Impact of Colonialism on Sufism in South Asia: A Case Study of Pakistan

Abstract

This study aims to develop causal relationship between colonial discourse of Sufism and contemporary Islamophobic trends in Pakistan. This paper assesses the impact of colonialism on Sufi institutions and practices and the fall out on Pakistan’s religious landscape. British orientalists misinterpreted the Sufi philosophy while colonial masters politicized their spirituality and traditions to pursue their political agendas and policies in South Asia. This paper provides an overview of the legacy of colonial patterns on Sufism in the postcolonial context without any specific timeframe. During precolonial era in South Asia, there was a mixed history of Sufis conflictual and collaborative role with the state while some of the Sufi groups had apathetic attitude towards the state authorities. Colonial masters found Sufi brotherhoods a formidable challenge against their agendas in South Asia and pursued a policy of co-option with Sufi hereditary leaders (Sajjada/Gaddi Nasheens & Pirs) to gain legitimacy and maintain order in Muslim communities. This paper concludes that in South Asia, British colonial masters and orientalist scholarship employed a strategy to produce a body of knowledge and shaped a discourse through western orientalist lens which not only delegitimized the authentic value of Sufism and its institutions but also weakened its potency to resist against the colonial masters. That legacy continued in postcolonial settings which resulted in the Islamophobic trends in Pakistan mostly peddled by the secular and modern political elite who use Islamic symbolism only in rhetoric to gain public legitimacy.