My Advice to the Ulama

MY ADVICE TO THE ULAMA Becoming involved in political conflicts, wrongly called ‘jihad’, was not the task assigned to the Ulama. As a result, their efforts were also not resultoriented. The political and violent struggles of the Ulama failed to defeat the Western colonial powers who had established control over most Muslimmajority lands. The internecine fighting among the Western countries themselves, culminating in the Second World War, drained their military strength to such an extent that they had no option but to grant political independence to these countries in the mid20th century. As a result, around fifty Muslim-majority politically independent states emerged in Asia and Africa. At this time, too, it was the task of the Ulama in these countries to shoulder the very same responsibility that Islam had given them—that is to say, to leave politics to the politicians and to focus their energies, instead, on the spread of education, dawah work and social reform. However, instead of doing this, the Ulama again rushed headlong into the field of politics. In the period of European colonial rule, the aim of the politics of these Ulama had been ‘the struggle for independence’. Now their politics was conducted in the name of ‘the enforcement of Islamic Law’. These