Early explorers

The Buddhist Pala Empire enjoyed relations with the Arab Abbasid Caliphate. Islam first appeared in Bengal before Pala rule, as a result of increased trade with the early Arab Muslim merchants in places such as the Port of Chittagong.^[9] Around this time, the Arab geographer Al-Masudi and author of The Meadows of Gold, travelled to the region where he noticed a Muslim community of inhabitants residing in the region.^[10] Other authentications of the Arab traders present in the region was the writings of Arab geographers found on the Meghna River located near Sandwip on the Bay of Bengal. This evidence suggests that the Arab traders had arrived along the Bengal coast long before the Turkic conquest. The Arab writers also knew about the kingdoms of Samrup and Rumi, the latter being identified with the empire of Dharmapal of the Pala Empire. The earliest mosque in South Asia is possibly in Lalmonirhat, built during or just after the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime.^[11]

In addition to trade, Islam was also being introduced to the people of Bengal through the migration of missionaries prior to conquest. Arab navigation eastwards was the result of the Muslim reign in North India.^{[12][self-published source?]} The earliest known Sufi missionaries were Syed Shah Surkhul Antia and his students, most notably Shah Sultan Rumi, who arrived in 1053 CE. Rumi settled in present-day Netrokona, Mymensingh where he influenced the local ruler and population to embrace Islam.

The first Muslim conquest of Bengal was undertaken by the forces of General Bakhtiyar Khilji in the thirteenth century. This opened the doors for Muslim influence in the region for hundreds of years up until the present-day.^[12] Many of the people of Bengal began accepting Islam through the influx of missionaries following this conquest. Sultan Balkhi and Shah Makhdum Rupos settled in the present-day Rajshahi Division in northern Bengal, preaching to the communities there. Numerous small sultanates emerged in the region. During the reign of the Sultan of Lakhnauti Shamsuddin Firuz Shah, much of present-day Satgaon, Sonargaon and Mymensingh came under Muslim dominion. A community of 13 Muslim families headed by Burhanuddin resided in the northeastern city of Srihatta (Sylhet), claiming their descendants to have arrived from Chittagong.^[13] Srihatta (Sylhet) was ruled by an oppressive king called Gour Govinda. After being informed of Raja Gour Govinda's oppressive regime in Sylhet, Firuz Shah sent numerous forces led by his nephew Sikandar Khan Ghazi and subsequently his military commander-in-chief Syed Nasiruddin to conquer Sylhet. By 1303, over three hundred Sufi preachers led by Shah Jalal aided the conquest and confirmed a victory. Following the conquest, Jalal disseminated his followers across different parts of Bengal to spread Islam. Jalal is now a household name among Muslims in Bangladesh.^[14]

As independent Sultanate of Bengal

During the Sultanate period, a syncretic belief system arose due to mass conversions.^[15] As a result, the Islamic concept of tawhid (the oneness of God) was diluted into the veneration of saints or pirs. Deities such as Shitala (goddess of smallpox), Olabibi (goddess of cholera) and Manasa (goddess of snakes) became venerated as pirs.^[16]

Under Mughal Empire

In pre-Mughal times, there is less evidence for widespread adoption of Islam in what is now Bangladesh. What mention of Muslims there was usually in reference to an urban elite. Ibn Battuta met with Shah Jalal in Sylhet and noted the inhabitants of the plains were still Hindu.^{[citation needed]} In 1591, Venetian traveller Cesare Federici mentioned Sondwip near Chittagong as having an entirely Muslim population. The seventeenth century European travellers generally understood Islam as being implanted after the Mughal conquest.^[17]

During the Mughal Empire, much of the region of what is now East Bengal was still heavily forested, but highly fertile. The Mughals incentivised the bringing of this land under cultivation, and so peasants were incentivised to bring the land under cultivation. These peasants were primarily led by Muslim leaders and so Islam became the main religion in the delta. Most of the Zamindars in the modern Barisal division, for instance, were upper caste Hindus who subcontracted actual jungle clearance work to a Muslim pir. In other instances, pirs themselves would organise the locals to clear the jungle and then contact the Mughals to gain legitimacy. In other instances, such as the densely-forested interior of Chittagong, Muslims came from indigenous tribals who never followed Hindu rituals.^[17]

In British India

The British East India Company was given the right to collect revenue from Bengal and Bihar by the Treaty of Allahabad after defeating the combined armies of Nawab Mir Qasim of Bengal, Nawab of Awadh, and Mughal emperor at the Battle of Buxar. They annexed Bengal in 1793 after abolishing local rule (Nizamat). The British looted the Bengal treasury, appropriating wealth valued at US$40 billion in modern-day prices.^[18] Due to high colonial taxation, Bengali commerce shrank by 50% within 40 years, while at the same time British imports flooded the market. Spinners and weavers starved during famines and Bengal's once industrious cities became impoverished. The East India Company forced opium and indigo cultivation and the permanent settlement dismantled centuries of joint Muslim-Hindu political, military and feudal cooperation.^{[citation needed]}

The Bengal Presidency was established in 1765. Rural eastern Bengal witnessed the earliest rebellions against British rule, including the Faraizi movement led by Haji Shariatullah and the activities of Titumir and Karamat Ali Jaunpuri. The mutiny of 1857 engulfed much of northern India and Bengal, including in Dhaka and Chittagong.^[19][20] Following the end of the mutiny, the British Government took direct control of Bengal from the East India Company and instituted the British Raj. The influence of Christian missionaries increased during this period. To counter this trend, Reazuddin Ahmad Mashadi, Muhammad Reazuddin Ahmad^[21] of the Sudhakar newspaper and Munshi Mohammad Meherullah played prominent roles.^[22]

The colonial capital Calcutta, where Bengali Muslims formed the second largest community, became the second largest city in the British Empire after London. The late 19th and early 20th-century Indian Renaissance brought dramatic social and political change. The introduction of Western law, government and education introduced modern enlightenment values which created a new politically conscious middle class and a new generation of leaders in science, politics and the arts. The First Partition of Bengal incubated the broader anti-colonial struggle and in 1906 the All India Muslim League was formed during the Muhammadan Education Conference in Dhaka. During this period a Muslim middle class emerged^[23] and the University of Dhaka played a role at the beginning of the emancipation of Bengali Muslim society, which was also marked by the emergence progressive groups like the Freedom of Intellect Movement and the Muslim Literary Society.^{[citation needed]} Bengali Muslims were at the forefront of the Indian Independence Movement, including the Pakistan Movement.

Bangladesh War of Independence

Islamic sentiments powered the definition of nationhood in the 1940s when Bengali people united with Muslims in other parts of the subcontinent to form Pakistan. Defining themselves first as Muslims they envisaged a society based on Islamic principles. However, by the beginning of the 1970s the Bengalis were more swayed by regional feelings, in which they defined themselves foremost as Bengali Muslims before being Muslims. The society they then envisioned was based on principles such as socialism, nationalism and democracy. While Islam was still a part of faith and culture, it was no longer the only factor that formed national identity.^[24]

Bangladesh was established as a constitutionally secular state^[25] and the Bangladeshi constitution enshrined secular, socialist and democratic principles.^[26]

Overview

Bangladesh has always been sunni since its conversion to Islam. Among the early sects shia have always had some presence in Bangladesh but there is no mention of significant mutazilite or kharijite presence in the records. The shias, who were viewed as followers of Abdullah Ibn Saba, were never accepted into the mainstream of Islam. Sunni Islam or Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat considers deviant sects to be "munafiq murtad" or hypocrite apostates and are considered more distant from Islam than those who openly deny Islam. Among the later sects wahhabis and deobandis are notable. Wahhabis, who were considered a deviant sect like the kharijites and mushabbiha because of extremism, denial of taqlid and anthropomorphism, have been presented as orthodox muslims by the related deobandi sect and many have accepted it because deobandis do not openly admit that they are not sunnis to new followers and their control of the Islamic Foundation has been backed by Bangladesh's governments and neighboring governments such as India. Even then Bangladesh remains a largely sunni majority country different from how they are often presented as either wahhabi deobandis or syncretic atheists/marxists who worship graves and many Bangladeshis consider it the reason behind why Bangladeshis are often persecuted.

Sunni

As with the rest of the Indian subcontinent, Muslims in Bangladesh are traditional Sunni, who mainly follow the Hanafi school of jurisprudence (madh'hab) and the Maturidi school of theology.^[28][29] Those who call themselves Sunni are divided in to Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, called Barelvi by adherents of other religions, and Deobandis. The Qawmi Madrassa in the country are run by Deobandis While Barelvis have their separate Madarsas. Both these groups call themselves Hanafis. Non-Hanafis who call themselves sunni such as the Ahl-e-Hadith have a significant community in Bangladesh. There are others such as Jamaat-e-Islami, a political party similar to Muslim Brotherhood in promoting Islamism.

Small minorities

There are also few Shi'a Muslims, particularly belonging to the Bihari community. The Shi'a observance commemorating the martyrdom of Ali's sons, Hasan and Husayn, are still widely observed by the nation's Sunnis,^[33] even though there are small numbers of Shi'as. Among the Shias, the Dawoodi Bohra community is concentrated in Chittagong.^[45]

There are no adherents of the Kharijite sect in Bangladesh except foreigners such as Omani diplomats and workers at Omani missions residing in Bangladesh. Those who reject the authority of hadith, known as Quranists, are present in Bangladesh, though having not expressed publicly but are active virtually due to fear of gruesome persecution considering the present political situation. The Ahmadiyya community, which is widely considered to be non-Muslim by mainstream Muslim leaders, is estimated to be around 100,000, the community has faced discrimination because of their beliefs and have been persecuted in some areas.^[46] There is a very small community of Bangladeshis whom are adherents to the Mahdavia creed.^[47] There are some people who do not identify themselves with any sect and just call themselves Muslims.

Islamic architecture in Bangladesh

Legal issues

In Bangladesh, where a modified Anglo-Indian civil and criminal legal system operates, there are no official sharia courts.^[33] Most Muslim marriages, however, are presided over by the qazi, a traditional Muslim judge whose advice is also sought on matters of personal law, such as inheritance, divorce, and the administration of religious endowments.^[33]

The inheritance rights of Muslim in Bangladesh are governed by The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act (1937)^[62] and The Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (1961).^[63] Article 2 of The Muslim Personal Law Application Act provides that questions related to succession and inheritance are governed by Muslim Personal Law (Shariat).^[62][64] Article 2 proclaims: "any custom or usage to the contrary, in all questions (save questions relating to agricultural land) regarding intestate succession, special property of females, including personal property inherited or obtained under contract or gift or any other provision of Personal Law, marriage, dissolution of marriage, including talaq, ila, zihar, lian, khula and mubaraat, maintenance, dower, guardianship, gifts, trusts and trust properties, and waqfs (other than charities and charitable institutions and charitable and religious endowments) the rule of decision in cases where the parties are Muslims shall be the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat)."^[62]

Political issues

Post-1971 regimes sought to increase the role of the government in the religious life of the people.^[33] The Ministry of Religious Affairs provided support, financial assistance, and endowments to religious institutions, including mosques and community prayer grounds (idgahs).^[33] The organization of Hajj also came under the auspices of the ministry because of limits on the number of pilgrims admitted by the government of Saudi Arabia and the restrictive foreign exchange regulations of the government of Bangladesh.^[33] The ministry also directed the policy and the program of the Islamic Foundation Bangladesh, which was responsible for organizing and supporting research and publications on Islamic subjects.^[33] The foundation also maintains the Baitul Mukarram (National Mosque), and organized the training of imams.^[33] Some 18,000 imams were scheduled for training once the government completed establishment of a national network of Islamic cultural centers and mosque libraries.^[33] Under the patronage of the Islamic Foundation, an encyclopedia of Islam in the Bengali language was being compiled in the late 1980s.^[33]

Another step toward further government involvement in religious life was taken in 1984 when the semiofficial Zakat Fund Committee was established under the chairmanship of the president of Bangladesh.^[33] The committee solicited annual zakat contributions on a voluntary basis.^[33] The revenue so generated was to be spent on orphanages, schools, children's hospitals, and other charitable institutions and projects.^[33] Commercial banks and other financial institutions were encouraged to contribute to the fund.^[33] Through these measures the government sought closer ties with religious establishments within the country and with Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.^[33]

Educational institutions

The madrassas are also divided in two mainstreams;Alia madrasah and Qawmi Madrasah.