Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India ( ISBN 978-1-107-05212-3) is an academic monograph on the Partition of India by Venkat Dhulipala, a Professor of South Asian History at University of North Carolina. The work attracted mixed reception — while Ian Talbot, Gail Minault and David Gilmartin admired the work as a significant intervention, [1] [2] [3] reviews by Barbara D. Metcalf, Faisal Devji, Yasmin Khan, Manan Ahmed Asif, and Julian Levesque were scathing. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country by area. Bounded by the Arabian Sea on the south, the Gulf of Oman on the southwest, and the Sir Creek on the southeast, it shares land borders with India to the east; Afghanistan to the west; Iran to the southwest; and China to the northeast. It shares a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from Tajikistan in the northwest by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor.
The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India and Dominion of Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wise Hindu or Muslim majorities. It also involved the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury, between the two new dominions. The partition was set forth in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj, or Crown rule in India. The two self-governing countries of India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 14–15 August 1947.
The All-India Muslim League (AIML), simply called the Muslim League, was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when some well-known Muslim politicians met the Viceroy of India, Lord Minto, with the goal of securing Muslim interests in British India.
The Pakistan Movement emerged in the early 20th century as part of a campaign that advocated the creation of an Islamic state in parts of what was then British India. It was rooted in the two-nation theory, which asserted that Indian Muslims were fundamentally and irreconcilably distinct from Indian Hindus and would therefore require separate self-determination upon the decolonization of India. The idea was largely realized when the All-India Muslim League ratified the Lahore Resolution on 23 March 1940, calling for the Muslim-majority regions of the Indian subcontinent to be "grouped to constitute independent states" that would be "autonomous and sovereign" with the aim of securing Muslim socio-political interests vis-à-vis the Hindu majority. It was in the aftermath of the Lahore Resolution that, under the aegis of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the cause of "Pakistan" became widely popular among the Muslims of the Indian independence movement.
The Khilafat movement (1919–22) was a political campaign launched by Indian Muslims in British India over British policy against Turkey and the planned dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after World War I by Allied forces.
Islam is the largest and the state religion of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan has over 231.6 Million adherents of Islam. As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam and around 97% of Pakistanis follow Islam. Most Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is represented by the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions.
Usha Sanyal is an Indian scholar and historian of Islam specializing in the Barelvi movement. She was a visiting assistant professor of history at Wingate University in North Carolina.
The two-nation theory was an ideology of religious nationalism that advocated Muslim Indian nationhood, with separate homelands for Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus within a decolonised British India, which ultimately led to the Partition of India in 1947. Its various descriptions of religious differences were the main factor in Muslim separatist thought in the Indian subcontinent, asserting that Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus are two separate nations, each with their own customs, traditions, art, architecture, literature, interests, and ways of life.
From a historical perspective, Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed of the University of Stockholm and Professor Shamsul Islam of the University of Delhi classified the Muslims of Colonial India into two categories during the era of the Indian independence movement: nationalist Muslims and Muslim nationalists. The All India Azad Muslim Conference represented nationalist Muslims, while the All-India Muslim League represented the Muslim nationalists. One such popular debate was the Madani–Iqbal debate.
Chach Nama, also known as the Fateh nama Sindh, and as Tareekh al-Hind wa a's-Sind, is one of the historical sources for the history of Sindh.
Barbara Daly Metcalf is a professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Davis. She is a specialist in the history of South Asia, especially the colonial period, and the history of the Muslim population of India and Pakistan. She previously served as the dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Davis, and as the Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of History at the University of Michigan (2003–2009). She was the president of the Association for Asian Studies in 1994 and the president of the American Historical Association in 2010–11.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah's 11 August Speech is a speech made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founding father of Pakistan and known as Quaid-e-Azam to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. While Pakistan was created as a result of what could be described as Indian Muslim nationalism, Jinnah was once an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. When the Partition of India finally occurred, Jinnah, soon-to-be Governor-General of the Dominion of Pakistan, outlined his vision of Pakistan in an address to the Constituent Assembly, delivered on 11 August 1947. He spoke of an inclusive and impartial government, religious freedom, rule of law ,and equality for all.
After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British Government took over the administration to establish the British Raj. The British Raj was the period of British Parliament rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947, for around 89 years of British occupation. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria.
The history of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan began on 14 August 1947 when the country came into being in the form of Dominion of Pakistan within the British Commonwealth as the result of Pakistan Movement and the partition of India. While the history of the Pakistani Nation according to the Pakistan government's official chronology started with the Islamic rule over Indian subcontinent by Muhammad bin Qasim which reached its zenith during Mughal Era. In 1947, Pakistan consisted of West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The President of All-India Muslim League and later the Pakistan Muslim League, Muhammad Ali Jinnah became Governor-General while the secretary general of the Muslim League, Liaquat Ali Khan became Prime Minister. The constitution of 1956 made Pakistan an Islamic democratic country.
The 1939 Tabarra agitation was an event when some 18,000 Shias were jailed during months of March, April, and May 1939 in Lucknow, India.
Provincial elections were held in British India in January 1946 to elect members of the legislative councils of the Indian provinces. The Congress, in a repeat of the 1937 elections, won (90%) of the general non-Muslim seats while the Muslim League won the majority of Muslim seats (87%) in the provinces.
Manan Ahmed Asif, also known as Manan Ahmed, is a Pakistani historian of South Asia and West Asia. He is an associate professor of history at Columbia University in New York City.
Nawab Sir Shahnawaz Khan Mamdot was a Punjabi landowner and politician of British India. He was a key supporter of the Pakistan movement and for some time, the largest landowner in undivided Punjab.
Maulvi Syed Tufail Ahmad Manglori was a colonial Indian educationalist and historian who was known for his establishment of City High School of the Aligarh Muslim University, founding of the journal Soodmand, and opposition to the partition of India.
Fazlur Rahmān Usmānī was an Indian Muslim scholar and poet who co-founded the Darul Uloom Deoband. He was father of the scholars, Aziz-ur-Rahman Usmani and Shabbir Ahmad Usmani. His grandson Atiqur Rahman Usmani was the founder of Nadwatul Musannifeen.