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 Professor Ahmed discussed Islamic
revivalism in Bengal during the colonial period in his lecture. The
core message of various revival movements in the nineteenth century was a
return to an authentic version of Islam, an authenticity now defined in terms
of the ‘external’ – the Arab culture and tradition. In some cases this has
reduced Islam, as Eqbal Ahmad used to say, “to a penal code and its history to
a series of violent episodes.” Islam in the nineteenth century colonized Bengal, for that matter, was
different from the Islam of the relatively autonomous Bengal of the thirteenth century.
Not only did the British redefine the meaning of Islam by keeping Sufism at bay
but also the Islamic revival movements, aided Wahhabism, constructed a highly
formalized version of Islam devoid of spiritualism, piety and mysticism. This
had a devastating impact in South
Asia and beyond and we are still suffering through
its consequences.
Imtiaz Ahmed is Professor of International Relations
at the University
of Dhaka. He
was educated at University
of Dhaka, Carlton University, Ottawa,
and Australian National University, Canberra.
He has served as the Chairperson of the Department of International Relations, University
of Dhaka
and has been the visiting Associate Professor at Yokohama
City University, Japan.
His most recent publication is an edited volume on Understanding Terrorism in South Asia: Beyond Statist Discourses (New
Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Colombo: Regional
Centre for Strategic Studies, 2006). Currently he is undertaking research on
Sustainable Livelihood in South Asia
and on the State of Democracy
in South Asia. For more information on Prof. Ahmed, see http://www.Imtiazalter.netfirms.com
Due to technical difficulties, there is no recording of this lecture. However, if you wish to read what Prof. Ahmed discussed, you can download a copy of a previous paper he presented on Re-Writing South Asian History.
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