Liberating Enslaved Humanity

Abstract This article presents an analysis of the life and work of Abul Hashim (1905–1974), an important but somewhat forgotten political leader and scholar from Bengal, as an example of decolonial political thought. Like that of many other decolonial thinkers, Hashim's political thought contains profound and powerful critiques of modern political ideas and institutions, including nationalism. Writing in the context of the emergence of the new state of Pakistan and the onset of the cold war, Hashim's comparative approach presented Islamic political philosophy as a better alternative than both liberal capitalism and socialism, not only for Pakistan but also as a universal ideology. Building on the discourses of Islamic modernism dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, Hashim produced a particular reading of Islam as the pastoral political philosophy of “Rubbaniyat” that was egalitarian, tolerant, and progressive, while being critical of both traditional views of the ulema and of the Muslim nationalism of the modern opportunist politicians. Hashim's political thought, this article argues, helps us better appreciate diversities within Islamism, recover its critical edge rooted in the decolonial project, and challenges the contradiction between Islam and progress supposed in much of both Bangladeshi and global contemporary political discourses.