An Analysis Of Major Deviant Ideologies Of Pīr Jainul ‘Ᾱbidīn

Abstract

From the Prophet’s (pbuh) departure till today the Ummah has been facing many divisions and sects in the name of Islām, each one claiming to be rightly guided. From the very first Shī‘ah group till today’s ISIS fell into any 72 groups which the Prophet (pbuh) has been warning us from the beginning. In India specifically South Indian Tamil speaking region; Tamil Nadu (TN) an individual called Pīr Jainul ‘Ᾱbidīn well known as PJ started his journey in 1980 reviving the pure monotheistic propagation very successfully eradicating almost all the Shirk and supernatural practices from TN and bringing the Tamil speaking Muslims (TMS) under one banner of Tawhīd. But unfortunately from 2000 his path deviated very much with the ideas of former deviant sects such as Jahmiyyah, Mu‘tazilah, Ashā‘irah when he started to interpret Naql; Qur’ān and Ḥadīth according to his own understanding, intellect, reasoning and logic. Moreover in terms of his stance towards the Ṣaḥābās resembles the extreme Shī‘ah division of Rāfiḍas and in terms of excommunicating others he and his followers resembles the extreme deviant group Khawārij. This diversion of PJ resulted in a big chaos in TN. This study is to analyze him and his tiresome monotheistic journey in detail to show how he established his name and place in the TSM society slowly but surely and how it influenced and impacted the general masses. This study will also investigate his contemporary controversial major deviant ideologies and its impact on the Muslim community in South India, Tamil Nadu with the particular objectives of recounting the demographic characteristics of the respondents in the study area, identifying the degree of approval or disapproval of PJ’s ideology among the Muslims in the study area and examining the factors affecting membership of his sect in the study area. Purposive sampling techniques have been used to select 183 respondents. Primary data is collected via structured questionnaires and were analyzed using descriptive analysis and logistic regression analysis is the inferential statistics. The results show that 80.8 percent of the respondents are between 18 to 50 years old and about 13 percent of them are below 18 years of age while 6 percent of them are 51 years and above. Majority (51.3%) of them are Bachelors and Masters, 2.7 percent are doctorates, 23.5 percent are in high school, six percent are in mid school and 5.5 percent have no academic (western) education whatsoever. In terms of Islamic education 30.6 percent of them are Bachelors and Masters, 3.3 percent are the degree holders of Moulavi and ‘Ᾱlim, 7.7 percent are still learners of Islamic education and 48.6 percent having no any studies in Islām. Furthermore, 32.3 percent of the respondents are in agreement with PJ in his ideology of Zakāh payment, 37.7 percent of them are with Siḥr (Black Magic), 39.4 percent are with regarding his stance of Bukhārī and Muslim Imam, 25.2 percent are with his Waḥi concept, 24.1 percent are with the contradiction regarding (Saḥīh) Hadīth, Qur’ān and sound human intellect, 31.2 percent are with the rejection of (Saḥīh) Aḥādīth, 20.8 percent are with regarding to the understanding of Ṣaḥābas and their followers (Salafs) in terms of religious matters. It has been detected that the age of the respondents (p=0.013), academic; western education (p=0.042), grown as Muslim (p=0.006) and household size (p=0.007) among others, significantly determined acts of being membership of Pīr Jainul ‘Ᾱbidīn in the area of study. The study therefore suggests providing awareness about PJ’s ideologies, suppression of blameworthy blind following (Taqlīd), encouraging union among the Muslims and the implementation of the path of the Salaf (Pious predecessors).