Islamic Revivalism: The Faraizi Movement
- The Faraizi Movement was a nineteenth-century religious reform movement launched by Haji Shariatullah of Faridpur in East Bengal, drawing its base largely from the peasants of eastern Bengal. It was indigenous in origin.
- The term Faraizi is derived from farz, meaning the obligatory duties enjoined by Allah.
- The Faraizi Movement grew very popular among the Muslim peasantry across various districts of Bengal during British rule.
- It sought to purify Islam by purging all un-Islamic beliefs and practices, and by establishing the Quran as the sole spiritual guide for its followers.
- The movement was also deeply concerned with the extent of British influence upon Muslims, and it raised a call for social justice.
Haji Shariatullah
- The organiser of the movement, Haji Shariatullah, was born into a peasant family in Bahadurpur village, Faridpur district (in modern Bangladesh), in 1781.
- He travelled to Mecca to learn the Quran and Islamic theology, where he encountered Hanafi ideals, and spent twenty years abroad mastering Islamic scholarship before returning home in 1818.
- On his return, he launched the Faraizi movement to bring Bengal’s Muslims back to the true canons of Islam.
- For historical reasons, the Muslims of Bengal had come to follow numerous indigenous customs, rituals, and ceremonies far removed from the actual principles of Islam — practices Shariatullah rejected as superstitions and corruptions that had crept into the faith.
- He regarded British rule in Bengal as injurious to the religious life of Muslims, announcing that Islam was being defiled by various malpractices and proposing measures for reform.
- Though it began as a religious movement, the Faraizi movement soon became political in nature.
- Shariatullah termed British-ruled India a “Dar-ul-Harb” (“land of the enemy”), holding that it was unsuitable for habitation by pious Muslims, and rallied disenchanted peasants and craftsmen to his cause.
- The movement’s importance lay chiefly in its social roots: the rural Muslim poor of east Bengal united under this religious banner and revolted against landlords, indigo planters, and British rule alike.
- Although Hindu landlords bore the main brunt of this anger, Muslim landlords too found themselves far from safe.
- Shariatullah rallied public opinion against exploitative zamindars and indigo planters, and within a short time, millions of poor Muslim farmers, artisans, and unemployed weavers had become his disciples across Barisal, Mymensingh, Dhaka, and Faridpur.
- It marked a genuine awakening for Bengali Muslims, who grew bold enough to openly protest against the zamindars’ misrule.
Dudu Mian
- Shariatullah died in 1837, passing the leadership of the movement to his son, Muhammad Muhsin, better known as Dudu Mian (1819–1860) — an able and politically conscious organiser in his own right.
- Dudu Mian transformed the Faraizi movement from a purely socio-religious cause into a socio-economic-political one, even as he asked his disciples to steer clear of anti-Islamic activities.
- He mobilised the peasantry around an explicitly egalitarian ideology, working to organise them against the zamindars.
- According to Dudu Mian, Allah alone was the true owner of the land, and the zamindars therefore had no legitimate right to collect taxes from the peasantry.
- He called upon his followers to abstain from paying taxes to zamindars, from cultivating indigo for the planters, and from offering any support to the British — a call that swelled his following considerably.
- Operating from his headquarters at Bahadurpur, Dudu Mian led his followers in raids on the treasuries and offices of zamindars and indigo planters, resulting in violent clashes throughout the 1840s and 1850s.
- A distinctive feature of Dudu Mian’s Faraizi movement was its establishment of its own law and law courts as an alternative to British judicial institutions — government courts were, as a rule, boycotted by his followers.
- A Munshi was appointed to oversee every two or three villages, adjudicating and settling both civil and criminal cases; these Faraizi courts became highly popular among Muslim peasants, who found in them genuine redress against the oppression of the zamindars.
- Dudu Mian built an extensive network of village organisations across the districts of Faridpur, Bakarganj, Dacca, Pabna, Tippera, Jessore, and Noakhali.
- He divided Bengal into several zones, or halkas, each headed by a Caliph, who organised local farmers, resisted the exploitation of zamindars and indigo planters, raised funds for the movement’s resistance efforts, collected taxes to meet its expenses, and helped spread the sect further.
Spread of the Faraizi Rebellion
- The Faraizi movement gradually spread from Dhaka and Faridpur to Bakarganj, Comilla, Mymensingh, Jessore, Khulna, and large parts of South 24-Parganas.
- For more than a quarter of a century, Dudu Mian remained a controversial yet widely known figure across eastern Bengal, having effectively become a household name in these regions.
- Zamindars and indigo planters joined hands with the colonial government in an effort to suppress him.
- Between 1838 and 1847, he was imprisoned on at least four occasions, but was repeatedly released for lack of witnesses willing to testify against him.
- When the Sepoy Mutiny broke out in 1857, he was imprisoned at Alipore Jail as a precautionary measure.
- Dudu Mian died in Dhaka in 1862, though the movement he built continued after him.
- His son, Noah Mian, took up leadership of the movement, but shifted its focus away from anti-British activity toward religious activities instead.
- In the absence of a strong central leadership, the movement grew more sporadic, with isolated actions against landlords persisting mainly in places where the Faraizis had established traditional strongholds.
- Following a temporary lull after Dudu Mian’s death, the movement was revived on a different scale in the 1870s under his successor, Naya Mian, before eventually merging into the broader Wahabi Movement.
Analysis of the Faraizi Movement
- Over time, the Faraizi Movement weakened considerably and eventually survived only as a religious sect.
- At its core, the Faraizi Movement was essentially an agrarian movement, even though its demands were carefully framed in religious language and catchwords.
- Dudu Mian, in particular, succeeded in awakening a new consciousness among the peasantry by uniting them against the zamindars and indigo planters.
- Ultimately, the movement failed on account of several factors: a lack of political education among its leaders, anti-Hindu attitudes, religious narrow-mindedness, the forcible induction of followers, extortion, and an overall lack of proper leadership.
