Daily Star July 14, 2015
12:00
AM, July 14, 2015 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:00 AM, July 14, 2015
STRANGER THAN FICTION
Arabisation of Bangladesh
An
Asset, Liability or Threat?
Visitors to Bangladesh,
who enter the country for the first time through the Hazrat Shah Jalal
International Airport in Dhaka, might get the wrong impression about the major
languages spoken in the country. Even before disembarking the aircraft, the
first thing they notice is the name of the airport in bold Arabic letters on
top of the airport building, along with Bengali and English on two sides. There
was no Arabic sign on public buildings and thoroughfares until the late 1970s,
when religion was inserted in the Constitution by General Ziaur Rahman. The
introduction of Islam as the “State Religion” by General Ershad in 1988 was a
big step towards further Islamisation of the polity.
However, these steps
towards Arabisation and Islamisation were at best nothing more than symbolic
gestures, in a country afflicted with tremendous identity crisis; and at worst
politically motivated, opportunistic, and hypocritical.
Nevertheless, playing
with people's religious sentiment for the sake of legitimacy by the rulers, and
their appeasing the Islamist parties and individuals with Islamic symbols like
Arabic signs, and Islam as “State Religion” have already backfired. Unabated
cultural Arabisation and Islamisation in the long run could drag the country
towards religious extremism.
Arabisation is a generic
term. I define it as a process of adopting elements of Arabian culture by
non-Arab Muslims and non-Muslims, in historical and contemporary perspectives.
One may mention all areas of acquired habits by human beings, including
religion, language, politics, law, social customs, food habit, art, attire, and
music in this regard. This happened after the phenomenal rise of Islamic
empires. Awe-stricken Europeans learnt Arabic and indigenised Arabic/Islamic
culture – art, architecture, philosophy, music, medicine and science –in the
9th and 13th centuries during the heydays of Arab/Islamic empires. Historians
are unanimous about Arabic/Islamic contributions to European Renaissance.
We need to understand
the Arabisation of Bangladesh in historical as well as in the contemporary
socio-political, psychological and geo-political perspectives. Overwhelming
majorities of people in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia adopted
Islam and Arabised their language and culture soon after the expansion of Islam
by sword, trade and other means; what is Bangladesh today is no exception in
this regard. However, as Islam came here through Persianised
Turco-Afghan-Iranian conquerors and Sufis, Bangali Muslims' religious beliefs,
vocabulary and rituals – very similar to elsewhere in the subcontinent – have
been predominantly Turco-Afghan-Iranian rather than Arabian.
However, Bangali Muslims
retained their language, script and many other aspects of the indigenous
Bengali culture in the wake of mass conversion. Some of them are still
unwilling to give up certain indigenous/Turco-Persian rituals and beliefs –
such as showing reverence to dead Sufis/Pirs, and believing in certain
cults, including the Satya Pir, the Bangali Muslim version of the
Hindu Satya Narayan. In sum, a syncretistic Islam evolved in
Bengal, which ultra-orthodox Wahhabi-Faraizi-Deobandi-Salafi Muslims have been
trying to supplant with orthodoxy, at least for the last 200 years. Their
success is partial.
Thanks to the Persian
influence, Bangali Muslims (very similar to Indian and Pakistani ones) often
use the Farsi khuda and paighambar to denote
Arabic Allah and rasul (messenger or prophet), respectively.
Despite the ongoing Arabisation process, Farsi not Arabic is still widely used
as the “Islamic language” in Bangladesh. Thus Farsi namaz for
prayer (not Arabic salat); roza for fasting (not
Arabic saum); Ramzan for the fasting month (not Arabic Ramadan);
and jaynamaz for prayer mat (not Arabic musalla)
are integral parts of Bangali Muslim vocabulary.
However, due to the
patronage of ultra-conservative Arab Muslims and their local adherents in
Bangladesh, sections of Bangladeshi Muslims are fast indigenising
ultra-orthodox Wahhabi-Salafi ideologies, practices and vocabulary. Meanwhile,
many Bangladeshi Muslim women have adopted the previously unknown, the Middle
Eastern hijab, which is a variant of the Lebanese Catholic nuns'
habit. Muslim men and women in the country are fast adopting some weird and
hitherto unfamiliar Arabic expressions and Arabian practices in the name of
purifying their faith.
Now many Bangladeshi
Muslim children have unique (often difficult to pronounce and remember) Arabic
names. Many Bangali Muslims have discarded certain old rituals during milad in
commemoration of the birth of the Prophet. They have introduced new ones from
the Arab World. Bangladeshi Muslims at home and abroad organise halaqa,
religious gatherings for learning about Islamic theology from one or more
speakers, followed by intense question-answer sessions, prayers, supplications
and food; mostly in segregations, Muslim brothers and sisters sitting in
separate chambers.
Of late, the hitherto
unheard of Arabic expression, “Allah Hafiz” (introduced by General Zia
ul-Haq in Pakistan) to bid good-bye to someone, is gradually replacing the
Farsi “Khuda Hafiz” (May God protect you) in Bangladesh.
Appraising the
Arabisation process in Bangladesh is difficult. The phenomenon is as strange as
the stories of The Arabian Nights. One is not always alert enough
to notice the changes that have already crept into the psyche of the nation –
and the ongoing undercurrents of the process – in the realms of Islamic
religion, rituals, and popular culture in the country since the 1970s.
Sometimes the government, but mostly adherents of “Islam-loving” political
parties, cultural organisations and Islamic scholars flaunt, push and glorify
Arabian culture in the name of one religion. Bangladeshi Muslim workers in the
Gulf countries – labourers to professionals – have also been Arabising the
popular culture in the country. Due to inadequate knowledge of Islam, neither
these workers nor their relatives, neighbours and friends differentiate between
Islam and Arabisation.
As Badruddin Umar has
brilliantly explained in his writings, many disempowered Bangali Muslims during
the British period nurtured a romantic extra-territorial loyalty towards
Afghan-Arab-Iranian-Turkish lands, their language, rituals, and attire and food
habit, and identified themselves as descendants of “original Muslims” from
outside India. Tracing one's origin to the Middle East and Central Asia or to
some aristocratic families is still fashionable in Bangladesh. It indicates
Bangladeshi Muslims' identity crisis and inferiority complex. Many of them
still fail to identify which one is their primary identity, Muslim or Bangali.
The quest for
Arabisation has some similarities with a section of the Hindu population's
quest for upward mobility through the Sanskritisation process, by indigenising
Brahmin culture, food habit, attire and gods in South Asian history. Although
Arabisation has elements of non-Arab Muslims' quest for upward mobility, it is
also an elite plan of action to politically hegemonise mass consciousness.
In sum, since the late
1970s, Muslims of Bangladesh have failed to distinguish between what is Islamic
and what is Arab. Arabisation of the popular culture has become synonymous with
the Islamisation process in Bangladesh. This synonymy is ominous. It has
long-drawn implications for the country. Moderate Muslims, liberal/secular
Bangladeshis, and the friends of Bangladesh need to understand the long-term
consequences of this slow and steady transformation of the popular culture of
Bangali Muslims. Cultural transformation of people is a major step towards
their political orientation and makeover.
The writer teaches
security studies at Austin Peay State University. Sage has recently published
his latest book, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and
Afghanistan.
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