Arabization Of Bangladesh: An Asset, Liability Or Threat?
By Taj Hashmi
14 July, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Visitors to Bangladesh, who enter the country for the first time through the Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport in Dhaka, might get the wrong impression about the major languages spoken in the country. Even before disembarking the aircraft, the first thing they notice is the name of the airport in bold Arabic letters on top of the airport building, along with Bengali and English. There was no Arabic sign on public buildings and thoroughfares until the late 1970s, until “Absolute faith in Allah” formally supplanted “Secularism” as one of the State Ideologies, as desired by General Ziaur Rahman. The introduction of Islam as the “State Religion” by General Ershad in 1988 was a big step towards further Islamization of the polity.
However, these steps towards Arabization and Islamization were at best nothing more than symbolic gestures, in a country afflicted with tremendous identity crisis; and at worst politically motivated, opportunistic, and hypocritical. Nevertheless, playing with people’s cheap religious sentiment for the sake of legitimacy by the rulers, and their appeasing the Islamist parties and individuals with Islamic symbols like Arabic signs, and Islam as “State Religion” have already backfired. Unabated cultural Arabization and Islamization in the long run could drag the country towards political Islam and anarchy.
Arabization is a generic term. I define it as a process of adopting elements of Arabian culture by non-Arab Muslims and non-Muslims, in historical and contemporary perspectives. This happened after the phenomenal rise of Islamic empires. Awe-stricken Europeans learnt Arabic and indigenized Arabic/Islamic culture – art, architecture, music, medicine, philosophy, and science –during the 9th and 13th centuries during the hey days of Arab/Islamic empires. Historians are unanimous about Arabic/Islamic contributions to European Renaissance.
We need to understand the Arabization of Bangladesh in historical as well as in the contemporary socio-political, psychological and geo-political perspectives. As the overwhelming majorities of people in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia adopted Islam and Arabized their language and culture soon after the expansion of Islam by sword, trade and other means, what is Bangladesh is no exception in this regard. However, as Islam came here through Persianized Turco-Afghan-Iranian conquerors and Sufis, Bengali Muslims’ religious beliefs, vocabulary and rituals – very similar to elsewhere in the Subcontinent – have been predominantly Turco-Afghan-Iranian rather than Arabian.
However, Bengali Muslims retained their language, script and many other aspects of the indigenous Bengali culture in the wake of mass conversion. Some of them are still unwilling to give up certain indigenous/Turco-Persian rituals and beliefs – such as showing reverence to dead Sufis/Pirs, and believing in certain cults, including the Satya Pir, the Bengali Muslim version of the Hindu Satya Narayan. In sum, a syncretistic Islam evolved in Bengal, which ultra-orthodox Wahhabi-Faraizi-Deobandi-Salafi Muslims have been trying to supplant with orthodoxy, at least for the last 200 years. Their success is partial.
Thanks to the Persian influence, Bengali Muslims (very similar to Indian and Pakistani ones) often use the Farsi khuda and paighambar to denote Arabic Allah and rasul (messenger or prophet), respectively. Despite the ongoing Arabization process, Farsi not Arabic is still widely used as the “Islamic language” in Bangladesh. Thus Farsi namaz for prayer (not Arabic salat); roza for fasting (not Arabic saum); Ramzan for the fasting month (not Arabic Ramadan); and jaynamaz for prayer mat (not Arabic musalla) are integral parts of Bengali Muslim vocabulary.
However, due to the patronage of ultra-conservative Arab Muslims and their local adherents in Bangladesh, sections of Bangladeshi Muslims are fast indigenizing ultra-orthodox Wahhabi-Salafi ideologies, practices and vocabulary. Meanwhile, many Bangladeshi Muslim women have adopted the previously unknown, the strange Middle Eastern hijab, which is a variant of the Lebanese Catholic nuns’ habit. Muslim men and women in the country are fast adopting some weird and hitherto unfamiliar Arabic expressions and Arabian practices in the name of purifying their faith. Strangely, this is happening when the Arabs are no longer dominant – economically, politically or culturally.
Now many Bangladeshi Muslim children have unique (often difficult to pronounce and remember) Arabic names. Many Bengali Muslims have discarded certain old rituals – milad in commemoration of the birth of the Prophet, for example – and introduced new ones from the Arab World. Instead of the milad, Bangladeshi Muslims at home and abroad organize halaqa, religious gatherings for learning about Islamic theology from one or more speakers, followed by intense question-answer sessions, prayers, supplications and food; mostly in segregations, Muslim brothers and sisters sitting in separate chambers.
Of late, the hitherto unheard of Arabic expression, “Allah Hafiz” (introduced by General Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan) to bid good-bye to someone, is gradually replacing the Farsi “Khuda Hafiz” (May God protect you) in Bangladesh. Some Bengali Muslims (like their Arab counterparts) nowadays wish someone good luck, they say “Jazak Allahu Khayr” (May Allah reward you with goodness), which are very new expressions in the country.
Appraising the Arabization process in Bangladesh is difficult. The phenomenon is as strange as the stories of The Arabian Nights. One is not always alert enough to notice the changes that have already crept into the psyche of the nation – and the ongoing undercurrents of the process – in the realms of Islamic religion, rituals, and popular culture in the country since the 1970s. Sometimes the Government, but mostly adherents of “Islam-loving” political parties, cultural organizations and Islamic scholars flaunt, push and glorify Arabian culture. Bangladeshi Muslim workers in the Gulf countries – menials and professionals – have also been Arabizing the popular culture in the country. Due to inadequate knowledge of Islam, neither these workers nor their relatives, neighbours and friends differentiate between Islam and Arabization.
As Badruddin Umar has brilliantly explained in his writings, many disempowered Bengali Muslims during the British period nurtured a romantic extra-territorial loyalty towards Afghan-Arab-Iranian-Turkish lands, their language, rituals, and attire and food habit; and identified themselves as descendants of “original Muslims” from outside India. Tracing one’s origin to the Middle East and Central Asia or to some aristocratic families is still fashionable in Bangladesh. They indicate Bangladeshi Muslims’ identity crisis and inferiority complex. Many of them still fail to identify which one is their primary identity, Muslim or Bengali.
The quest for Arabization has some similarities with certain Hindu lower castes / “untouchable” people’s quest for upward mobility through the Sanskritization process, by indigenizing Brahmin culture, food habit, attire and gods in South Asian history. Although Arabization has elements of non-Arab Muslims’ quest for upward mobility, it is also an elite plan of action to politically hegemonize mass consciousness.
In sum, since the late 1970s, Arabization of the popular culture has become synonymous with the Islamization process in Bangladesh. This synonymy is ominous. It has long-drawn implications for the country. Moderate Muslims, liberal/secular Bangladeshis, and the friends of Bangladesh need to understand the long-term consequences of this slow and steady transformation of the popular culture of Bengali Muslims. Cultural transformation of people is a major step towards their political orientation and makeover. The apparently innocuous Arabization process has all the potentials to nurture Islamist extremism. In sum, Arabization is a Trojan’s Horse to usher in Islamism or political Islam as the only political alternative in a Muslim-majority country. Pakistan is a glaring example in this regard.
The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University. Sage has recently published his latest book, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.
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