BANGLADESH stands at a sacred crossroad — between faith and freedom, between memory and awakening. Our rivers carry centuries of prayer, poetry, and rebellion, yet our present trembles under the pressure of a single, rigid voice: the call of political Islam. It seeks to shape one uniform belief, one dress, one law, one god. But the Islam of Bengal has never been one. It is plural, flowing, many-faced — like the rivers that make and unmake this delta every season.
The truth is, there is not one Islam in Bangladesh, but many. The vast majority are Sunni Muslims, following the Hanafi school of thought — yet even within this tradition, there are rich variations. The Deobandi scholars, many based in Qawmi madrassas, emphasise orthodoxy and discipline. The Barelvi Sunnis, by contrast, are deeply influenced by Sufi devotion, love for the Prophet, and the celebration of his birth. Then there are the Ahle Hadith and Salafi followers, who turn to the earliest generations of Islam and reject later traditions.
Alongside them live the Shias, who remember Karbala every Muharram, mourning the martyrdom of Imam Hussain with passion and tears — their love for the Prophet’s family woven through centuries of devotion. The Ahmadiyyas, though marginalised, hold fast to their belief in a living renewal of revelation and faith. And beneath all these names and labels, another current flows — the Sufis, the mystics of the heart. Their shrines and mazaars scatter across this land: in Kushtia, Sylhet, Chittagong, Khulna. They are the Pirs, the Murshids, the Boyatis, the wandering seekers who speak of divine unity beyond dogma.
To understand Islam in Bangladesh, one must listen to its many songs. The Chishti, Qadiriyya, Suhrawardi, and Naqshbandi Sufi orders have long shaped our spiritual life. Their disciples — the Bauls and Fakirs — sang of Marfat, the path of inner knowing, where God is sought not in law but in love. For centuries, these mystics taught that the Kaaba of truth is not in Mecca alone but within one’s own heart. ‘Find your Kaaba within,’ they sang, ‘and bow where your soul trembles.’
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did not write the Qur’an himself. The verses were revealed to him as living light — through heart and breath — and after his passing, they were gathered, remembered, and compiled by his companions. What was divine became human language, and what was language became law. Yet the real Qur’an, the Sufis say, cannot be captured by ink. It resides in the murshid — the living teacher whose heart reflects the depth and subtlety of divine wisdom. For a book has boundaries, but a teacher’s guidance can awaken understanding that transcends mere words. The divine passes not through pages but from soul to soul, breath to breath, in the unbroken chain of living remembrance.
That is why, here in Bengal, the Islam of the heart has always thrived. It speaks less of punishment, more of presence. It sees God not as distant judge but as intimate beloved. It is shaped by the soil of the delta, where Islam met the music of the monsoon and the shimmer of the goddess. Where the muezzin’s call rose beside the temple conch, and devotion took the shape of compassion. Here, religion never demanded uniformity — it asked only for sincerity.
But now, that plural inheritance is under threat. A foreign, rigid form of Islam — imported through politics, propaganda, and power — seeks to silence the ancient harmony of our faith. It demands sameness where there has always been song. It preaches fear where our ancestors once sang love. This imported Islam forgets the land it stands on — the Bengal delta, where rivers weave together like verses of a living scripture, where the divine wears both beard and bindi, and where every tide whispers La ilaha illallah in its own rhythm.
To be Bangladeshi is to carry this sacred pluralism in our blood. We are the children of the delta, where both murshid and ma, Allah and Devi, are part of the same continuum of love and creation. Our Islam is not an imported ideology but a living inheritance — born of soil, sweat, and surrender.
If Bangladesh is to rise again — not just in economy but in soul — we must reclaim that plural Islam of Bengal. The Islam that welcomes questioning. The Islam that celebrates poetry. The Islam that finds God in the heart of a fisherman, in the song of a Fakir, in the silence of a woman who prays alone beneath a banyan tree.
For the true Islam of Bengal was never meant to conquer — it was meant to illuminate.
And that light still burns — in every heart that dares to bow inward.
Ìý
Anusheh Anadil is a singer and social activist.
