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com/
The Faraizi Movement
The Faraizi Movement, essentially a religious reform movement had emerged forth
during the 19th century, founded by Haji Shariatullah by the Bengali Muslims. Th
e term Faraizi has been deduced from `farz`, standing for compulsory and mandato
ry duties ordained by Allah. The Faraizis are, thus, those bunch of men whose on
ly objective is to implement and impose these mandatory religious duties. The pr
omoter and initiator of the Faraizi Movement, Haji Shariatullah, however had rep
resented the term in a different light and sense, implying to assimilate every r
eligious duty ordained by the Quran as well as by the Sunnah of the Prophet. Pri
or to the uprising of the Faraizi movement, there lies hidden a history and back
drop which indeed had induced the Bengali Muslims and Shariatullah in large to i
ncite such an action against the British oppression. Haji Shariatullah had been
onto a pilgrimage to Mecca, staying back for twenty years and being absorbed in
comprehending religious doctrines under Shaikh Tahir Sombal. Returning home, he
had plunged a movement to make the Bengali Muslims espouse the true canons of Is
lam. After his return to Bengal under British Indian rule, he had remained a con
tinuous witness to the appalling and degenerating conditions of his brotherhood,
calling them forth to give up un-Islamic practices (Bidah) and execute their ho
nest duties as Muslims (Faraiz). Due to various accumulating historical reasons,
the Muslims of Bengal had been merrily complying with umpteen local customs, ri
tuals and observances, which were almost unimaginable and displaced from the pri
nciples of Islam. Most Bengali Muslims did not even abide by the basic principle
s of Islam. Haji Shariatullah then and there had sworn to bring the Bengali Musl
ims back in the true path of Islam, which later had churned into the gargantuan
Faraizi Movement. He had assayed to lay paramount accentuation on the five funda
mentals of Islam, insisted on the complete acceptance and strict observation of
virginal monotheism and reprobated all digressions from the original doctrines a
s shirk (polytheism) and bid`at (sinful conception). Umpteen rituals and ceremon
ies affiliated with birth, marriage and death like Chuttee, Puttee, Chilla, Shab
gasht procession, Fatihah, Milad and Urs were heavily prohibited by Shariutullah
. Saint-worship, demonstrating unnecessary admiration to the Pir, lifting of the
Taziah during Muharram were also adjudged shirk. Haji Shariatullah indeed had l
aid gross emphasis upon justice, social equality and universal fraternity of Mus
lims. Haji Shariatullah deemed British domination in Bengal as exceedingly detri
mental to the religious life of the followers of Islam. He spoke up that the com
plete non-existence of a lawfully-appointed Muslim caliph or representative admi
nistrator in Bengal had stripped the Muslims of the privilege of observing congr
egational prayers. To the Faraizis, Friday congregation was inexcusable in a pre
dominantly non-

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ Muslim state like Bengal. The Faraizi moveme

nt thus began to circulate with astonishing promptness in the districts of Dhaka
, Faridpur, Bakerganj, Mymensingh, Tippera (Comilla), Chittagong and Noakhali (b
ack then, during British Indian times, the country was yet to be divided, hence
these regions very well fell under the erstwhile undivided Bengal), as well as t
o the province of Assam. Faraizi movement, however, acquired its grooviest momen
tum in those provinces where the Muslim peasantry was horribly dejected under th
e tyrannical domination of Hindu zamindars and the sadistic European indigo plan
ters. Many Muslims, on the other hand, did not abide by the Faraizi doctrine and
tried to defend against their activities with aid from the Hindu zamindars. The
landlords of Dhaka, hence, guaranteed the eviction of Haji Shariatullah by the
police in 1831, from Ramnagar or Nayabari, where he had assembled his propaganda
centre. Through unremitting engagement with the Hindu landlords and European in
digo planters, this movement swelled into a socio-economic issue, which became a
n overriding feature of the Faraizi movement under Shariatullah`s son Dudu Miyan
and his descendants. The landlords levied numerous Abwabs (plural form of the A
rabic term bab, signifying a door, a section, a chapter, a title. During Mughal
India, all temporary and conditional taxes and impositions levied by the governm
ent over and above regular taxes were referred to as abwabs. More explicitly, ab
wab stood for all irregular impositions on Raiyats above the established assessm
ent of land in the Pargana) over and above normal rent and such abwabs were horr
ibly dishonest in the eye of law. Several abwabs were of religious nature. Haji
Shariatullah then intervened to object to such a practice and commanded his disc
iples not to pay these dishonest cesses to the landlords. The landlords had even
inflicted a ban on the slaughter of cow, especially on the occasion of Eid-ul-A
zha. The Faraizis ordained their peasant followers not to cling and stick by to
such a ban. All these heated instances added up to tensed and stressed relations
hips amongst the Faraizies and the landlords, who were nearly all Hindus. This w
as another major communal cause, which in the long run, had induced these two re
ligious factions to stand against each other, leading to the Fairizi Movement. G
radually gathering up incidents under the Islamic-led Faraizi movement could be
witnessed in various parts of Bengal, with overwhelming English-Bengali agreemen
t for perhaps the very first time. The outraged landlords built up a propaganda
campaign with the British officials, incriminating the Faraizis with mutinous mo
od. In 1837, these Hindu landlords indicted Haji Shariatullah of attempting to b
uild up a monarchy of his own, similar in lines to Titu Mir. They also brought s
everal lawsuits against the Faraizis, in which they benefitted dynamic cooperati
on of the European indigo planters. Shariatullah was placed under the detention
of the police in more than one instance, for purportedly inciting agrarian turbu
lences in Faridpur. After the bereavement of Haji Shariatullah in 1840, his only
son Muhsinuddin Ahmad, alias Dudu Miyan was heralded the chief of the Faraizi m
ovement. It was under Dudu Miyan`s leadership that the Faraizi movement took on
agrarian disposition. He had machinated and masterminded the oppressed peasantry
against the oppressive landlords. In trembling vengeance, the Hindu landlords a
nd indigo planters tried to hold back Dudu Miyan by constituting false cases aga
inst him. But, he had turned so very iconic with the peasantry that in these sev
eral issued cases, courts hardly ever establish a witness

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ against Dudu. The initial victories of Dudu

Miyan caught the fancy of the masses and his reputed standing rose high and high
er in their respect. These incidents also lent additional impetus to the circula
tion of the Faraizi movement and drew to its congregation not only numerous Musl
ims, who so far stood cold, but also Hindus and native Christians who assayed Du
du Miyan`s protection against the tyrannical landlords. Dudu Miyan however, pass
ed away in 1862 and before his death he had appointed a board of guardians to wa
tch over his minor sons, Ghiyasuddin Haydar and Abdul Gafur, alias Naya Miyan, w
ho succeeded his father sequentially. The board, scouting under great troubles,
kept the now-declining Faraizi movement from shattering to pieces. It was not un
til Naya Miyan reached maturity that it recovered some of its lost force and vig
our. Nabinchandra Sen, the then sub-divisional officer of Madaripur, deemed it p
ractical to enter into a treaty of mutual help with the Faraizi leaders, who, in
their turn, demonstrated a zeal of cooperation towards the government. On the d
eath of Naya Miyan in 1884, the third and youngest son of Dudu Miyan, Syeduddin
Ahmad, was hailed as the leader by the Faraizis. During Syeduddin Ahmad`s period
, the clash of the Faraizis with the Taiyunis, another reformist group, reached
its peak status and religious debates between the two schools had become a commo
n place episode in the then British Indian Bengal. Syeduddin was conferred the t
itle of Khan Bahadur by the government. In 1905, on the question of the partitio
n of Bengal, he lent tremendous support to Nawab Salimullah in favour of partiti
on, but he too expired in 1906. Faraizi Movement was now, almost biting the dust
of degenerating soil, with no potential hope for an intelligent tomorrow. Khan
Bahadur Syeduddin was succeeded by his eldest son Rashiduddin Ahmad, also acknow
ledged as Badshah Miyan. During the early years of his leadership, Badshah Miyan
strictly had defended the policy of co-operation towards the colonial governmen
t. But the dissolution and succeeding invalidation of the partition of Bengal ma
de him terribly anti-British and he this began taking active part in the Khilafa
t and Non-Cooperation Movements. Soon after the establishment of Pakistan, Badsh
ah Miyan called for a conference of the Faraizis at Narayanganj and declared Pak
istan as Dar-ulIslam and afforded permission to his followers to hold the congre
gational prayers of Jum`ah and Eid. In such a gradual manner, the Faraizi moveme
nt lost its erstwhile zing and forcefulness, as the country witnessed its Indepe
ndence, coupled with the Partition into two distinctive nations, comprising Hind
us and Muslims.
Mir Nasir Ali, known as Titu Mir is another important figure who was moved by th
e sufferings of
the Muslim of Bengal. After returning from Pilgrimage, Titu Mir devoted himself
to the cause of his country. He made Narkelbaria, a village near Calcutta, the c
enter of his activities. Many oppressed Muslim peasants gathered round Titu Mir
in their resistance against the Hindu landlord, Krishna Deva Raj. Titu Mir was a
ble to defeat Krishna Deva and set up government. The British aiding the Hindu l
andlords sent an army of 100 English Soldiers and 300 sepoys to Narkelbaria. In
1831, Titu Mir died fighting the British forces.

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ The death of Titu Mir did not dishearten his

followers. His example rather served as a source of inspiration for them in the
years to come.
Shari`at `Ullah was born in 1781 in the village of Shmail in eastern Bengal. The
founder of the
Fara`izis, Shari`at `Ullah received his primary education in Calcutta and Hooghl
y. In 1799, when he was eighteen years, Shari`at `Ullah traveled to Mecca. The f
irst two years he took training under a migrant Bengali, Maulana Murad, and for
the next fourteen years learned more about the Maulana religion being the studen
t of the Hanafi scholar, Tahir Sombal. Shari`at `Ullah was also initiated into t
he Qadiriyah order of Sufism during this period. Moreover, he spent two years at
al-Azhar University in Cairo. After Shari`at `Ullah returned to Bengal in 1818
as a scholar of Islamic law and philosophy, he began to preach, but soon returne
d to Mecca, where he took the formal consent of his teacher to preach his own re
ligious campaign. After returning to Bengal, probably in 1820 or early 1821, Sha
ri`at `Ullah very soon attracted the aspired individuals among the peasants of e
astern Bengal. Shari`at `Ullah`s message was one of the religious purification a
nd he was deeply shocked by unacceptable beliefs and behavior well liked among B
engali Muslims. Shari`at `Ullah called for a return to farcflz that was the obli
gatory duties of Islam, particularly the profession of faith known as kalimah, f
asting in Ramadan (sawm or rozah), attending daily prayers (salat or namaz), pay
ing the poor tax (zakat) and pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj)`. Along with these rites
Shari`at `Ullah focused on the principle of tawhid (monotheism). Variations fro
m the original message of Muhammad were the products of either shirk (polytheist
ic religious beliefs) or bid`ah (sinful innovations). In practical terms Shari`a
t `Ullah prohibited the worship conducted at the shrines of a variety of Islamic
saints, the rituals that are connected with the birth of a child or with circum
cision, and the intense wailing at ceremonies to honor the Shari`at `Ullah`s her
oes, al-Hasan and al-Husain. Uneducated Muslims who copied customs from the nonMuslim community held some of these rituals responsible on Hindu influence that
either preserved by converting to Islam, or simply accepted. The scriptural fund
amentalism of Shari`at` Ullah was widely accepted primarily among peasants in ea
stern Bengal. In order to successfully reach this audience the Fara`izi leaders
preached in Bengali language and used that language in their initiation ceremony
rather than Persian, Arabic or Urdu. They introduced a distinctive pattern of d
ress that made the members of their movement stand out from the rest of their co
mmunity. Militant, unified, and composed mainly of illiterate peasants and artis
ans, the Fara`izis soon faced opponents as they came within the eastern Bengali
districts of Dacca, Faridpur, Jessore, and Badkarganj. Firstly, Fara`izis direct
ly challenged the orthodox or Sadiqi Muslims who were determined to maintain the
practice of Islam as it was then. The Sadiqis were mainly descendants of the Mu
slims who had entered Bengal immediately after the conquest. Many of them were m
embers of the landlord class, which was thought to be a group by the Fara`izis a
s economic and ideological enemies. Hinduism was

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ also an opponent, a fountain of polytheism a

nd evil innovations. Once more religious tensions came up solely due to economic
s reasons, since the majority of landlords in eastern Bengal were Hindus. In 183
1, Barasat had become the center of Fara`izi that led to disturbances against th
e power of local landlords. Indigo factories were burnt and peasants refused to
pay rents to Hindu landlords because they often insisted illegal payments. Musli
m peasants opposed for religious as well as economic reasons. Hindu landlords co
llected money for ceremonies like Durga Puja, the annual celebration of a Hindu
goddess. Shari`at `Ullah asked his followers to refuse such demands and they did
. Throughout the 1830s conflict started between the Fara`izis and their landlord
s with each side blaming the other, as the religious movement slowly became enta
ngled in economic and political issues. This drifted toward rural conflict and c
ontinued after the death of Shari`at `Ullah in 1840 when his son, Dudu Miyan, su
cceeded him as leader of the community.
Mushin al-Din Ahmad was born in 1819 in a village of Madaripur of greater Faridp
ur district.
He was popularly known as Dudu Miyan. He was the only son of Shari`at `Ullah. Du
du Miyan took his primary education from his father and then at the age of twelv
e he traveled to Mecca for further studies. He never achieved the levels of scho
larship attained by his father, but Dudu Miyan very soon proved himself an activ
e leader; able to create an effective organizational structure for the Fara`izis
in their struggles and reform movements with opposing party and the landlord-pl
anter set of Bengal. Dudu Miyan spent about five years at Makka for schooling. A
t the age of 19 he was called back on account of his father`s illness. It was a
very critical moment of serious argument of the Faraizis with the landlords, Eur
opean indigo planters, conventional Ulama and the Sabiqi or the non-Faraizi Musl
im society. These communities began to attack the Faraizis individually as well
as in collected groups, in which the government supported them. Though less lear
ned than his father, he was youthful, energetic and astutely diplomatic. For all
practical purposes he inaugurated an age of his own in the hapless rural societ
y of Faridpur. To face the opposition party, the Faraizis effectively revived th
e traditional selfgoverning organization of panchayet system for minimizing conf
lict in the countryside, to check and control local disputes by good-will compro
mises and negotiation. For methodical and victorious operation of the panchayet,
he took too many precautious measures. Following the socio-economic policies of
his father, Dudu Miyan acknowledged equality and brotherhood of mankind and fou
nded the doctrine of the proprietorship of land as due to the labor. He believed
that the land belongs to the tiller. This attracted the attention of all the do
wntrodden peasantry and irrespective of religion and caste all peasantry followe
d his ideals and supported him in the Faraizi movement. With the help of his cor
e-khilafat organisation, he took care of all the quarrels of the people in the r
ural society and settled their disputes, summoned and tried the culprits in the
khilafat courts and enforced the judgments efficiently. He even traditionally im
posed a verbal injunction against referring any case of the disagreement to the
government courts without the permission of the Faraizi Khalifahs on constraint
of ensuring non-availability of witness for or against the case. Unlike his fath
er, Dudu Miyan was active in the world of politics and economics with a direct c
onfront to the status quo. He proclaimed that God was the controller of all land
and that the land tax was thus both unlawful and immoral. This declaration was
extremely admired among Muslim peasants, but

http://battleforhind.wordpress.com/ completely offensive to landlords, indigo pl

anters, and the police force. Severe clashes took place in 1841 and 1842, and as
a result Dudu Miyan and forty-eight of his followers were arrested, tried, and
put into prison. The case proceeded slowly through various stages of petition an
d finally in 1847 the conviction was set aside by the High Court in Calcutta. Th
is dramatic victory in the Fara`izi movement greatly increased their prestige an
d also brought about a decade of peace between them and the landlords. After the
break up of the Sepoy mutiny in 1857, the British government captured and impri
soned Dudu Miyan. He was released in 1859, again arrested and finally freed in 1
860. By this time he fell seriously ill and died while staying in Dacca in 1862.
The death of Dudu Miyan created a vacuum in the movement, which was not quickly
filled. The eldest son Mushin al-Din Ahmad, Ghiyath al-Din, was chosen to repla
ce him in 1864, but unfortunately he died later that same year. The second son,
`Abd al-Ghafur, popularly known as Naya Miyan, followed his elder brother. Since
he was still too young for effective control, three lieutenants became his guar
dians and supervised the movement until sometime in the 1870s when Naya Miyan to
ok the active leadership of the community. Dudu Miyan lived from 1819 to 1862 bu
t took the leadership of the Faraizi movement at its best after his father Haji
shariatullah.