Progressivism, Modernity and Decadence: A Study of Select Works of Ahmed Ali

Olivia Sarkar

Published in Literary Oracle — Vol.8, Issue I, May 2024

Keywords: modernity, progressive, qasbahs, culture, interaction

Abstract:

The modernity of the progressive writers has long borne the blame for being indebted to the Western trends of modernist thoughts. This article engages in challenging this notion by tracing the roots of Islamic modernity to the qasbati tradition of medieval eastern culture and its residual traces in 18th and 19th century India. The pre-Renaissance Muslim cultures in the Middle East and South Asia during the Caliphate rulers had a high intellectual heritage which propagated to India during the Mughals and concentrated within the qasbahs, thus resulting in the formation of a unique literary and cultural tradition. This dissertation shall argue with substantial historical evidence from Muslim literary history since the medieval era, that the modernity of the Progressive writers was not necessarily a Western import in colonial India rather it is rooted in a vibrant intellectual and cultural tradition propagated through generations in the qasbahs. In the process, it also aims to understand ‘modernity’ as a dynamic and allencompassing state of intellectual understanding. Taking up select works of Ahmed Ali, this article attempts to substantiate the claim that progressive modernity is unique and is characterised by an attitude of assertion (of their own social values), interrogation and selective participation (in the new system), as manifested in the life and culture of the qasbati tradition.

https://doi-ds.org/doilink/06.2024-51147633/LiteraryOracle/2024/V8/I1/A9