A university syllabus has stirred a fresh row between Sunnis and Wahhabis in Kerala

A section of Sunni Muslims has strongly opposed a book prescribed for the second year MA Arabic course, alleging that it promotes extremist ideology and glorifies Wahhabism.
University of Calicut
University of Calicut

Kerala has witnessed strong debates between Wahhabis-Salafis and Sunnis for the last many decades. Alleging pro-Wahhabi-Salafi content in the Arabic syllabus of the University of Calicut, a section of Sunni Muslims in the state has declared fresh war against Wahhabism-Salafism. The faction has strongly opposed the book ‘History of Contemporary Arab World’ prescribed for the university’s second-year MA Arabic course, alleging that it promotes extremist ideology and glorifies Wahhabism and its founder Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab.

The state committee of the Sunni Students’ Federation (SSF) has approached Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the state Education Minister and the Vice-Chancellor of the university demanding removal of the controversial portion from the study material and department-level action against those responsible for the inclusion of the content in the syllabus. SSF state president Nizamudheen Falili said that the effort to cover up the extremist image of Wahhabism through a university book should be condemned. 

“Pages 203 to 206 of the book have been dedicated to discussing Wahhabism, which has always shown traditional Muslims in a bad light. There is also an attempt to ‘whitewash’ Jamaludheen Afghani, who was a promoter of radical Islam. Pages 211, 212 and 213 of the book say that Afghani, who laid the ideological foundation for political Islamic organisations such as Muslim Brotherhood, was an advocate of unity in Islam and a leader of renaissance. This is baseless, such misleading facts will have far-reaching consequences among society,” he said.

Earlier too, Calicut University was forced to withdraw an Arabic book prepared for its BA Afzal Ul Ulama course in 2016, after a section of Sunnis alleged that the book tried to whitewash the Salafi stream of Islam.

An article titled ‘Kudanjozhivakkanakumo Bheekaramukham’ (Can you shake off the face of terror?) written by the state secretary of the Sunni Yuvajana Sangham (SYS), Rahmathulla Saqafi Ealamaram, in Siraj daily, the mouthpiece of the AP faction of the Sunnis in Kerala, said that the controversial book wrongly portrays Wahhabism as an ideology that led Islam to the renaissance. The article added that the Sunni organisation cannot condone the ‘whitewashing’ of the terror tag of Wahhabism, which caused tensions across West Asia for decades.

SSF state secretary KB Basheer told TNM that there have been many similar attempts in the past to include such controversial contents in the Arabic syllabus in schools and colleges, and that the government should be ready to take strong action to avoid such situations in the future. “Glorifying the leaders of Wahhabism and Salafism is a dangerous move. Wahhabism and Salafism are not real Islam and such interpretations should be discouraged,” he said.

Speaking to TNM, Calicut University Vice-Chancellor MK Jayaraj said that his office has received a complaint regarding the MA Arabic book from a section of the Sunni organisation and that the issue will be brought to the notice of the university’s Board of Studies. “We have to conduct a detailed discussion on the contents of the book with the members of the Board of Studies in Arabic prior to taking a final decision on the removal of the controversial portion from the book. We will take a decision soon,” he said.

Social critic and writer Ashraf Kadakkal said that the fresh row over the contents of the Arabic book is a continuation of a decades-old dispute between the Sunni and Salafi streams of Islam in Kerala. “The decades-old intellectual debates about the ideological differences between the Sunni and Salafi streams in Kerala have many layers. In the early 1920s, the Kerala Muslim Aikya Sangham was formed as a collective of reformists. These leaders aimed for educational reforms and women empowerment. But the Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama was formed as a Sunni body to uphold the traditional beliefs of Islam. Until the 1950s, Salafis or Mujahids were considered reformists and Sunnis were considered conservative, and there were regular ideological debates between them. The reformist groups of the Salafis later played a major role in the formation of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML),” he said.

Elaborating further on the history of the dispute, Ashraf said, “After 1960, there were ideological debates over the political intervention of religion between Jamaat-e-Islami scholars and Salafis in the state, even though the former has an ideological affiliation with the Salafi stream of Islam. Major changes were visible in the Mujahid organisations in Kerala in the 1970s after the influence of the Saudi variant of Salafism, and a crucial split happened in the Mujahid movement after 2000. Now, the Mujahids in Kerala can be considered conservatives under the deep influence of Saudi Salafis.”

He added that the ongoing dispute between Sunnis and Salafis in Kerala cannot be considered part of any reformist move, but is a mere dispute between two organisations.

The recent intervention of the leaders of the left-leaning AP faction of Sunnis to resolve issues within the Indian National League (INL), an ally of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), was a major topic of discussion in political circles as INL is a pro-Salafi outfit.

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