During the same period (1920s-30s), another (though lesser known) Islamic scholar in undivided India got smitten by the 1917 Russian revolution and Marxism.
Hafiz Rahman Sihwarwl saw Islam and Marxism sharing five elements in common: (1) prohibition of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the privileged classes (2) organisation of the economic structure of the state to ensure social welfare (3) equality of opportunity for all human beings (4) priority of collective social interest over individual privilege and (5) prevention of the permanentising of class structure through social revolution.
The motivations for many of these themes he drew from the Qur’an, which he understood as seeking to create an economic order in which the rich pay excessive, though voluntary taxes (Zakat) to minimise differences in living standards.
In the areas that Sihwarwl saw Islam and communism diverge were Islam’s sanction of private ownership within certain limits, and in its refusal to recognise an absolutely classless basis of society.
He suggested that Islam, with its prohibition of the accumulation of wealth, is able to control the class structure through equality of opportunity.
Basically, both Sindhi and Sihwarwl had stumbled upon an Islamic concept of the social democratic welfare state.
Building upon the initial thoughts of Sindhi and Sihwarwl were perhaps South Asia’s two most ardent and articulate supporters and theoreticians of Islamic Socilaism: Ghulam Ahmed Parvez and Dr. Khalifa Abdul Hakim.
Parvez was a prominent ‘Quranist’, or an Islamic scholar who insisted that for the Muslims to make progress in the modern world, Islamic thought and laws should be entirely based on the modern interpretations of the Qu’ran and on the complete rejection of the hadith (sayings of the Prophet and his companions based on hearsay and compiled over a 100 years after the Prophet’s demise).
After studying traditional Muslim texts, as well as Sufism, Parvez claimed that almost all hadiths were fabrications by those who wanted Islam to seem like an intolerant faith and by ancient Muslim kings who used these hadiths to give divine legitimacy to their tyrannical rules.
Parvez also insisted that Muslims should spend more time studying the modern sciences instead of wasting their energies on fighting out ancient sectarian conflicts or ignoring the true egalitarian and enlightening spirit of the Qu’ran by indulging in multiple rituals handed down to them by ancient ulema, clerics and compilers of the hadith.
Understandably, Parvez was right away attacked by conservative Islamic scholars and political outfits.
But this didn’t stop famous Muslim philosopher and poet, Muhammad Iqbal, to befriend the young scholar and then introduce him to the future founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Jinnah appointed Parvez to edit a magazine, Talu-e-Islam. It was set-up to propagate the creation of a separate Muslim country and to also answer the attacks that Jinnah’s All India Muslim League had begun to face from conservative Islamic parties and ulema who accused the League of being a pseudo-Muslim organisation and Jinnah for being too westernised and ‘lacking correct Islamic behavior.’
Apart from continuing to author books and commentaries on the Qu’ran, Parvez wrote a series of articles in Talu-e-Islam that propagated a more socialistic view of the holy book.
In a series of essays for the magazine he used verses from the Qu’ran, incidents from the faith’s history and insights from the writings of Muhammad Iqbal to claim:
The clergy and conservative ulema have hijacked Islam.
They are agents of the rich people and promoters of uncontrolled Capitalism.
Socialism best enforces Qur’anic dictums on property, justice and distribution of wealth.
Islam’s main mission was the eradication of all injustices and cruelties from society. It was a socio-economic movement, and the Prophet was a leader seeking to put an end to the capitalist exploitation of the Quraysh merchants and the corrupt bureaucracy of Byzantium and Persia.
According to the Qur’an, Muslims have three main responsibilities: seeing, hearing and sensing through the agency of the mind. Consequently, real knowledge is based on empirically verifiable observation, or through the role of science.
Poverty is the punishment of God and deserved by those who ignore science.
In Muslim/Islamic societies, science, as well as agrarian reform should play leading roles in developing an industrialised economy.
A socialist path is a correction of the medieval distortion of Islam through Shari’a.
