A Master Narrative For The History of Pa

Modern Asian Studies: page 1 of 40
C Cambridge University Press 2018

doi:10.1017/S0026749X17000427
A Master Narrative for the History of

Pakistan: Tracing the origins of an
ideological agenda∗
ALI USM AN QASM I
School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Law, Lahore University of

Management Sciences
Email: ali.qasmi@lums.edu.pk
Abstract
The demand for the creation of Pakistan was based on a historical narrative built
around the centrality of the Muslim community in India and its distinctiveness
in terms of religious beliefs, cultural traits, and historical traditions. A particular
understanding of the past was, in other words, central to the idea of Pakistan.
As a result, soon after independence in 1947, a group of eminent historians got
together to set up the All Pakistan History Conference. It received official support
and patronage as the new state was eager to shape a historical narrative that could
strengthen the argument for a distinct Muslim identity. This article looks at the
development of this historiography in Pakistan. Unlike existing studies on this
topic, which simply point out the ‘flaws’ in the history textbooks used in Pakistan, I
will argue that the dominant historical narrative to be found in these textbooks—
or even in many scholarly works produced in Pakistan—is a form of master
narrative that has a longer history that dates back to the colonial period. Drawing
upon such sources as historical texts produced in Pakistan, recently declassified
documents of the Cabinet Division, and proceedings of the All Pakistan History
Conference, I will delineate the features of this master narrative, the intellectual
history of ideas that shaped it from the colonial to the post-colonial period, and
the political exegesis whereby it gained structural dominance in Pakistan that
was replicated for intellectual, ideological, and statist projects.
∗
The research for this article has been generously supported by the Faculty
Initiative Fund (FIF) of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and
the Newton International Fellowship’s alumni funds provided by the British Academy
and the Royal Society. I am grateful to Ateeb Gul for his careful reading and editing
of the manuscript.
1
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2 ALI USMAN QASMI
Introduction
During the 1980s, Khurshid Kamal Aziz, a well-known Pakistani

historian who was a Rankean to the core, wrote a series of articles
in a local English daily, detailing the historical inaccuracies he found
in Pakistan’s history textbooks. He later put these together in a
single volume entitled The Murder of History in Pakistan. In that series,
Aziz commented on a random selection of 66 textbooks published
by different boards in Pakistan. Most of the objections he raised
were about the inaccuracy of factual information found in the texts.
As he rightly points out, not only are history textbooks in Pakistan
riddled with historical inaccuracies, but the inferences drawn from
this evidence are therefore also flawed. A good example, one of
many pointed out by Aziz in his book, are statements from three
different textbooks about the establishment of the ‘All Indian National
Congress’ by ‘Lord Hume’ to ‘organize the Hindus politically’. Aziz
commented:
Apart from giving the Congress a wrong title, the assertions commit
three mistakes of substance. Indians, not Hindus exclusively, organized the
Congress. Nowhere in the report of the proceedings of the inaugural session is
it said that its aim was to bring the Hindus together on one political platform.
Nor was it founded by ‘Lord Hume’, nor was Hume a peer of the realm.1
Aziz’s criticism of history textbooks and the practice of academic

history writing in Pakistan set the benchmark for numerous similar
studies that followed. Apart from the scholarly work of Ayesha Jalal,2
Avril Powell,3 Aminah Mohammad-Arif,4 and others5 on this topic,
1
K. K. Aziz, The Murder of History: A Critique of History Textbooks Used in Pakistan
(Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2012), p. 152.
2
Ayesha Jalal, ‘Conjuring Pakistan: History as Official Imagining’, International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 27 (1995), pp. 73–89.
3
Avril Powell, ‘Perceptions of the South Asian Past: Ideology, Nationalism and
School History Textbooks’, in Nigel Cook (ed.), The Transmission of Knowledge in South
Asia: Essays on Education, Religion, History, and Politics (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1996).
4
Aminah Mohammad-Arif, ‘Textbooks, Nationalism and History Writing in
India and Pakistan’, in Veronique Benei (ed.), Manufacturing Citizenship: Education
and Nationalism in Europe, South Asia and China (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007),
pp. 143–68.
5
Elisa Giunchi, ‘Rewriting the Past: Political Imperatives and Curricular Reform
in Pakistan’, Internationale Schulbuchforschung, 29.4 (2007), pp. 375–88; Yvette Claire
Rosser, ‘Curriculum as Destiny: Forging National Identity in India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh’, PhD thesis, University of Texas Austin, 2003.
A MASTER NARRATIVE FOR PAKISTAN’S HISTORY 3
important national and international think tanks have also focused
on this issue. This includes the highly influential reports compiled by
A. H. Nayyar and Ahmad Salim for the Sustainable Development
Policy Initiative (SDPI)6 and, more recently, by Madiha Afzal for the
United States Institute of Peace.7 While Jalal has largely extended
Aziz’s work by carrying out a more nuanced textual analysis of the
content that is taught as ‘Pakistan studies’, the reports detail the
controversial themes and topics discussed in Pakistani textbooks
in general. The thrust of both the academic works and reports
has been to raise concern about the use of history as a tool for
ideological indoctrination, the inherent flaws in this methodology, and
the consequences of such an approach. With rising extremism and the
breeding of intolerance in Pakistani society, the concern is no longer
simply academic or theoretical. Academics, policymakers, and activists
are increasingly hinting at a direct correlation between extremism and
violence in Pakistani society and a curriculum and textbooks that are
exclusively centred around the idea of the supremacy of Islam, the
exclusivity of Muslim nationalism in South Asia, and a deep distrust—
if not outright hatred—of Hindus as the ‘Other’. What ensues as a
result of such education, they claim, is a myopic world view, a lack of
critical thinking, and an inability to grasp or coexist with a plurality
of cultural practices and religious ideals.
All of these arguments, I would suggest, point towards the biases of
historical writing or are a comment on the abysmal lack of scholarly
literature in Pakistan. However, they do not tell us much about
the origins of these ideas in Pakistan and Muslim nationalism in
the first place nor of the processes whereby they developed, and
were co-opted for statist purposes. The usual practice is to simply
blame the state’s policy of ideological indoctrination for the project
of national identity formation. The only exception is Sadia Bajwa’s
work, which is a detailed study of the intellectual history of various
narratives of Muslim nationalist discourses in India from the late
nineteenth century onwards. Her focus is on the colonial period and the
epistemological foundations of Orientalist discourse which impacted
on the writing of history by Muslim literati, religious scholars,
6
A. H. Nayyar and Ahmad Salim (eds), The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and
Textbooks in Pakistan (Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Initiative, 2003).
7
Madiha Afzal, ‘Education and Attitudes in Pakistan. Understanding Perceptions
of Terrorism’, United States Institute of Peace, 2015: http://www.usip.org/
sites/default/files/SR367-Education-and-Attitudes-in-Pakistan.pdf, [accessed 31
August 2018].
4 ALI USMAN QASMI
and academic historians. Bajwa argues that the contested historical

narrative about the Muslim past and the production of knowledge
about it in colonial India invariably shaped the way in which history
was written in the post-colonial period. As she rightly points out,
the ‘nationalist history of Pakistan (which includes official history),
written with the ideological aim of forging the Pakistani identity,
was not constructed out of thin air’ and much of its content, such as
‘the historical themes, the periodisation, the geographical imaginings,
and the heroes and villains of this historiography were drawn from the
pre-partition discourse of Muslim nationalist historiography’.8 But the
transition from the colonial to the post-colonial period fell outside the
purview of her study. This article, therefore, is an extension of the
study initiated by Bajwa and takes her argument further by adopting
a nuanced approach so as to understand the processes that marked
the transition from colonial discourses about the Muslim past to the
dominance of a specific understanding of it in the newly created state
of Pakistan.
What I will argue in this article is that the dominant historical
narrative to be found in textbooks, or even in many scholarly works
produced in Pakistan, takes the form of a master narrative. Borrowing
from Krijn Thijs, I use this as a research category in historiography
to ‘refer to dominant accounts of the past which define the historical
identity of a community’.9 Rather than the possible reading of this
metaphor ‘as an expression of extreme, polarised social relations
between rulers and ruled’ or ‘the idea of a virtuoso “author” faced with
a mute audience’, Thijs understands the idea of master narrative as
the hierarchy of masterliness on an intertextual level by locating the power
of the master narrative in their characteristically dominant relation to other
narratives ... In this understanding, master narratives dictate their narrative
framework to numerous partial stories, and therefore both integrate them
and lend them legitimacy. As a result, we could understand the master
narrative as an ideal typical ‘narrative frame’ whose pattern is repeated,
reproduced and confirmed by highly diverse historical practices.10
8
Sadia Bajwa, ‘The Genealogy of Pakistan’s Nationalist Historiography: An
Analysis of Historiography in the Context of the Emergent Muslim Nationalist
Discourse, 1857–1947’, MA thesis, Faculty of Philosophy and History, University
of Heidelberg, 2009, p. 5.
9
Krijn Thijs, ‘The Metaphor of the Master: “Narrative Hierarchy” in National
Historical Cultures of Europe’, in Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (eds), The Contested
Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2008), p. 60.
10
Ibid., pp. 65–8.
When employed for the study of nationalist historiography, a
master narrative helps us to understand the constructed nature of
the historical narrative, in particular the processes whereby certain
themes in such a narrative are emphasized—heroes glorified, villains
condemned, and events remembered. Such a master narrative, I will
argue in this article, was perfected in the post-colonial period and
attained structural dominance because of the support lent to it by
the state, but it had its origins in the colonial period. For a fuller
understanding of this master narrative, this article will look at the
development of ‘Muslim historiography’ from the nineteenth century
onwards and its shaping of a Muslim identity and understanding of the
past. Within the constraints of Orientalist historiography impacting
on academic history writing and the teaching of a peculiar version of
history in school textbooks during the colonial period, this master
narrative was transformed under the political exigencies of, first,
the demand for a separate homeland for Muslims and, later, by the
necessity of legitimizing the historical origins of the nation-state thus
established. It is this master narrative of history that is replicated,
for intellectual, ideological, and statist reasons, in textbooks and
academic works in Pakistan. The major thrust of studies so far has
been on detailing certain aspects of the master narrative of Pakistani
history rather than a genealogical tracing of its ideational basis and
transformations during the colonial and post-colonial periods.
Muslim historiography during the colonial period
The shaping of the discourse on the Indian past during the nineteenth
century has been the focus of numerous studies. Javed Majeed’s work
traces the imprint of utilitarian ideas on the world views of colonial
historians and administrators involved in the production of knowledge
about India.11 The initial corpus of writing was mostly produced by
Company officers, administrators, and military men. The input of
the ‘native informant’ also played an important role. Despite the
existence of English texts on Indian history from the late eighteenth
century onwards, it was the highly influential The History of British
India penned by James Mill and published in 1817 that set the tone
for a framework of Indian history which periodized the past along
11
Javed Majeed, Ungoverned Imaginings: James Mill’s ‘History of British India’ and
Orientalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
6 ALI USMAN QASMI
communal lines of Hindu and Muslim. In summary, it can be said

that the dominant narrative about India’s past conceived of it along
religious lines, with Hindus and Muslims as two fixed, unchanging,
and essentially mutually antagonistic communities. This was, in part,
a result of an Orientalist understanding of Indian society as divided
and defined along religious lines which had been grafted onto fixed
legal identities and served as the ideological bases for a communal
rendering of the past. Elliot and Dawson’s The History of India as Told by
its Own Historians (1867–1877) was a selection of texts from ‘original’
Persian sources which portrayed the Indian past as riddled with conflict
and violence, and the arrival of British in India as ushering in an era of
peace, stability, and rule of law. There was no nuanced reading of the
text or an attempt made to distinguish between the ‘modern academic’
modes of history writing and the historical chronicles written during
the pre-modern period. The ‘factual details’ given in these texts were
taken at face value. The authors claimed authenticity for their work as
it was based on ‘original Persian sources’ and neutrality for themselves
as historians since they were distanced from the local scene with its
varied communal interests and conflicts. This claim to authenticity and
neutrality, undergirded by the power of the empire, shaped a historical
discourse that reflected the hierarchy of prevalent power relations.
According to Dipesh Chakrabarty, the cult of ‘scientific history’
began in India in the 1880s amid public ‘enthusiasm for history’,
an expression used by Rabindranath Tagore in an essay he wrote
in 1899.12 But long before the spread of academic history writing,
traditional modes of history writing or recounting the past were
popular as well. While both modes of historical writing contested the
power claims of authenticity and neutrality of Orientalists, they did
so differently, with varied results. One of the best-known examples
from the late nineteenth century is Bankim Chandra’s work and
his clarion call: ‘We have no history. We must have a history!’ This
agenda for Indian historiography was not simply to write a factual or
chronological account. As Sudipta Kaviraj has commented, such a fact-
based narration of the past already existed, but not as an empowering
discourse written by Indians or Bengalis themselves in which they were
not relegated to a lower civilizational rank. So, what Bankim Chandra
aspired to was not history in the ontological sense, ‘but the narrative
12
Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘The Birth of Academic Historical Writing in India’, in
Stuart Macintyre et al. (eds), Oxford History of Historical Writing, Vol. 4: 1800–1945
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 524.
account which would put some significant order into them’.13 Such a
writing of history becomes a political act—a struggle for subjectivity.
In Partha Chatterjee’s words, ‘in this mode of recalling the past,
the power to represent oneself is nothing other than political power
itself’.14 The writing of ‘authentic’ history free of biases, therefore,
became the agenda of many academic historians of India from the
very beginning. It became an even bigger concern in the post-colonial
period when it was thought that, with the lapse of colonial authority
and the possibility of patronage of favourable histories projecting a
certain positive direction in history, an alternative, more authentic,
and unbiased historical discourse could be shaped.
The agenda for Indian historiography, starting from the nineteenth
century, was not always aimed at claiming political subjectivity for
all Indians. Nor were academic—or even non-academic—works of
history the only medium of representing the past. In fact, the kind
of empowering discourse sought was largely possible through what
Kaviraj calls imaginative history, and the most popular medium for it
was literature. As the textual analysis of various Bengali writers shows,
these attempts at reclaiming political power through representation
did not imagine ‘the Muslim’ in a positive light in its narrativist
schemata. Many such works of Bengali literature of the nineteenth
century, as discussed by Kaviraj and Chatterjee, portray Muslims as
outsiders and as a destructive force in Indian civilization.
Parallel to these historical and fictional works by Hindu writers is the
growth of modern historiography among Muslim writers. Aslam Syed’s
work gives an account of the beginnings of historical works written by
Muslims during the nineteenth century.15 In the aftermath of 1857,
13
Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘Imaginary History’, in Occasional Papers on History and Society
(New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 1988), p. 49.
14
Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial History
(New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 76.
15
Muhammad Aslam Syed, Muslim Response to the West: Muslim Historiography in
India, 1857–1914 (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research,
1988). Syed’s work is limited to detailing the specimens of the emerging field of
‘modern’ history writing in Urdu—that too in North India—immediately after 1857.
There is a need for a much larger project to delineate polyvalent representations
of the past in colonial India. These include the emerging fields of academic history
writing, ‘lay’ histories, popular understanding of history, and imagined and literary
reconstructions of the past, not just in Urdu but in other vernaculars as well. An
understanding of the interaction and contestation between academic history at a
larger stage and popular reception of history or the past through various means will
enable a fuller understanding of the complexities of politics and the changing tenor
of debates on such ideas as nation and community.
8 ALI USMAN QASMI
the works of such authors as Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Maulwi Chiragh Ali,
and Syed Ameer Ali showed an interest in Muslim history in general
rather than its Indian component. For Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Indian
history was significant only insofar as it could be used to show Muslim
loyalty towards British rule. In his other works, Sayyid Ahmad Khan,
like Chiragh Ali and Ameer Ali, was mainly concerned with the idea
of reform in Muslim society. These authors wrote on various themes
related to Islamic history—including Hadith studies, scholasticism,
and jurisprudence—to argue for a modernist interpretation of Islam so
as to bring about its conformity with the dictates of changing political
and intellectual environments. Of the historians of this period, Maulwi
Zaka Ullah (1832–1910) stands out as a prolific author who wrote a
voluminous history of India. Inspired by Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Zaka
Ullah too had a reformist streak and an unflinching loyalty to British
rule. In his multi-volume Tarikh-i-Hindustan, Ullah was all praise for
the virtues of British rule but he was also alert to the need to point
out the prejudices of European writers against Islam in general and
Muslim rule in India in particular.16 This description of historical
writings of Muslim authors during the late nineteenth century tallies
with Peter Hardy’s observation that ‘the interests of the western-
influenced Muslim intelligentsia in South Asia before the nineteen-
twenties were more Islamic than Indian and more religious than
historical’.17 This trend is further reflected in such examples as Altaf
Husain Hali’s (1837–1914) poetic lament over the plight of Muslims
and the histories and biographies written by Shibli Numani.
Among those who developed academic writing in Urdu, Shibli
Numani (1857–1914) is the most important. He was educated in
traditional modes of learning but acquired expertise in languages and
modern disciplines through his own efforts. After a long association
with Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Aligarh College (established
by Khan), Numani changed his orientation and opened his own
institution—the Nadwatul Ulama. It was designed to offer modern
as well as traditional modes of knowledge.
Numani was among the earliest Rankeans of India. He believed
in the ideas of quellenkritik, objectivity, and a dispassionate study of
history. Based on these principles, he wrote biographies of leading
16
Ibid., pp. 60–3.
17
Peter Hardy, ‘Modern Muslim Historical Writing on Medieval Muslim India’, in
C. H. Philips (ed.), Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon (London: Oxford University
Press, 1961), p. 296.
Muslim luminaries of yesteryear, including jurists, scientists, and
military conquerors. His magnum opus was a multi-volume biography
of Prophet Muhammad. During his lifetime, he would only finish the
first two volumes and the rest were completed by his able successor
Sayyid Suleman Nadwi (1884–1953). But the volumes Numani wrote
were extremely important as they laid down the conceptual basis
for the selection and sifting of historical material for writing about
the life and ideas of Prophet Muhammad. It was, therefore, an
attempt to combine modern academic standards of historical scrutiny
with reverence for the persona of the Prophet, as expressed in the
traditional hagiographical sources of information about him. Just as
some of the fictional and non-fictional works about the Indian past
glorify the pre-Muslim period of Indian civilization, the dominant
trend in Muslim historiography was set mainly by Numani as one of
nostalgia for a glorious Muslim past, its political expanse over large
parts of the globe, and achievements in the fields of sciences and
literature.
The first quarter of the twentieth century is significant not just
because of political mobilization and organization in the name of
Indian nationalism, but also because of the widespread practice,
with an accompanying sense of urgency, of the writing of academic
Indian history by Indians themselves as a means of acquiring political
subjectivity. Two factors seemed to have contributed towards this
impetus of history writing: first, the Report of the Royal Commission
on Public Records published in 1914 asked the Government of India to
manage the archival records in their possession and take measures for
its use by researchers.18 As a result of this change in policy in the case
of Punjab, for example, H. L. O. Garrett, a professor of history from
Government College Lahore was hired to arrange the records and
catalogue them properly. Secondly, the post-First World War period
coincided with the setting up of academic chairs and departments in
England, as well as in India, for the teaching of Indian history. The first
postgraduate department for the study of modern and medieval history
was established at the University of Calcutta in 1919, followed by
other universities in the 1920s and 1930s.19 During this same period,
the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,
became the preferred destination for Indian students desirous of doing
18
Chakrabarty, ‘The Birth of Academic Historical Writing in India’, p. 528.
19
Ibid., p. 523.
10 ALI USMAN QASMI
doctoral research on Indian history.20 The volumes of the Cambridge

History of India also appeared between 1922 and 1938; written mostly
by British scholars and administrators, this development was one of
the main reasons why Indians felt the need to acquire expertise in
scientific methods of historical research so as to write their own history.
The topics picked by this new breed of historians were varied as well.
Medieval history or pre-Muslim Indian civilization were not the only
focus of historians as—in the age of popular mobilizations for Indian
freedom—they were becoming increasingly interested in such themes
as the economic exploitation of colonialism and the Indian war of
independence in 1857.
As well as the classical Orientalist works of Elphinston, Elliot,
Stanley Poole, William Irvine, and Henry Beveridge, ‘modern’
academic historians such as W. H. Moreland and Vincent Smith who
wrote about the history of India also emerged. Among Indians, the
likes of Jadunath Sarkar, Ishwari Prasad, and C. Vaidiya became
prolific contributors to the field of Indian history. As pointed out
by Hardy, the parameters of academic history in India during the
early part of the twentieth century were now set by these historians.
Muslim historians were relatively new entrants to the field. It became
a lasting concern for them to challenge the historical works written
by English and Hindu writers, levelling accusations about its bias and
its perpetuation of misinformation about Muslim rule in India. The
best example of this can be seen in the form of Jadunath Sarkar’s
critical writings about the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb which were
meticulously researched and presented in an academic format. This
theme of British and Hindu bias—especially against Aurangzeb—
was repeatedly echoed in various conferences held and monographs
written after 1947 in which the alleged prejudices of the British and
the Hindus were pointed out and historians were urged to produce
‘authentic histories’.
The trend of writing ‘authentic histories’, free of bias and prejudice
about Muslim rule in India and its civilizational contribution, had
started well before it acquired an added political dimension in the
1940s. Given the prevalent dominance of certain historical ideas,
Muslim authors were reactive to the discourse already set. For
example, they had to focus on such figures as Mehmud of Ghazni
and events such as the destruction of the Hindu temple at Somnath,
20
Ibid., p. 527.
or Mughal kings and their policies, especially towards Sikh Gurus.
Hardy is, therefore, right to point out that the interest of Muslim
historians in the past was not purely academic.21 Modern Muslim
historiography was, as Hardy calls it, a form of Islamic apologetic.
Examples of such historians and their works include Dr Muhammad
Nazim’s The Life and Times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (1931), Zahir
ud-din Faruki’s Aurangzeb and His Times (1935), and Professor S. M.
Jaffar’s The Mughal Empire from Babur to Aurangzeb (1936),22 along with
the works of Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi and Sheikh Muhammad Ikram.
There were certain exceptions as well, such as Muhammad Habib’s
Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznin (1927), which does not glorify Mehmud of
Ghazna or try to put a spin on his successive invasions of India. K. M.
Ashraf, who resorted to a Marxist approach to understand the policies
of Mughal rulers in India, was another exception.
From this brief description of Muslim historiography in the first
half of the twentieth century it emerges that history as an academic
discipline had become an important source for defining Muslim
identity and projecting an image of the Muslim community in a
favourable light. This required developing a historical narrative
which, without compromising on the idea of imaginative history
as an empowering discourse, could paint Muslim rule in terms of
conformity to modern-day principles of rights and religious tolerance.
But with the passage of the Lahore Resolution in March 1940 and the
demand for the creation of a separate state of Pakistan, history had
to serve an added function for South Asian Muslims: it had to provide
the historical basis for a distinct Muslim community that justified
the argument for its separation from the rest of India’s religious
communities. Faisal Devji has argued that the concept of nation,
as developed by Jinnah, especially after March 1940, was simply a
negation of the minority without any positive content of its own.
According to him, Jinnah’s approach was purely legal as he sought
a new contractual arrangement between Hindus and Muslims, set
free from the burden of the past. This is because, in Devji’s reading
of Jinnah’s various statements, Hindus and Muslims were intimately
tied in history, and hence the ‘reason why he [i.e. Jinnah] wanted
21
Hardy, ‘Modern Muslim Historical Writing on Medieval Muslim India’, p. 307.
22
Peter Hardy, Historians of Medieval India: Studies in Indo-Muslim Historical Writing
(London: Luzac and Company Ltd, 1966), p. 11.
12 ALI USMAN QASMI
to free the Muslim nation from its own past’.23 This understanding
of Jinnah’s idea of history, coupled with the fact that the idea of
Pakistan was based on a negation of rootedness in blood and soil, leads
Devji to conclude that the idea of Pakistan was ahistorical. As this
section has shown, by the mid-twentieth century there was already
a rich historiographical tradition that focused on the history of the
Muslim community in India which had invariably enriched the content
of Muslim identarian politics as well.24 The limitations of Devji’s
argument lies in his lack of recognition of the prevalent discourses
about the idea of ‘Muslim history’ in India.25 Also, Devji insists on
reading Jinnah’s statements about the past as an acknowledgement of
the overlap between or intertwining of Hindus and Muslims in history,
rather than as a conscious effort on Jinnah’s part to invoke this past as
an idiom of conflict so as to support his case for a separate state, and
that of distinctness in matters of culture, traditions, religious beliefs,
and practices to claim separate nationhood.
Writing history in Pakistan
The demand for Pakistan, articulated politically, was based on a

historical narrative that was built around the centrality of the Muslim
community in India and its distinctness in terms of religious beliefs,
cultural traits, and historical traditions. History was, therefore, central
to the idea of Pakistan and its importance was not lost upon the
government and the intelligentsia of the newly created state. Also, in
23
Faisal Devji, Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (London: Hurst and Company,
2013), p. 97.
24
For a detailed discussion on the historical, cultural, and political development
of the idea of Muslim qaum (nation) from the late nineteenth to early twentieth
centuries, cf. Ali Usman Qasmi and Megan Eaton Robb, ‘Introduction’, in Ali Usman
Qasmi and Megan Eaton Robb (eds), Muslims Against the Muslim League: Critiques of the
Idea of Pakistan (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
25
Bajwa’s thesis offers a comprehensive survey of historical works produced during
the 1940s. Based on the predominant discourse about the Muslim past and produced
by the League supporters (which included academic historians like Ishtiaq Husain
Qureshi), these works incorporated the theme of the distinctiveness of Muslims to
justify the historical basis for the creation of Pakistan. It was, in other words, a
specific reading of history which emphasized conflict with Hindus and the invocation
of Muslim supremacy rather than a denial of history, which provided the historical—
in addition to geographical, cultural, economic, and religious—rationale for the
creation of Pakistan. For details, cf. Bajwa, ‘The Genealogy of Pakistan’s Nationalist
Historiography’, pp. 93–108.
the case of Pakistan the newness of statehood was more pronounced.
It was because India’s nomenclature and civilization had been known
globally for centuries. Pakistan was simply a new term coined by a
Cambridge-based Indian Muslim student Chaudhry Rehmat Ali in the
1930s which went on to become a rallying cry for those espousing an
independent homeland in the Muslim-majority areas of the northwest
and northeast of India. This difference between India and Pakistan
was not lost upon the leaders of the new state immediately after 1947
and led to ‘PR stunts’ aimed at projecting Pakistan as a distinct and
new nation-state with a rich civilization and history dating back to
antiquity. This task of introducing Pakistan and its rich civilization to
the world was performed by historians as well.
In the early years of Pakistan’s existence, members of the cabinet
included Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi (usually referred to as I. H.
Qureshi). Educated at St Stephens and with a doctorate in history
from the University of Cambridge, Qureshi established himself as
an accomplished scholar with the publication of his works on the
administrative structure of the Delhi sultanate and the Mughal
empire. He had an excellent command of the Persian language and
was thoroughly conversant with Indo-Muslim literary and cultural
traditions. Another important figure in those years was Sheikh
Muhammad Ikram (most often referred to as S. M. Ikram) who was
an officer in the Indian civil service. Though not trained as a historian,
Ikram had a similar knowledge of Persian and an appreciation for
its literary and cultural legacy in the region. Many other historians,
educated and trained at the Aligarh Muslim University and foreign
institutions of higher learning, also came to settle in Pakistan. This
includes Zawar Hussain Zaidi, Riaz-ul-Islam, and others. But the role
played and influence exercised by Qureshi and Ikram were more
pronounced because of their closeness to those in the circle of power
who made decisions.
It needs to be pointed out that even though some of the leading
historians were, at times, part of state-sponsored projects to write
Pakistan’s history, it does not necessarily follow that all their academic
works were produced at the behest of the state. This is especially
true for Qureshi and Ikram who provided the intellectual rigour
for the shaping of a historical discourse about Pakistan and the
history of the Muslim community in India. In doing so, Qureshi and
Ikram were not always following official dictates, though the academic
works they produced were always ideological in content and, hence,
co-opted for statist purposes. They were largely following their own
14 ALI USMAN QASMI
intellectual pursuits as well and genuinely believed in the distinctness

of the Muslim community, its religio-cultural exclusivity, and the
inevitability of Pakistan. It is, therefore, necessary to examine their
works as they provide insights into the master narrative and the
way it has been replicated in such statist projects as textbooks. It
is difficult to judge whether their works became the source of the
‘master narrative’ based solely on their scholarly credentials and the
depth of their academic work, without referring to the fact that they
were part of the closely knit circle of power in Pakistan during its early
years of independence.
One of the earliest examples of ‘presenting’ Pakistan to the world as
a modern nation-state with an ancient past is the book written by the
famous archaeologist R. E. M. Wheeler. The title of his book says it
all—5000 Years of Pakistan: An Archaeological Outline. Wheeler explained
the significance of the title in his introduction: ‘The title of this book
is a wilful paradox but contains a fundamental truth. Pakistan is a
new Islamic state but is, nevertheless, like its older neighbours, a
product of historical processes of which Islam itself is only the most
recent and emphatic.’26 Other similar projects were sponsored and
published in the 1950s. This includes the volume edited by S. M. Ikram
and Percival Spear, The Cultural Heritage of Pakistan.27 Ikram mentions
in the acknowledgements that this book was originally planned by the
Department of Advertising, Films and Publications of the Government
of Pakistan. It has chapters on Pakistan’s archaeology, architecture,
painting, music, regional literature, and spiritual heritage. I. H.
Qureshi’s The Pakistani Way of Life was part of the ‘Way of Life
Series . . . prepared under the auspices of the International Studies
Conference, on the request and with the financial assistance of
U.N.E.S.C.O.’.28 It also sheds light on Pakistan’s antiquity and the
‘modern’ aspects of its life and culture.
Immediately after the creation of Pakistan on 17 August 1947,
an article by Abdullah Qureshi appeared in a newspaper in which
he emphasized the need to revise the history curriculum. Qureshi
talked about the biases of both Hindu and British historians who,
according to him, had purposefully maligned the reputation of Muslim
26
R. E. M. Wheeler, 5000 Years of Pakistan: An Archaeological Outline (Karachi: Royal
Book Company, 1992; first published in 1950), p. 11.
27
S. M. Ikram and T. G. P. Spear, The Cultural Heritage of Pakistan (London: Oxford
University Press, 1955).
28
Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, The Pakistani Way of Life (London: William Heinemann
Ltd., 1957).
rulers and undermined their achievements. Since the examiners in
the universities were mostly Hindus, said Qureshi, Muslims had no
option but to abuse their Muslim heroes to score higher marks.29
Coinciding with these demands for a focus on Muslim history was the
setting up of a professional historians’ forum—the Pakistan Historical
Society—and its annual All Pakistan History Conference. Convened
by S. Moinul Haq for the first time in 1951, it continued to be held
for many decades.30 Though it lost its significance in later decades,
in the 1950s it was accorded a lot of importance. The proceedings of
the conference were covered on the front pages of the major English
dailies and leading Pakistani politicians delivered keynote addresses at
its meetings. This includes Khawaja Nazim-ud-Din who inaugurated
the first conference while he was the governor general of Pakistan.
I. I. Chundrigar, the governor of Punjab at that time, delivered the
keynote address at its second annual meeting. The first president of
Pakistan Iskandar Mirza also addressed its annual meeting in 1956.
The Pakistan Historical Society, through its annual conferences and
research publications, promoted the writing of history through the
lens of ‘Islamic ideology’. At the first conference, for example, held in
1951, there were only two sessions: the first on Islamic history and the
second on the history of the subcontinent, along with an exhibition
of Islamic art and artefacts. In his keynote address at the first All
Pakistan History Conference, Nazim-ud-Din reiterated the problem
of historical distortions. The history written and taught at schools and
colleges to Muslim students during the colonial period, he said, either
ignored Islamic history or presented it in a biased manner with the
result that ‘[t]heir hearts were empty of any feelings of pride in the
achievements of their ancestors because they were ignorant of them’.31
29
Qureshi also referred to the disproportionate significance given to the brief period
of Sikh rule in the region. Considerable supervised research was being conducted in
the universities on the Sikh period, lamented Qureshi, even though the period was
marked by destruction of mosques and widespread violence. Muhammad Abdullah
Qureshi, ‘Nisab-i-Tarikh aur Tarmim ki Zarurat’, in Dr Mubarak Ali, Tarikh aur
Nisabi Kutub (Lahore: Tarikh Publications, 2016), pp. 172–6.
30
For a history of the Pakistan Historical Society and its contributions, cf. Dr
S. Moinul Haq, ‘Historical Studies in Pakistan with Special Reference to the Role
of Pakistan History Society (A Brief Survey)’, Paper presented at the National
Conference on History and Culture, Islamabad, 3–5 July 1980. Since its inception in
1950, and within a span of 30 years, the Society published about 70 monographs and
held 17 annual conferences. The Society’s monthly journal continues to be published
to this day.
31
Dr S. Moinul Haq (ed.), The Proceedings of the All Pakistan History Conference: First
Session Held at Karachi, 1951 (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, circa 1952), p. 7.
16 ALI USMAN QASMI
The main task for Pakistani historians was, therefore, to produce an

authentic and authoritative account of Muslim history in the region
and of the circumstances leading to the establishment of Pakistan. To
this end, the annual conference passed resolutions to seek funds from
the central government. In 1952, Fazlur Rahman, Pakistan’s educa-
tion minister, set up a board of historians ‘to prepare an authentic His-
tory of the Freedom Movement of Muslims in the Indo-Pakistan sub-
continent covering the period from the death of Emperor Awrangzeb in
1707 to the establishment of Pakistan in 1947’.32 It was to be chaired
by Dr Mahmud Husain, minister for Kashmir affairs, and its members
included I. H. Qureshi, minister for refugees and rehabilitation;
Professor A. B. A. Haleem, vice-chancellor of Karachi University, and
Sayyid Suleman Nadwi. The committee thus constituted was noted
in the official gazette as well. The bias in favour of a North Indian
Muslim aristocratic and intellectual elite in the membership of the
committee is evident. After Nadwi’s untimely death in 1953, the board
was reconstituted to include S. M. Ikram; M. B. Ashraf who, like Ikram,
was also an officer from Pakistan’s civil service; Dr A. Halim, professor
of history at the University of Dhaka, and Dr Muhammad Nazim.33
The first volume in the planned series was published in 1957. By
the time the second volume appeared in 1960, the project had been
wrapped up. Subsequent volumes were published under the auspices
of the Pakistan Historical Society from 1970 onwards.34
The issue of rectifying historical biases and prejudices was repeatedly taken up during
the 1950s. In his address, Iskandar Mirza, too, talked about the need ‘to re-evaluate
the history of Muslims in Indo-Pakistan sub-continent and rescue it from inaccuracies
and prejudices which have developed around it either through ignorance on our part
or by the design of others’. Dr S. Moinul Haq (ed.), The Proceedings of the Pakistan History
Conference (Sixth Session) Held at Karachi under the Auspices of the Pakistan Historical Society
1956 (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1959), p. 29.
32
Pakistan Historical Society, A History of the Freedom Movement (Being the Story of
Muslim Struggle for the Freedom of Hind-Pakistan) 1707–1947. Vol. I: 1707–1831 (Delhi:
Renaissance Publishing House, 1984; first published in 1957), p. vii.
33
Ibid.
34
S. Moinul Haq, ‘Preface’, in Pakistan Historical Society, A History of the Freedom
Movement. Vol. IV: 1936–1947. Parts I and II (Delhi: Renaissance Publishing House,
1984; first published 1970), p. v. The introduction for Volume I was written by I. H.
Qureshi and was an earlier version of a similar narrative which appeared in a more
systematic manner in his book The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent,
which is discussed later in this article. Qureshi blamed Akbar’s policies of religious
eclecticism for weakening the bonds of solidarity among Muslims based on adherence
to Islam. The result was that Muslim political authority was not anchored in Islam,
thus weakening the bonds of religious solidarity that were required for effective
governance of the empire. Since the series was focused on the freedom movement,
Even before the publication of the first volume in this series, another
work—produced under official tutelage and commissioned specifically
for the purposes of writing an ‘authentic’ history of the subcontinent—
was published in 1955. A Short History of Hind-Pakistan was produced
by the Pakistan History Board which comprised Mahmud Husain, I.
H. Qureshi, A. B. A. Haleem, A. Halim, M. B. Ahmad (an officer of
Pakistan’s civil service), and S. Moinul Haq. Contributors included
A. Halim, A. H. Dani, Riazul Islam, S. M. Jaffar, S. M. Ikram, S.
Moinul Haq, M. H. Siddiqi, and R. E. M. Wheeler, among others. In
his foreword to the book, Rahman re-emphasized the importance of
history—or the rewriting of history—for the nation-building project,
especially where society was being raised based on an ideology.35
This book was, therefore, the first specimen of a master narrative
of history which has since been reproduced, with some revisions, in
Pakistan in officially sponsored histories, biographies, and textbooks,
and promoted through the availability of selective information in the
archives, libraries, and institutes of cultural and historical research.
It focuses on all the issues that have been relevant to the shaping of a
Muslim identity in the twentieth century. This involves such questions
as: what is the history of Islam in India? What have Islam as a religion
and Muslims as a civilizational force contributed to Indian society and
religion? How do we evaluate the role of Muslim monarchs in the
region? Is it possible to ‘own’ the history of the pre-modern era as
a period of glorious achievements for nation-building purposes while
adjusting it to the requirements of the modern state?
The first, most noticeable, thing about this book is its title,
which uses the term ‘Hind-Pakistan’ instead of ‘South Asia’ or ‘sub-
continent’. This reflected a concern on the part of the Pakistani
intelligentsia which, after giving up on the heartland of ‘high culture’
of Muslim civilization in North India in exchange for an independent
homeland, still extended civilizational claims to the region through
the use of such terms. In many ways, this book follows the pattern set
by historical works written during the colonial period. It starts off with
a chapter on the geography of the region and its relevance to the course
the reference to the Mughal dynasty was cursory. Despite the obvious ideological
bias of the project, the chapters in this volume, especially on the various regions
comprising Pakistan, were written in a scholarly manner that cited a wide array of
Persian sources.
35
Pakistan History Board, A Short History of Hind-Pakistan (Karachi: Pakistan
Historical Society, 1960), p. iv.
18 ALI USMAN QASMI
of historical events which had unfolded since antiquity. This is followed

by chapters on the pre-historic period, Indus valley civilization, Aryan
invasion, Greeks, Mauryas, Guptas, and so on. There is even a separate
chapter on the ‘Neo-Hinduism’ of the South and the dynasties of
Cholas, Pallavas, and Chalukyas.
It does not try to skip over the ‘Hindu part’ of the history nor to
hide it under the broad cover of Aryan history. It describes the Vedas,
the Mahabharta, and the Gita in general terms without any negative
criticism and it does not gloss over the cultural achievements of the
pre-Muslim period. About the Gupta period, for example, it says: ‘The
Gupta Age marked the culmination of ancient Indian culture. It was a
period of great development in art, sciences and literature, as well as in
contacts with the outside world.’36 It does, however, refer to the caste
system and devotes a chapter to Buddhism and Jainism, described as
a revolt against this rigid classification and oppression.
The book’s appraisal of Islam and Muslim rulers is almost uncritical.
This can be seen from its description of figures like Mehmud of
Ghazna and Aurangzeb, and the defence, or even glorification, of
some of their actions, which had become contentious since the
advent of academic historical research in India. The book describes
the Somnath expedition of the eleventh century as ‘an outstanding
military feat in the annals of Islam’ whose success ‘sent a thrill of joy
through the Islamic world’, with the Caliph responding with delight by
conferring the title of sultan upon Mehmud.37 The book could easily
have described the event of Somnath without eulogizing it, but it
deliberately adds descriptions of appreciation in line with the idea of a
distinct Muslim identity or Muslim nationalism as established by the
two-nation theory. In his presidential address on the historic occasion
of the Lahore resolution in March 1940, Jinnah is reported to have
said: ‘It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans (Muslims) derive
their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different
epics, different heroes, and different episodes. Very often the hero
of one is a foe of the other and, likewise, their victories and defeats
overlap.’38 Mehmud’s invasion and victory is the best example of such
a historical conflict between heroes and villains.
36
Ibid., p. 71.
37
Ibid., p. 108.
38
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, ‘Presidential address by Muhammad Ali Jinnah to
the Muslim League Lahore, 1940’, Columbia University: http://www.columbia.
edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_jinnah_lahore_1940.html, [accessed 31
August 2018].
The egalitarian spirit of Islam and the liberatory role it played
is juxtaposed with an essentialized description of Hinduism as an
oppressive religion. The Hindus in the Sultanate period, the book
claims, were treated justly and even generously.39 This tallies with
another requirement of the post-colonial state envisaged in Pakistan
during the period and highlighted on numerous occasions in speeches
and articles by its education minister Fazlur Rehman—the need to
safeguard minority rights within the framework of an Islamic state.
But, at the same time, this vision sets limits on the rights of minorities
and their rule or influence in a Muslim-dominated state. Therefore,
the rule of Akbar—where non-Muslims enjoyed coveted positions and
attempts were made to efface differences between Muslim and Hindu
subjects of the emperor—did not serve as the role model for the
determination of minority rights in Pakistan. Akbar’s ‘religious policy’
was either not invoked in debates relating to minority rights in the
speeches made by the main ideologues of the Pakistani intelligentsia,
or it was outright criticized and held responsible for Muslim political
decline in the textbooks and research works written under official
patronage. The tone for this trend was set by this book, which describes
Akbar’s actions as a deviation from orthodoxy under the influence of
spiritual ideas prevailing at the time (such as the Bhakti movement).
His renunciation of the project of Din-i-Ilahi, which was an attempt to
bring the various religious elements in the Mughal kingdom closer to
each other, and its failure, led the authors of the book to conclude that
‘in spite of all these efforts the two nations—Hindus and Muslims—
never merged into one’.40
Since Pakistan was overwhelmingly a Muslim-majority state, it was
no longer considered necessary to accord respect to different religions
or religious personalities other than that of Islam. Also, since Pakistani
nationhood was being shaped exclusively around the centrality of Islam
and detachment from Indian territory, the classical Hindu texts and
its revered figures did not fit into a historical narrative that explained
the history of Pakistan and its nation. Therefore, in a departure from
the tradition set during the colonial period in which Shri Ram, Prophet
Muhammad, and Sikh Gurus were to be mentioned with due respect,
A Short History of Hind-Pakistan takes a different stance on the issue
of conflict between the Mughal rulers and the Sikh Gurus. About the
39
Pakistan History Board, A Short History of Hind-Pakistan, p. 182.
40
Ibid., p. 220.
20 ALI USMAN QASMI
episode of the brutal killing of Guru Tegh Bahadur under Aurangzeb,

the book says:
He joined hands with a Muslim, named Hafiz-ud-Din and supported by a
body of armed mendicants, committed the most violent depredations on the
peace-abiding inhabitants of the Punjab. Hence the Emperor issued orders
for the suppression of this campaign of lawlessness and the destruction of the
Guru’s agents and their strongholds. Tegh Bahadur was ultimately captured
and brought to the Court, where he was executed as a rebel against the
state.41
But this writ-of-the-state argument could not be made so explicitly

when it came to the regions and the heroes of present-day Pakistan.
Khushhal Khan Khatak was an obvious example. He was one of the
rebels—other than Sikhs and Marathas—against whom Aurangzeb
had fought a protracted battle. The narrative about rebellion is non-
committal in making a value judgement about the actions of the
emperor or even of the rebel chief. It simply concludes by saying: ‘The
Khatak chief, Khushhal Khan, however, continued the war single-
handed for some time. In the end he was captured by the Mughals as a
result of his betrayal by his own son.’42 This clearly shows an attempt
on the part of historians to present a model of a modern Islamic state:
fair (not equal) treatment of minorities, patronage of arts and culture,
and the rule of law as shown by the justification of the killing of a Guru
as well as a Muslim rebel. Such an idea about the state resonates in
the assessment of the rule and character of Aurangzeb as well. The
book says:
Aurangzib has been criticised by some non-Muslim writers for his alleged
intolerance of Hinduism. This is not borne out by the facts. He himself
clearly stated his policy in many letters in which he refused to discriminate
against public servants because of their religion. So long as a person was loyal
to the state he had nothing to fear from the monarch.43
The book is largely uncritical in its coverage of the British period.

While it talks about various religious and cultural movements, not
a single labour movement nor peasant uprising is mentioned. This
became typical of the textbooks and historical works produced in
Pakistan at this time as they tended to focus almost exclusively on
the evolution of a Muslim community during the colonial period. Like
41
Ibid., pp. 241–2.
42
Ibid., p. 245.
43
Ibid., p. 253.
other books that followed, A Short History of Hind-Pakistan is more anti-
Hindu in tone than anti-British or anti-colonial.
The book suggested that British rule and ideas influenced and
transformed Hinduism alone:
The caste-ridden Hindu society was profoundly influenced during the
nineteenth century by contact with the West. The English liberal movement,
which condemned slavery and gave religious freedom to the Catholics, and
the vigorous missionary propaganda in the sub-continent which resulted in
the conversion to Christianity of a large number of Hindus, especially the
lower classes, produced reactions.44
It then gave the examples of Brahmo Samaj, Prarthana Samaj, Arya
Samaj, the Ramakrishna Mission, and the Harijan movement. The
Muslim reform movements mentioned in the book are mainly pre-
colonial (such as Shah Wali Ullah) or pre-1857 (such as the Faraizi
movement of Bengal). Only Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s Aligarh movement
is mentioned and described as an attempt to encourage Muslims
to adopt English education in order to secure government jobs and
escape the economic woes that had befallen them in the wake of the
1857 revolt.
Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi as the ideologue of Pakistani history
The Pakistan Historical Society and its annual conference, despite the
official patronage it received during the early 1950s, did not become
the most influential forum to shape the discourse of history in Pakistan.
A lasting impact was made by Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, not just
because of his scholarly credentials, but also because of his proximity
to policymakers and power elites. Qureshi served as a minister during
the 1950s and later as chairperson of government institutes and vice-
chancellor of Karachi University.
Qureshi started publishing his works prior to 1947.45 He was a
trained historian who was interested in political, social, and religious
history. His idea was to furnish a historically thorough account of the
44
Ibid., p. 411.
45
For an excellent descriptive overview of the life and works of Ikram and Qureshi—
along with Aziz Ahmed—cf. Huma Ghaffar, ‘Pakistan men Tarikh Nigari ka Tajziyati
Mutala‘a (1947 ta 1975): Khasusan ba-hawala Aziz Ahmed, S. M. Ikram aur I. H.
Qureshi’, PhD thesis, University of Karachi, 2007. For details of the life and works of
I. H. Qureshi, cf. Nasib Akhtar, ‘Dr. Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi ke Tarikhi, Siyasi aur
Ta‘limi Afkar’, PhD thesis, University of Karachi, 1989.
22 ALI USMAN QASMI
history of the Muslim community in the subcontinent and the battles it

had to fight to sustain its power, as well as identity, within a diverse and
heterogeneous society. Muslims in the subcontinent were the focus of
his attention and Islam, for him, was a set of sociopolitical, not just
religious, ideals that shaped the world views of Muslims. The historical
narrative thus constructed by Qureshi traced the linear development
of political events in which successive generations of rulers, scholars,
Sufis, and the masses were shown to be striving towards the socio-
political and religious development of the Muslim community. The far
end of this linear progression culminated in the establishment of the
Muslim homeland of Pakistan, where the egalitarian socio-economic
order under sovereign political authority was actualized.
Qureshi was clear in his concept of using history for the purposes of
nation building. The political contingency of strategic interests further
impacted on his approach towards history. As Pakistan was a signatory
to the American-led Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO),
which included member states from Southeast Asia, Qureshi moulded
his writings accordingly, for example, for an audience in Thailand. In a
lecture series sponsored by SEATO, Qureshi talked about Buddhism’s
rich legacy in Pakistan. He said:
As a matter of fact, we ourselves have only recently been rediscovering our
Buddhist past. We look upon it as a part of our history and we are proud of
it. A measure of that pride, perhaps, you can see from the fact that we have
a little documentary film to show to our own people and to people in other
countries what a glorious past we had in the realm of art contributed by our
Buddhist ancestors and forefathers.46
Qureshi used the opportunity to talk about oppressive Brahmanical
forms of Hinduism which made it difficult for Buddhist culture and
religion to survive, and the points of congruence between Islam and
Buddhism as a result of which Buddhists either voluntarily converted
to Islam or simply enjoyed the benefits of a more peaceful life under
tolerant Muslim rulers.
Qureshi did not have any qualms about using history for ideological
purposes, which we see clearly laid out in his address to the annual
history conference as well. It is not merely through geographical
proximity, he said, that a feeling of oneness is created: it is history that
makes nations. If the historical triumphs or failures of one group create
46
I. H. Qureshi, Aspects of the History, Culture and Religions of Pakistan: A Series of Lectures
by Dr. Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi (Bangkok, Thailand: Southeast Asia Treaty Organization,
1963), p. 15. (Emphasis added.)
opposite feelings in another group, the historical project of moulding
people into one nation cannot be accomplished. This was evident,
he said, from the recent experience of Hindus and Muslims and
their mutual contestations regarding the events and interpretations of
history. Therefore, it was important ‘to instil a sense of a common past
among a people if it is to be moulded into a well-integrated nation with
loyalties seated within the deepest recesses of the heart. This process
need not be a falsification of history; it can be its discovery.’47 It is
with this vision and motive that Qureshi penned his most important
work, The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent (610–
1947), which was first published in 1962. It was written during his
visiting professorship at Columbia University after the dissolution of
the Constituent Assembly in 1954 of which he was a member and a
cabinet minister.48
Qureshi achieves the objective of national cohesion by writing about
the historical evolution of the Muslim community in the subcontinent
and its organic unity. Such a conceptualization required putting
Muslims outside the frame of Indian society and its religious and
cultural traditions. In all of Qureshi’s writings, therefore, Islam is
depicted as foreign to India, with Muslims needing to be constantly
vigilant about their distinct identity and struggling against any
attempt towards assimilation. This is evident from the title of the
very first chapter of his book—‘Islam enters the subcontinent’. This is
followed by the second chapter ‘Islam gains a foothold in the North-
West’, and the third chapter entitled ‘Islam spreads into other areas’.49
As pointed out, Qureshi’s histories had two main concerns: the
externality of Islam in the subcontinent and Muslim consciousness
of this fact from the very beginning. The rest were mere details about
how the Muslim communities organized themselves in various regions
during different time periods, always striving to maintain a distinct
identity. As Satish Chandra has rightly pointed out, the idea of the
47
I. H. Qureshi, ‘Presidential Address’, in Dr S. Moinul Haq (ed.), The Proceedings
of the Pakistan History Conference (Eighth Session) Held at Peshawar under the Auspices of the
Pakistan Historical Society (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1961), pp. 23–4. In
later writing, he cited the statement of a leader from Ghana: ‘We created Ghana,’
said a political leader of that country, ‘now the university should create Ghanaians.’
I. H. Qureshi, Education in Pakistan: An Inquiry into Objectives and Achievements (Karachi:
Bureau of Composition, Compilation and Translation, University of Karachi, 1999),
p. 124.
48
Dr. Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi Yadgari Mujalla (Karachi: Dr Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi
Academy, 1986), p. 30.
49
Ibid.
24 ALI USMAN QASMI
essentially foreign nature of Indo-Muslim culture and the emphasis on

a distinctive Muslim character as the only way of saving the community
from absorption into Hinduism led ‘Qureshi to the conclusion that
Islam in the Indian context could survive only by maintaining the
political domination of the Muslims over the Hindus’. For Qureshi,
‘the entire history of the Muslims in India is viewed as merely a
prelude to the establishment of Pakistan. This is “determinism” with
a vengeance.’50 Nevertheless, such a historical narrative inevitably
served the agenda of history writing for a post-colonial nation-state
seeking a historical basis for the continuous existence of a united
nation and sense of a distinct national identity.
The processes whereby such unity came into existence are located by
Qureshi in two forces: religion and a centralized political authority—
the twin cardinal principles that were being developed as the basis
of a Pakistani identity and nationalism. Such unity, claimed Qureshi,
was inherent to the very structure of Islam. This was because Islam
enjoined performance of certain rituals upon its believers. This
requirement found an expression in the organization of the community
and the state which made the establishment of the state a canonical
necessity and not just a matter of political expediency.51 Other
than the inevitability of organizing a Muslim community under the
authority of the state, another distinguishing feature was the essential
unity of this community superseding any linguistic or regional biases.
This feature was even more pronounced in case of the Muslims in the
subcontinent who ‘had only one name for their community prior to the
establishment of Pakistan and that was “Muslims”’.52 Whenever they
had to refer to themselves as distinct from the Muslims of other lands,
they called themselves ‘Muslims of India’ rather than choosing the
appellation ‘Indian Muslims’.53 Later in the book, Qureshi observes:
The Muslims of the subcontinent emerged as a distinct entity because they
developed a separate culture and well-defined aims and ideals; they were a
part of the large mass of the Muslim peoples of the world, fully conscious of
this fact and attaching the highest importance to it, but they formed a well-
defined group within the brotherhood of Islam; they belonged to a habitat
which affected their tastes and manners, but with which they refused to
50
Satish Chandra, Historiography, Religion and State in Medieval India (New Delhi:
Har-Anand Publications, 2001), pp. 47–8.
51
I. H. Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent (610–1947)
(New Delhi: Renaissance Publishing House, 1998; first published 1962), pp. 89–90.
52
Ibid., pp. 91–2.
53
Ibid., p. 92.
identify themselves so completely as to lose their distinctive qualities; they
were a people living, as it were, in two worlds; one was that of their immediate
surroundings and the other was the world of the sources of inspiration which
sustained their spiritual existence.54
In this way, Qureshi—while emphasizing historically continuous
‘Muslimness’—also argues for its rootedness in its subcontinental
habitat to conciliate it with the borders of the modern nation-state
of Pakistan. This distinction between the wider Muslim world and the
Muslim subcontinent had to be constantly adjusted in Qureshi’s text
to differentiate the pan-Islamic ideals of Ummah and the compulsions
of a nation-state.
Other than the cementing factor of Islam, Qureshi was not averse
to emphasizing the role played by the fear and anxiety that Muslims
felt as a minority community. This served two purposes in his text.
First, it clearly explained the rationale for the creation of Pakistan
as a definitive solution to allay the minority anxiety of the Muslim
community. Second, it helped him to view the problem of Akbar’s
legacy of Hindu-Muslim rapprochement as detrimental since the
minority rule of Muslims required constant vigilance—especially
of their communitarian boundaries—which Akbar’s conciliatory
measures were trying to efface. This second purpose requires greater
description as it revolves around the methodology whereby, according
to Qureshi, Muslims had been able to survive as a minority while
maintaining their individuality.
In Qureshi’s understanding, Hinduism had sponge-like charac-
teristics that were its best defence mechanism as it enabled it
to absorb influences thus ensuring its survival when circumstances
changed, without altering its essence. Muslims, on the other hand,
were committed to preserving their individuality. It was the interplay
between these two antagonistic instincts, says Qureshi, that marked
the Hindu-Muslim relationship in the subcontinent in a major way.55
Qureshi describes the dialectics of this interaction by using the
concepts of heterodoxy and orthodoxy.
Qureshi equates the term heterodoxy with what he saw as certain
‘deviant’ forms of Sufism. I say deviant because, according to Qureshi,
major Sufi orders were observant of Islamic beliefs and practices. In
tracing the origins of mystic practices, Qureshi notes that early Sufis
made no effort to develop a theoretical doctrinal basis as theirs was a
54
Ibid., p. 112.
55
Ibid., p. 137.
26 ALI USMAN QASMI
practical and not a theoretical creed. The later mystics, however, tried
to rationalize their experience, which marked the beginning of diffi-
culties since ‘in its essence mystic experience is incapable of discussion
and can be expressed only through symbols’.56 But the major cause
for ‘heresy’ was the Sufi emphasis on the spirit rather than the form
of religion; this released the burden of attachment to any particular
religious ideal by treating all religions on par with one other. This
was why some of the ‘heterodox Sufis’ believed in metamorphosis, in-
carnation, and pure immanence, while the ‘orthodox school of Sufism’
tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to oppose them and contest these ideas.57
While such ideas threatened to dilute the communitarian boundaries
at the popular level, as when they received imperial patronage under
Akbar, they became an existential threat for the sustainability of a
distinct Muslim community. It was in these circumstances that the
figure of Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi emerged and deservedly took the
title of mujaddid or revivalist of faith as he successfully countered the
philosophical and theological challenge of Monism.58
The threat of heterodoxy was revived with the emergence of Dara
Shikoh as the favourite contender for the Mughal throne. In fact,
the threat posed by Dara Shikoh was greater as he was, unlike
Akbar, a competent scholar with a systematic thought pattern.59 The
orthodoxy, therefore, pinned all its hope on Aurangzeb. But even with
such a devotional ruler, to enthrone orthodoxy in the position from
which it had been dislodged was not possible as dissenting elements
had become too powerful. Such a ‘simple matter’ as the ‘demolition
of a few unauthorized temples’ and the reimposition of jizya merely
created an illusion of the revival of orthodoxy. The abortive attempts
at the revival of orthodoxy and its reinstatement to a position of
authority exposed the moral crisis of the state, eventually leading
to the disintegration of the empire. Qureshi observes:
It would be wrong to blame orthodoxy for the disaster; indeed it should be
given credit for endeavours to stem the tide. The reasons for the decline
and fall of the Muslim Empire were complex and multifarious; orthodoxy,
56
Ibid., p. 144.
57
Ibid., pp. 147–8.
58
Ibid. Such movements as Bhakti and ideas such as Wahdat-ul-Wujud (Unity of
Being) and the potential blurring of boundaries because of lack of understanding
among common Muslims has been studied in greater detail by Qureshi: see I. H.
Qureshi, Ulema in Politics: A Study in the Political Activities of the Ulema in the South-Asian
Subcontinent from 1556 to 1947 (New Delhi: Renaissance Publishing House, 1985).
59
Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent, p. 179.
however, shares the blame with other sections of Indian Islam for its failure
to identify itself with the other sects in an effort to save the heritage of the
Muslims from collapse. At that time it was difficult for orthodoxy to realize
that its interests could be different from the general welfare of Islam or for
the dissidents to understand that orthodoxy was basically trying to fight the
battle of Islam.60
If heterodoxy, in Qureshi’s work, was equated with certain forms of

Sufism which he considered as lacking in rigid observance of Islam’s
doctrinal purity, orthodoxy, as can be inferred from the statement
quoted above, represented not only the internal consistency of the
Muslim community but also the tenacity of its political authority. If
certain groups of Sufis represented heterodoxy, orthodoxy could be
identified with Shariat-observant Sufis and ulema who, in Qureshi’s
assessment, played a vital role in building up a Muslim community in
India and ensured its distinct identity.
The master narrative in the 1960s
By the late 1950s, after the imposition of martial law, Qureshi

had been approached by the military regime to help draft a new
education policy. He therefore returned to Pakistan where he quickly
became involved in various projects seeking the transformation of
Pakistan into a ‘modern Islamic state’ that fitted the vision of General
Ayub Khan, the military ruler of Pakistan. Ayub Khan’s decade-
long rule saw many major reforms being undertaken. Like any other
strict disciplinarian from a military background, Ayub Khan had
a vision of authority and power that emanated from the centre.
Such centralized authority required a singular idea of nationhood as
well. To materialize it, the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB)
was established to initiate major reforms, invite proposals, and set
up commissions to probe issues relating to education, curriculum,
national language, and script, among other things.61 In January 1965,
60
Ibid., p. 181.
61
The process of textbook production was also centralized in Pakistan during
Ayub Khan’s regime. Previously, the Education Department, continuing the policy
established during the British period, could select textbooks prepared by scholars
and published by private publishers. After the establishment of the West Pakistan
Textbook Board in 1962 (later renamed the Punjab Textbook Board in 1971), the
process was changed. The textbook board could appoint a committee of experts to
write a textbook in accordance with the syllabus set by the appropriate board or ask
28 ALI USMAN QASMI
a committee comprising eminent historians was constituted. They

were to serve as the editorial board that would be responsible for
the writing of an authoritative account of the history of Pakistan.
Unlike A History of Hind-Pakistan, this venture was to receive direct
official support and was meant to be a more rigorous academic work
for students as well as scholars. Members of the committee included
S. M. Sharif, I. H. Qureshi, S. M. Ikram, A. R. Mallick, A. H.
Dani, Abdur Rashid, Waheed-uz-Zaman, and Muniruddin Chughtai,
among several others. A Short History of Pakistan was published by the
University of Karachi and comprised four volumes, with I. H. Qureshi
serving as its general editor. Each volume was to be written by a
different author or group of authors. To ensure internal consistency
in the text, the committee developed a conceptual note.
The name of the cabinet file containing these proposals is revealing
and self-explanatory: ‘Compilation of Books on (i) the need for a strong
centre and (ii) the history of Muslims in East Pakistan’. This was in
line with Ayub Khan’s vision of the centralization of authority through
the promotion of a sense of national unity.
In the committee discussions, the members noted that since the book
was going to be brief—just 650 pages long—the emphasis would be on
the present-day regions of Pakistan. Other parts of the subcontinent
were not to warrant detailed coverage. For example, in the case of
South India, the committee suggested that attention should only be
paid to Muslim settlements and dynasties ‘whose achievements in
the field of culture contributed to the mainstream of the Culture
and Civilisation of the people of Pakistan’.62 In the name of making
history contemporaneous with regional and world developments, it was
suggested that ‘emphasis should be laid on the contiguous countries
to the North West and in case of East Pakistan the role of that part of
Pakistan in the South territories as a bridge between India and South
East Asia’.63
for manuscripts to be submitted through open bidding. Raja Rashid Ahmad (ed.),
Nisabi Kutub: Tadvin se Taba‘at Tak (Lahore: Punjab Textbook Board, 1974), p. 67.
There have been numerous changes since then; the most important and recent has
come with the passage of the 2010 Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution of
Pakistan whereby education has been devolved to the provinces.
62
‘Compilation of Books on (i) the need for a strong centre and (ii) the history of
Muslims in East Pakistan’, National Documentation Centre (Pakistan), (CF/35/65),
p. 6.
63
Ibid.
The main task before the committee was to establish the history
of Pakistan as distinct from that of India. Recent historical works,
the committee said, ‘deal with the history of the sub-continent as one
unit and treat the history of Pakistan as having branched off from the
main stream of historical developments in the area. [The] [h]istory of
Pakistan, thereby, is relegated to a position of secondary importance
and is in the process dwarfed.’64 This marks the beginning of the
process whereby the use of the term ‘Indo-Pakistan subcontinent’ or
‘Hind-Pak’ was discouraged, although this was not stated explicitly
by the committee. The vision underlying this change was that only
by disengaging from the subcontinent could Pakistan have a history
distinct from that of India or a narrative that was not centred on
India. This was why the committee, in its guidelines for authors,
made suggestions such as emphasizing the importance of Mehmud’s
attempts to ‘incorporate the Punjab into his kingdom with a definite
purpose’.65 Mehmud’s empire did not extend far into areas of post-
1947 India, but the fact that a major chunk of territory of present-day
Pakistan was tied up with a dynasty based in present-day Afghanistan
meant that a disconnect with the history and geography of India could
be argued for. In a similar vein, the process of the expansion of power
or invading armies—whether of Muslims or non-Muslims—was to be
explained as a movement from the northwest or northeast to other
parts of India. The conquest of India was to be interpreted ‘as the
eastward expansion of West Pakistan and the westward expansion
of East Pakistan’.66 For example, the Indus valley civilization, Aryan
invasion, and the ancient great kingdoms started from the northwest
and ultimately made their influence felt in the east as well. Similarly, it
was from East Pakistan that the kingdom of Sasanka and the rulers of
the Pala and Sena dynasty moved to North India to conquer the upper
Gangetic valley.67 This showed the thrust of movement from northwest
and northeast, that is, West and East Pakistan rather than India, thus
establishing the importance of a region that comprised Pakistan as
the centre of historical developments in South Asia rather than tying
it (in a subordinated manner) to the history of India or the Indian-
subcontinent. However, it was not just Islam but non-Muslim invaders
as well that served the purpose of showing the timeless territorial
64
Ibid., p. 10.
65
Ibid., p. 7.
66
Ibid., p. 12.
67
Ibid.
30 ALI USMAN QASMI
integrity of West and East Pakistan, their congruity of purpose, and

distinctness from the landmass of India. Thus, state precedes nation,
even though the Pakistan movement was projected by Muslim League
ideologues as the realization of statehood by Muslims which had always
existed as a separate nation.
The new narrative proposed by the committee envisaged East and
West Pakistan as sharing the same historical timeline and serving as
centres of activity that influenced developments taking place in India.
Temporally synchronized and geographically significant, militaries
from these regions were to be shown as moving towards India in a
pincer movement. India, in this way, becomes a site of invasion and
conquest where East and West Pakistan intersected thereby bringing
about a national unity of these two regions. This is how the Indian
empire of the Muslims was to be explained—as a joint effort by East
and West Pakistan. To further strengthen the argument for national
unity, the need for centralized authority was to be emphasized by
describing ‘the role of a strong Central Government in giving unity to
the Muslim nation, maintaining its power and prestige throughout its
history...’.68
The deliberations of this editorial board resulted in the publication
of A Short History of Pakistan in 1967. The first volume—‘Pre-Muslim
period’—was written by Ahmad Hasan Dani. The Muslim period was
divided between the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals in two separate
volumes: ‘Muslim rule under the sultans’ written by M. Kabir and ‘The
Mughul empire’ by Sh. Abdur Rashid. The final volume—‘Alien rule
and the rise of Muslim nationalism’—was written by M. A. Rahim,
Munir-ud-Din Chughtai, Waheed-uz-Zaman, and Abdul Hamid.
As the general editor of the book, I. H. Qureshi theorized the issues
about the possibility of writing a history of Pakistan. He asked whether
it was possible to sufficiently disentangle the history of Pakistan from
the history of India. His assessment was that for certain periods of
history it was possible to do so, while for other periods, events had
such regional and localized impact that for proper contextualization an
understanding of developments taking place within the larger area was
required.69 This stood in stark contrast with Qureshi’s earlier works,
already discussed in this article, in which his entire focus was on tracing
the historical roots of Muslim identity through the developments
68
Ibid., p. 14.
69
I. H. Qureshi (ed.), A Short History of Pakistan (Karachi: Karachi University Press,
1992; originally published 1967), p. i.
taking place in the ‘high culture’ zone of Muslim aristocracy in North
India. But he seemed to persist in his understanding of Muslims as
outsiders in India, as he distinguished between the history of India
and Muslims as the arbiters of India’s history. Qureshi was himself
aware of the controversy generated by such an approach. He further
added:
This fact needs recognization. And if it is recognized, no eye brows will be
raised on the title of this book, even though sometimes the most significant
drama may have been played outside our boundaries. Sometimes movements
have taken birth or received their inspiration in Pakistan, though they worked
themselves out in India as well. When the novelty of some of the ideas put
forward in this book wears off, there will be less reluctance to accept its
approach to history in placing the emphasis on Pakistan and Pakistanis.70
This discontinuance of the established historical tradition of
approaching Muslim history within the category of the Indo-Pak
sub-continent (barr-i-saghir Pak wa Hind) posed a serious intellectual
question for Qureshi as he himself had been a practitioner of this
tradition. In line with the guidelines set by the regime of Ayub Khan,
he had to emphasize the importance of the present-day regions of
Pakistan as the source of many historical developments that took
place within the wider region. For those historical events that could
not be explained within this framework, Qureshi uses the metaphor
of the history of ‘this land and these people’ as a stream ‘which
sometimes flows by itself and sometimes it commingles its waters
with other streams’. But this stream was never lost, he writes. Since
Islam alone could not have given this historical narrative the much-
needed antiquity and continuity required by a nation-state, Qureshi
talks about the unity of the regions of Pakistan as having ‘existed,
by whatever names they might have been known before the present
country of Pakistan came into existence’.71 This is, as cited above,
an indirect reference to non-Muslim invaders from the northwest
and northeast.
The historic origins of Pakistan, the maintenance of its geographical
boundaries, the distinctiveness of its cultural milieu, and its influence
on the history of ‘India’ (rather than the other way around) serves as the
central, connecting theme in all four volumes of this book, which covers
the period from the Stone Age to the end of British rule in 1947. This
required a major theoretical revisioning of the overall way of writing
70
Ibid.
71
Ibid., pp. i–ii.
32 ALI USMAN QASMI
history, which was deliberated on by the committee and outlined by

Qureshi in his introduction. The focus of these deliberations mainly
affected the pre-Muslim era. This is because the period of Muslim
rule had already been laid down by Qureshi’s work, and the debate on
issues such as Mehmud’s invasion of Somnath, the excesses of Akbar’s
policy of accommodation, and Aurangzeb’s status as a great Muslim
king had been incorporated within the historical narrative surrounding
the history of Muslim identity and its link with the establishment of
Pakistan in modern times. The pre-Muslim ancient period, however,
required a more nuanced change to be made. It meant dealing with
sacred Hindu texts as the sources of historical information, the idea
of greater India, and an overall cultural and philosophical ‘golden age’
which had existed prior to the advent of Muslim rule.
The first volume by A. H. Dani on the pre-Muslim period uses
geography to emphasize the antiquity and distinctiveness of Pakistan.
It refers to Pakistan as comprising two main geographic zones—the
Indus Valley at the western end and the Padma delta (the eastern
branch of the Ganges) and the Meghna (the main offshoot of the
Brahmaputra) at the eastern end of the subcontinent. Dani argues
that these geographical zones had simply acquired a new name—
Pakistan—which was coined during the struggle for a homeland by
Muslims that would enable them to develop their own cultural tradi-
tions based on the Islamic way of life.72 This, in itself, was a major de-
parture from the established practice (especially in textbooks) of out-
lining the geography of the entire region, from the Hindukush to the
Himalayas and the Ganges to the Narmada River and further south.
It was a natural outcome of the deliberate decision taken by Pakistani
historians to cut off from ‘India’ both temporally and spatially.
Dani distinguishes between Muslim and Hindu concepts of
geography. According to him, unlike the Hindus, whose horizons were
limited to the boundaries of their homeland, the Muslim concept
of geography was influenced by their being a part of the ‘moving
masses’ of Eurasia. This gave them a vitality and a spirit which, in turn,
‘released forces that gave unity to this subcontinent from the Indus
to the Padma-Meghna delta and ushered in an era that permanently
linked local history with that of the ever moving masses of Asia’.73 He
referred to the vast landmass of ‘South Asia’ as extending from the
Himalayas in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south. This, he
72
A. H. Dani, ‘Book One: Pre-Muslim Period’, in ibid., pp. 1–2.
73
Ibid., p. 3.
says, was never united under one political power and always exhibited
a range of heterogeneity along cultural, racial, and linguistic lines.
Having established diversity and a lack of unified authority as central
to the historic features of South Asia, Dani seeks homogeneity through
the influence of Muslims in this region. He credits them for having
kept their particular cultural heritage alive, which ‘has come down to
us, and it is in this cultural heritage that the solidarity of the Muslims
in Pakistan is firmly rooted’.74
Dani uses the terms Vedic, Aryan, and Brahmanical to discuss the
religious literature of the period. Unlike Buddhism and Jainism, which
is mentioned by name and their origin and founding figures discussed
in some detail, there is no such account with the title ‘Hinduism’.
According to Dani: ‘This ancient cultural heritage has for long been
associated, rightly or wrongly, with the name of a people called the
Aryans who were able to win for themselves an influential position
in the subcontinent. The Muslims were the first to give the name
“Hindu” to the traditions of this culture. The word is derived from
“Hind” which is a phonetic variation of “Sind.”’75 This helped to solve
the problem of avoiding ‘Hindu’ scriptures while, at the same time,
establishing once again the influence of ‘Pakistan’ over ancient ‘India’
rather than the other way around.
The last section of Dani’s volume is titled ‘Common culture’. While
accepting numerous societal changes that had taken place in the
ancient period, Dani talks about the formation of a common heritage
leading to a common culture. He refers to Buddhism’s concept of non-
violence and many other moral precepts, such as reverence for the
pippal tree and the monkey, linga worship, and the sacredness of the
bull. This meant that Hinduism had ‘strayed far away from the Aryan
beliefs and it became a compendium of widely differing practices’.
Even for the pre-Muslim ancient period, Dani was eager to emphasize
the historical unity of present-day Pakistan while, at the same time,
being careful not to credit ‘Hinduism’ with this unity but instead to the
assortment of religious views to which Aryan beliefs had succumbed.
In addition, says Dani, it was not through this common culture that
the concept of common nationhood had emerged.76 He compares it
with the Christian culture of Europe which, according to him, had
failed to create a continent-wide nationhood. Towards the end of the
74
Ibid., pp. 4–5.
75
Ibid., pp. 193–4.
76
Ibid., pp. 201–2.
34 ALI USMAN QASMI
first volume, such a conceptualization of the region’s history and the

commonality of values, but lack of national unity, sets the scene for the
successive volumes to credit Islam with bringing unity and centralized
authority to a region that had always been a distinct entity in the large
landmass of South Asia.
It must be pointed out that the dominance of a state-backed master
narrative does not imply its complete hegemony. This is especially
true for the period from the 1960s onwards when various leftist
scholars and activists challenged the dominant historical narrative
in their works. As well as the more well-known name of Hamza
Alvi, this includes such scholars as Sibt-i-Hasan whose numerous
works on history and civilization, written from an ‘orthodox’ Marxist
viewpoint, continue to be popular. Other examples in later decades
include scholars such as Ali Abbas Jalalpuri and Zahid Chaudhry. An
interesting example is that of Ibn-i-Insha’s satirical parody of Urdu
textbooks titled Urdu ki Aakhri Kitab in which he mocks the historical
tales about Mehmud of Ghazna’s invasions and Aurangzeb’s piety,
among other themes.
An expansive idea of Pakistan: history and historiography

after 1971
The project of writing a history of the nation was an intellectually

taxing task, and it also encountered a serious political challenge with
the crisis of 1971 which resulted in the break-up of the state of
Pakistan. Following the brutal military operation of March 1971, the
situation in what was East Pakistan deteriorated considerably. Faced
with an existential threat, the government made a call to discuss the
situation and probe the reasons for the ongoing crisis. In September
1971, as the civil war in East Pakistan reached its peak, the Punjab
Textbook Board organized a seminar in Lahore on the topic ‘The
ideology of Pakistan and textbooks’. Numerous scholars and members
of the intelligentsia from all over Pakistan were invited to attend. The
organizers were clear: in their understanding, the prevailing situation
in the country was the result of a lack of proper ideological content
in school textbooks and they deliberated ways to rectify this. The
main thrust of the arguments made by participants was that if pupils
could be rightly guided about the ideological basis of Pakistan, as
enshrined in the principles of Islam and the two-nation theory, it
would help to resolve the crisis and strengthen Pakistan as a viable
state. Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi was among the keynote speakers on this
occasion. Such was the urgency of the situation that the proceedings
of the conference were published within two months of the event,
even though war with India had formally started in both wings of the
country in December 1971.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, which could possibly have
resulted not just in the secession of East Pakistan, but also the
dismemberment of West Pakistan, Qureshi offered a historical
analysis that differed from the one laid down in the policy document
cited above or in his other writings. Like other participants in the
seminar, Qureshi started off by referring to the present crisis which,
in his estimation, was a result of the ideological basis of Pakistan
being ignored in school textbooks and the curriculum. He then gave
a historical account of the creation of Pakistan that debunked the
alternative narrative of those who ascribed economic motives to the
demand for a separate state. Without naming Hamza Alvi (1921–
2003), Pakistan’s leading Marxist academic and social scientist, he
referred to—and rejected—the latter’s argument that the Muslim
salariat-classes were demanding a bigger share of jobs and that
capitalists were seeking to protect and expand their capital.77 Not
only had economic determinism become redundant as an explanatory
model for historical developments, said Qureshi, it also fell flat in
the face of given facts which showed that Pakistan—before it was
eventually created—was not considered to be an economically viable
state and yet it received mass public support. He then reiterated his
stated position that the driving force behind the creation of Pakistan
was the preservation of a distinct Muslim identity. Neither Bhagti
syncretism or nationalist slogans of the nineteenth century, nor the
economic depravity of the post-1857 period and Gandhi’s shrewd
overtures towards the Muslims, said Qureshi, had weakened their
resolve to maintain their distinct national identity.78 Qureshi then
suddenly shifted gear and turned his attention to the dimension
of the idea of Pakistan and Muslim nationalism which he had not
explored elsewhere in his works. He declared Pakistan to be the
biggest reflection of the subcontinent’s Muslim qaum (nation) with
Indian Muslims affiliated to it in a supplementary manner.79 This
77
Raja Rasheed Mahmood, Nazariya-i-Pakistan aur Nisabi Kutub (Lahore: Punjab
Textbook Board, December 1971), p. 20.
78
Ibid., p. 24.
79
Ibid., p. 25.
36 ALI USMAN QASMI
situation, he said, could be faced by any nation in the world, whether

it was formed on a linguistic or ethnic basis:
There are numerous nations which have an area as the central homeland
[markazi watan] which is called their country [mulk], and a large part of
their people are spread into other areas and are citizens of other countries.
Even if a country withdraws its claims about its co-nationals legally, it can
never sever bonds of love and solidarity which are always there between its
citizens and co-national non-citizens [hum qaum ghair shehriyon . . . ]. It does
create international problems but the existence of these problems itself is an
evidence of the fact that geographical bounds are unsuccessful in dissolving
the bonds of co-nationalism [hum qaumi ke rishton ko . . . ].80
Pakistani Muslims, continued Qureshi, felt a special bond of
solidarity with Indian Muslims and vice versa, which was greater than
the feelings that they had for other Muslims in the Islamic world.
‘Wouldn’t the adoption of the concept of a greater Pakistani qaum
[azeem tar Pakistani qaum] which extends beyond the borders of Pakistan
help and aid in easing our domestic discords?’ This would only have
more benefits for Pakistan as it would not harm the basic idea of
the two-nation theory, while helping to address regional prejudices in
Pakistan.81 This effectively transformed the idea of Pakistan, couched
in the terminology of Muslim nationalism, to an expansive one with
irredentist connections and claims. While it can be argued that the
scope for such an argument was inherent in the very construction of
the idea of a distinct Muslim nationhood, as it was applicable to both
Muslim majority and minority areas of India, Qureshi did not—to the
best of my knowledge—express this sentiment in such explicit terms
anywhere else in his vast corpus of writings. It was probably a one-off
statement made in the heat of the moment. With the dissolution of
Pakistan as a state looking like a real possibility, Qureshi was more
eager to salvage the idea of Muslim nationalism than the state based on
that idea. With this new reformulation, the idea of Muslim nationalism
became expansive and universal.
This expansion looked not only eastwards but westwards as well.
After briefly talking about the need to strengthen ideological bonds,
Qureshi reverted to his account of the future possibilities for Pakistan
and the idea of Pakistan. At present, he said, Muslims in central
Asia were subjugated. But just as it was unimaginable that Pakistan
would be created before it actually did happen, similar things could
80
Ibid., pp. 25–6.
81
Ibid., pp. 26–7.
take place in the future: the liberation of central Asian states and
their entry into an alliance with Afghanistan and Pakistan had the
potential to change the course of world politics. But he also admitted
to the possibility of the break-up of Pakistan and the subjugation of
Muslims, which would allow India to stand guard at the entry gates
of the subcontinent. It was for this purpose, he said, that the ghost
of Bangladesh had been raised.82 After recounting the history of the
secessionist movement and separatist thought sowed in the name of
culture and language, Qureshi turned his attention to similar trends
in West Pakistan as well. Without naming the communists or Soviet-
backed elements directly, he referred to people whose co-ideologues
were responsible for subjugating the people north of Afghanistan.
If such people succeeded in breaking up Pakistan, Qureshi saw two
future prospects for the region. The success of Hindu imperialism
(hindu shahi) would lead to these areas becoming provinces of India.
The communists would then breathe a sigh of relief, said Qureshi,
as they would no longer feel threatened by the prospect of Muslim
revivalism in the subjugated lands north of Afghanistan. But if these
regions became independent, their independence would be nominal
as they would become part of a larger, grand alliance, just like
other subjugated Muslims in the region.83 In either case, whether
as individual nations or part of a larger one, there would be the real
possibility of the extinction of distinct Muslim nationhood.
Post-1971, Qureshi’s writings about the events of 1971 were mostly
about the political developments and causes leading to the break-
up of Pakistan. He took special note of the failure to use education
to promote the cause of national harmony, eradicate ethnic- and
language-based regional affiliations, and cultivate a strong historical
sense of the ideational basis of Pakistan as contributing factors to the
break-up of the country and the continuation of similar tendencies in
its other parts.84 In one of his earliest speeches delivered after the
break-up of Pakistan, Qureshi simply adopted a rhetorical approach
rather than his usual measured tone of a professional historian. In his
speech titled ‘Pakistan will continue to live’ [Pakistan Zinda Rahay Ga],85
82
Ibid., p. 31.
83
Ibid., pp. 32–3.
84
See, for instance, I. H. Qureshi, Perspectives of Islam and Pakistan (Karachi: Ma‘aref
Limited, 1979), pp. 166–88; I. H. Qureshi, Education in Pakistan: An Inquiry into Objectives
and Achievements (Karachi: Ma‘aref Limited, 1975), pp. 122–44.
85
I. H. Qureshi, Pakistan ka Islami Tashakhkhus (Lahore: Nazariya-i-Pakistan Trust,
2013), pp. 48–52.
38 ALI USMAN QASMI
Qureshi used poetic language to talk generally about such themes as

the purpose of life and the value of freedom, among other things.
Towards the end of this speech, however, in an emotional outburst,
Qureshi adopted an even more radical approach than we find in his
September 1971 speech. He did not call for a ‘greater Pakistan’ to
ensure the survival of Muslim nationhood; rather, he reposed his faith
in the eternal truth of Islam. It did not matter, he concluded, whether
a nation lived or died, Islam would continue to live. If one nation loses
the flag, another will replace it.86 So even though the title of the speech
suggested the longevity of Pakistan, it ended with Qureshi stating his
firm belief in the longevity of Islam.
An analysis of Qureshi’s writings written immediately after
December 1971 and in later years shows that he did not see the
need for reformulating or casting afresh the idea of Pakistan. This
probably had to do with the fact that a part of Pakistan had survived
the existential challenge of 1971. So, as far as Qureshi was concerned,
the idea was still alive and valid, and the dismemberment of Pakistan
was more of a political failure and a consequence of various extraneous
factors than a negation of the idea of distinct Muslim nationality itself.
Conclusion
In the works of Qureshi, which focus primarily on the high culture

of the Muslim civilization of North India, the crystallization of
Muslim identity took place in a region that did not become part of
Pakistan. The birth of the new state proper was made possible by its
severance with the region that had nurtured the idea in the first place.
Qureshi continued to wrestle with the consequences of his inadequate
theorization of Pakistani history. In his conceptual note for A Short
History of Pakistan, Qureshi effectively severed Pakistan’s links with
Indian territory and its history. In the face of an imminent threat to
the territorial integrity of Pakistan, he was forced to radically alter
his previously stated position and extend the scope of the idea of
Pakistan beyond its territories to include Indian Muslims as well. By
anchoring Muslim identity in the simple terms of an attempt to ward
off dextrous Hindu attempts at assimilation, Qureshi found common
cause between the Muslims of Punjab, of Bengal, and of Malabar,
86
Ibid., p. 52.
along with those from other parts of India. As a result, what emerged
was a nation without any claim to territory. The idea of Pakistan, it can
be said, was more important and had been destroyed by the very state
it had given birth to. Even if the territory was lost through Pakistan’s
dismemberment, Qureshi wanted to reclaim the idea that was, for him,
far greater, carried permanent historical value, and extended over a
much larger community. But just the imagining, let alone reclamation,
had been made impossible because of a temporal and spatial break
with the Indian landmass through the discontinuance of such terms
as Indo-Pak or Hind-Pak. Their replacement with the terminology of
‘movement’ was to simply indicate a geographical direction emptied
of the ideas of exchange, interaction, and civilizational interlocution.
Rather, these movements were interpreted to be always projected
towards India and championed militaristic domination, reducing India
to a site of conquest. But it is also the site where East and West
Pakistan unified and Muslim identity formation took place to create
the rationale for Pakistan. The repulsion from India and the search for
an alternative point of historical origin is, hence, equally and fervently
matched with a desire to reclaim this unity. It is no wonder that texts
like Shah Ni‘mat Ullah Wali’s long-ish Persian poem, which dates
back to the medieval period and prophesied Muslim domination over
all of India,87 and calls for Ghazwa-i-Hind (a battle for the spiritual
conquest of Hindus led by Prophet Muhammad himself)88 find a
receptive audience in Pakistan. It is this classical ‘invader from the
North’ model of history and desire for military domination of India
which many think tanks and academics today consider to be one of the
root causes of rising religious extremism in Pakistan.
But what has certainly ‘resolved’ the contradictions arising from
Qureshi’s conceptual note for A Short History of Pakistan is the
87
C. M. Naim has written a detailed piece on the origin of the text, its variations, and
its recurrence at different periods of turmoil in the political fortunes of South Asian
Muslims. For details, cf. C. M. Naim, ‘“Prophecies” in South Asian Muslim Political
Discourse: The Poems of Shah Ni’matullah Wali’, Economic and Political Weekly, 46.28
(2011).
88
The main proponent of such a slogan in recent times is Zaid Hamid who is a
self-professed defence analyst and political commentator with an extreme hatred of
Hindus and Jews. Based in Pakistan, Hamid has a sizeable following because of his
frequent appearances on popular talk shows. He refers to a Hadith (saying attributed
to Prophet Muhammad) in which the Prophet prophesied the Muslim conquest of
India. That this has already happened in the past is not accepted by Hamid who
comes up with a different explanation to argue for the continued validity of this
prophecy.
40 ALI USMAN QASMI
publication in the 1980s of a standard textbook on Pakistan studies.

When this subject was made compulsory for undergraduate degrees
(including for medical and engineering students), a special textbook
was prepared under the joint auspices of the Federal Ministry
of Education, the University Grants Commission, and the Allama
Iqbal Open University, among other institutions. The members of
the committee and the course team included Shariful Mujahid,
Muniruddin Chughtai, Abdul Hamid, and Dr Safdar Mehmood, among
others. It skipped the entire period of pre-Muslim history and the
physical geography of the subcontinent. In this manner the persistent
anxiety of formulating a distinct history outside the wider geography of
India was thus ‘resolved’. The textbook was divided into the following
chapters: 1. Pakistan ideology; 2. The land of Pakistan; 3. The shaping
and evolution of Muslim society in the subcontinent; 4. The Pakistan
movement; 5. The struggle for Pakistan; 6. The role of the ulema;
7. The establishment of Pakistan; 8. Efforts for the implementation
of the Islamic system in Pakistan; and 9. Pakistan and the Islamic
world.89 Since then, this format has become the standard pattern
for all textbooks on Pakistan studies for matriculation, intermediate,
and undergraduate studies. The historical legacy of the pre-Muslim
period was disowned and the physical geography of the region became
irrelevant. Pakistan was no longer to seek its historical roots and
traditions in the subcontinent but in the wider Muslim world. In
Aminah Mohammad-Arif’s words, the Islamization of time and space
had taken place in Pakistani textbooks.90 It is, however, the longer
history of this master narrative in the making since the late nineteenth
century, which we explored in this article, that can offer a richer
understanding of the complexities involved in bringing about such a
change in world view.
89
Aziz, The Murder of History, p. 102. For a detailed overview of the various reforms
proposed in recent years to change the curriculum of Pakistani textbooks, cf. A. H.
Nayyar, A Missed Opportunity: Continuing Flaws in the New Curriculum and Textbooks After
Reforms (Islamabad: Jinnah Institute, 2013). In this 66-page document, Nayyar gives
an overview of the new education policy approved in 2006 based on which textbooks
were prepared in 2012. He has briefly traced the history of curriculum reform in
Pakistan since early 2000s and the continuing problems of ideological impositions,
especially in textbooks dealing with history.
90
Mohammad-Arif, ‘Textbooks, Nationalism and History Writing’, p. 150.

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Modern Asian Studies: page 1 of 40

C Cambridge University Press 2018

A Master Narrative for the History of

School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Law, Lahore University of

During the 1980s, Khurshid Kamal Aziz, a well-known Pakistani

Aziz’s criticism of history textbooks and the practice of academic

and academic historians. Bajwa argues that the contested historical

Muslim historiography during the colonial period

communal lines of Hindu and Muslim. In summary, it can be said

doctoral research on Indian history.20 The volumes of the Cambridge

Writing history in Pakistan

The demand for Pakistan, articulated politically, was based on a

intellectual pursuits as well and genuinely believed in the distinctness

The main task for Pakistani historians was, therefore, to produce an

of historical events which had unfolded since antiquity. This is followed

episode of the brutal killing of Guru Tegh Bahadur under Aurangzeb,

But this writ-of-the-state argument could not be made so explicitly

The book is largely uncritical in its coverage of the British period.

Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi as the ideologue of Pakistani history

history of the Muslim community in the subcontinent and the battles it

essentially foreign nature of Indo-Muslim culture and the emphasis on

If heterodoxy, in Qureshi’s work, was equated with certain forms of

The master narrative in the 1960s

By the late 1950s, after the imposition of martial law, Qureshi

a committee comprising eminent historians was constituted. They

integrity of West and East Pakistan, their congruity of purpose, and

history, which was deliberated on by the committee and outlined by

first volume, such a conceptualization of the region’s history and the

An expansive idea of Pakistan: history and historiography

The project of writing a history of the nation was an intellectually

situation, he said, could be faced by any nation in the world, whether

Qureshi used poetic language to talk generally about such themes as

In the works of Qureshi, which focus primarily on the high culture

publication in the 1980s of a standard textbook on Pakistan studies.

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