Aziz Ahmad

Reviewed work(s):
Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1976), pp. 145-159
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 7 (1976), 145-159

Printed in U.S.A.

I45

Aziz Ahmad
THE

SHRINKING

FRONTIERS

OF ISLAM

I
I have borrowed the term "frontier" from the late Professor Joseph Schacht'
for the Islamic marches where Islamic political power and Islam were once firmly
entrenched. Unlike him I would apply this term also to the Islamic marches in
Europe: Spain and Sicily. Division of Islamic lands into geographical categories
"The Central Islamic Lands" and the "Further Islamic Lands," has also been
adopted in the recently published Cambridge History of Islam.2
These Islamic frontiers are: Spain, Sicily, and the Balkans in Europe; the
Qipchaq steppes, Crimea, and Central Asia in what is the Soviet Union today;
a gradually advancing Islamic frontier in Sub-Saharan and Tropical Africa; and
the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Mindanao in South and Southeast Asia.
Like all frontier regions, the frontiers of Dar al-Islam have been exposed to
external danger and some of these frontiers have totally or partly collapsed. In
some of these frontier countries, after the end of Muslim political power, Islam
as a religion has disappeared or is in danger of disappearing.
Of these regions, in Sub-Saharan Africa, Islam seems to be making gradual
headway. In Southeast Asia, it is secure in Indonesia. With the expansion of
Malaya into Malaysia, it faced to a certain extent not merely the earlier problem
of a large and economically influential Chinese minority on the mainland but also
that of integration of non-Muslim ethnic elements in Borneo. The Constitution
of the government of Malaysia has been able to solve these problems successfully
retaining the predominantly Muslim personality of the state of Malaysia. After
the incorporation of Borneo into Malaysia the Inter-Governmental Committee
recommended in 1963 that Islam should be the religion of Malaysia, but that
there should be no state religion for the Borneo states.3
In Southeast Asia the only region where Muslims face a challenge is Mindanao
and the smaller southern islands in the Philippines where the Muslims have been
1 Joseph Schacht, ed., The Legacy of Islam (Oxford, I974).
The CambridgeHistory of Islam [CHI], ed. P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and
Bernard Lewis (Cambridge, I970).
3 Harry Miller, The Story of Malaysia (London, 1965), p. 235; see also E. I. J. Rosenthal,
2

Islam in the Modern National State (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 287-306, 359-36I.

I46 Aziz Ahmad

reduced to a minority by the influx of large Christian elements from the north
and where Muslims rose in armed rebellion in I973.
From other Islamic frontier regions Islam has either totally disappeared or
faces a threat to survival after the collapse of Muslim political power. This historical phenomenon shows a certain common pattern of cause-and-effect relationships. To begin with, a viable Muslim state disintegrates yielding place to smaller,
often mutually warring, principalities which are unable either to stand individually
or to unite together against a rising hostile power. The Muslim doctrine of hijra
leads to the emigration of the elite from these areas to more secure lands in the
Muslim world. In due course the masses are converted to the faith of the hostile
political power, and Islam ceases to exist or is in danger of extinction.
To illustrate this theoretical framework, I am selecting four frontiers of Islam:
Spain and Sicily, whence Islam has totally disappeared; and Russia and South
Asia where its survival is to some extent threatened, though much more so in
Russia and much less so in India.

II

All these four regions: Spain, Italy, the Qipchaq steppes and Central Asia
in Russia, and India had viable and, except for Sicily, powerful Muslim states.
In Spain the Umayyad caliphate was a bastion of Muslim power, but it suffered
from one structural weakness which was to a great extent responsible for the
limited role of Islamic power and presence in the Iberian peninsula. It was basically
an Andalusian state; its outlying provinces with their capitals at Merida/Badajoz,
Toledo, and Saragossa were the lower, middle, and upper thughlir or Marches
of the Umayyad caliphate.4 The Umayyads allowed considerable latitude to the
amirs in charge of these marches and considered them as territories of secondary
importance. As a result Islamization there did not progress to any significant
extent and was basically confined to a comparatively small part of the peninsula,
Andalusia.
The 'Amirid dictatorship which seized power from the Umayyads, merely
nominally acknowledging them as sovereigns, was a continuation of the Islamic
central state at least for some time. But it eroded the unity of Muslim power by
drastically reducing the prestige of the Umayyad caliphal house. In the end it
was no match for the internal strife that had been the characteristic of Islamic
Spain almost from the beginning.
4 E. Levi-Provencal, Histoire de l'Espagin miusulmane (Paris, 1950), I, 154 and passin;
in greater detail, idem, L'Espagne nlusu111anle anCXe siecle (Paris, 1932), pp. 115-127; J. Bosch
Vila, "Algunas consideraciones sobre 'Al-Tagr en Al-Andalus' y la divisi6n politico-administrativa de la Espafia musulmana," in Etudds d'Orientalislme dediecs a la Mwmoire de LeviProvencal (Paris, 1962), I, 23-33; Hussain Mones, "La divisi6n politico-administrativa de la
Espafia musulmana," Revista del Instituto de Estudios Islamicos en Madrid, V (I957), 88-98.

The shrinking frontiers of Islam

I47

The Christian states that had survived in the north of the peninsula presented
another challenge to the Umayyad caliphate and to the 'Amirid dictatorship alike.
This was the re-Christianization of whatever territory they managed to seize
more or less permanently. They settled Christians, either of their own territories
or refugees from Muslim areas, on the occupied territories.5 Their gains were
thus consolidated from the very beginning of what later came to be called Reconquista. By comparison the brilliant victories of 'Abd al-Rahman III and alMansuirwere ephemeral and contributed in no way either to the permanent extension or to the consolidation of the Muslim presence in the peninsula.
In Sicily, the Kalbite principality was a viable, though not a powerful, state.
It was an almost independent march of the Fatimid caliphate. The Kalbites continued to strike coins in the names of the Fatimid caliphs and to receive honorific
titles from them. It remains to be investigated whether Kalbite Sicily was more
closely integrated into the economic fabric of the Fatimid state than the Zirid
principality before al-Mu'izz. Between 947 and 1039 the Kalbite dynasty remained
firmly entrenched in Sicily, though, as in Umayyad and 'Amirid Spain, there
were continuous uprisings. At its height the Muslim population in Sicily may
have consisted of half a million,6 settled more densely in the western and southeastern parts, especially the Val di Mazara.
In the Qipchaq steppes in what is Russia today, Jochi's Horde developed after
some time into the powerful khanate of the Golden Horde. The greater part of
the clans that formed the Horde were Turkish, and in language and culture the
Turkish element was predominant. The essence of the Horde's civilization was
nomadic. Thus in I334 Ibn Battfita saw the ordu of Ozbeg moving from place to
place like a vast mobile city with mosques and bazaars.7Had they remained totally
nomadic the Tatars (Turks) of the Qipchaq might have disappeared from history
at an early stage of Russian impact. In fact, their nomadism was counterbalanced
by prosperous urban centers with thriving crafts and trade. Some of these towns,
like Sarai-Berke, were founded by the Tatars themselves.
Even in the first and abortive phase of the Islamization of Jochi's Horde under
Berke (I256-I267), Islam seems to have met with considerable success in its
Mongol aristocracy. Several of his amirs had imams and muezzins in their service.8 Berke's foreign policy was oriented strongly toward Islam, especially in
his disapproval of Hiilagii's action which put an end to the 'Abbasid caliphate in
1258, and in his subsequent alliance with Mamlik Egypt against the Il-Khans.9
5 Levi-Provencal, Histoire, I, 79 and passim.
6 Denis
MacSmith, A History of Sicily: Medieval Sicily 800-1713 (London, I968), p. II.
7 Ibn Battuta, Voyages, ed. C. Defremeryand B. R. Sanguinetti (Paris, 1857), II, 380.
8 Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir in W. F. von Tiesenhausen, Sbornik materialov otnosjascikhsya k
istorii Zolotoi Ordy (St. Petersburg, 1884), I, 54; B. Grekov and A. Jakoubovski,La Horde
d'Or et la Russic (Paris, I96I), p. I53.
9 Tiesenhausen, op. cit., I, 202 (al-Dhahabi),
Horde (Wiesbaden, 1965), p. 213.

274 (Ibn Kathir);

B. Spuler, Die Goldene

148 Aziz Ahmad

After Berke, M6ngka Temiir (I267-1280)
(I299-I313),

returned to Shamanism. Tokhtu

who put the state of the Golden Horde on a firm footing, was also

a Shamanist.10
With Ozbeg (I313-I341) Islam became the state religion, and all the subsequent khans of the Golden Horde were Muslims. The culture of the capital,
New Sarai, came to be steeped in Islamic tradition. But Shamanism must have
survived in some elements of the Horde,11 and conversion from Shamanism to
Christianity after the Russian impact was much easier than conversion from
Islam. Even from the outset Islam in the Qipchaq steppes had to compete not
merely with Shamanism but also with Christianity.12The final Islamization of the
Golden Horde, however, divided the Tatars from the Russians not only ethnically
but also in religious antagonisms and prevented the Tatars from being absorbed
into the Russian people for several centuries.13
The Shaybanid state was strong enough to hold its own against the Safavids
of Persia. Also, under 'Abd Allah Khan II (I583-I598) it acquired, at least for
a generation, almost imperial status, but his successors were not gifted enough
to maintain that status or even to keep the Shaybanid state together.
The Mughal empire in India was the culmination of Muslim rule there. The
weakness of the Mughal empire consisted in its demographic situation. European
travelers like Pelsaert and Bernier'4 bear testimony to the turbulence and potential challenge from the Hindu community that formed the vast majority of
the population of the subcontinent. Akbar (1556-I6o5) tried to face this problem
by enfranchising and integrating the Hindus, especially their warrior caste, the
Rajputs, and was singularly successful, but only at the expense of evolving a state,
an administration,and an internal policy that exposed Islam to a risk of absorption
into a syncretic totality of Indian religious complex. His policy came to be modified
by his successors, Jahangir and Shah Jahan, who were both good Muslins, and
was totally reversed by Awrangzib (1658-1707), the last great Mughal emperor.
This reversal came too late; and, as subsequent history proved, was also illadvised. In the second half of the seventeenth century other Hindu and nearHindu communities like the Marathas, the Jats, and the Sikhs had taken to
successful militarism. Had Awrangzib's policies been identical with those of
Akbar, or if his brother Dara Shukoh had succeeded his father, Shah Jahan, it is
possible that this emergent Hindu militarism might have been channeled into
Mughal service, though at the expense of the power and influence of Islam as a
lo Tiesenhausen, op. cit., I, 443 (al-Asadi); Spuler, Goldene Horde, p. 216.
11 Grekov and Jakoubovski, Horde d'Or, p. 155.
12 Spuler, Goldene Horde, pp. 225-241.
13 Ibid., p. 210.
14 Francisco Pelsaert, Remonstrantie, Eng. trans. Jahdngir's India by W. H. Moreland and

P. Geyl (Cambridge, 1926), p. 58; Francois Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire A.D.
I656-i668, Eng. trans. (London, I89I), passim.

The shrinking frontiers of Islam

I49

religion. His theocratization of the state changed the course of the subcontinent's
history.

III

In all the four cases under study-Spain, Sicily, Qipchaq-Central Asia, and
India-the viable or powerful Muslim state disintegrated into successor states at a
time when a strong hostile power was emerging. The fragmented successor states
were unable to face the challenge of the rising hostile power, were unable to unite
against it, and were conquered piecemeal. In all these lands Islam ceased to be the
ruling political power.
In Spain the 'Amirid dictatorship collapsed about Ioo9 and gave way to the
emergence of as many as thirty small principalities. These, known to history as the
muluk al-tawzt'ifor reyes de taifas, represented a particularismwhich has been described as both regional and ethnic in the sense that some of them were ruled by
Arabs, others by Berbers, the Thaqaliba, and by the local Spanish Muslims.15
Strangely enough the three thughur-Badajoz, Toledo, and Saragossa-did not
suffer from the same fragmentation as the Muslim heartland, Andalusia.16
There was not a monolithic hostile power in Spain, but the northern Christian
states, though not united, were individually stronger than the individual reyes de
taifas. The former were generally successful against the latter. Even the principality
of Seville, the most illustrious, if not the strongest, of these petty states, was reduced
to pay tribute to its Christian adversary-a significant reversal of historical roles.
Whenever the Christian states annexed any Muslim territory, they continued their
policy of settling Christians, now mainly the Christian Mozarabes from Andalusia,
on these lands. Thus the re-Christianization of the peninsula continued in a movement from north toward south.
By Io85 after the fall of Toledo, al-Mu'tamid of Seville and some other Muslim
principalities felt so threatened that they had to invite the Almoravid Yfsuf ibn
T/ishufin to their rescue. Yfisuf's decision in Ioo9 to stay on in Spain and to incorporate the principalities of the reyes de taifas into his dominion was on the one hand
a policy of empire-buildingbut was on the other the only course possible to restore
to Spain the unity of Islamic power to stem the tide of Reconquista. The Almoravid
rule in Spain can be viewed as the first interregnum during the historical process
of the fragmentation of Muslim territories into successor states. It reversed the
trend of fragmentation temporarily, for half a century, while it delayed the momentum of the Reconquista for only a little over a quarter century. The final collapse
15 R. Dozy, Histoire des musulmans d'Espagne (Leiden, I86I), IV, 1-2; A. Prieto y Vives,
Los reyes dc taifas: Estudio hist6rico-numismatico (Madrid, 1926); W. Montgomery Watt,
A History of Islamiic Spain (Edinburgh, 1965), pp. I03-III, I47-I54.
16 Bosch Vila, "Algunas consideraciones sobre 'Al-Takr en al-Andalus'," p. 25.

I50

Aziz Ahmad

of Almoravid rule in Spain was brought about by the inherent disintegrative trends
and revolts of the Spanish Muslims. Whatever was left of Muslim Spain in the
middle of the twelfth century was again engulfed in chaos. Once again, between
1145 and 1170, there arose numerous Muslim petty states, several of them paying
tribute to Christian Kingdoms.
The extension of the Almohad empire into Spain from II70 to 1230 can be described as the second interregnum during the period of Muslim anarchy. The
Almohad victory over Alfonso VIII of Castile at Alarcos (July 1195) gave what
turned out to be a short-lived promise that at least a part of what was Islamic Spain
could survive as a united state. This hope was shattered in July 1212 when the
Kingdoms of Leon, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon joined together to inflict the
fateful defeat of Las Navas de Tolosa. Fragmented Christian states joined together
into a single and unified front to shatter the unstable unity of the Muslim state and
splinter it once again and in due course to absorb these fragments one by one. The
third period of Muslim successor states after the Almohads easily succumbed to
the Reconquista.
The survival of Granada from 1235 to 1492 for two and a half centuries as a
tributary and vassal of Castile had its parellels later in other Muslim frontiers.
The Union of Castile and Aragon with Ferdinand and Isabella (1479) created the
monolithic hostile power that in 1492 dealt Granada its deathblow and ended the
Muslim chapter of Spanish history and the Spanish chapter of Islamic history.
The difference between the Spanish Reconquista and the Norman conquest of
Sicily is that in the former case the Spaniards themselves drove the Muslims out,
and in the process of doing so emerged eventually as a strong power, whereas in
the conquest of Sicily it was a foreign power, the Normans, which, though aided
by the Christians of the island, was decisively victorious over the Arabs by dint
of its unity and its superior military organization. Compared with the Spaniards,
the Normans were also much more tolerant of the vanquished Muslims.17
As an Arab writer puts it, the primary cause of the ruin of the Muslims in Sicily
was mutual discord.18 The whole of Muslim history in Sicily had been riddled with
turmoil and uprisings which had been kept tinder tenuous control by the Aghlabids,
the Fatimids, and the Kalbites. The deposition in 1052 of the last Kalbite amir,
Hasan al-Salmsaml, proved to be the point of no return for Sicilian Islam. Arab rule
broke up into small fragments. A small oligarchical group seized local power in
Palermo. 'Abd Allah b. Mankit became independent in Mazara, Ibn Hawwas in
Girgenti, and Ibn Thumna in Syracuse. Ibn Thumna occupied Palermo; he then
seized Catania, killed its potentate Ibn Maklati, and married his widow Mlaymfina
who was a sister of Ibn Hawwas.19 Defeated by Ibn IHawwas near Castragiovanni
17 F. Gabrieli,"La politiquearabe des Normandsde Sicile," Studia Islanica, IX
(I958), 83.
18 Ibn Abi Dinar, Anno 484, in M. Amari, ed., Biblioteca arabo-sicula (Ital. vers.) (Turin

and Rome, 1881-82), II, 287-288.

19 Ibn al-Athir (ed. Tornberg), X,

I3I.

The shrinking frontiers of Islam

15I

he summoned the Normans to his aid. Between io6i and I09I Roger I completed
the conquest of Sicily.20
Coming to the Qipchaq steppes in Russia, the disintegration of the Golden Horde
began in 1359 in the course of civil strife. In 1362 it was defeated on the Sinyukha
by the Grand Principality of Lithuania. Between 1376 and 1415 Tokhtamish united
it for the last time, but he was twice defeated by Timur, in 1375 and I379.
Tokhtamish's effort had succeeded in creating only a short-lived interregnum of
unity. From 1438 there was general chaos in the Qipchaq steppes. In the cities
and settled areas commerce and agriculture continued, and out of these nuclei there
emerged the important successor khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea.
In Kazan the Russians tried to retain a pro-Russian khan without much success
They were able to make use of the non-Muslim elements of Kazan in their conflict
with that khanate. Finally Ivan the Terrible annexed Kazan in 1552.
Astrakhan, which was founded in 1466, accepted in the sixteenth century
Ottoman influence to a limited extent in its own interest. With the fall of Kazan
it was too weak to withstand Russia which annexed it in I556.
The Crimea enjoyed a certain measure of independence since the end of the
fourteenth century, which was consolidated by HIajji Giray (d. I466). In I475,
under Mengli, the Crimea accepted Ottoman suzerainty. The Ottoman sultans
assumed the right of appointing or dismissing khans in the Crimea in consultation
with the mirzcdswho were leaders of Crimean Tatar tribes, four of whom were by
tradition more predominantthan the others.21The Crimea's fate came to be bound
up with the strength or weakness of the Ottoman Empire vis-a-vis the rising
monolithic hostile power of Russia which had already overwhelmed Kazan and
Astrakhan. In I570 the Ottoman-backed Crimean Tatars were strong enough to
attack and burn Moscow. But only four years later in 1574, the Russians were able
to impose the treaty of Kiichiik Kaynarja on the Ottomans, by which Crimea
became theoretically independent. In 1783 the troops of Catherine the Great annexed Crimeato the Russian empire.
In Central Asia, the three successor states of Shaybanid Ozbegs, Bukhara,
Khokand, and Khiva were small, disunited, and exposed to the expanding might
of Russia. In Bukhara, the Mangit ruling dynasty was weaker than its predecessor,
the Janid. Finally in I868 General K. P. Kaufmann occupied Samarqand, which
was ceded to the Russians, and the khanate of Bukhara became a Russian protectorate, though with internal autonomy and religious freedom.
The region of Khokand asserted its independenceof Bukhara toward the close of
the seventeenth century. In the middle of the nineteenth the nomad and the settled
elements of its population were at strife. The Russian impact on Khokand was
20 M. Amari, Storia dei musulmanidi Sicilia, ed. C. A. Nallino (Catania, 1935), III, 15-183;
U. Rizzitano, "Ibn Thumna," El2, III, 956; idem, "Ibn al-Hawwus," El2, III, 788.
21 C. M. Kortepeter, Ottoman Imperialism during the Reformation: Europe and the
Caucasus (New York, 1972), pp. 7-8.

I52

Aziz Ahmad

gradual, but more decisive than in the case of Bukhara. In 1875 the territory of
Khokand was annexed and incorporatedinto the Russian empire.
The Khanate of Khiva had its period of expansion under Khan Muhammad
Rahim between I806 and 1824, but soon after, between 1827 and 1864, it was
riddled with revolt and internecine struggle. Russian encroachment began in 1834
and resulted finally in the decisive victories of General Kaufmann in 1873 which
reduced that khanate to a Russian protectorate in the sense that its foreign policy
came to be controlled by the Russians.22
As in Russia the Muslims of India faced challenges of monolithic hostile powers
in two stages; in the case of Russia those of the Czarist regime and the Soviet Union,
and in South Asia those of the British Indian Empire and subsequently the Republic
of India.
The successor states to the iMughalempire in India were non-Muslim as well as
Muslim. In fact, the non-Muslim successor states, especially the Maratha Confederacy and the Sikh state in the Punjab, were more powerful than the Muslim
successor states, like Bengal, Awadh, and Hyderabad. Of the Muslim successor
states only Mysore under Haydar 'Ali and Tipfi Sultan rose to be powerful enough
to wage a struggle against the British and the Marathas, and finally succumbed
fighting against a military alliance between the British, the Marathas, and the
Nizam of Hyderabad. Under the British East India Company a number of Muslim
successor states were annexed to the British territory. These included Bengal and
Awadh, the two principal successor states of northern India. In the south, Mysore
was given to a Hindu ruler under British suzerainty while Arcot was annexed.
Of the Muslim successor states only Hyderabad and a few other principalities
survived as British protectorates. On the other hand a large number of Hindu
successor states survived as protectorates, though with reduced areas.
The Muslim successor states of the Mughal empire provided employment and
job opportunities for the Muslim middle classes. Their annexation led to the
impoverishment of Muslim elite and masses, especially in Bengal.23
The Muslim community as a whole did not suffer much under the British. In
fact, after the I87os it developed a sense of political community, and in due course
a political separatism, which was encouraged by the British. The separatism was
motivated by an apprehension regarding the economic, cultural, even religious
future of the community vis-a-vis the three-times-larger Hindu community, which
would inevitably be the ruler and decision-maker in India when parliamentary
institutions introduced by the British matured, and the British empire was replaced
by an indigenous democracy.
Muslim separatism led eventually to the division of the British Indian Empire
22

B. Spuler in CHI, I, 468-494.

23 W. W. Hunter, The Indian Musalmans (London, I87I),

passim.

The shrinking frontiers of Islam

153

into two successor states, India and Pakistan. In India the Muslims remained on
the whole a mistrusted minority; while confrontation between India and Pakistan
resulted in three armed conflicts between I948 and I97I.

IV

Finally, in all the four areas under study one notices, though in enormously
varying degrees, the process of the migration of the elite, the eviction, persecution.
or conversion of the masses, and in the end either the total disappearance of Islam
or at least as in the case of Russia and India the possibility of its eventual
disappearance.
The migration of the Muslim elite from an area that has become hostile to the
Muslims to areas of security has its roots in the Prophet's migration to Madina
and in several verses of the Qur'an. For instance: "He who forsakes his home in
the cause of God, finds in the earth many a refuge, wide and spacious" ;24 or "To
those who leave their homes in the cause of God, after suffering oppression, we
will assuredly give a goodly home in this world: but truly the reward of the
hereafter will be greater."25Poor emigrants who were expelled from their homes
and their property for the sake of God and His Prophet, are mentioned as the
truthful ones who deserve charity.26Those who have suffered exile in the path of
God are promised Divine mercy; their iniquities will be forgiven.27 Help to the
immigrants is enjoined and the Ansar of Madina are praised for giving them
preference over themselves.28Lot is praised for leaving his home for the sake of
God.29In the case of those Muslims who did not migrate (presumably from Mecca
or other hostile areas) the Prophet had no obligation for their protection, but only
of their religious instruction.30There are numerous other verses in which the immigrants are commended and promised reward.31
The hadith literature is not as explicit and does not treat the question of hijra
(emigration) at any considerable length, except for Ahmad ibn Hanbal. The
reason is obvious. In the ninth century, when the great classical collections of
hadith were compiled, Muslim power was firmly entrenched in the areas of its
conquest, and the problem of emigration did not arise. In fact, there is a large
group of traditions, some of them traced back to Ibn 'Abbas, stating that no hijra
24

Qur'an, 4:oI. In this and other passages cited the English translation is by Abdullah

Yusuf Ali (Lahore, I938, p. 212).

25
Qur'an, 16:43 (Abdullah Yusuf Ali, p. 666).
26 Qur'an, 59:9.
27 Qur'an, 2:215 and 3:I94.
28 Qur'an, 24:22
29 Qur'an, 29:25.

and 59:9.

30 Qur'an, 8:73.

31 Qur'an, I6: Ir;

22:57; 75:76; 9:20.

154

Aziz Ahmad

is necessary after the conquest of Mecca.32 It is not until we come to Ahmad b.

Hanbal, who was persecuted for his strong anti-Mu'tazilite traditionalism under
al-Ma'mfin and al-Mu'tasim, that we meet an emphasis on the value of hijra.3
It was natural that the doctrine of hijra should have been revived by the Muslim
elite when the Islamic frontiers were on the retreat, as in Spain and Sicily, or when
the heartlands of Islam were overrun by hostile forces, as during the Mongol
onslaught and the Crusades. Large numbers of the Muslim elite migrated to Egypt,
Anatolia, and India after the Mongol conquest of Central Asia, Persia, and Iraq.
Ibn Jubayr denounces those who stayed on in the land of the Franks (at Acre) during the Crusades, served them and "lived with the abominations" they practiced.34
The doctrine of hijra was involved with two serious drawbacks from the viewpoint of Islam in the lost areas. Only the elite, which formed a very small percentage
of the total population, had the means to emigrate and the talent or the financial
resources to rehabilitate itself in new surroundings. The other, and the more serious,
drawback was that the emigration of the greater part of the elite left the Muslim
masses leaderless and susceptible to conversion to the faith of the non-Muslim
conquerors.
In Spain, the Mudejares (from Arabic mudajjan: "permitted to remain" or
"subordinates") had in the early stages a position parallel to that of non-Muslim
comlmunities in an Islamic state, observing their religious rites and living according
to their customs under Muslim qi'ids. They paid a capitation tax, just as the nonMuslims paid jizya in a Muslim state. They had to wear distinctive dress and to
live in the Muslim quarters of the towns. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
they culturally influenced their rulers; but there must have been during this period
steady migration from among them to other Muslim lands.
In the fifteenth century the lot of the Mludejares worsened. Their religious
survival began to face severe difficulties when the Spanish regime of Ferdinand
and Isabella took over the responsibilities of administering the Inquisition. Cardinal
Ximenez di Cisneros influenced the Spanish government to such an extent that
copies of the Qur'an and other Islamic literature were burned. The insurrection
of the Muslims which followed was ruthlessly suppressed, and in 150I the Muslims
of Granada were given the choice of baptism or exile. In 1525-1526 the Muslims
of other provinces in Spain had to face the same choice. The bulk of Muslim Spain,
most probably, accepted Christianity while the religious and commlercial elite
migrated to North Africa and the Ottoman empire. In 1526 the Moriscos of
Valencia were expelled.
32

Bukhari (Leiden, I862-I9o8),

56:I,

26, 194;

58:22;

63:45;

64:53;

Muslim (Cairo,

A.H. I283/I866), 33:83-86; Abfi Da'fid (Cairo, A.H. 1292/1875), 15:2; Tirmidhi (Cairo,
A.H. I292/I875), 19:33; Ibn Maja (Cairo, A.H. 1313/I895), II:I2; Nast'i (Cairo, A.H.
1312/1894), 39:9.

33 Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, II, 315; III, 370 et seq.

34 Ibn Jubayr, Rihla (Beirut, I959),

pp. 279-280.

The shrinking frontiers of Islam

155

In 1566 there was fresh legislation against whatever tiny residue of Muslims
had remained in Spain. The Moriscos of Spain revolted in the Alpujarras in 1568,
counting upon help to be provided by the Ottoman beglerbeg of Algiers. Finally,
the edict of expulsion promulgated by Philip III in I609, followed by another such
edict in I619, forced the eviction of half a million Muslims from Spain. After that
no Muslims were left in Spain.
Norman Sicily was much more tolerant of the Muslim survival than was Catholic
Spain, and much more saturated with Muslim culture. But here also we see the
same process at work. A large number of 'ulamn' and staunch Muslims migrated
from Sicily shortly after the conquest of the island by Roger I, who was by no
means intolerant; and another wave of migration accompaniedthe retreating forces
of Ayyfib b. Tamim, the Zirid.35
The migration of the intellectuals and other elements of the Muslim elite
continued throughout the Norman period. While in the cities respectable and some
times prosperous Muslim communities had remained under the early Norman
rulers, in the feudalized countryside they became serfs and "villeins," their lot
being hardly better than that of slaves.
The counterpart of the Norman religious and cultural tolerance of the Arabs
was the Norman sovereign's position as the defender and helper of Christianity
(ndsir al-nasraniyya), his relationship with the Pope, and his efforts toward the
establishment of the Catholic Church in Sicily at the expense of Islam. As the
power of the Norman sovereign weakened after William II, the feudal hierarchy,
which held the rural Muslim population in tutelage in association with the Catholic
church which regarded conversion to Christianity as a meritorious work, made the
survival of Islam difficult in Sicily.36
Even under William II, Ibn Jubayr noticed the Muslim elite continuing to
migrate, seeing no future for itself in Sicily, and encouraging its daughters to
marry Muslim visitors from other lands. The temptation as well as the coercion
to convert to Christianity was disrupting the patriarchal Muslim life. Even the
tolerant William II would force some of his leading Muslim officials to renounce
their faith.37With the decline of the Norman house of Hauteville the position of
the Muslims became even more precarious. The year II89-90 sealed their fate,
with their revolt and its sanguinary suppression. After this the Arab element of
Palermo almost disappeared, as the Muslim population of other Sicilian cities
already had. Only in Val di Mazara in the mountains did Muslim resistance
continue, culminating in 1222-23 in the resistance of "Mirabetto" (Ibn 'Abbad)
during the reign of Fredrick II. The Muslim revolt was finally suppressed between
1243 and 1246, when the otherwise liberal and Arabophile Fredrick exiled the
remaining Muslim population from Sicily to Lucera on the Italian mainland. This
35

Ibn al-Athir, Anno 484, in Amari, Biblioteca arobo-sicula (Ital. vers.), I, 448-449.
Gabrieli, "La politique arabe," Studia Islamica, IX (1958), 92.
37 Ibn Jubayr, Rihla, pp. 3I3-316.
36

156 Aziz Ahmad

Muslim residue in Lucera was consistently under pressure from Charles II
d'Anjou to convert to Christianity, first by persuasion,38and in the end by regimentation, when the Arab colony of Lucera was destroyed by his order in I300.39
Facts are not available as to whether any, and if so what percentage of Tatar
elite migrated from Kazan and Astrakhan after the Russian occupation. In the
case of the Crimea it has been estimated that possibly half the Muslim Tatar
population migrated to the Ottoman empire after annexation by Russia.40Russian
peasants were settled in the Crimean peninsula as well as the steppeland of the
Nogays. The Tatars in the Crimea were thus reduced to a minority, while the
Nogays were removed first to the Kuban, then to the north of the Sea of Azov.
A policy of forcible conversion of Tatars to Christianity was adopted after the
Russian conquest of Kazan, where a Christian Tatar community, that of the
Kryashens, came into being. This policy was suspended by the liberal Romanovs,
but was revived by Peter the Great and continued until the accession of Catherine
II.41 Conversely, between I905 and I916 there was some conversion to Islam
among the Finnic people of Middle Volga, such as the Maris, the Mordvinians,
the Udmurts, and the Christian Turkish Chuvash.42Around the beginning of the
twentieth century and during its first decade the intellectuals of Muslim Russia
formed the vanguard of the propagation of the pan-Turkic movement within
Russia, as well as outside it as an intellectual diaspora.43
When the Czarist regime collapsed during the First World War, Russia had
the third largest Muslim population in the world, between I5 and I8 million, and
next only to the Muslim population of the British and the Ottoman empires. The
Muslim population was dispersed in several parts of Russia, in the Volga-Ural
region, in Siberia, in Central Asia, and in the Caucasus and the Crimea.
For over half a century the effort of the Soviet Government has been to absorb
this Muslim population within the general Russian ethnic fabric, and to involve
it in the Soviet state ideologically by de-Islamizing it. This policy has fluctuated
according to political necessity and expediency. In March 1918 the national miovement of the Tatars of Kazan was suppressed. In I923, teaching of religion to
children below the age of 14 was forbidden. The use of the Arabic script was
abolished in 1928-29. The period between 1928 and Russia's involvement in
World War II in 1941 was that of direct attack on Islam. The hajj, which also
meant contact with Muslims of other lands, was forbidden. Between I929 and
38 For instance in 1294 Raymond Lull was specially commissioned by Charles to "confer
with the Saracens of Lucera," P. Egidi, ed., Codice Diplomatico dei Saraceni di Lucera
(Naples, 1917), p. 32.
39 P. Egidi, La colonia saracena di Lucera e la sna distrluione (Naples, 1912), pp. 75-76.
40 M. E. Yapp in CHI, I, 502.
41 A.
Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union (New
York, 1967), p. 12.
42 Ibid., p. 27.
43 S. A. Zenkovsky, Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), passinm.

The shrinking frontiers of Islam

157

I939, 33,000 mosques were closed down in the areas of Muslim concentration
throughout Russia.44
Such policies were held in abeyance during the war years I94I to I945. In
1945 antireligious policies toward the Muslims of Russia were revived.
In several areas in Russia the Muslim majority was transformed into a minority
through large-scale Russian immigration. Kazakhs have become a minority in
Kazakhstan. In the Bashkir A.S.S.R., the Bashkirs are today a minority. In the
Tatar A.S.S.R. the Tatar percentage of the total population is not more than
one-half. The Tatars of the Crimea were accused of collaborating with the
Germans in World War II and exiled en masse to Kirghizia. The colonial
objectives of the Czarist regime in Central Asia were two: To develop it as a
raw cotton producing area to feed the Russian textile industry, and to settle
Russians in the area. Both these objectives continue to be pursued by the Soviet
Union.
In Russia, according to Muslim and Western specialists, very little of traditional Islam has survived. But it still survives "as a social bond of union which
enables the Muslims to differentiate themselves from the Russians."45
This estimate of Professor Bennigsen was made some years ago. Now he is
more optimistic about the survival of Islam in Russia. His optimism is based on
two points: First, the population explosion among Muslims in the Soviet Union
indicates that the Muslim population is multiplying at a much higher rate than
the Russian population; and second, the effort of the Russian Muslims to conserve
their identity by refusing to migrate voluntarily from the areas of their concentration, and by adhering at least symbolically to Islam by observing strictly the
rite of circumcision.46This optimism may have to, be considerably modified in the
face of Russian coercive measures, which may lead to forced migration and
dispersion within the Soviet Union, the Russian genius for assimilation, and a
possible prohibition of the rite of circumcision.
Comparedwith the Soviet Union, the Islamic presence has a considerably better
chance of survival in South Asia, though there too it is beset with formidable
challenges. The Muslim population of the subcontinent is now divided into three
states: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In India it is about 10 percent of the
total population, which is generally Hindu. The government of the Indian National
Congress which has ruled the country since 1947, as well as India's constitution,
declare India to be a secular state.
The British government in India had provided a certain measure of economic
and educational protection for the Muslims of India, especially since the I87os.
This patronage was withdrawn from them by the independent government of
44 Bennigsen
Nimet Kurat in
45 Bennigsen
46
Bennigsen

and Lenercrci-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union, pp. I49-15I;

CHI, I, 627-639.
and Lemercier-Quelquejay, op. cit., I83.
in Seminar at the University of Toronto, November 1972.

Akdes

158

Aziz Ahmad

India, ironically enough in the name of secularism. While individual Muslims

have risen to very high positions in India, including that of the Head of the State,
the total employment of Muslims in the Central and Provincial government offices
is less than I percent, or one-tenth of what they should have had according to their
percentage in population. There are no Muslim industrialists, as almost all of
them migrated to Pakistan in quest of better opportunities and less competition.
For the same reason there are few big businessmen. There are a large number of
Muslims engaged in retail trade, but they are very insecure owing to the riots
organized by the strongly anti-Muslim political party, Jana Sangh, second in
strength only to the Indian National Congress. The pattern of these riots is to
sack and burn the houses and shops of the Muslims, taking away their means of
livelihood and even the roof over their heads, reducing them to the level of a low
caste, ironically enough in a modern India which is winning its fight against the
traditional iniquities of caste structure. Recently the government of Indira Gandhi
was able to control the anti-Muslim communal riots to some extent; and if her
party retains its power and strength there is some hope of security for Muslims.
If the Jana Sangh comes into power, their fate is sealed, though theoretically it
concedes that the Muslims may worship the Islamic way, but they must live the
Indian (an aphorism for "Hindu") way.47 The Jana Sangh also stands for the
unification of India, through the destruction of Pakistan.48
The secularism of the Indian government also has loopholes detrimental to
Muslims. It upholds Hindi to be the language of the state, not merely as a twin
of Urdu which would have brought the two languages and the two cultures (Hindu
and Muslim) closer together, but recommends in India's Constitution that Hindi
draw for its vocabulary resources "primarily on Sanskrit."49This hard attitude
was softened to some extent in the report of the Official Language Commission
which allowed borrowings into Hindi from Urdu.50 And in recent years apart
from Kashmir, where Urdu is the first language, Urdu has been accepted as a
second language in three provinces. But, in the meantime a generation of Indian
Muslims has grown up, the majority of which, under economic and educational
stress, cannot read or write Urdu, the language of their religious and cultural
heritage.
The Muslim masses in India are even worse off than the middle classes which
are reaching a point of economic disability where they can no longer afford to
send their children to school.51The almost total lack of employment opportunity
for the Muslim masses may force them in the end to accept Hinduism, which is a
highly assimilative religion; but so far there is no indication of that trend. Actually,
47 The Organiser, December 31, I95I, p. 5.
48

Manifesto of the Jana Sangh in the Organiser, October 29, 1951.

49 Constitution of India, Article 35I.
60 Official Language Commission, Report (New Delhi, I957), p. 235.
51 Abid Husain, The Destiny of Indian Muslims (London, I965), p. I32.

The shrinking frontiers of Islam

I59

with the intense activity of two religious organizations, the Jama'at-i Islami and
the Tahrik-i fman,52 religious instruction has been intensified, syncretic Muslim
communities have been won back to traditional Islam, and as Dr. Abid Husain
has concluded, "though there was confusion in their minds and frustration and
resentment in their hearts, their religious faith never wavered."53
The migration of Muslims from India to Pakistan can be classified into three
categories. By far the largest migration followed the communal riots of 1947,
through an exchange of populations, the Hindus and Sikhs of West Pakistan going
to India and the Muslims of East Punjab, Delhi, and the western (listricts of Uttar
Pradesh to Pakistan. This was a mass migration including all classes of population.
The second category consisted of members of the Muslim elite who migrated to
Pakistan for ideological reasons. The third category consisted of members of the
intelligentsia and some groups of common people who felt economically insecure
in India or who migrated in search of better and more secure job opportunities.
It is difficult to estimate what percentage of the Muslim elite migrated to Pakistan
and what percentagechose to remain in India. By far the greater bulk of the Muslim
masses remained in India. The basic fact is that though the Indian Muslims constitute only 10 percent of the Indian population, this Io percent amounts to over
60 million. Their number is their chief strength for survival.
Pakistan, the Granada of the South Asian subcontinent, came into being, at
least ideologically, as the state of the Muslims of India. But it has had difficulty
evolving into a single nation. Its decision-making elite during the first quarter
of its existence has come mainly from the dynamic province of the Punjab. It has
exploited other regions and denied them a sense of participation. A strong movement for secession in East Bengal was countered by severe military repression.
Indian military intervention succeeded in defeating and splitting Pakistan into
the successor states (West) Pakistan and Bangladesh. In West Pakistan regional
and disintegrative trends are still at work; its survival or ultimate disintegration
cannot be assessed at this stage. Whatever happens to Pakistan vast Muslim
population areas would remain, including Bangladesh, which survives at the
pleasure of India; and with them the Muslim presence in the subcontinent is
likely to continue in the foreseeable future.
UNIVERSITY

OF TORONTO

52 M. Anwarul Haq, The Faith Movement of Mawldnd Muhammad Iylds (London,

1972).
Abid Husain, op. cit., p. I34.

53