Social liberation within the Islamic-political movements: the reform project of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its impact on the Ahl-i-Hadith movement in Pakistan

Abstract

This article presents a detailed study of the Ahl-i-Hadith movement in Pakistan and shows how its scholars continue to rely heavily on religious discourses and texts produced by official Saudi Salafi scholars. The authors illustrates this by showing how Pakistani Ahl-i-Hadith scholars actively refer to the fatwas issued by Saudi scholars. Further, based on interviews with both senior and younger scholars, they show that most of them, while somewhat troubled by the changes occurring within Saudi Arabia, are inclined to follow whatever direction the Saudi religious establishment adopts. Thus, in the view of the authors, social liberation within Saudi Arabia will trigger similar changes in attitude within this movement. The article, however, also highlights the need to recognize that the Ahl-i-Hadith movement represents a very small, though influential, group within the broader Pakistani religious sphere, which is dominated by Deobandi and Barelvi networks. Thus, it should not be assumed that the existence of Salafi groups in a country means that Salafism constitutes the dominant Islamic force in that context.