User talk:MatthewVanitas/Barelvi draft

Good initiative

Hey good initiative on this. I will make more detailed edits later but for now I just want to respond to a few of the points you have raised:

Blockquote by Usha Sanyal:

I don't think we need the full blockquote of the paragraph, but we should cite it and mention the fact that Ahmed Raza Khan obtained those signatures from the scholars in Mecca. And, as you mentioned, use it to discuss their dispute between the Deobandis.

Violence:

"IS "SECTARIAN RIOTS" OBFUSCATING AS TO WHO IS ATTACKING WHOM?" I think its only fair to leave it as "sectarian riots" as the cited news reports also make no mention of who is attacking who. But what is fairly clear is that in most cases it comes as a response to the murder of a Barelvi leader or the takeover of one of their mosques by Barelvis. As far as violence is concerned the Barelvis have no history of being involved in the type of terrorism that some Deobandi inspired groups are (e.g. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah e Sahaba). The Barelvis have usually been on the receiving end of it for the most part. It was only after the arrival of the Sunni Tehreek in the 90s that they took on a more militant tone, however not on the same level. I will need to dig up references to back all of this up, but I wanted to put it out there.

References

Here are few good references that can be used to help writing the page:

• Sanyal, Usha (2008). "Ahl-i Sunnat Madrasas: the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam, Bareilly, and Jamia Ashrafiyya, Mubarakpur". In Jamal, Jamal (ed.). Madrasas in South Asia: Teaching terror?. Routledge. pp. 23–44. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Sanyal, Usha (2005). Ahmed Riza Khan Barelwi: In the Path of the Prophet. Makers of the Muslim World. Oxford: Oneworld.

Usha Sanyal is an authority on the topic. She uses the ASWJ term in her work but makes it clear that the common usage is Barelvi, and explains the history of the terminology. See pg 24 of Sanyal 2008 quoted below:

In this chapter I refer to the movement by its chosen name, Ahl-i-Sunnat wa Jama'at, rather than Barelwi. The issue of nomenclature and its implications are well known to all those who have worked on the South Asian Sunni Muslim movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thus in their literature the Ahl-i-Sunnat refer to themselves as 'Sunnis', implying thereby that Deobandis and other Sunni groups are non-Sunni which turns the tables on the Deobandis and other antagonists, who make similar claims about them. They sometimes refer to the Deobandis as 'Wahhabis', a term first used by Ahmed Riza Khan for certain founders of the Dar ul Uloom Deoband in the 1860s.[1]

• The other chapters in Jamal Malik's book also discuss the Barelvi movement: Malik, Jamal, ed. (2008). Madrasas in South Asia: Teaching terror?. Routledge.

• Jones, Kenneth W. (1989). Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, Part 3. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 70.
• Geaves, Ron (2006). "Learning the lessons from the neo-revivalist and Wahhabi movements: the counterattack of the new Sufi movements in the UK". In Malik, Jamal; Hinnells, John R. (eds.). Sufism in the West. Routledge. p. 148. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Riaz, Ali (2008). Faithful Education: Madrassahs in South Asia. Rutgers University Press. p. 75.

I'll be back with more references later and then will try to put things together. --Urduboy (talk) 11:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Outstanding contributions!

Thanks much for helping with this project. I think it will make the case to modify Barelvi that much stronger if we can come in with a academically rigorous, footnoted version. I had a couple points I'm moving toward:

• I really want to get some basic info into the lede as to exactly why the Barelvis felt compelled to form ranks with ARK, what events with the Deobandis spurred Barelvi unity, etc.
• I don't want to delve too far into the ARK article, but my impression is that British colonial issues also helped shape the movement, and that ARK had some sort of controversy as to whether British India was dar-al-harb or no, etc. If there's enough on that that wouldn't be a better fit for the ARK article, it could be some useful historical context
• This is driving me crazy, but I can't recall the doctrinal Islamic word for "excessive devotion/exuberance", which Deobandis apply to Barelvis for "loving Muhammad too much" to the point it's unseemly. It's not just shirk, there's some word like ghayat or similar which means over-enthusiasm. If I knew the word I could google up texts that mention it which might inform the Deoband-Barelvi split.

In the meantime, please feel free to modify the actual article, and to add notes in the text (bolding and caps help it stand out) to point out particular gaps, etc. Thanks so much for supporting this. MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:15, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Change in etymology

"To its followers the movement is known as Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat ("People of the traditions of Mohammed and the broad community"), as a means to lay exclusive claim to be the legitimate form of Sunni Islam, in opposition to its reformist rivals like the Deobandi, Ahle Hadith and Nadwa movements. This is a contested claim and outside of the movement it is commonly referred to as the Barelvi movement, derived from Ahmad Raza's home city of Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India."

This section should be changed to

The movement is known to its followers as Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jama‘at ("People of the traditions of Mohammed"), differentiating it from Deobandi, Ahle Hadith and Nadwa movements. However, the term Ahle Sunnat is also used by Sunnis in general, many of whom do not recognise an exclusive claim to the term by the Barelvi movement. The term Barelvi is also used pejoratively by some orthodox Islamic groups which disapprove of the Barelvi's adherence to heterodox practices, many of which are derived from Sufism.The name is also variously spelled as Barelwi, Barelavi, or Bareillwi.

Reference http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=9AEFFA6C9E69AE72AE9006B6078D5438.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=69414 (Ahmad Shah Bukhari (talk) 09:02, 14 July 2010 (UTC))