Muhammad Iqbal, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and the Accusation of

Heresy
Teena Purohit

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Volume 36,
Number 2, August 2016, pp. 246-255 (Article)

Published by Duke University Press

For additional information about this article

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 H E R E S Y , R E L I G I O U S F R E E D O M ,
a n d M U S L I M R E N E W A L

Muhammad Iqbal, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad,

and the Accusation of Heresy

Teena Purohit

Religious adventurers set up different sects and fraternities, ever quarreling with one another; and
then there are castes and subcastes like the Hindus! Surely we have out-­Hindued the Hindu himself;
we are suffering from a double caste system — t he religious caste system, sectarianism, and the social
caste system, which we have either learned or inherited from the Hindus. This is one of the quiet
ways in which conquered nations revenge themselves on their conquerors. I condemn this accursed
religious and social sectarianism. I condemn it in the name of God, in the name of humanity, in
the name of Moses, in the name of Jesus Christ, and in the name of him — a thrill of emotion passes
through the very fibre of my soul when I think of that exalted name — yes, in the name of him who
brought the final message of freedom and equality to mankind. Islam is one and indivisible: it brooks
no distinctions in it. There are no Wahhabis, Shi’is, Mirza’is, or Sunnis in Islam.
 — Muhammad Iqbal, “Islam as Moral and Political Ideal”

M
uhammad Iqbal’s (1877 – 1938) fervent denouncement of sectarianism in the above passage
from his 1908 speech “Islam as Moral and Political Ideal” falls at a time when Indian Muslim
leaders were fighting hard to create and sustain a platform of representation that could con-
tend with the increasing pressures and demands of the British and Congress. The many speeches Iqbal
gave to the Indian Muslim community, like the excerpt above, served as the medium through which he
outlined his politics and vision for Indian Muslims. The plea for Muslim unity was no doubt a response
to pressures the minority group faced in colonial India, as well as an expression of a new anxiety specific
to the larger nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century political context — a time when political leaders and
intellectuals of the Muslim world were forced to redefine Muslim identity after the fall of the Mughal,
Ottoman, and Safavid empires.
Iqbal’s commitment to the unity of Muslims was also part of his interpretation of Islam, which
he defined as a world-­unifying polity that could not be divided by race, nation, ethnicity, or sectarian
differences. The underlying principle of Islam was tauhid, the Quranic idea of God’s unity, that Iqbal
reinterpreted as “equality, solidarity, and freedom” of mankind.1 Although Iqbal saw in tauhid ideas of
equality and freedom that were universal and emancipatory, it is clear that this idea was delimited when
it came to intra-­Muslim religious differences. It was not possible to adhere to a specific religious path
within Islam — whether Shi’i, Wahabbi, or Ahmadi — as he explains in the above excerpt. To do so meant
embracing the logic of a divisive “religious caste system.”

1. Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought, 122 – 24.

246 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
Vol. 36, No. 2, 2016 • doi 10.1215/1089201x-3603307 • © 2016 by Duke University Press
 Teena Purohit | Iqbal, Ghulam Ahmad, and the Accusation of Heresy 2 47

Some twenty years later, in 1934, Iqbal took to Iqbal’s personal and political grievances with
this critique of sectarianism one step further. He Ahmadi leaders while serving on the All-­I ndia
published a paper titled “Qadianis and Orthodox Kashmir Committee in the early 1930s; more re-
Muslims,” in which he made the following request cently, Iqbal Singh Sevea has argued that Iqbal’s
to the colonial state regarding the Qadianis (Ah- critique of the Ahmadis ought to be understood in
madis): “The best course for the rulers of India is, light of Iqbal’s conception of prophecy, which held
in my opinion, to declare the Qadianis a separate that the chain of prophethood culminated with
community. This will be perfectly consistent with Muhammad, who established the final revelation
the policy of the Qadianis themselves, and the In- for spiritual development and a complete socio­
dian Muslim will tolerate them just as he tolerates political order as prophet. The Ahmadi concep-
other religions.”2 tion of continuous prophecy would undermine the
In 1908, the Ahmadis (whom Iqbal refers to doctrine of khatam- ­i - ­nabuyiyat (seal of prophecy)
as “Mirza’is”) are invoked as one of several Mus- and, in turn, disempower both the individual and
lim groups against whom he casts his polemic society.6 Iqbal’s political and personal disputes, as
about sectarian divisions within Islam. In 1934, well as his larger stakes in the finality of prophecy
however, he singles out the Ahmadis and argues argument, are certainly crucial factors to consider
for their excommunication from the Muslim com- when reflecting on why Iqbal would mount such
munity. The reason why, as he explains in Islam and an accusation on the Ahmadis. Here, I build on
Ahmadism — a piece that he wrote a year later, in this interrogation of Iqbal’s accusation of heresy
1935 — i s that they violate one of the two funda- against the Ahmadis with the claim that Iqbal’s
mental beliefs of Islam, the finality of prophecy.3 indictment of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad ought to be
Iqbal traces this specific violation to Mirza examined in relation to conflicting approaches to
Ghulam Ahmad (1835 – 1908), the founder of the Muslim renewal in the nineteenth-­century Indian
Ahmadis. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, Pun- colonial context that can be elucidated further
jab, proclaimed himself the mujaddid (renewer) of through a comparative and theoretical study of
Islam, and over the course of his life, he claimed the idea of heresy. The argumentative reasoning
to be also a muhaddath (a person spoken to by Iqbal invokes against the Ahmadis is one of heresy.
Allah or his angels), the mahdi (the messiah), and However, his explication of heresy — delineated as
masih-­i-­mawud (the promised messiah). In 1888, he the violation of the finality of prophecy — calls into
received a command from God to establish a new question the fundamental rationale of heresy as
community and thus called on Muslims to declare theological deviance. Drawing on the reconceptu-
their bay’a, or allegiance, to him.4 Iqbal, too, was alization and theorization of heresy by sociologists
born in the Punjab province of British India, and such as George Zito, Georg Simmel, and Pierre
his natal village, Sialkot, was part of the larger Ah- Bourdieu, I argue that Iqbal’s allegation of heresy
madi milieu. In fact, Muhammad Iqbal’s father, must be considered in light of a nexus of socio-
Shaykh Nur Muhammad (d. 1929), took the bay’a political factors that include Iqbal’s familial and
of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, as did various members personal relationship to the Ahmadis, his anxiety
of Iqbal’s family.5 about the minority Muslim community identity,
Why, then, was Iqbal driven to write such and the publicly, rather than theologically, trans-
an aggressive argument against the Ahmadis? gressive character of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s dec-
Ayesha Jalal attributes Iqbal’s anti-­A hmadi turn laration of prophethood.

2. Iqbal, Islam and Ahmadism, 66. madis believed that he was only a renewer, ever, especially early in his career, supportive
mujaddid, not a prophet (nabi) or messiah of their organization and development, hav-
3. Ibid., 17.
(mahdi). For a history of the Ahmadis, see ing praised the movement in his 1910 speech
4. In 1914, the Ahmadi movement divided into Lavan, The Ahmadiyyah Movement. at Aligarh. See ibid., 172.
two factions, the Qadianis and Lahoris. The
5. Although many Ahmadis claim that Iqbal, 6. See Jalal, Self and Sovereignty, and Sevea,
Qadiani Ahmadis held that Mirza Ghulam
too, was an Ahmadi, Iqbal’s writings do not The Political Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal.
Ahmad was a prophet, whereas the Lahori Ah-
indicate that this was the case. He was, how-
248 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East • 36:2 • 2016

Islamic Modernism and the Call for Unity his teachings as well as the radically different na-
The dissolution of the Ottoman, Mughal, and ture of his response to colonial rule and Muslim
Safavid empires and the consolidation of Brit- reform. He spent his time engaging in polemical
ish, French, and Dutch colonial rule precipitated debates with Arya Samajis and Christian mission-
a crisis for Muslim leaders of the nineteenth cen- aries, while at the same time continuously writing
tury. Muslim reformers felt the need to reinterpret about and actively demonstrating his support for
Islam within the new political context shaped by British rule.9 His claim to prophethood was par-
the values of European modernity. There had al- ticularly offensive to various Sunni groups who,
ways been, in the history of Islam, periods of re- in the colonial context, were keen to protect the
evaluation that called for renewal, but the renewers status of Muhammad not only as part of their de-
(mujaddidun) of the nineteenth century were con- votional practices, but also as a way to demarcate
cerned specifically with the political and cultural their identity from other religious communities in
expansion of Christian Europe. In South Asia, one an environment charged with religious polemics.10
kind of reform emerged from the madrassa, or re- It is interesting to note that the thought of
ligious school, of Deoband in 1867. Religious schol- Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and discussions of the Ah-
ars associated with Deoband concentrated their madi tradition are usually discussed as a separate
efforts on a politically quietist type of reform that kind of reform movement. It is obvious that the
focused on individual morality, education, the cul- Ahmadis are not part of the traditionalist school of
tivation of ethics, and a commitment to the Hanafi reform, but surprisingly, they are never included in
school of Islamic law.7 A second group of reform- discussions of the modernist thought of the nine-
ers, known as the modernists, believed that the re- teenth and early twentieth centuries. I would argue
ligious scholars, the ulema, and their institutions, that this occlusion can be attributed to scholarly
the madrassas, were responsible for the problems accounts of modernism that have given primacy to
that Muslims confronted in the colonial milieu. canonical modernist figures such as Jamal al-­Din
In contrast to the ulema, modernists thought that Afghani (d. 1897), Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905),
Muslims needed to adopt Western values, such as Rashid Rida (d. 1935), Syed Ahmad Khan (d. 1898),
science and European forms of education. More- and Muhammad Iqbal. It is not a coincidence that
over, what distinguished the modernists from the these canonical modernist thinkers are all Sunni
traditionalist ulema was their position on ijithad, or in theological orientation and that the majority
reinterpretation, of Islamic sources and concepts. have articulated some kind of criticism of sectar-
They believed it was possible and at times necessary ian differences in Islam. This had led, I argue, to
to bypass the legal schools (maddhabs) in order to an overall neglect of Shi’i and Sufi perspectives,
provide fresh interpretations of Islamic ideas that as well as the perspectives of charismatic leaders
could speak to modern, changing conditions.8 in the modern reform project. For example, Mirza
The Ahmadis were a third kind of reform Ghulam Ahmad engaged in ijtihad, wrote about
movement that arose in the colonial milieu in the importance of the state (in this case his sup-
the nineteenth century. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad port of the British), and engaged Europeans and
claimed to receive God’s revelation and, in 1888, non-­Muslims as well as Muslims about Islam, yet
called on Muslims to pledge their allegiance to he is never analyzed as a modernist thinker. The
him and to a new movement to reform Islam. He major difference between him and the more tra-
claimed that he was the promised messiah, the ditional modernists was that he believed that he
Mahdi of the Muslims, and appeared in the like- was the messiah, having arrived in the likeness of
ness of both Jesus and the Prophet. Mirza Ghulam Muhammad as well as Jesus to renew Islam,11 as he
Ahmad instigated much controversy, because of explains in the following passage from 1900:

7. See Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India. 10. Qasmi, The Ahmadis and the Politics of Reli- but rather a manifestation (buruz) of Muham-
gious Exclusion, 40. mad’s prophethood, his prophetic claims were
8. Euben and Zaman, Princeton Readings, 6 – 7.
still contentious. For the specific terminology
11. Although Mirza Ghulam Ahmad made it
9. See Lavan, The Ahmadiyyah Movement. of the Mirza’s prophethood see Friedmann,
clear that he was not a law-­b earing prophet
Prophecy Continuous.
 Teena Purohit | Iqbal, Ghulam Ahmad, and the Accusation of Heresy 249

I am both Jesus the Messiah and Muhammad Islam and Ahmadism was written as a response to
Mahdi. In Islamic terminology, this type of advent Jawaharlal Nehru, who wrote a piece in the Modern
is called a buruz [re-­advent, or spiritual reappear- Review of Calcutta questioning Iqbal’s position that
ance]. I have been granted two kinds of buruz: one
that Ahmadis ought to be excommunicated from
is the buruz of Jesus, and the other is the buruz of
the larger Muslim community. Iqbal provided
Muhammad. . . . In the capacity of Jesus the Mes-
Nehr u w ith a lengthy arg ument about why
siah, I have been assigned the duty of stopping the
Muslims from vicious attacks and bloodshed. . . . Ahmadi beliefs and practices are heretical, thereby
In the capacity of Muhammad Mahdi, my mission explicating his position that they be considered
is to re-­e stablish Tauhid in this world with the a separate community. Iqbal first explains his
help of Divine signs.12 position on why Indian Muslim solidarity is
undermined by both Nehru (whom he refers to
For Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, risalat, pro-
as the “Pandit”) and the Ahmadis (“Qadianis,” in
phetic calling, was the solution to the crisis of
his words). He states his case that Nehru and the
Islam — which he diagnoses as the bloodshed and
Ahmadis “inwardly resent, for different reasons,
attacks in the community, as well as the disinte-
the prospects of Muslim political and religious
gration of tauhid. Prophecy, in this regard, is con-
solidarity particularly in India” (9). According
tinuous, and in modernist fashion it responds and
to Iqbal, Nehru’s nationalism demands a “total
adapts to the conditions of the time. Iqbal’s idea
suppression of the cultural entities of the country,”
of prophecy was fundamentally at odds with Mirza
which for Iqbal undercuts the position of Muslim
Ghulam Ahmad’s interpretation. Iqbal claimed
separatism and illustrates Nehru’s resentment of
that prophecy manifested itself in a unique way
Indian Muslim solidarity (9). Similarly, in Iqbal’s
in Islam, and what distinguished Islam from both
view, the Ahmadis are threatened by the cohesion
Christianity and Judaism was the special status of
of the Indian Muslim community: “It is equally
Muhammad as nabi (prophet). There were two as-
obvious that the Qadianis, too, feel nervous by the
pects of Muhammad’s nabuyiyat (prophecy) that
political awakening of the Indian Muslims, because
set him apart from all previous prophets. Muham-
they feel that the rise in political prestige of the
mad was the bearer of revelation who established
Indian Muslims is sure to defeat their designs to
a path for spiritual development but was also the
carve out from the Ummat of the Arabian Prophet
final law-­b earing prophet who established the
a new Ummat for the Indian prophet” (9 – 10).
terms of a sociopolitical institution. The idea of
Iqbal thus begins his letter with the point
khatam- ­i- ­nabuyiyat, or the culmination of the chain
that Indian Muslim solidarity is under attack by
of prophethood with Muhammad, meant for Iqbal
Nehru’s nationalism, on one hand, and the Ah-
that no one after Muhammad could claim both
madi movement, on the other hand. Iqbal’s inter-
of these aspects of nabuyiyat.13 Ahmadi belief in
pretation of the Ahmadi response to Indian Mus-
continuous prophecy not only undermined Iqbal’s
lim unity is the same as that of Nehru’s — one of
idea of nabuyiyat, but also, through its belief in
anxiety — but is made for different reasons, which
messianic salvation in the figure of Mirza Ghulam
he explains through the course of the letter. What
Ahmad, disempowered both the individual and so-
is significant here is that from the outset, Iqbal’s
ciety at large.14
position is defensive; he formulates his entire argu-
ment in response to the alleged threat of Muslim
Iqbal and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s Heresy
unity. Both Nehru and the Ahmadis fundamen-
In 1935 Iqbal wrote Islam and Ahmadism, in which he
tally misunderstand Islam, he claims, and the lat-
explained that the Qadianis (Ahmadis) ought to be
ter is considered heretical to Islam. Iqbal begins
excommunicated from the Muslim community.15
his letter with a defense of Islam, then, refuting

12. Ahmad, The British Government and Jihad, 14. Ibid., 122.
36.
15. See Iqbal, Islam and Ahmadism, 66.
13. Sevea, The Political Philosophy of Muham-
mad Iqbal, 115.
250 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East • 36:2 • 2016

Nehru’s assumption that declaring the Ahmadis dermined Muhammad’s prophethood. In this way,
heretical was part of a tradition of “inquisition” the teachings and ideas of “Qadianism” contra-
inherent to Islam: vene the finality of prophethood.
Further into his discussion, however, Iqbal
Jawahar Lal Nehru seems to think that a society
founded on religious principles necessitates the
acknowledges the fact that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
institution of Inquisition. This is indeed true is no exception and that certain individuals in Is-
of the history of Christianity; but the history of lamic history have made similar kinds of claims to
Islam, contrary to the Pandit’s logic, shows that prophetic experience. The example he gives is of
during the last thirteen hundred years of the life Ibn Arabi, who devoted his religious life to achiev-
of Islam, the institution of Inquisition has been ing the state of “prophetic consciousness.” Regard-
absolutely unknown in Muslim countries. . . . The ing Ibn Arabi’s Sufism, Iqbal explains,
two propositions on which the conceptual struc-
ture of Islam is based are so simple that it makes It is further claimed on the authority of the great
heresy in the sense of turning the heretic outside Muslim mystic, Muhyuddin ibn Arabi of Spain,
the fold of Islam almost impossible . . . that God that it is possible for a Muslim saint to attain, in
is One, and that Muhammad is the last of the line his spiritual evolution, to the kind of experience
of those holy men who have appeared from time characteristic of the prophetic consciousness. I
to time in all countries and in all ages to guide personally believe this view of Shaikh Muhyud-
mankind to the right ways of living. (15 – 17) din ibn Arabi to be psychologically unsound; but
assuming it to be correct the Qadiani argument
In Iqbal’s view, heresy is not, as Nehru con- is based on a complete misunderstanding of his
tends, intrinsic to the Islamic tradition. However, exact position. The Shaikh regards it as a purely
Iqbal believes that the practice of condemning private achievement which does not, and in the
groups as heretical can indeed be undertaken if nature of things, cannot entitle such a saint to
the foundational doctrines of Islam are violated: declare that all those who do not believe in him
are outside the pale of Islam. Indeed from the
The question of a heresy, which needs the verdict Shaikh’s point of view there may be more than
whether the author of it is within or outside the one-­saint, living in the same age or country, who
fold, can arise . . . only when the heretic rejects may attain to prophetic consciousness. The point
both or either of these propositions. Such her- to be seized is that, while it is psychologically pos-
esy must be and has been rare in the history of sible for a saint to attain to prophetic experience,
Islam which while jealous of its frontiers, permits his experience will have no socio-­political signifi-
freedom of interpretation within these frontiers. cance making him the center of a new Organiza-
And since the phenomenon of the kind of heresy tion and entitling him to declare this Organiza-
which affects the boundaries of Islam has been tion to be the criterion of the faith or disbelief of
rare in the history of Islam, the feeling of the av- the followers of Muhammad. (23 – 24)
erage Muslim is naturally intense when a revolt of
this kind arises. That is why the feeling of Muslim Iqbal states earlier in his letter that “her-
Persia was so intense against the Bahais. That is esy must be and has been rare in the history of
why the feeling of the Indian Muslims is so in- Islam,” but that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was indeed
tense against the Qadianis. (18) a heretic. Even though Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and
Iqbal traces the Ahmadi infringement of the Ibn Arabi both claimed some kind of special sta-
two essential tenets of Islam specifically to the fig- tus through their achievement of “prophetic con-
sciousness,” only the former officially transgressed
ure of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who, according to
the basic tenets of Islam, in Iqbal’s assessment.
Iqbal, “avails himself of what he describes as the
He dismisses Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s claims to
creative spirituality of the Holy Prophet of Islam,
prophethood quite categorically, but he acknowl-
and at the same time, deprives the Holy Prophet
of his ‘finality’ by limiting the creative capacity of edges and allows (although disagrees with) Ibn
his spirituality to the rearing of only one prophet, Arabi’s claims to prophetic consciousness. Iqbal’s
i.e. the founder of the Ahmadiyyah movement” denouncement of the former and tolerance for Ibn
Arabi necessitates the question of what exactly he
(22). According to Iqbal, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
finds so threatening about Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s
usurped the role of finality and, in doing so, un-
 Teena Purohit | Iqbal, Ghulam Ahmad, and the Accusation of Heresy 251

teachings. Ibn Arabi was a Sufi who, like other mys- cused of heresy be accused of declaring heresy?
tics, challenged and questioned the exoteric path What then does “orthodoxy” come to mean here?
of Islam through esoteric practices of devotion and In order to answer these questions about her-
reflection. Iqbal does not disavow this tradition, esy and orthodoxy, it would be helpful to reflect
at least in the above statement, even though the on what scholars have discussed on the topic of
practices associated with this tradition technically heresy. It is important to remember that the origi-
violate what he has outlined as Islam’s core princi- nal religious meaning of heresy as a negative social
ples. It seems that his problem is not so much with phenomenon started in the medieval period, with
those who have claimed some kind of prophetic its origins in Christianity. Although religion was
consciousness — even though he finds this kind no doubt the dominant institution through which
of assertion “psychologically unsound.” In fact, heresy was defined, sociologists like Georg Simmel
Iqbal’s discussion of Ibn Arabi demonstrates his have argued that it would be misguided to think
tolerance for practices that don’t necessarily fit that heresy could be understood on the basis of
into his vision of Islam as strictly defined by be- the theological or doctrinal beliefs of the heretic.
lief in God’s unity and the finality of Muhammad’s Simmel argues,
prophecy. According to the logic of this letter, it
That which arrays great masses of people in hatred
seems that the reason why Iqbal is more chari- and moral condemnation of heretics is certainly
table to Ibn Arabi than Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is, not the difference in the dogmatic content of the
first, because the latter created a new and pub- teaching; in most instances, this content really is
lic doctrinal statement on his prophetic status not understood at all. Rather, it is the fact of the
(as opposed to Ibn Arabi’s “private” statements) opposition of the one against the many. The per-
and, second, because Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, ac- secution of heretics and dissenters springs from
cording to Iqbal, asserted a new interpretation of the instinct for the necessity of group unity. . . .
Nonconformity therefore seems to threaten the
Islam that denounced those who did accept Mirza
unity — t hat is to say, the very life form — of the
Ghulam Ahmad’s prophetic status. For example,
group as it is and as people visualize it.16
Iqbal makes the argument that the Ahmadis are
heretical based on the fact that the Ahmadis’ un- This secular and social significance of heresy is
derstanding of their new revelation declares those echoed in the work of George Zito, who has ex-
who do not accept it infidels: “No revelation the plained that what once was referred to as “differ-
denial of which entails heresy is possible after ence of opinion” in relation to the Catholic Church
Muhammad. He who claims such a revelation is expanded to a new and wider arena of “profane
a traitor to Islam. Since the Qadianis believe the discourses.” Zito defines heresy as “an attack,
founder of the Ahmadiyya movement to be the veiled or quite open, upon an institutionalized
bearer of such revelation, they declare the entire way of speaking about the world. It is therefore a
world of Islam is infidel” (21). Iqbal thus makes the thing of a distinctly social kind, directly related to
point that it is the Ahmadis who are conducting social deviance. . . . In heresy the speaker employs
decisions about heresy on the basis of whether or the same language as the parent group, retains its
not the revelation of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is ac- values, but attempts to order its discourse to some
cepted. In this instance heresy is not the decision other end.”17 According to Zito, the social, rather
of those who represent the “orthodoxy,” as it would than the religious, aspect of heresy is significant,
seem from Iqbal’s initial statements, but rather a and for him, the significance of the relationship
claim on the part of the new movement, directed between the heretic and what he calls the “parent
to those who do not adhere to the new doctrine. group” is paramount. The heretic is not an out-
How, then, are we to make sense of the point that sider but actually speaks and acts from within the
Ahmadis are heretical, on the one hand, but, on group; he acknowledges the same values and ideas
the other hand, are also the ones who declare all but interprets the shared idioms against the grain.
non-­A hmadis heretical? How can the group ac- Aspects of Muhammad Iqbal’s personal bi-

16. Simmel, Essays on Religion, 114 – 15. 17. Zito, “Toward a Sociology of Heresy,” 123.
252 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East • 36:2 • 2016

ography are relevant to this point that Zito makes second in the twentieth. The term heresy cannot
about the “parent group.” Muhammad Iqbal’s fa- be uniformly applied across different temporal
ther, Shaykh Nur Muhammad (d. 1929), entered contexts, as Peter Berger has argued.21 There are
into the path of allegiance to Mirza Ghulam different social and cultural paradigms at work in
Ahmad in 1891, and when Muhammad Iqbal and the modern period. In the premodern context, it
his brother were young, they were members of the is possible that Ibn Arabi’s ideas would have chal-
Ahmadi community.18 In 1906, a maulvi from Lud- lenged Sunni jurists and theologians. However, of-
hiana attacked Ahmad when Iqbal was a student ficial statements and declarations of heresy against
in Sialkot, and, apparently, Iqbal wrote a defense Sufis were rare, because Sufis were always part of
of him as aftab sidq (sun of truth) as well as several the larger theological and intellectual matrix of
pieces describing Ahmad as “the greatest religious Islam. The fact that Sufis assumed a devotional or
thinker among modern Indian Muslims.”19 Accord- inward approach to the tradition, by contrast to the
ing to Ahmadis, he remained active in the move- ritual or legal focus of Sunnis, was no doubt, at
ment until 1913, after which he broke away because times, a source of tension, but these different ap-
of tensions within the movement.20 Although many proaches were part of the constellation of Islami-
of these details of Iqbal’s life are disputed, they cate culture from the outset. Within the context of
certainly reveal the complex ways in which he was modernity, however, the social and cultural fabric
imbricated within the same cultural and religious is transformed, whereby traditional structures are
fabric as Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Iqbal’s criticisms reformulated and new forms of religious author-
of the Ahmadis must be seen therefore in light of ity are introduced. In this new modern context,
some kind of familial and intimate connection. Iqbal and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad emerged onto
Iqbal claimed that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the colonial stage, speaking and defining Islam
was a heretic. However, from Iqbal’s discussion, through opposing modernist perspectives. Iqbal
we see that Ibn Arabi, in theory, violated the same argued that his definition of Islam was the correct
doctrine, with his claims to prophetic conscious- “orthodox” position (claiming to speak on behalf
ness. How, then, are we to understand this incon- of tradition, the preservation of God’s unity, and
sistency? According to both Simmel’s and Zito’s the Prophet’s finality) and condemned Mirza Gh-
arguments, the social rather than the theological ulam Ahmad’s movement as heretical. However, it
or doctrinal difference must be analyzed in order is important to keep in mind that Mirza Ghulam
to understand the thoughts and actions of the her- Ahmad’s conception of Islam was just as much of a
etic. The heretic is an individual who has made a new, independent, and secular (in terms of choos-
choice that threatens group solidarity. Iqbal’s con- ing a particular version over another) interpreta-
cern, as he outlined in the opening of his letter, is tion as Iqbal’s. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and Iqbal
with Indian Muslim solidarity. Ibn Arabi did not were making different kinds of arguments, but
threaten group unity as Mirza Ghulam Ahmad they were equal players on the colonial modern
did. Ibn Arabi’s practices were not considered platform of debate, asserting their respective defi-
threatening to an idea of group unity because, nitions of Islam.
as Iqbal explains, they were circumscribed to the Thus far, I have discussed the point that her-
“private” domain. Of course, it is also important esy is not necessarily religious, but is also social,
to keep in mind here that Iqbal is addressing two and the new cultural and political terrain of mo-
totally different figures in completely different dernity requires a redefinition of heresy. How then
contexts — t he first in the twelfth century and the are we to understand Iqbal’s use of the term, now

18. Lavan, The Ahmadiyyah Movement, 172. tions of heresy in the modern versus premod- Christianity, where restricting choice (hairesis)
ern period. Berger makes the point that the was necessary for the existence of heresy, and
19. Ibid.
existence of heresy in contemporary times heresy in the modern period, where choice is
20. Ibid. is problematic insofar as modernity itself is the basis of social existence. See Berger, The
predicated on the heretical ethos. He draws a Heretical Imperative.
21. According to Peter Berger there is a major
fundamental contrast between heresy in early
difference between expressions and declara-
 Teena Purohit | Iqbal, Ghulam Ahmad, and the Accusation of Heresy 253

that we have opened up the idea beyond the insti- which exists in the everyday. Doxa represents the
tutional framework, on the one hand, and the tra- “the world of tradition experienced as a ‘natural
dition of Christianity, on the other? Bourdieu’s dis- world’ and taken for granted.” It is part of the
cussion of heterodoxy, I think, elucidates further “universe of the undiscussed and undisputed” — in
some of the issues and questions that are intro- contrast to orthodoxy and heterodoxy, which are
duced in Iqbal’s writings about heresy and Islam part of the universe of discourse or argument.23
in the modern period. As Bourdieu explains, the Bourdieu argues that the assertion of orthodoxy
two concepts of heterodoxy and orthodoxy are is a response to a hairesis, the “choice” that is avail-
inherently relational; they cannot be understood able in a field of possibilities but not sanctioned as
without one another and without the idea of doxa. an acceptable way of thinking and speaking about
Regarding these three terms, Bourdieu argues the the world.
following: One way to think about how these three
ideas operate in Iqbal’s analysis is, again, through
Orthodoxy, straight, or rather straightened opin-
ion, which aims without ever entirely succeeding, his comparison between Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
at restoring the primal state of innocence of doxa, and Ibn Arabi. Iqbal does not describe Ibn Arabi’s
exists only in the objective relationship which Sufi practices as aberrant or exceptional in any
opposes it to heterodoxy, that is by reference to way, nor does Iqbal criticize Ibn Arabi’s religious
the choice — hairesis, heresy — m ade possible by practices devoted to the achievement of prophetic
the existence of competing possibles and to the ex- consciousness, despite his own strident position
plicit critique of the sum total of the alternatives on preserving the two essential doctrines of Islam.
not chosen that the established order implies. It
In fact Iqbal acknowledges the prevalence of this
is defined as a system of euphemisms, of accept-
practice among like-­minded individuals (“Indeed
able ways of thinking and speaking the natural
from the Shaikh’s point of view there may be more
and social world, which rejects heretical remarks
as blasphemies.22 than one-­s aint, living in the same age or coun-
try, who may attain to prophetic consciousness”).
Similar to historians and theologians who In this regard, the practice is part of the “undis-
engage this topic, Bourdieu confirms that hetero- cussed and undisputed” realm of doxa. This type
doxy and orthodoxy are conceptually dependent of doxic activity does not violate any normative
on one another. However, according to Bourdieu, code and thus does not enter into the discursive
these two concepts are divested of any theologi- heterodox/orthodox realm because, in Iqbal’s
cal or normative meaning because they lack any words, these practices are a “private matter.” Iqbal
kind of inherent or ontological significance. For accepts Ibn Arabi’s practices, despite his own dog-
Bourdieu, heterodoxy and orthodoxy are located matic stance against transgressing what he ex-
entirely in the discursive realm. Because ortho- plains as the two fundamental doctrines of Islam.
doxy does not exist in any stable or institutional Iqbal himself states that with the case of Ibn Arabi,
form, heterodoxy cannot be understood as a kind it is not unusual for saints to allege that they have
of deviation from an established corporate center. experienced prophecy and/or unity with God. Fol-
In this way, the two ideas are a far cry from the lowing this logic, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s claim to
classic Weberian understanding of church and prophetic status was in theory nothing new and
sect. Orthodoxy, the claim of a “straightened” something that was available in the field of prac-
opinion, is an assertion of an authentic or correct tice. However, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s choice,
practice, but according to Bourdieu, this attempt hairesis, that was available in the realm of “com-
to “straighten” is impossible because it is removed peting possibilities,” was the pronouncement of
from the realm of actual practice, or doxa. Hetero- his prophetic status. This declaration instigated a
doxy and orthodoxy are contrasted here to doxa, response from Indian Muslims, like Iqbal, that was

22. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice,

169.

23. Ibid., 168.

254 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East • 36:2 • 2016

“orthodox.” That is to say, Iqbal responded with an made, not on the basis of some preexistent structure
attempt to correct and “straighten” out the defini- or institution.24
tion of Islam, which he outlines as the unity of God In both cases the ideas or doctrines associ-
and the finality of Muhammad’s prophecy. ated with each figure are less relevant than the
According to the logic of Bourdieu’s argu- public nature of their ideas. This lends credence
ment, there are no inherently heretical or hetero- to Zito’s and Simmel’s points about the heretic as a
dox sects. This is important for the study of Islam threat to group unity and to Bourdieu’s argument
because there is a prevailing understanding that that orthodoxy, or correct practice, only becomes
certain groups, such as Ahmadis or Sufis, are an issue when alternative choices are discursively
“sects” and, with that, the assumption that they articulated. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad presumably
are theologically deviant from a center or norm. engaged in a similar type of exercise, but because
Although Iqbal describes Ibn Arabi’s practices as his ideas and belief were consciously promulgated
“private,” it is important to remember that Sufi and debated in the public domain, they became
practices too were subjected to a similar kind of branded as “heterodox.”
criticism that Iqbal imposes upon Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad. Even though the practices of Sufis were Conclusion
always integrated into the larger constellation of During the late nineteenth and early twenti-
Muslim doxa, there were cases in which public dec- eth centuries, political leaders and intellectuals
larations of prophetic consciousness by individuals defined Islam and what it meant to be Muslim
were declared heretical. The ninth-­century mystic against the backdrop of colonial modernity. Re-
Al-­Hallaj is one rather dramatic example of some- formists in India, as well as in the larger Muslim
one who was condemned because of his beliefs world, argued that Muslims ought to unify them-
and practices. It is possible to argue that he was selves, and they redefined classical Quranic con-
condemned to death for purely political reasons cepts such as the tauhid to assert their arguments
because he spoke out against the state and the op- about Muslim unity. It is within this context that
pression of the caliph at the time. More significant, Iqbal wrote about the heresy of Mirza Ghulam
though, is that he is remembered and martyred be- Ahmad — a lso a modernist who wanted to unify
cause of his theologically transgressive pronounce- and define Islam at the time. While their diagnoses
ments (in particular “I am truth”). Al-­H allaj’s of what was needed to renew Islam were similar —
statements were perceived as threatening the unity  the reassertion of tauhid — their prescriptions were
of God. The example of Hallaj would corroborate completely at odds. Iqbal believed sectarianism
the sociological arguments of Zito and Simmel, and continuous prophecy undermined tauhid,
as Hallaj made his practices public in a way that whereas the Mirza believed that continuous proph-
threatened group unity. The case of Hallaj also ecy was necessary to reestablish tauhid in the mod-
gives credence to Bourdieu’s point that the ortho- ern period.
dox position is a response to heterodox choices. Iqbal denounced Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s
That is to say, those in power who condemned and ideas as heretical, but, as I argued above, this dec-
spoke about the ways in which Hallaj undermined laration must not be read as simply an argument
Islam articulated an “orthodox” position in reac- about prophetic transgression or sectarian devia-
tion to the specific actions and choices that Hallaj tion. The heretic, in the case of Mirza Ghulam

24. Another comparison with the public/ gument that one of the reasons why he sup- lief that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the em-
private question can be seen with the Aga ported the Aga Khan was because the Aga bodiment of messianic salvation was rooted
Khan. In Islam and Ahmadism, Iqbal showed Khan was able to relegate his authority as in the premodern Magian tradition that Iqbal
his support for the Aga Khan, and actually ar- prophet to a private domain, while maintain- claimed was retrograde. For an elaboration of
gued that he was capable of representing the ing a public position that was inclusive of all this argument about Iqbal’s views of the Aga
Indian Muslim community, despite the fact Muslims and thus ecumenical. Furthermore, Khan compared to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad see
that the Aga Khan, like Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, Iqbal believed that Ahmadis, by contrast to Purohit, “Muhammad Iqbal on Muslim Ortho-
was a prophet-­t ype figure. I have made the ar- the Ismailis, were backward because their be- doxy and Transgression.”
 Teena Purohit | Iqbal, Ghulam Ahmad, and the Accusation of Heresy 255

Ahmad, was an intimate insider — someone from Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated
whom many members of Iqbal’s family took an by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University
oath of allegiance. Second, the heretic was a fig- Press, 1992.
ure whose ideas threatened Iqbal’s notion of group Euben, Roxanne L., and Muhammad Qasim Zaman.
unity, which in this case was the minority Mus- Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Con-
texts from al-­Banna to Bin Laden. Princeton, NJ: Prince-
lim community Iqbal sought to represent. Third,
ton University Press, 2009.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad brought his practices and
ideas (doxa) into the public domain, at a time when Friedmann, Yohanan. Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ah-
madi Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background.
protection of the status of Prophet Muhammad
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
was integral to the ways in which Muslims defined
Iqbal, Muhammad. Islam and Ahmadism. Lahore: Ashraf
themselves against other religious groups. Mirza
Printing Press, 1980.
Ghulam Ahmad’s ideas thus elicited an orthodox
response by many Muslim community leaders, ——— . “Islam as Moral and Political Ideal.” In Modern-
ist Islam, 1840 – 1940: A Sourcebook, edited by Charles
most cogently, Iqbal, who requested that the Brit-
Kurzman, 304 – 13. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
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2002.
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——— . The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam.
The colonial state did not respond to this
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
request, but the issue did not recede after Iqbal
Jalal, Ayesha. Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Commu-
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The persistence of this argument in the current
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Exclusion in Pakistan. New York: Anthem Press, 2014.
sight of the contingency enjoined in the idea of
Saeed, Sadia. “Political Fields and Religious Movements:
heresy. In the case of the Ahmadis, this accusa-
The Exclusion of the Ahmadiyya Community in
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to renewal and competing conceptions of proph-
Sevea, Iqbal Singh. The Political Philosophy of Muhammad
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Simmel, Georg. Essays on Religion. New Haven, CT: Yale
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25. See Saeed, “Political Fields and Religious

Movements,” and Qasmi, The Ahmadis and the
Politics of Religious Exclusion.