4 - Challenge to the system: the Khilafat movement, 1919–1924

Summary

Pirs of modern times do not deserve their following… they consider the grant of the title of Shams al-Ulama as the highest honour. In these desperate times, there were high hopes in them, but they have proved weak … you are fools if you still follow them!

Up to the turn of the twentieth century, the British system of political control had worked well in Sind. During the Khilafat movement of 1919 to 1924, however, the British faced a second major challenge to their authority. The Khilafat movement represented the first occasion on which a significant number of Sindhi pirs came together on a common platform to protest about British policy, and their involvement reflected the way in which they were being gradually involved in the concerns of the wider Indian Muslim community. Like their co-religionists elsewhere, many of these pirs had been affected by the growth in pan-Islamic sentiment as well as by the changing awareness of the position of Muslims in India as a whole. Their participation in the agitation seriously threatened to undermine the position of the British in Sind. Yet, despite the enormous influence wielded by pirs and the considerable support which they generated for the Khilafat cause, the system of control proved its worth by ultimately reducing the threat posed to British authority to one of manageable proportions.

Pirs are drawn into a wider Islamic framework

The system of control was seriously shaken by the involvement of Sindhi pirs in the Khilafat movement. The concerns of the movement appealed very strongly to a significant section of the province's religious leadership as a result of the growth in interest in pan-Islamic issues during the years leading up to 1919.